CHAPTER IV
On the day after the Vice-Chancellor's party, Falloden, after a somewhatslack morning's work, lunched in college with Meyrick. After hall, thequadrangle was filled with strolling men, hatless and smoking,discussing the chances of the Eights, the last debate at the Union, andthe prospects of individual men in the schools.
Presently the sound of a piano was heard from the open windows of a roomon the first floor.
"Great Scott!" said Falloden irritably to Meyrick, with whom he waswalking arm in arm, "what a noise that fellow Radowitz makes! Why shouldwe have to listen to him? He behaves as though the whole collegebelonged to him. We can't hear ourselves speak."
"Treat him like a barrel-organ and remove him!" said Meyrick, laughing.He was a light-hearted, easy-going youth, a "fresher" in his firstsummer term, devoted to Falloden, whose physical and intellectual powersseemed to him amazing.
"Bombard him first!" said Falloden. "Who's got some soda-waterbottles?" And he beckoned imperiously to a neighbouring group ofmen,--"bloods"--always ready to follow him in a "rag," and heroestogether with him of a couple of famous bonfires, in Falloden'sfirst year.
They came up, eager for any mischief, the summer weather in their veinslike wine. They stood round Falloden laughing and chaffing, till finallythree of them disappeared at his bidding. They came rushing back, fromvarious staircases, laden with soda-water bottles.
Then Falloden, with two henchmen, placed himself under Radowitz'swindows, and summoned the offender in a stentorian voice:
"Radowitz! stop that noise!"
No answer--except that Radowitz in discoursing some "music of thefuture," and quite unaware of the shout from below, pounded andtormented the piano more than ever. The waves of crashing sound seemedto fill the quadrangle.
"We'll summon him thrice!" said Falloden. "Then--fire!"
But Radowitz remained deaf, and the assailant below gave the order.Three strong right arms below discharged three soda-water bottles, whichwent through the open window.
"My goody!" said Meyrick, "I hope he's well out of the way!" There was asound of breaking glass. Then Radowitz, furious, appeared at his window,his golden hair more halolike than ever in the bright sun.
"What are you doing, you idiots?"
"Stop that noise, Radowitz!" shouted Falloden. "It annoys us!"
"Can't help it. It pleases me," said Radowitz shortly, proceeding toclose the window. But he had scarcely done so, when Falloden launchedanother bottle, which went smash through the window and broke it. Theglass fell out into the quadrangle, raising all the echoes. The riotersbelow held their laughing breaths.
"I say, what about the dons?" said one.
"Keep a lookout!" said another.
But meanwhile Radowitz had thrown up the injured window, and crimsonwith rage he leaned far out and flung half a broken bottle at the groupbelow. All heads ducked, but the ragged missile only just missedMeyrick's curly poll.
"Not pretty that!--not pretty at all!" said Falloden coolly. "Mightreally have done some mischief. We'll avenge you, Meyrick. Follow me,you fellows!"
And in one solid phalanx, they charged, six or seven strong, upRadowitz's staircase. But he was ready for them. The oak was sported,and they could hear him dragging some heavy chairs against it.Meanwhile, from the watchers left in the quad, came a loud cough.
"Dons!--by Jove! Scatter!" And they rushed further up the staircase,taking refuge in the rooms of two of the "raggers." The lookout in thequadrangle turned to walk quietly towards the porter's lodge. The SeniorTutor--a spare tall man with a Jove-like brow--emerged from the library,and stood on the steps surveying the broken glass.
"All run to cover, of course!" was his reflection, half scornful, halfdisgusted. "But I am certain I heard Falloden's voice. What a puppystage it is! They would be much better employed worrying old boots!"
But philosopher or no, he got no clue. The quadrangle was absolutelyquiet and deserted, save for the cheeping of the swallows flittingacross it, and the whistling of a lad in the porter's lodge. The SeniorTutor returned to the library, where he was unpacking a box ofnew books.
The rioters emerged at discreet intervals, and rejoined each other inthe broad street outside the college.
