CHAPTER III
The party given at St. Hubert's on this evening in the Eights week wasgiven in honour of a famous guest--the Lord Chancellor of the day, oneof the strongest members of a strong Government, of whom St. Hubert's,which had nurtured him through his four academic years, was quiteinordinately proud. It was very seldom that their great nursling wasable or willing to revisit the old nest. But the head of the college,who had been in the same class-list and rowed in the same boat with thepolitician, was now Vice-Chancellor of the University; and the greaterluminary had come to shine upon the lesser, by way of heightening thedignity of both. For the man who has outsoared his fellows likes toremind himself by contrast of his callow days, before the hungry andfighting impulses had driven him down--a young eaglet--upon thesheepfolds of law and politics; while to the majority of mankind, evento-day, hero-worship, when it is not too exacting, is agreeable.
So all Oxford had been bidden. The great hall of St. Hubert's, with itsstately portraits and its emblazoned roof, had been adorned with flowersand royally lit up. From the hills round Oxford the "line of festallight" made by its Tudor windows, in which gleamed the escutcheons ofthree centuries, could have been plainly seen. The High Street was fullof carriages, and on the immaculate grass of the great quadrangle,groups of the guests, the men in academic costume, the women in theairiest and gayest of summer dresses, stood to watch the arrivals. Theevening was clear and balmy; moonrise and dying day disputed the sky;and against its pale blue still scratched over with pale pink shreds andwisps of cloud, the grey college walls, battlemented and flecked withblack, rose warmed and transfigured by that infused and golden summer inwhich all, Oxford lay bathed. Through open gateways there were visionsof green gardens, girdled with lilacs and chestnuts; and above thequadrangle towered the crocketed spire of St. Mary's, ethereallywrought, it seemed, in ebony and silver, the broad May moon behind it.Within the hall, the guests were gathering fast. The dais of the hightable was lit by the famous candelabra bequeathed to the college underQueen Anne; a piano stood ready, and a space had been left for thecollege choir who were to entertain the party. In front of the dais inacademic dress stood the Vice-Chancellor, a thin, silver-haired man,with a determined mouth, such as befitted the champion of a hundredorthodoxies; and beside him his widowed sister, a nervous and ratherfeatureless lady who was helping him to receive. The guest of theevening had not yet appeared.
Mr. Sorell, in a master's gown, stood talking with a man, also in amaster's gown, but much older than himself, a man with a singularhead--both flat and wide--scanty reddish hair, touched with grey, amassive forehead, pale blue eyes, and a long pointed chin. Among thebright colours of so many of the gowns around him--the yellow and red ofthe doctors of law, the red and black of the divines, the red and whiteof the musicians--this man's plain black was conspicuous. Every one whoknew Oxford knew why this eminent scholar and theologian had neverbecome a doctor of divinity. The University imposes one of her fewremaining tests on her D.D's; Mr. Wenlock, Master of Beaumont, had neverbeen willing to satisfy it, so he remained undoctored. When he preachedthe University sermon he preached in the black gown; while everyambitious cleric who could put a thesis together could flaunt his redand black in the Vice-Chancellor's procession on Sundays in theUniversity church. The face was one of mingled irony and melancholy, andthere came from it sometimes the strangest cackling laugh.
"Well, you must show me this phoenix," he was saying in a nasal voice toSorell, who had been talking eagerly. "Young women of the right sort arerare just now."
"What do you call the right sort, Master?"
"Oh, my judgment doesn't count. I only ask to be entertained."
"Well, talk to her of Rome, and see if you are not pleased."
The Master shrugged his shoulders.
"They can all do it--the clever sort. They know too much about theForum. They make me wish sometimes that Lanciani had never been born."
Sorell laughed.
"This girl is not a pedant."
"I take your word. And of course I remember her father. No pedantrythere. And all the scholarship that could be possibly expected from anearl. Ah, is this she?"
