The Professor caught hold of the curate's coat-tails, and forcibly pulled him back into his seat.
'If you dare attempt it,' he said, 'I will kick you soundly, and, shocking, immoral man! you will feel miserable enough then.'
The curate was a terrible coward, and very weak as well. 'You are a great hulking fellow,' he said, eyeing the Professor; 'and I am of a singularly delicate build. I must, therefore, conform to the laws of matter, and give in.' He said this in a very sulky voice; and, going out of the room, slammed the door after him.
A radiant expression suffused the face of the Professor. 'See,' he said to Virginia, 'the curate's conversion is already half accomplished. In a few hours more he will be rational, he will be moral, he will be solemnly and significantly happy.'
The Professor talked like this to Virginia the whole morning; but in spite of all his arguments, she declined to be comforted. 'It is all very well,' she said, 'whilst you are in the way. But as soon as your back is turned, I know he will be at me again.'
'Will you never,' said Paul, by this time a little irritated, 'will you never listen to exact thought? The curate is now reflecting; and a little reflection must inevitably convince him that he does not really care to kiss you, and that it would give him very little real pleasure to do so.'
'Stuff!' exclaimed Virginia, with a sudden vigour at which the Professor was thunderstruck. 'I can tell you,' she went on, 'that better men than he have borne kicks for my sake; and to kiss me is the only thing that that little man cares about.—What shall I do?' she exclaimed, bursting into tears. 'Here is one of you insulting me by trying to kiss me; and the other insulting me by saying that I am not worth being kissed!'
'Ah, me!' groaned the poor Professor in an agony, 'here is one third of Humanity plunged in sorrow; and another third has not yet freed itself from vice. When, when, I wonder, will the sublimity begin?'