"Not in my college!" said the President. "Nor in any other college if I even so much as remotely gauge either the professional or the social exigencies of the situation." Emphatically, but by no means extravagantly, she drove her meaning home. "Do you dream for one single moment, Mr. Burnarde," she quizzed, "that any reputable college in the land would accept, or maintain on its faculty," she added significantly, "a man whose wife for reasons of moral obliquity had not been considered a safe associate for——"
"You mean——" interrupted John Burnarde.
"Everything that I say," acquiesced the President, "and 51 everything that I imply."
"That is your ultimatum?" questioned John Burnarde.
"That is my ultimatum!" said the President.
With the slightest perceptible tightening of his lips John Burnarde began to put on his gloves.
"Very fortunately," he said, "there are other professions in the world besides the teaching of English."
"Very fortunately," conceded the President. One side of her mouth lifted very faintly with the concession. "Yet somehow, Mr. Burnarde," she added hastily, "I do not seem to picture you as a—as an automobile salesman, for instance. Nor yet visualize that frail, lovely mother of yours relinquishing very easily her life-long ambitions for your deanship—which up to now, of course, has by no means seemed the improbable fruition of your distinguished services with us. Your mother," mused the President, "has doubtless made some sacrifices for you—in her time?"
"Most mothers have!" snapped John Burnarde. 52
Roused snap for snap to his tone the President leaned forward suddenly.