"Vengeance is still due!"--said Falloden, towering among them, alwayswith the faithful and grinning Meyrick at his side--"and we will repay.But now, to our tents! Ta, ta!" And dismissing them all, includingMeyrick, he walked off alone in the direction of Holywell. He was goingto look out a horse for Constance Bledlow.
As he walked, he said to himself that he was heartily sick of thisOxford life, ragging and all. It was a good thing it was so nearly done.He meant to get his First, because he didn't choose, having wasted somuch time over it, not to get it. But it wouldn't give him anyparticular pleasure to get it. The only thing that really mattered wasthat Constance Bledlow was in Oxford, and that when his schools wereover, he would have nothing to do but to stay on two or three weeks andforce the running with her. He felt himself immeasurably older than hiscompanions with whom he had just been rioting. His mind was set upon aman's interests and aims--marriage, travel, Parliament; they were stillboys, without a mind among them. None the less, there was an underplotrunning through his consciousness all the time as to how best to punishRadowitz--both for his throw, and his impertinence in monopolising acertain lady for at least a quarter of an hour on the preceding evening.
At the well-known livery-stables in Holywell, he found a certainanimation. Horses were in demand, as there were manoeuvres going on inBlenheim Park, and the minds of both dons and undergraduates were drawnthither. But Falloden succeeded in getting hold of the manager andabsorbing his services at once.
"Show you something really good, fit for a lady?"
The manager took him through the stables, and Falloden in the end pickedout precisely the beautiful brown mare of which he had spoken toConstance.
"Nobody else is to ride her, please, till the lady I am acting for hastried her," he said peremptorily to Fox. "I shall try her myselfto-morrow. And what about a groom?--a decent fellow, mind, with adecent livery."
He saw a possible man and another horse, reserving both provisionally.Then he walked hurriedly to his lodgings to see if by any chance therewere a note for him there. He had wired to his mother the day before,telling her to write to Constance Bledlow and Mrs. Hooper by theevening's post, suggesting that, on Thursday before the Eights, LadyLaura should pick her up at Medburn House, take her to tea at Falloden'slodgings and then on to the Eights. Lady Laura was to ask for an answeraddressed to the lodgings.
He found one--a little note with a crest and monogram he knew well.
Medburn House.
"Dear Mr. Falloden,--I am very sorry I can not come to tea to-morrow. But my aunt and cousins seem to have made an engagement for me. No doubt I shall see Lady Laura at the boats. My aunt thanks her for her kind letter.
"Yours very truly,
"Constance Bledlow."
Falloden bit his lip. He had reckoned on an acceptance, having doneeverything that had been prescribed to him; and he felt injured. Hewalked on, fuming and meditating, to Vincent's Club, and wrote a reply.
"DEAR LADY CONSTANCE,--A thousand regrets! I hope for better luck next time. Meanwhile, as you say, we shall meet to-morrow at the Eights. I have spent much time to-day in trying to find you a horse, as we agreed. The mare I told you of is really a beauty. I am going to try her to-morrow, and will report when we meet. I admire your nepticular (I believe _neptis_ is the Latin for niece) docility!
"Yours sincerely,
"DOUGLAS FALLODEN."
"Will that offend her?" he thought. "But a pin-prick is owed. I wasdistinctly given to understand that if the proprieties were observed,she would come."
In reality, however, he was stimulated by her refusal, as he was by allforms of conflict, which, for him, made the zest of life.
He shut himself up that
evening and the following morning with hisGreats work. Then he and Meyrick rushed up to the racket courts in theParks for an hour's hard exercise, after which, in the highest physicalspirits, a splendid figure in his white flannels, with the dark blue capand sash of the Harrow Eleven--(he had quarrelled with the captain ofthe Varsity Eleven very early in his Oxford career, and by an heroicsacrifice to what he conceived to be his dignity had refused to lethimself be tried for it)--he went off to meet his mother and sister atthe railway station.
It was, of course, extremely inconsiderate of his mother to be coming atall in these critical weeks before the schools. She ought to have keptaway. And yet he would be very glad to see her--and Nelly. He was fondof his home people, and they of him. They were his belongings--and theywere Fallodens. Therefore his strong family pride accepted them, andmade the most of them.