For in the now crowded hall, filled with the chatter of many voices, agroup was making its way from the doorway, on one member of which manycurious eyes had been already turned. In front came Mrs. Hooper,spectacled, her small nose in air, the corners of her mouth sharplydrawn down. Then Dr. Ewen, grey-haired, tall and stooping; then Alice,pretty, self-conscious, provincial, and spoilt by what seemed aninherited poke; and finally a slim and stately young person in whitesatin, who carried her head and her long throat with a remarkablefreedom and self-confidence. The head was finely shaped, and the eyesbrilliant; but in the rest of the face the features were so delicate,the mouth, especially, so small and subtle, as to give a firstimpression of insignificance. The girl seemed all eyes and neck, and thecoils of brown hair wreathed round the head were disproportionately richand heavy. The Master observing her said to himself--"No beauty!" Thenshe smiled--at Sorell apparently, who was making his way towardsher--and the onlooker hurriedly suspended judgment. He noticed also thatno one who looked at her could help looking again; and that the nervousexpression natural to a young girl, who realises that she is admired butthat policy and manners forbid her to show any pleasure in the fact, wasentirely absent.
"She is so used to all her advantages that she forgets them," thoughtthe Master, adding with an inward smile--"but if we forgot them--perhapsthat would be another matter! Yes--she is like her mother--but taller."
For on that day ten years earlier, when Ella Risborough had taken Oxfordby storm, she and Lord Risborough had found time to look in on theMaster for twenty minutes, he and Lord Risborough having been frequentcorrespondents on matters of scholarship for some years. And LadyRisborough had chattered and smiled her way through the Master's lonelyhouse--he had only just been appointed head of his college and was thenunmarried--leaving a deep impression.
"I must make friends with her," he thought, following Ella Risborough'sdaughter with his eyes. "There are some gaps to fill up."
He meant in the circle of his girl protegees. For the Master had acurious history, well known in Oxford. He had married a cousin of hisown, much younger than himself; and after five years they had separated,for reasons undeclared. She was now dead, and in his troubled blue eyesthere were buried secrets no one would ever know. But under whatappeared to a stranger to be a harsh, pedantic exterior the Mastercarried a very soft heart and an invincible liking for the society ofyoung women. Oxford about this time was steadily filling with girlstudents, who were then a new feature in its life. The Master was a kindof queer patron saint among them, and to a chosen three or four, anintimate mentor and lasting friend. His sixty odd years, and the streaksof grey in his red straggling locks, his European reputation as ascholar and thinker, his old sister, and his quiet house, forbade theslightest breath of scandal in connection with these girl-friendships.Yet the girls to whom the Master devoted himself, whose essays he read,whose blunders he corrected, whose schools he watched over, and in whosesubsequent love affairs he took the liveliest interest, were rarely ornever plain to look upon. He chose them for their wits, but also fortheir faces. His men friends observed it with amusement. The littlenotes he wrote them, the birthday presents he sent them--generally somesmall worn copy of a French or Latin classic--his coveted invitations,or congratulations, were all marked by a note of gallantry, stately andold-fashioned like the furniture of his drawing-room, but quitedifferent from anything he ever bestowed upon the men students ofhis college.
Of late he had lost two of his chief favourites. One, a deliciouscreature, with a head of auburn hair and a real talent for writingverse, had left Oxford suddenly to make a marriage so foolish that hereally could not forgive her or put up with her intolerable husband; andthe other, a muse, with the brow of one and the slenderest hand andfoot, whom he and others were hopefully piloting towards a second classat least--possibly a
first--in the Honour Classical School, had brokendown in health, so that her mother and a fussy doctor had hurriedher away to a rest-cure in Switzerland, and thereby slit heracademic life and all her chances of fame. Both had been used tocome--independently--for the Master was in his own, way far too great asocial epicure to mix his pleasures--to tea on Sundays; to sit on oneside of a blazing fire, while the Master sat on the other, a Persian catplaying chaperon on the rug between, and the book-lined walls of theMaster's most particular sanctum looking down upon them; while in thedrawing-room beyond, Miss Wenlock, at the tea-table, sat patientlywaiting till her domestic god should declare the seance over, allow herto make tea, and bring in the young and honoured guest. And now bothcharmers had vanished from the scene and had left no equals behind. TheMaster, who possessed the same sort of tact in training young womenthat Lord Melbourne showed in educating the girl-Queen, was leftwithout his most engaging occupation.
Ah!--that good fellow, Sorell, was bringing her up to him.
"Master, Lady Constance would like to be introduced to you."
The Master was immensely flattered. Why should she wish to be introducedto such an old fogey? But there she was, smiling at him.
"You knew my father. I am sure you did!"
His elderly heart was touched, his taste captured at once. Sorell hadengineered it all perfectly. His description of the girl had fired theMaster; and his sketch of the Master in the girl's ear, as a kind ofgirlhood's arbiter, had amused and piqued her. "Yes, do introduce me!Will he ever ask me to tea? I should be so alarmed!"
