she had succeeded. Until to-day she
had had no luck. At a cheap school for the "Education of Daughters of
Officers" Gwen had not learnt more than she could possibly help. Her
first appearance in the world, this last summer, had been, considering
her pretty face, on the whole a disappointment. But now she was
successful. Gwen tingled with the comfortable warmth of self-esteem. She
looked giddily round the spacious room--was it possible that all this
might be hers? It was amazing that luck should have just dropped into
her lap.

Boreham had turned again to Lady Dashwood as soon as he had been
introduced and had executed the reverential bow that he considered
proper, however contemptuously he might feel towards the female he
saluted.

"As we were saying," he went on, "Middleton--except to-day--has always
been punctual to the minute, by that I mean punctual to the fastest
Oxford time. He is the sort of man who is born punctual. Punctually he
came into the world. Punctually he will go out of it. He has never been
what I call a really free man. In other words, he is a slave to what's
called 'Duty.'"

Here the door opened again, and again Boreham was unable to conceal his
vivid curiosity as he turned to see who it was coming in. This time it
was the Warden--the Warden in a blameless shirt-front. He had changed in
five minutes. He walked in composed as usual. There was not a trace in
his face that in the library only a few minutes ago he had been
disposing of his future with amazing swiftness.

"Go on, Boreham," said the Warden, giving his guest, along with the
glance that serves in Oxford as sufficient greeting to frequenters of
Common Room, a slight grasp of the hand because he was not a member of
Common Room. The Warden had not heard Boreham's remarks, he merely knew
that he had interrupted some exposition of "ideas."

In a flash the Warden saw, without looking at her, that Gwen was there,
half hidden in a chair; and Gwen, on her side, felt her heart thump, and
was proudly and yet fearfully conscious of every movement of the Warden
as he walked across the room and stood on the other side of the
hearthrug. "Does he--does that important person belong to me?" she
thought. The conviction was overpowering that if that important person
did belong to her, and it appeared that he did, she also must be
important.

Boreham's appearance did not gain in attractiveness by the proximity of
his host. He began again in his rapid ra