But his countenance fell when, as the train slowed into the railwaystation, he perceived beckoning to him from the windows, not twoFallodens, but four!
"What has mother been about?" He stood aghast. For there were not onlyLady Laura and Nelly, but Trix, a child of eleven, and Roger, theWinchester boy of fourteen, who was still at home after an attackof measles.
They beamed at him as they descended. The children were quite aware theywere superfluous, and fell upon him with glee.
"You don't want us, Duggy, we know! But we made mother bring us."
"Mother, really you ought to have given me notice!" said her reproachfulson. "What am I to do with these brats?"
But the brats hung upon him, and his mother, "fat, fair and forty,"smiled propitiatingly.
"Oh, my dear Duggy, never mind. They amuse themselves. They've promisedto be good. And they get into mischief in London, directly my back'sturned. How nice you look in flannels, dear! Are you going to row thisafternoon?"
"Well, considering you know that my schools are coming on in afortnight--" said Falloden, exasperated.
"It's so annoying of them!" said Lady Laura, sighing. "I wanted to bringNelly up for two or three weeks. We could have got a house. But yourfather wouldn't hear of it."
"I should rather think not! Mother, do you want me to get a decentdegree, or do you not?"
"But of course you're sure to," said Lady Laura with provoking optimism,hanging on his arm. "And now give us some tea, for we're all ravenous!And what about that girl, Lady Constance?"
"She can't come. Her aunt has made another engagement for her. You'llmeet her at the boats."
Lady Laura looked relieved.
"Well then, we can go straight to our tea. But of course I wrote. Ialways do what you tell me, Duggy. Come along, children!"
"Trix and I got a packet of Banbury cakes at Didcot," reported Roger, intriumph, showing a greasy paper. "But we've eat 'em all."
"Little pigs!" said Falloden, surveying them. "And now I suppose you'regoing to gorge again?"
"We shall disgrace you!" shouted both the children joyously--"we knew weshould!"
But Falloden hunted them all into a capacious fly, and they drove off toMarmion, where a room had been borrowed for the tea-party. Falloden saton the box with folded arms and a sombre countenance. Why on earth hadhis mother brought the children? It was revolting to have to appear onthe barge with such a troop. And all his time would be taken up withlooking after them--time which he wanted for quite other things.
However, he was in for it. At Marmion he led the party through twoquads and innumerable passages, till he pointed to a dark staircase upwhich they climbed, each member of the family--except the guide--talkingat the top of their voices. On the third floor, Falloden paused andherded them into the room of a shy second-year man, very glad to do sucha "blood" as Falloden a kindness, and help entertain his relations.
"Well, thank God, I've got you in!" said Falloden gloomily, as he shutthe door behind the last of them.
* * * * *
"How Duggy does hustle us! I've had nothing of a tea!" said Roger,looking resentfully, his mouth full of cake, at his elder brother, whowas already beginning to take out his watch, to bid his mother andsisters resume their discarded jackets, and to send a scout for afour-wheeler.
But Falloden was inexorable. He tore his sister Nelly, a soft fluffycreature of seventeen, away from the shy attentions of the second-yearman, scoffed in disgust at Trix's desire for chocolates after aGargantuan meal, and declared that they would all be late for theEights, if any more gorging was allowed. His mother rose obediently. Tobe seen with such a son in the crowded Oxford streets filled her withpride. She could have walked beside him for hours.
At the college gate, Trix pinched her brother's arm.
"Well, Duggy, say it!"
"Say what, you little scug?"
"'Thank God, I've got you out!'" laughed the child, laying her cheekagainst his coat-sleeve. "That's what you're thinking. You know you are.I say, Duggy, you do look jolly in those colours!"
"Don't talk rot!" grumbled Falloden, but he winked at her in brotherlyfashion, and Trix was more than happy. Like her mother, she believedthat Douglas was simply the handsomest and cleverest fellow in theworld. When he scolded it was better than other people's praise, andwhen he gave you a real private wink, it raised a sister to the skies.On such soil does male arrogance grow!
