"Heavens!" said Constance--"and lunch is at 1.15!"

They turned and walked rapidly along the "Corn," which was once more full of men hurrying back to their own colleges from the lecture rooms of Balliol and St. John's. Now, it seemed to Constance that the men they pa.s.sed were of a finer race. She noticed plenty of tall fellows, with broad shoulders, and the look of keen-bitten health.

"Look at that pair coming!" she said to Annette. "That's better!"

The next moment, she stopped, confused, eyes wide, lips parted. For the taller of the two had taken off his cap, and stood towering and smiling in her path. A young man, of about six foot three, magnificently made, thin with the leanness of an athlete in training,--health, power, self-confidence, breathing from his joyous looks and movements--was surveying her. His lifted cap showed a fine head covered with thick brown curls. The face was long, yet not narrow; the cheek-bones rather high, the chin conspicuous. The eyes--very dark and heavily lidded--were set forward under strongly marked eyebrows; and both they, the straight nose with its close nostrils, and the red mouth, seemed to be drawn in firm yet subtle strokes on the sunburnt skin, as certain Dutch and Italian painters define the features of their sitters in a containing outline as delicate as it is unfaltering. The aspect of this striking person was that of a young king of men, careless, audacious, good-humoured; and Constance Bledlow's expression, as she held out her hand to him, betrayed, much against her will, that she was not indifferent to the sight of him.

"Well met, indeed!" said the young man, the gaiety in his look, a gaiety full of meaning, measuring itself against the momentary confusion in hers. "I have been hoping to hear of you--for a long time!--Lady Constance. Are you with the--the Hoopers--is it?"

"I am staying with my uncle and aunt. I only arrived yesterday." The girl's manner had become, in a few seconds, little less than repellent.

"Well, Oxford's lively. You'll find lots going on. The Eights begin the day after to-morrow, and I've got my people coming up. I hope you'll let Mrs. Hooper bring you to tea to meet them? Oh, by the way, do you know Meyrick? I think you must have met him." He turned to his companion, a fair-haired giant, evidently his junior. "Lord Meyrick--Lady Constance Bledlow. Will you come, Lady Connie?"

"I don't know what my aunt's engagements are," said Constance stiffly.

The trio had withdrawn into the shade of a wide doorway belonging to an old Oxford inn. Annette was looking at the windows of the milliner's shop next door.

"My mother shall do everything that is polite--everything in the world!

And when may I come to call? You have no faith in my manners, I know!"

laughed the young man. "How you did sit upon me at Cannes!" And again his brilliant eyes, fixed upon her, seemed to be saying all sorts of unspoken things.

"How has he been behaving lately?" said Constance drily, turning to Lord Meyrick, who stood grinning.

"Just as usual! He's generally mad. Don't depend on him for anything.

But I hope you'll let me do anything I can for you! I should be only too happy."

The girl perceived the eager admiration with which the young fellow was regarding her, and her face relaxed.

"Thank you very much. Of course I know all about Mr. Falloden! At Cannes, we made a league to keep him in order."

Falloden protested vehemently that he had been a persecuted victim at Cannes; the b.u.t.t of Lady Connie and all her friends.

Constance, however, cut the speech short by a careless nod and good-bye, beckoned to Annette and was moving away, when he placed himself before her.

"But I hope we shall meet this very night--shan't we?--at the Vice-Chancellor's party?"

"I don't know."

"Oh, but of course you will be there! The Hoopers are quite sure to bring you. It's at St. Hubert's. Some old swell is coming down. The gardens are terribly romantic--and there'll be a moon. One can get away from all the stuffy people. Do come!"

He gave her a daring look.

"Good-bye," said Constance again, with a slight decided gesture, which made him move out of her way.

In a few moments, she and her maid were lost to sight on the crowded pavement.

Falloden threw back his head and laughed, as he and Lord Meyrick pursued the opposite direction. But he said nothing. Meyrick, his junior by two years, who was now his most intimate friend in the Varsity, ventured at last on the remark--

"Very good-looking! But she was certainly not very civil to you, Duggy!"