It was all settled in a few minutes. Sunday was to see her introductionto the Master's inner circle, which met in summer, not between books anda blazing fire, but in the small college garden hidden amid the walls ofBeaumont. Sorell was to bring her. The Master did not even go throughthe form of inviting either Mrs. Hooper or Miss Hooper. In all suchmatters he was a chartered libertine and did what he pleased.
Then he watched her in what seemed something of a triumphal progressthrough the crowded hall. He saw the looks of the girl students from thenewly-organised women's colleges--as she passed--a little askance andchill; he watched a Scotch metaphysical professor, with a fiery face setin a mass of flaming hair and beard, which had won him the nickname fromhis philosophical pupils of "the devil in a mist," forcing anintroduction to her; he saw the Vice-Chancellor graciously unbending,and man after man come up among the younger dons to ask Sorell topresent them. She received it all with a smiling and nonchalant grace,perfectly at her ease, it seemed, and ready to say the right thing toyoung and old. "It's the training they get--the young women of hersort--that does it," thought the Master. "They are in society from theirbabyhood. Our poor, battered aristocracy--the Radicals have kicked awayall its natural supports, and left it _dans l'air_; but it can stillteach manners and the art to please. The undergraduates, however, seemshy of her."
For although among the groups of men, who stood huddled together mostlyat the back of the room, many eyes were turned upon the newcomer, no oneamong them approached her. She held her court among the seniors, as nodoubt, thought the Master, she had been accustomed to do from the daysof her short frocks. He envisaged the apartment in the Palazzo Barberiniwhereof the fame had often reached Oxford, for the Risboroughs held openhouse there for the English scholar and professor on his travels. Hehimself had not been in Rome for fifteen years, and had never made theRisboroughs' acquaintance in Italy. But the kind of society whichgathers round the English peer of old family who takes an apartment inRome or Florence for the winter was quite familiar to him--thetravelling English men and women of the same class, diplomats of allnations, high ecclesiastics, a cardinal or two, the heads of the greatartistic or archaeological schools, Americans, generals, senators,deputies--with just a sprinkling of young men. A girl of this girl'sage and rank would have many opportunities, of course, of meeting youngmen, in the free and fascinating life of the Roman spring, but primarilyher business in her mother's salon would have been to help her mother,to make herself agreeable to the older men, and to gather hereducation--in art, literature, and politics--as a coming woman of theworld from their talk. The Master could see her smiling on a monsignore,carrying tea to a cardinal, or listening to the Garibaldian tales ofsome old veteran of the Risorgimento.
"It is an education--of its own kind," he thought. "Is it worth more orless than other kinds?"
And he looked round paternally on some of the young girl students thenjust penetrating Oxford; fresh, pleasant faces--little positivebeauty--and on many the stamp, already prematurely visible, of theanxieties of life for those who must earn a livelihood. Not much tastein dress, which was often clumsy and unbecoming; hair, either untidy, ortreated as an enemy, scraped back, held in, the sole object being totake as little time over it as possible; and, in general, the note uponthem all of an educated and thrifty middle-class. His feelings, hissympathies, were all with them. But the old gallant in him was stirredby the tall figure in white satin, winding its graceful way through theroom and conquering as it went.
"Ah--now that fellow, Herbert Pryce, has got hold of her, of course! Ifever there was a climber!--But what does Miss Hooper say?"
And retreating to a safe corner the Master watched with amusement theflattering eagerness with which Mr. Pryce, who was a fellow of his owncollege, was laying siege to the newcomer. Pryce was rapidly making agreat name for himself as a mathematician. "And is a second-rate fellow,all the same," thought the Master, contemptuously, being like Uncle Ewena classic of the classics. But the face of little Alice Hooper, which hecaught from time to time, watching--with a strained and furtiveattention--the conversation between Pryce and her cousin, was really atragedy; at least a tragi-comedy. Some girls are born to be supplanted!
But who was it Sorell was, introducing to her now?--to the evidentannoyance of Mr. Pryce, who must needs vacate the field. A strikingfigure of a youth! Golden hair, of a wonderful ruddy shade, and a clearpale face; powerfully though clumsily made; and with a shy and sensitiveexpression.
The Master turned to enquire of a Christ Church don who had come up tospeak to him.
"Who is that young man with a halo like the 'Blessed Damosel'?"