Soon they were in the stream of people crossing Christ Church river ontheir way to the boats. The May sunshine lay broad on the buttercupmeadows, on the Christ Church elms, on the severe and blackened front ofCorpus, on the long gabled line of Merton. The river glittered in thedistance, and towards it the crowd of its worshippers--young girls inwhite, young men in flannels, elderly fathers and mothers from adistance, and young fathers and mothers from the rising tutorial homesof Oxford--made their merry way. Falloden looked in all directions forthe Hooper party. A new anxiety and eagerness were stirring in him whichhe resented, which he tried to put down. He did not wish, he did notintend, if he could help it, to be too much in love with anybody. He wasjealous of his own self-control, and intensely proud of his own strengthof will, as he might have been of a musical or artistic gift. It was hisparticular gift, and he would not have it weakened. He had seen men dothe most idiotic things for love. He did not intend to do such things.Love should be strictly subordinate to a man's career; women should besubordinate.
At the same time, from the second week of their acquaintance on theRiviera, he had wished to marry Constance Bledlow. He had proposed toher, only to be promptly refused, and on one mad afternoon, in thewoods of the Esterels, he had snatched a kiss. What an amazing fuss shemade about that kiss! He thought she would have cut him for ever. It waswith the greatest difficulty, and only after a grovelling apology, thathe had succeeded in making his peace. Yet all through the days of herwrath he had been quite certain that he would in the end appease her;which meant a triumphant confidence on his part that to a degree she didnot herself admit or understand, he had captured her. Her resoluterefusal to correspond with him, even after they had made it up and hewas on the point of returning to Oxford, had piqued him indeed. But hewas aware that she was due at Oxford, as her uncle's ward, some time inMay; and meanwhile he had coolly impressed upon himself that in theinterests of his work, it was infinitely better he should be without theexcitement of her letters. By the time she arrived, he would have gotthrough the rereading of his principal books, which a man must do in thelast term before the schools, and could begin to "slack." And after theschools, he could devote himself.
But now that they had met again, he was aware of doubts and difficultiesthat had not yet assailed him. That she was not indifferent to him--thathis presence still played upon her nerves and senses--so much he hadverified. But during their conversation at the Vice-Chancellor's partyhe had become aware of something hard and resistant in her--in her wholeattitude towards him--which had considerably astonished him. Hisarrogant self-confidence had reckoned upon the effect of absence, asmaking her softer and more yielding when they met again. The reverseseemed to be the case, and he ponde
red it with irritation....
"Oh, Duggy, isn't it ripping?" cried Trix, leaping and sidling at hiselbow like a young colt.
For they had reached the river, which lay a vivid blue, flashing underthe afternoon sun and the fleecy clouds. Along it lay the barges, acurving many-tinted line, their tall flag-staffs flying the colours ofthe colleges to which they belonged, their decks crowded withspectators. Innumerable punts were crossing and recrossing theriver--the towing-path opposite was alive with men. Everything dancedand glittered, the white reflections in the river, the sun upon theoars, the row of extravagantly green poplars on the further bank. Howstrong and lusty was the May light!--the yellow green of the elms--thegold of the buttercupped meadow! Only the dying moon in the high bluesuggested a different note; as of another world hidden behind thevisible world, waiting patiently, mysteriously, to take its place--tosee it fade.
"Oh, Duggy, there's somebody waving to you. Oh, it's Lord Meyrick. Andwho's that girl with him? She's bowing to you, too. She's got an awfullylovely frock! Oh, Duggy, do look at her!"
Falloden had long since looked at her. He turned carelessly to hismother. "There's Meyrick, mother, on that barge in front. You knowyou're dining with him to-night in Christ Church. And that's ConstanceBledlow beside him, to whom I asked you to write."
"Oh, is it? A good-looking girl," said his mother approvingly. "And whois that man beside her, with the extraordinary hair? He looks likesomebody in Lohengrin."
Falloden laughed, but not agreeably.
"You've about hit it! He's a Marmion man. A silly, affectedcreature--half a Pole. His music is an infernal nuisance in college. Weshall suppress it and him some day."
"What barge is it, Duggy? Are we going there?"
Falloden replied impatiently that the barge they were nearing belongedto Christ Church, and they were bound for the Marmion barge, muchfurther along.