Falloden flushed hotly.

"You think she dislikes me? I'll bet you anything you please she'll be at the party to-night."

Constance and her maid hurried home along the Broad. The girl perceived little or nothing on the way; but her face was crossed by a mult.i.tude of expressions, which meant a very active brain. Perhaps sarcasm or scorn prevailed, yet mingled sometimes with distress or perplexity.

The sight of the low gabled front of Medburn. House recalled her thoughts. She remembered her purchases and Nora's disapproving eyes. It would be better to go and beard her uncle at once. But just as she approached the house, she became aware of a slenderly built man in flannels coming out of the gates of St. Cyprian's, the college of which the gate and outer court stood next door to the Hoopers.

He saw her, stopped with a start of pleasure, and came eagerly towards her.

"Lady Constance! Where have you sprung from? Oh, I know--you are with the Hoopers! Have you been here long?"

They shook hands, and Constance obediently answered the newcomer's questions. She seemed indeed to like answering them, and nothing could have been more courteous and kind than his manner of asking them. He was clearly a senior man, a don, who, after a strenuous morning of lecturing, was hurrying--in the festal Eights week--to meet some friends on the river. His face was one of singular charm, the features regular, the skin a pale olive, the hair and eyes intensely black. Whereas Falloden's features seemed to lie, so to speak, on the surface, the mouth and eyes scarcely disturbing the general level of the face mask--no indentation in the chin, and no perceptible hollow tinder the brow,--this man's eyes were deeply sunk, and every outline of the face--cheeks, chin and temples--chiselled and fined away into an almost cla.s.sical perfection. The man's aspect indeed was Greek, and ought only to have expressed the Greek blitheness, the Greek joy in life. But, in truth, it was a very modern and complex soul that breathed from both face and form.

Constance had addressed him as "Mr. Sorell." He turned to walk with her to her door, talking eagerly. He was asking her about various friends in whose company they had last met--apparently at Rome; and he made various references to "your mother," which Constance accepted gently, as though they pleased her.

They paused at the Hoopers' door.

"But when can I see you?" he asked. "Has Mrs. Hooper a day at home? Will you come to lunch with me soon? I should like to show you my rooms. I have some of those nice things we bought at Syracuse--your father and I--do you remember? And I have a jolly look out over the garden. When will you come?"

"When you like. But chaperons seem to be necessary!"

"Oh, I can provide one--any number! Some of the wives of our married fellows are great friends of mine. I should like you to know them. But wouldn't Mrs. Hooper bring you?"

"Will you write to her?"

He looked a little confused.

"Of course I know your uncle very well. He and I work together in many things. May I come and call?"

"Of course you may!" She laughed again, with that wilful sound in the laugh which he remembered. He wondered how she was going to get on at the Hoopers. Mrs. Hooper's idiosyncrasies were very generally known. He himself had always given both Mrs. Hooper and her eldest daughter a wide berth in the social gatherings of Oxford. He frankly thought Mrs. Hooper odious, and had long since cla.s.sed Miss Alice as a stupid little thing with a mild talent for flirtation.

Then, as he held out his hand to say good-bye, he suddenly remembered the Vice-Chancellor's party.

"By the way, there's a big function to-night. You're going, of course?

Oh, yes--make them take you! I hadn't meant to go--but now I shall--on the chance!"

He grasped her hand, holding it a little. Then he was gone, and the Hoopers' front door swung suddenly wide, opened by some one invisible.

Connie, a little flushed and excited, stepped into the hall, and there perceived Mrs. Hooper behind the door.

"You are rather late, Constance," said that lady coldly. "But, of course, it doesn't matter. The servants are at their dinner still, so I opened the door. So you know Mr. Sorell?"

From which Constance perceived that her aunt had observed her approach to the house, in Mr. Sorell's company, through the little side window of the hall. She straightened her shoulders impatiently.

"My father and mother knew him in Rome, Aunt Ellen. He used to come to our apartment. Is Uncle Ewen in the study? I want to speak to him."