"Talking to Lady Constance Bledlow? Oh, don't you know? He is Sorell'sprotege, Radowitz, a young musician--and poet!--so they say. Sorelldiscovered him in Paris, made great friends with him, and then persuadedhim to come and take the Oxford musical degree. He is at Marmion, wherethe dons watch over him. But they say he has been abominably ragged bythe rowdy set in college--led by that man Falloden. Do you know him?"
"The fellow who got the Ireland last year?"
The other nodded.
"As clever and as objectionable as they make 'em! Ah, here comes ourgreat man!"
For amid a general stir, the Lord Chancellor had made his entrance, andwas distributing greetings, as he passed up the hall, to his academiccontemporaries and friends. He was a tall, burly man, with a strongblack head and black eyes under bushy brows, combined with an infantilemouth 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 Oxfordwas proud of him as one of the most successful of her sons; and hisprogress toward the dais was almost royal.
Suddenly, his voice--a famous _voix d'or_, well known in the courts andin Parliament--was heard above the general buzz. It spoke inastonishment and delight.
"Lady Constance! where on earth have you sprung from? Well, this is apleasure!"
And Oxford looked on amused while its distinguished guest shook a younglady in white by both hands, asking eagerly a score of questions, whichhe would hardly allow her to answer. The young lady too was evidentlypleased by the meeting; her face had flushed and lit up; and thebystanders for the first time thought her not only graceful andpicturesque, but positively handsome.
"Ewen!" said Mrs. Hooper angrily in her husband's ear, "why didn'tConnie tell us she knew Lord Glaramara! She let me talk about him toher--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 andneglected beside her, suffering, as her mother well knew, torments ofwounded pride and feeling. For although Herbert Pryce had been longsince dismissed by Connie, he had not yet returned to the side of theeldest Miss Hooper.
"I don't like such ways," said Mrs. Hooper, with sparkling eyes. "It wasill-bred and underhanded of Connie not to tell us at once--I shallcertainly speak to her about it!"
"It makes us look such fools," said Alice, her mouth pursed and set. "Itold Mr. Pryce that Connie knew no one to-night, except Mr. Sorell andMr. Falloden."
* * * * *
The hall grew more crowded; the talk more furious. Lord Glaramarainsisted, with the wilfulness of the man who can do as he pleases, thatConstance Bledlow--whoever else came and went--should stay beside him.
"You can't think what I owed to her dear people in Rome three yearsago!" he said to the Vice-Chancellor. "I adored her mother! AndConstance is a charming child. She and I made great friends. Has shecome to live in Oxford for a time? Lucky Oxford! What--with the Hoopers?Don't know 'em. I shall introduce her to some of my particular allies."
Which he did in profusion, so that Constance found herself bewildered bya constant stream of new acquaintances--fellows, professors, heads ofcolleges--of various ages and types, who looked at her with amused andkindly eyes, talked to her for a few pleasant minutes and departed,quite conscious that they had added a pebble to the girl's pile anddelighted to do it.
"It is your cousin, not the Lord Chancellor, who is the guest of theevening!" laughed Herbert Pryce, who had made his way back at last toAlice Hooper. "I never saw such a success!"
Alice tossed her head in a petulant silence; and a madrigal by thecollege choir checked any further remarks from Mr. Pryce. After themadrigal came a general move for refreshments, which were set out in thecollege library and in the garden. The Lord Chancellor must needs offerhis arm to his host's sister, and lead the way. The Warden followed,with the wife of the Dean of Christ Church, and the hall began to thin.Lord Glaramara looked back, smiling and beckoning to Constance, asthough to say--"Don't altogether desert me!"
But a voice--a tall figure--interposed--
"Lady Constance, let me take you into the garden? It's much nicer thanupstairs."
A slight shiver ran, unseen, through the girl's frame. She wished to sayno; she tried to say no. And instead she looked up--haughty, butacquiescent.
"Very well."
And she followed Douglas Falloden through the panelled passage outsidethe hall leading to the garden. Sorell, who had hurried up to find her,arrived in time to see her disappearing through the lights and shadowsof the moonlit lawn.
* * * * *
"We can do this sort of thing pretty well, can't we? It's banal becauseit happens every year, and because it's all mixed up with salmonmayonnaise, and cider-cup--and it isn't banal, because it's Oxford!"