Meanwhile he asked himself what could have taken the Hooper party to theChrist Church barge? Ewen Hooper was a Llandaff man, and Llandaff, asmall and insignificant college, shared a barge with another smallcollege some distance down the river.
As they approached the barge he saw that while Constance had Radowitz onher right, Sorell of St. Cyprian's stood on the other side of her. Ah,no doubt, that accounted for it. Sorell had been originally at "theHouse," was still a lecturer there, and very popular. He had probablyinvited the Hoopers with their niece. It was, of course, the best bargein the best position. Falloden remembered how at the Vice-Chancellor'sparty Sorell had hovered about Constance, assuming a kind of mildguardianship; until he himself had carried her off. Why? What on earthhad she to do with Sorell? Well, he must find out. Meanwhile, sheclearly did not intend to take any further notice of his neighbourhood.Sorell and Radowitz absorbed her. They were evidently explaining theraces to her, and she stood between them, a docile and charming vision,turning her graceful head from side to side. Falloden and his partycrossed her actual line of sight. But she took no further notice; andhe heard her laugh at something Radowitz was saying.
"Oh, Mr. Falloden, is that you--and Lady Laura! This is a pleasure!"
He turned to see a lady whom he cordially detested--a head's wife, whohappened to be an "Honourable," the daughter of a small peer, andterribly conscious of the fact. She might have reigned in Oxford; shepreferred to be a much snubbed dependent of London, and the smart peoplewhose invitations she took such infinite trouble to get. For she waspossessed of two daughters, tall and handsome girls, who were anobsession to her, an irritation to other people, and a cause of blushingto themselves. Her instinct for all men of family or title to be foundamong the undergraduates was amazingly extensive and acute; and she hadpaid much court to Falloden, as the prospective heir to a marquisate. Hehad hitherto treated her with scant attention, but she was not easilyabashed, and she fastened at once on Lady Laura, whom she had seen onceat a London ball.
"Where are you going, Lady Laura? To Marmion? Oh, no! Come on to ourbarge, you will see so much better, and save yourself another dusty bitof walk. Here we are!"
And she waved her parasol gaily towards a barge immediately ahead,belonging to one of the more important colleges. Lady Laura lookeddoubtfully at her son.
Falloden suddenly accepted, and with the utmost cordiality.
"That's really very good of you, Mrs. Manson! I shall certainly advisemy mother to take advantage of your kind offer. But you can't do withall of us!" He pointed smiling to Trix and Roger.
"Of course I can! The more the merrier!" And the lively lady stooped,laid an affectionate hand on Roger's shoulder, and said in a stageaside--"Our ices are very good!"
Roger hastily retreated.
* * * * *
The starting-gun had boomed--communicating the usual thrill and suddenripple of talk through the crowded barges.
"Now they're off!"
Lady Laura, Nelly, and "the babes" hung over the railing of the barge,looking excitedly for the first nose of a boat coming round the bend.Falloden, between the two fair-haired Miss Mansons, manoeuvred them andhimself into a position at the rear where he could both see and be seenby the party on the Christ Church barge, amid which a certain largewhite hat with waving feathers shone conspicuous. The two girls betweenwhom he stood, who had never found him in the least accessible before,were proud to be seen with him, and delighted to try their smiles onhim. They knew he was soon going down, and they had visions of dancingwith him in London, of finding an acquaintance, perhaps even a friend,at last, in those chilly London drawing-rooms, before which, if theirmother knew no such weakness, they often shivered.
Falloden looked down upon them with a half sarcastic, half benignantpatronage, and made himself quite agreeable. From the barge next door,indeed, the Manson and Falloden parties appeared to be on the mostintimate terms. Mrs. Manson, doing the honours of the college boat,flattering Lady Laura, gracious to the children, and glancing every nowand then at her two girls and their handsome companion, was enjoying acrowded and successful moment.
But she too was aware of the tall girl in white on the neighbouringdeck, and she turned enquiringly to Falloden.
"Do you know who she is?"
"The Risboroughs' daughter--Lady Constance Bledlow." Mrs. Manson'seyebrows went up.
