the cuts. You did it for me. There! It was brave of
you, for he's bigger than you. Poor Reggie, let's help him up. I suppose
you'll both have to go to the doctor."

"We shall both get a jolly good licking more likely. Still, I don't care
as long as you won't let him kiss you again."

"No, Vane, indeed I won't, nor anyone else for ever and ever if you'll
only forgive me this time."

And then, for the first time since the fight began, her big bright blue
eyes filled and grew dim with tears.

CHAPTER I.

It was the evening of Boat-race day, and as usual that province of
Vanity Fair whose centre is Piccadilly Circus was more or less
completely given over to joyously boisterous troops of undergraduates
and 'Varsity men of all academic ranks whom the great event of the year
had brought together from all parts of the kingdom, and even from lands
beyond the sea.

The mild saturnalia which London annually permits in honour of the
historic struggle between the rival blues was at its height. The music
halls were crowded to their utmost capacity, and lusty-voiced
undergraduates joined enthusiastically, if not altogether tunefully, in
the choruses of the songs; but the enthusiasm was perhaps highest and
the crowd the greatest at the Palace, where start and race and the
magnificent finish with which the struggle had ended were being shown by
the American Biograph.

As the series of pictures followed each other on the screen, the cries
which a few hours before had been roaring along the two banks of the
river from Putney to Mortlake burst out anew from pit and gallery,
circles and stalls and boxes. Cambridge had won for once after a long
series of defeats, but the Oxford boys and men were cheering just as
lustily and yelling themselves just as hoarse as the others, for they
were all Englishmen and therefore good sportsmen.

The crush in the First Circle was terrific, but for the moment Vane
Maxwell was conscious neither of the heat nor the crowding. His whole
soul was in his eyes as he watched the weirdly silent and yet life-like
phantoms flitting across the screen. It was only when the finish had
faded into swift darkness and the thunders of applause had begun to die
down that he became aware of the fact that someone was standing on one
of his feet, and that just behind him someone else had got hold of his
arm and was holding it with a convulsive sort of clutch.

Just then there was a lull in the applause, and he c