_Constance sat in the shadow of a plane-tree withFalloden at her feet_]
Constance was sitting under the light shadow of a plane-tree, not yetfully out; Falloden was stretched on the grass at her feet. Before herran a vast lawn which had taken generations to make; and all roundit, masses of flowering trees, chestnuts, lilacs, laburnums, nowadvancing, now receding, made inlets or promontories of the grass,turned into silver by the moonlight. At the furthest edge, through thepushing pyramids of chestnut blossom and the dim drooping gold of thelaburnums, could be seen the bastions and battlements of the old citywall, once a fighting reality, now tamed into the mere ornament andappendage of this quiet garden. Over the trees and over the walls rosethe spires and towers of a wondrous city; while on the grass, or throughthe winding paths disappearing into bosky distances, flickered whitedresses, and the slender forms of young men and maidens. A murmur ofvoices rose and fell on the warm night air; the sound of singing--thethin sweetness of boyish notes--came from the hall, whose decoratedwindows, brightly lit, shone out over the garden.
"It's Oxford--and it's Brahms," said Constance. "I seem to have known itall before in music: the trees--the lawn--the figures--appearing anddisappearing--the distant singing--"
She spoke in a low, dreamy tone, her chin propped on her hand. Nothingcould have been, apparently, quieter or more self-governed than herattitude. But her inner mind was full of tumult; resentful memory;uneasy joy; and a tremulous fear, both of herself and of the man at herfeet. And the man knew it, or guessed it. He dragged himself a littlenearer to her on the grass.
"Why didn't you tell me when you were coming?"
The tone was light and laughing.
"I owe you no account of my actions," said the girl quickly.
"We agreed to be friends."
"No! We are not friends." She spoke with suppressed violence, andbreaking a twig from the tree overshadowing her, she threw it from her,as though the action were a relief.
He sat up, looking up into her face, his hands clasped round his knees.
"That means you haven't forgiven me?"
"It means that I judge and despise you," she said passionately; "andthat it was not an attraction to me to find you here--quitethe reverse!"
"Yet here you are--sitting with me in this garden--and you are lookingdelicious! That dress becomes you so--you are so graceful--soexquisitely graceful. And you never found a more perfect setting thanthis place--these lawns and trees--and the old college walls. Oxford waswaiting for you, and you for Oxford. Are you laughing at me?"
"Naturally!"
"I could rave on by the hour if you would listen to me."
"We have both something better to do--thank goodness! May I ask if youare doing any work?"
He laughed.
"Ten hours a day. This is my first evening out since March. I came tomeet you."
Constance bowed ironically. Then for the first time, since theirconversation began, it might have been seen that she had annoyed him.
"Friends are not allowed to doubt each other's statements!" he said withanimation. "You see I still persist that you allowed me that name,when--you refused me a better. As to my work, ask any of my friends.Talk to Meyrick. He is a dear boy, and will tell you anything you like.He and I 'dig' together in Beaumont Street. My schools are now onlythree weeks off. I work four hours in the morning. Then I play tillsix--and get in another six hours between then and 1 a.m."
"Wonderful!" said Constance coolly. "Your ways at Cannes were different.It's a mercy there's no Monte Carlo within reach."
"I play when I play, and work when I work!" he said with emphasis. "Theonly thing to hate and shun always--is moderation."
"And yet you call yourself a classic! Well, you seem to be sure of yourFirst. At least Uncle Ewen says so."
"Ewen Hooper? He is a splendid fellow--a real Hellenist. He and I get oncapitally. About your aunt--I am not so sure."
"Nobody obliges you to know her," was the tranquil reply.
"Ah!--but if she has the keeping of you! Are you coming to tea with meand my people? I have got a man in college to lend me his rooms. Mymother and sister will be up for two nights. Very inconsiderate ofthem--with my schools coming on--but they would do it. Thursday?--beforethe Eights? Won't my mother be chaperon enough?"
"Certainly. But it only puts off the evil day."
"When I must grovel to Mrs. Hooper?--if I am to see anything of you?Splendid! You are trying to discipline me again--as you did at Cannes!"
In the semidarkness she could see the amusement in his eyes. Her ownfeeling, in its mingled weakness and antagonism, was that of thefeebler wrestler just holding his ground, and fearing every moment to beworsted by some unexpected trick of the game. She gave no signs ofit, however.
"I tried, and I succeeded!" she said, as she rose. "You found out thatrudeness to my friends didn't answer! Shall we go and get some lemonade?Wasn't that why
you brought me here? I think I see the tent."
They walked on together. She seemed to see--exultantly--that she hadboth angered and excited him.