"Indeed! Of course I knew her parents intimately! Where is she staying?"
Falloden briefly explained.
"But how very interesting! I must call upon her at once. But--I scarcelyknow the Hoopers!"
Falloden hung over the barge rail, and smiled unseen.
"Here they come!--here they come!" shouted the children, laying violenthands on Falloden that he might identify the boats for them.
Up rolled a mighty roar from the lower reaches of the river as the boatscame in sight, "Univ" leading; and the crowd of running and shouting mencame rushing along the towing-path. "Univ" was gallantly "bumped" infront of its own barge, and Magdalen went head of the river. A delirioustwenty minutes followed. Bump crashed on bump. The river in all itsvisible length flashed with the rising and falling oars--the whitebodies of the rowers strained back and forth. But it was soon over, andonly the cheering for the victorious crews remained; and theices--served to the visitors!--of which Roger was not slow to remindhis hostess.
The barges emptied, and the crowd poured out again into the meadows.Just outside the Christ Church barge, Constance with Nora beside her,and escorted by Sorell and Lord Meyrick, lifted a pair of eyes to a tallfellow in immaculate flannels and a Harrow cap. She had been aware ofhis neighbourhood, and he of hers, long before it was possible to speak.Falloden introduced his mother. Then he resolutely took possession ofConstance.
"I hope you approve what I have been doing about the mare?"
"I am of course most grateful. When am I to try her?"
"I shall take her out to-morrow afternoon. Then I'll report."
"It is extremely kind of you." The tone was strictly conventional.
He said nothing; and after a minute she c
ould not help looking up. Shemet an expression which showed a wounded gentleman beside her.
"I hope you saw the races well?" he said coldly.
"Excellently. And Mr. Sorell explained everything."
"You knew him before?"
"But of course!" she said, laughing. "I have known him for years."
"You never mentioned him--at Cannes."
"One does not always catalogue one's acquaintance, does one?"
"He seems to be more than an acquaintance."
"Oh, yes. He is a great friend. Mamma was so fond of him. He went withus to Sicily once. And Uncle Ewen likes him immensely."
"He is of course a paragon," said Falloden.
Constance glanced mockingly at her companion.
"I don't see why he should be called anything so disagreeable. All weknew of him was--that he was delightful! So learned--and simple--andmodest--the dearest person to travel with! When he left us at Palermo,the whole party seemed to go flat."
"You pile it on!"
"Not at all. You asked me if he were more than an acquaintance. I amgiving you the facts."
"I don't enjoy them!" said Falloden abruptly.
She burst into her soft laugh.
"I'm so sorry. But I really can't alter them. Where has my party goneto?"
She looked ahead, and saw that by a little judicious holding backFalloden had dexterously isolated her both from his own group and hers.Mrs. Manson and Lady Laura were far ahead in the wide, moving crowd thatfilled the new-made walk across the Christ Church meadow; so were theHoopers and the slender figure and dark head of Alexander Sorell.
"Don't distress yourself, please. We shall catch them up before we getto Merton Street. And this only pays the very smallest fraction of yourdebt! I understood that if my mother wrote--"
She coloured brightly.
"I didn't promise!" she said hastily. "And I found the Hoopers werecounting on me."
"No doubt. Oh, I don't grumble. But when friends--suppose we take theold path under the wall? It is much less crowded."
And before she knew where she was, she had been whisked out of thestream of visitors and undergraduates, and found herself walking almostin solitude in the shadow of one of the oldest walls in Oxford, theCathedral towering overhead, the crowd moving at some distance ontheir right.
"That's better," said Falloden coolly. "May I go on? I was saying thatwhen one friend disappoints another--bitterly!--there is such a thing asmaking up!"
There were beautiful notes in Falloden's deep voice, when he chose toemploy them. He employed them now, and the old thrill of something thatwas at once delight and fear ran through Constance. But she looked himin the face, apparently quite unmoved.
"Now it is you who are piling it on! You will use such tragicexpressions for the most trivial things. Of course, I am sorry if--"
"Then make amends!"--he said quickly. "Promise me--if the mare turns outwell--you will ride in Lathom Woods--on Saturday?"
