The moon had gathered the last fold of her silvery raiment about her and was creeping away through the open window just as Sir Jonathan looked straight up into the eye gleaming malevolently through the gloom.

And as he looked the head moved gently so that the eye leered cunningly into the distorted face beneath; it, hovered for a fraction of time on the edge of the shelf and fell, just as the old man, with a blinding flash of understanding sweeping his face, sprang to his feet, stood upright, swayed forward, and fell back sideways, dead, across his chair, staring across the room into eternity with eyes full of knowledge and infinite horror.

CHAPTER IX

  “How have I hated instruction, and my heart
  despised reproof!”—­The Bible.

“Oh! dear!”

The plaintive ejaculation fell on the drowsy noonday air, and the speaker fished a chocolate out of the box, offered her in heartfelt sympathy by her companion.

“Buck up, old thing!” said the latter.  “These very same old exam rods were laid up in pickle for our forbears, and they survived the ordeal.  The summer’s here and the holidays are due, so let’s grin and bear it, and what does it matter if you do mix your futures and conditionals?  As long as it’s French and you don’t split your infinitives you’re all right, the splitting, I believe, is a mortal sin in some cases, though I don’t quite understand how, or exactly what it means.”

Seaview House is an establishment for the finishing of young ladies, which process includes the rounding of their anatomical angles by means of dancing and physical culture, and the polishing of the facets of their intelligence by the gentle manipulation of three or four foreign governesses and professors of music, singing, drawing, etc.  These latter smile suavely through the excruciating half-hours they allot to each unfinished damsel, and tear their hair in private at the memory of the daily and hourly murderous executions of the old masters at which they must perforce assist.

And as much, and even more, attention is paid to the repousse work on the outside of the platter.

The hirsute covering is brushed and burnished until the heads of the two score damsels bob about in the sun like globes of ebony, or straw, or Dutch cheese, or ginger; finger nails shine like old cut glass, just enough and not too much; figures are repressed or augmented until they look more like figures and less like sacks of barley, or wood planks.  They are taught to sit down and stand up, and to cross, enter or leave a room like humans instead of colts, to pitch the voice in a low and gracious key, and to look upon slang as a luxury only to be enjoyed in the absence of those in temporary power.  In fact the establishment is quite old-fashioned but infinitely charming, and has the reputation of having more old pupils to a score of years happily or advantageously married, and fewer ditto employed in a useful capacity than any other school in Eastbourne.