“Valiant looked up, half sneering, half doubtful, I thought, and rejoined: ‘Carbine is a valuable horse, and the fences are stiff in the Garston country.’
“She smiled gravely, then, with her eyes fixed on her husband, said: ‘Carbine is a perfect gentleman. He will do what I ask him. I have ridden him.’
“‘The devil you have!’ he replied.
“‘I am sure,’ said I, as I hoped, bravely, and not a little enthusiastically, ‘that Carbine would take any fence you asked him.’
“‘Or not, as the case might be. Thank you, Marmy, for the compliment,’ she said.
“‘A Triton among minnows,’ remarked Valiant, not entirely under his breath; ‘horses obey, and students admire, and there is no end to her greatness.’
“‘There is an end to everything, Edward,’ she remarked a shade sadly and quietly.
“He turned to me and said: ‘Science is a great study, Marmion, but it is sardonic too; for you shall find that when you reduce even a Triton to its original elements—’
“‘Oh, please let me finish,’ she interrupted softly. ‘I know the lecture so well. It reads this way: “The place of generation must break to give place to the generated; but the influence spreads out beyond the fragments, and is greater thus than in the mass—neither matter nor mind can be destroyed. The earth was molten before it became cold rock and quiet world.” There, you see, Marmy, that I am a fellow-student of yours.’
“Valiant’s eyes were ugly to watch; for she had quoted from a lecture of his, delivered to us that week. After an instant he said, with slow maliciousness: ‘Oh, ye gods, render me worthy of this Portia, and teach her to do as Brutus’s Portia did, ad eternum!’