His eyes shone upon her. The force of the man's personality seemed toenvelope her, to beat down the resistance which, as soon as he was outof her sight, the wiser mind in her built up.
She hesitated--smiled. And again the smile--or was it the May sun andwind?--gave her that heightening, that touch of brilliance that a faceso delicate must often miss.
Falloden's fastidious sense approved her wholly: the white dress; thehat that framed her brow; the slender gold chains which rose and fell onher gently rounded breast; her height and grace. Passion beat withinhim. He hung on her answer.
"Saturday--impossible! I am not free till Monday, at least. And whatabout the groom?" She looked up.
"I shall parade him to-morrow, livery, horse and all. I undertake heshall give satisfaction. The Lathom Woods just now are a dream!"
"It is all a dream!" she said, looking round her at the beauty of fieldand tree, of the May clouds, and the grey college walls--youth andyouth's emotion speaking in the sudden softening of her eyes.
He saw--he felt her--yielding.
"You'll come?"
"I--I suppose I may as well ride in Lathom Woods as anywhere else. Youhave a key?"
"The groom will have it. I meet you there."
She flushed a bright pink.
"That might have been left vague!"
"How are you to find your way through those woods without a guide?" heprotested.
She was silent a moment, then she said with decision:
"I must overtake my people."
"You shall. I want you to talk to my mother--and--you have still tointroduce me to your aunt and cousins."
Mirth crept into her eyes. The process of taming him had begun.
* * * * *
Falloden on the way back to his lodgings handed over his family to thetender offices of Meyrick and a couple of other gilded youths, who hadpromised to look after them for the evening. They were to dine at theRandolph, and go to a college concert. Falloden washed his hands ofthem, and shut himself up for five or six hours' grind, broken only by avery hasty meal. The thought of Constance hovered about him--but hiswill banished it. Will and something else--those aptitudes of brainwhich determined his quick and serviceable intelligence.
When after his frugal dinner he gave himself in earnest to the articlein a French magazine, on a new French philosopher, which had beenrecommended to him by his tutor as likely to be of use to him in hisgeneral philosophy paper, his mind soon took fire; Constance wasforgotten, and he lost himself in the splendour shed by the original andcreative thought of a great man, climbing, under his guidance, as thenight wore on, from point to point, and height to height, amid theOxford silence, broken only by the chiming bells, and a benightedfootfall in the street outside, until he seemed to have reached thebounds of the phenomenal and to be close on that outer vastness whencestream the primal forces--_Die Muetter_--as Goethe called them--whoseplay is with the worlds.
Then by way of calming the brain before sleep, he fell upon some notesto be copied and revised, on the "Religious Aspects of Greek Drama," andfinally amused himself with running through an ingenious "MemoriaTechnica" on the 6th Book of the Ethics which he had made for himselfduring the preceding winter.
Then work was done, and he threw it from him with the same energy asthat wherewith he had banished the remembrance of Constance some hoursbefore. Now he could walk his room in the May dawn, and think of her,and only of her. With all the activity of his quickened mental state, hethrew himself into the future--their rides together--their meetings, fewand measured till the schools were done--then!--all the hours of life,and a man's most obstinate effort, spent in the winning of her. He knewwell that she would be difficult to win.
But he meant to win her--and before others could seriously approach her.He was already nervously jealous of Sorell--and contemptuously jealousof Radowitz. And if they could torment him so, what would it be whenConstance passed into that larger world of society to which sooner orlater she was bound? No, she was to be wooed and married now. TheFalloden custom was to marry early--and a good custom too. His fatherwould approve, and money from the estate would of course be forthcoming.Constance was on her father's side extremely well-born; the Hooper bloodwould soon be lost sight of in a Risborough and Falloden descent. Shewas sufficiently endowed; and she had all the grace of person and mindthat a Falloden had a right to look for in his wife.
Marriage, then, in the autumn, when he would be twenty-four--two yearsof travel--then Parliament--
On this dream he fell asleep. A brisk wind sprang up with the sunrise,and rustled round his lightly-darkened room. One might have heard in itthe low laughter of Fortune on the watch.