"I admire your self-restraint under temptation," she said; "it is characteristic of you in other circumstances, I believe"—this with discreet emphasis—"but, really, why should you dread letting this susceptibility get the better of you?"
Pellams caught the faint sneer in the words. He hoped that Mrs. Perkins had been talking just then to her Faculty partner. Increasing his affected earnestness, he replied:
"Because, when you get gone, it is bound to knock scholarship."
Here Smith giggled audibly, for Katharine and he were really feigning talk, being more entertained by the couple across the cloth. Katharine knew that by this last statement Pellams had sounded a dominant note in the soul of her opinionated sister. She was not surprised, then, when Miss Meiggs turned more fully toward the woman-hater.
"Tell me, are you one of these people who think co-education an evil?"
"I'm afraid I am." The speech gave Pellams a certain pleasure. There was nothing about this partner they had given him that tended toward converting him to the Chapter's point of view as to the advantage of girls at college.
"Of course," continued she, "I do not take your remark about scholarship as worthy of consideration in your case, because I am in one or two of your classes, when you attend them," and Pellams, listening, gave thanks that he and Professor Grind opposite had no such relation; "but monopolized time is really the cry of a good many who would wish to work, and it is all wrong. There is no reason why we should not come here and work with you, combining friendship and study. Our presence here is, in a way, preventive of many worse things."
Pellams turned his empty salad plate between his fingers.