Fair Game 



fair barbarian and by a sacrosanct propriety 

 make some man feel mean. 



Well, I have never done so — ^though I am a 

 long way now from my first aspiration. Why, 

 I cannot tell you. My intention certainly has 

 been imswerving. Opportvmity has not been 

 lacking. There is no reason why my presence, 

 with both height and weight to lend assistance, 

 should do other than command. And yet, and 

 yet, ... I have drawn myself up hke Dido 

 only to feel a chuckling commotion force me to 

 imbend. I have shot my arrow, that death-deal- 

 ing glance, only to see it fall short of the mark 

 or twinkle as it hit. And in a moment I was 

 quarry and not huntress. The safeguarding of 

 my dignity lay in my flight. 



Fortimately the climax of my failure was long 

 withheld, though even in my college days I think 

 I had an inkh'ng of disaster. Strange place to 

 serve apprenticeship to prudery, that cool cloister 

 where learning was pursued with a self -conscious- 

 ness and where we set ourselves apart not with 

 a vow of maidenhood, but of contempt. Gareth 

 in his scullery a-burnishing his pots and pans felt 



[179] 



