on the devotion of a man around
thirty, without fortune or family, to a creature so attractive and so
desirable as Constance Bledlow.

So he had held aloof, and as Constance resentfully remembered she had
received but two letters from him since her father's death. Ewen Hooper,
with whom he had an academic rather than a social acquaintance, had kept
him generally informed about her, and he knew that she was expected in
Oxford. But again he did not mean to put himself forward, or to remind
her unnecessarily of his friendship with her parents. At the
Vice-Chancellor's party, indeed, an old habit of looking after her had
seized him again, and he had not been able to resist it. But it was her
long disappearance with Falloden, her heightened colour, and preoccupied
manner when they parted at the college gate, together with the incident
at the boat-races of which he had been a witness, which had suddenly
developed a new and fighting resolve in him. If there was one type in
Oxford he feared and detested more than another it was the Falloden
type. To him, a Hellene in temper and soul--if to be a Hellene means
gentleness, reasonableness, lucidity, the absence of all selfish
pretensions--men like Falloden were the true barbarians of the day, and
the more able the more barbarian.

Thus, against his own will and foresight, he was on the way to become a
frequenter of the Hoopers' house. He had called on Wednesday, taken the
whole party to the boats on Thursday, and given them supper afterwards
in his rooms. They had all met again at the boats on Friday, and here he
was on Saturday, that he might make plans with Constance for Sunday and
for several other days ahead. He was well aware that things could not go
on at that pace; but he was determined to grasp the situation, and gauge
the girl's character, if he could.

[Illustration: The tea-party at Mrs. Hooper's]

He saw plainly that her presence at the Hoopers was going to transform
the household in various unexpected ways. On this Saturday afternoon
Mrs. Hooper's stock of teacups entirely ran out; so did her garden
chairs. Mrs. Manson called--and Lord Meyrick, under the wing of a young
fellow of All Souls, smooth-faced and slim, one of the "mighty men" of
the day, just taking wing for the bar and Parliament. Falloden, he
understood, had put in an appearance earlier in the afternoon; Herbert
Pryce, and Bobbie Vernon of Magdalen, a Blue of the first eminence,
skirmished round and r