Here Dyson came into the room, looking considerably mystified.
"What's the matter, Mr Dean?" said he, nodding good-humouredly to us.
"A most unpleasant occurrence, my dear sir; I have seen a woman in this direction not five minutes back. Unfortunately, I cannot be mistaken. She either passed into the porter's lodge or into this staircase."
"She is not in my rooms, I assure you," said he, laughing; "I should think you made a mistake: it must have been some man in a white mackintosh."
I smiled, and Leicester laughed outright.
"I am not mistaken, sir," said the dean warmly. "I shall take your word, Mr Leicester; but allow me to tell you, that your conduct in lolling in that chair as if in perfect contempt, and neither rising, nor removing your cap, when Mr Dyson and myself are in your rooms, is neither consistent with the respect due from an under-graduate, or the behaviour I should expect from a gentleman."
Poor Leicester coloured, and unwittingly removed his cap. The chestnut curls, some natural and some artificial, which had been so studiously arranged for Miss Hardcastle's head-dress, fell in dishevelled luxuriance round his face, and as he half rose from his previous position in the chair, a pink silk dress began to descend from under the pea-jacket. Concealment was at an end; the dean looked bewildered at first, and then savage; but a hearty laugh from Dyson settled the business.
"What, Leicester! you're the lady the dean has been hunting about college! Upon my word, this is the most absurd piece of masquerading!—what on earth is it all about?"
I pitied Leicester, he looked such an extraordinary figure in his ambiguous dress, and seemed so thoroughly ashamed of himself; so displaying the tops and cords in which I had enacted Hastings, I acknowledged my share in the business, and gave a brief history of the drama during my management. The dean endeavoured to look grave: Dyson gave way to undisguised amusement, and repeatedly exclaimed, "Oh! why did you not send me a ticket? When do you perform again?"
Alas! never. Brief, as bright, was our theatrical career. But the memory of it lives in the college still: of the comedy, and the supper, and the curious mistake which followed it: and the dean has not to this hour lost the credit which he then gained, of having a remarkably keen eye for a petticoat.