"I am never rude," he declared. "I am only honest! Only nobody, in thismealy-mouthed world, allows you to be honest; to say and do exactly whatrepresents you. But I shall not be rude to anybody under your wing.Promise me to come to tea, and I will appear to call on your aunt andbehave like any sucking dove."
Constance considered it.
"Lady Laura must write to Aunt Ellen."
"Of course. Any other commands?"
"Not at present."
"Then let me offer some humble counsels in return. I beg you not to makefriends with that red-haired _poseur_ I saw you talking to in the hall."
"Mr. Radowitz!--the musician? I thought him delightful! He is coming toplay to me to-morrow."
"Ah, I thought so!" said Falloden wrathfully. "He is an impossibleperson. He wears a frilled shirt, scents himself, and recites his ownpoems when he hasn't been asked. And he curries favour--abominably--withthe dons. He is a smug--of the first water. There is a movement going onin college to suppress him. I warn you I may not be able to keep outof it."
"He is an artist!" cried Constance. "You have only to look at him, totalk to him, to see it. And artists are always persecuted by stupidpeople. But you are not stupid!"
"Yes, I am, where _poseurs_ are concerned," said Falloden coldly. "Iprefer to be. Never mind. We won't excite ourselves. He is not worth it.Perhaps he'll improve--in time. But there is another man I warn youagainst--Mr. Herbert Pryce."
"A great friend of my cousins'," said Constance mockingly.
"I know. He is always flirting with the eldest girl. It is a shame; forhe will never marry her. He wants money and position, and he is soclever he will get them. He is not a gentleman, and he rarely tells thetruth. But he is sure to make up to you. I thought I had better tell youbeforehand."
"My best thanks! You breathe charity!"
"No--only prudence. And after my schools I throw my books to the dogs,and I shall have a fortnight more of term with nothing to do except--areyou going to ride?" he asked her abruptly. "You said at Cannes that youmeant to ride when you came to Oxford."
"My aunt doesn't approve."
"As if that would stop you! I can tell you where you can get a horse--amare that would just suit you. I know all the stables in Oxford. Waittill we meet on Thursday. Would you care to ride in Lathom Woods? (Henamed a famous estate near Oxford.) I have a permit, and could get youone. They are relations of mine."
Constance excused herself, but scarcely with decision. Her plans, shesaid, must depend upon her cousins. Falloden smiled and dropped thesubject for the moment. Then, as they moved on together through thesinuous ways of the garden, flooded with the scent of hawthorns andlilacs, towards the open tent crowded with folk at the farther end,there leapt in both the same intoxicating sense of youth and strength,the same foreboding of passion, half restlessness, and halfenchantment....
* * * * *
"I looked for you everywhere," said Sorell, as he made his way toConstance through the crowd of departing guests in the college gateway."Where did you hide yourself? The Lord Chancellor was sad not to saygood-bye to you."
Constance summoned an answering tone of regret.
"How good of him! I was only exploring the garden--with Mr. Falloden."
At the name, there was a quick and stiffening change in Sorell's face.
"You knew him before? Yes--he told me. A queer fellow--very able. Theysay he'll get his First. Well--we shall meet at the Eights and thenwe'll make plans. Goodnight."
He smiled on her, and went his way, ruminating uncomfortably as hewalked back to his college along the empty midnight streets. Falloden?It was to be hoped there was nothing in that! How Ella Risborough wouldhave detested the type! But there was much that was not her mother inthe daughter. He vowed to himself that he would do his small best towatch over Ella Risborough's child.
There was little or no conversation in the four-wheeler that bore theHooper party home. Mrs. Hooper and Alice were stiffly silent, while theReader chaffed Constance a little about her successes of the evening.But he, too, was sleepy and tired, and the talk dropped. As they lightedtheir bedroom candles in the hall, Mrs. Hooper said to her niece, in herthin, high tone, mincing and coldly polite:
"I think it would have been better, Constance, if you had told us youknew Lord Glaramara. I don't wish to find fault, but such--suchconcealments--are really very awkward!"
Constance opened her eyes. She could have defended herself easily. Shehad no idea that her aunt was unaware of the old friendship between herparents and Lord Glaramara, who was no more interesting to herpersonally than many others of their Roman _habitues_, of whom the worldwas full. But she was too preoccupied to spend any but the shortestwords on such a silly thing.
"I'm sorry, Aunt Ellen. I really didn't understand."
And she went up to bed, thinking only of Falloden; while Alice followedher, her small face pinched and weary, her girlish mind full of pain.