doesn't know how to behave; and he makes his
partners conspicuous."

Constance too had risen, and they confronted each other--she all
wilfulness.

"I shall certainly dance with him!" she said, with a little determined
air. "You see, I like foreign ways!"

He said good night abruptly. As he stood a few minutes on the further
side of the room, making a few last arrangements as to the ball with
Mrs. Hooper and Alice, Constance, still standing by the piano, and
apparently chatting with Herbert Pryce, was really aware of Falloden's
every movement. His manner to her aunt was brusque and careless; and he
forgot, apparently, to say good night either to Alice or Nora. Nobody in
the room, as she well knew, except herself, found any pleasure in his
society. Nora's hostile face in the background was a comic study. And
yet, so long as he was there, nobody could forget or overlook him; so
splendid was the physical presence of the man, and so strong the
impression of his personality--even in trivial things.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, everybody in the house had gone to bed, except Nora and her
father. She had lit a little fire in his study, as the night had grown
chilly; she had put a little tray with tea on it by his side, and helped
him to arrange the Greats papers, in which he was still immersed, under
his hand. And finally she brought his pipe and filled it for him.

"Must you sit up long, father?"

"An hour or two," said Ewen Hooper wearily. "I wish I didn't get so
limp. But these Honour exams take it out of one. And I have to go to
Winchester to-morrow."

"For the scholarship?"

He nodded.

"Father! you work a great deal too hard--you look dog-tired!" cried Nora
in distress. "Why do you do so much?"

He shook his head sadly.

"You know, darling."

Nora did know. She knew that every pound was of importance to the
household, that the temporary respite caused by the legacy from Lord
Risborough and by Connie's prepayment would very soon come to an end,
and that her father seemed to be more acutely aware of the position
than he had yet been. Her own cleverness, and the higher education she
was steadily getting for herself enabled her to appreciate, as no one
else in the family could or did, her father's delicate scholarly gifts,
which had won him his reputation in Oxford and outside. But the
reputation might have been higher, if so much time had not been claimed
year after year by the sheer