prise.
"I thought he liked him."

"He said he was a croaker, and he wasn't going to let himself be
depressed by anybody--doctor or no."

Falloden was silent. Mrs. Mulholland interposed.

"Perhaps you would like to walk a little way with Mr. Falloden? I can
manage the pony."

Constance descended. Falloden turned back with her towards Oxford. The
pony-carriage followed at some distance behind.

Then Falloden talked freely. The presence of the light figure beside
him, in its dark dress and close-fitting cap, seemed to thaw the chill
of life. He began rapidly to pour out his own anxieties, his own sense
of failure.

"I am the last man in the world who ought to be looking after him; I
know that as well as anybody," he said, with emphasis. "But what's to be
done? Sorell can't get away from college. And Radowitz knows very few
men intimately. Neither Meyrick nor Robertson would be any better
than I."

"Oh, not so good--not nearly so good!" exclaimed Constance eagerly. "You
don't know! He counts on you."

Falloden shook his head.

"Then he counts on a broken reed. I irritate and annoy him a hundred
times a day."

"Oh, no, no--he does count on you," repeated Connie in her soft,
determined voice. "If you give up, he will be much--much worse off!"
Then she added after a moment--"Don't give up! I--I ask you!"

"Then I shall stay."

They moved on a few steps in silence, till Connie said eagerly--

"Have you any news from Paris?"

"Yes; we wrote in the nick of time. The whole thing was just being given
up for lack of funds. Now I have told him he may spend what he pleases,
so long as he does the thing."

"Please--mayn't I help?"

"Thank you. It's my affair."

"It'll be very, very expensive."

"I shall manage it."

"It would be kinder"--her voice shook a little--"if I might help."

He considered it--then said doubtfully:

"Suppose you provide the records?--the things it plays? I don't know
anything about music--and I have been racking my brains to think of
somebody in Paris who could look after that part of it."

Constance exclaimed. Why, she had several friends in Paris, in the very
thick of the musical world there! She had herself had lessons all one
winter in Paris at the Conservatoire from a dear old fellow--a Pole--a
pupil of Chopin in his youth, and in touch with the whole Polish colony
in Paris, which was steeped in music.

"He made love to me a little"--she said, laughing--"I'm sure he'd do
any