So he had held aloof, and as Constance resentfully remembered she had received but two letters from him since her father’s death. Ewen Hooper, with whom he had an academic rather than a social acquaintance, had kept him generally informed about her, and he knew that she was expected in Oxford. But again he did not mean to put himself forward, or to remind her unnecessarily of his friendship with her parents. At the Vice-Chancellor’s party, indeed, an old habit of looking after her had seized him again, and he had not been able to resist it. But it was her long disappearance with Falloden, her heightened colour, and preoccupied manner when they parted at the college gate, together with the incident at the boat-races of which he had been a witness, which had suddenly developed a new and fighting resolve in him. If there was one type in Oxford he feared and detested more than another it was the Falloden type. To him, a Hellene in temper and soul—if to be a Hellene means gentleness, reasonableness, lucidity, the absence of all selfish pretensions—men like Falloden were the true barbarians of the day, and the more able the more barbarian.
Thus, against his own will and foresight, he was on the way to become a frequenter of the Hoopers’ house. He had called on Wednesday, taken the whole party to the boats on Thursday, and given them supper afterwards in his rooms. They had all met again at the boats on Friday, and here he was on Saturday, that he might make plans with Constance for Sunday and for several other days ahead. He was well aware that things could not go on at that pace; but he was determined to grasp the situation, and gauge the girl’s character, if he could.
[Illustration: The tea-party at Mrs. Hooper’s]
He saw plainly that her presence at the Hoopers was going to transform the household in various unexpected ways. On this Saturday afternoon Mrs. Hooper’s stock of teacups entirely ran out; so did her garden chairs. Mrs. Manson called—and Lord Meyrick, under the wing of a young fellow of All Souls, smooth-faced and slim, one of the “mighty men” of the day, just taking wing for the bar and Parliament. Falloden, he understood, had put in an appearance earlier in the afternoon; Herbert Pryce, and Bobbie Vernon of Magdalen, a Blue of the first eminence, skirmished round and round the newcomer, taking possession of her when they could. Mrs. Hooper, under the influence of so much social success, showed a red and flustered countenance, and her lace cap went awry. Alice helped her mother in the distribution of tea, but was curiously silent and self-effaced. It was dismally true that the men who usually paid attention to her were now entirely occupied with Constance. Bobbie Vernon, who was artistic, was holding an ardent though intermittent discussion with Constance on the merits of old pictures and new. Pryce occasionally took part in it, but only, as Sorell soon perceived, for the sake of diverting a few of Connie’s looks and gestures, a sally or a smile, now and then to himself.