"As clever and as objectionable as they make 'em! Ah, here comes our
great man!"

For amid a general stir, the Lord Chancellor had made his entrance, and
was distributing greetings, as he passed up the hall, to his academic
contemporaries and friends. He was a tall, burly man, with a strong
black head and black eyes under bushy brows, combined with an infantile
mouth and chin, long and happily caricatured in all the comic papers.
But in his D.C.L. gown he made a very fine appearance; assembled Oxford
was proud of him as one of the most successful of her sons; and his
progress toward the dais was almost royal.

Suddenly, his voice--a famous _voix d'or_, well known in the courts and
in Parliament--was heard above the general buzz. It spoke in
astonishment and delight.

"Lady Constance! where on earth have you sprung from? Well, this is a
pleasure!"

And Oxford looked on amused while its distinguished guest shook a young
lady in white by both hands, asking eagerly a score of questions, which
he would hardly allow her to answer. The young lady too was evidently
pleased by the meeting; her face had flushed and lit up; and the
bystanders for the first time thought her not only graceful and
picturesque, but positively handsome.

"Ewen!" said Mrs. Hooper angrily in her husband's ear, "why didn't
Connie tell us she knew Lord Glaramara! She let me talk about him to
her--and never said a word!--a single word!"

Ewen Hooper shrugged his shoulders.

"I'm sure I don't know, my dear."

Mrs. Hooper turned to her daughter who had been standing silent and
neglected beside her, suffering, as her mother well knew, torments of
wounded pride and feeling. For although Herbert Pryce had been long
since dismissed by Connie, he had not yet returned to the side of the
eldest Miss Hooper.

"I don't like such ways," said Mrs. Hooper, with sparkling eyes. "It was
ill-bred and underhanded of Connie not to tell us at once--I shall
certainly speak to her about it!"

"It makes us look such fools," said Alice, her mouth pursed and set. "I
told Mr. Pryce that Connie knew no one to-night, except Mr. Sorell and
Mr. Falloden."

* * * * *

The hall grew more crowded; the talk more furious. Lord Glaramara
insisted, with the wilfulness of the man who can do as he pleases, that
Constance Bledlow--whoever else came and went--should stay beside him.

"You can't think what I owed to her dear people in Rome three years