They walked on into the town, looking into various colleges, sitting in Broad Walk, and loitering over shops, till one o’clock struck from Oxford’s many towers.

“Heavens!” said Constance—­“and lunch is at 1.15!”

They turned and walked rapidly along the “Corn,” which was once more full of men hurrying back to their own colleges from the lecture rooms of Balliol and St. John’s.  Now, it seemed to Constance that the men they passed were of a finer race.  She noticed plenty of tall fellows, with broad shoulders, and the look of keen-bitten health.

“Look at that pair coming!” she said to Annette.  “That’s better!”

The next moment, she stopped, confused, eyes wide, lips parted.  For the taller of the two had taken off his cap, and stood towering and smiling in her path.  A young man, of about six foot three, magnificently made, thin with the leanness of an athlete in training,—­health, power, self-confidence, breathing from his joyous looks and movements—­was surveying her.  His lifted cap showed a fine head covered with thick brown curls.  The face was long, yet not narrow; the cheek-bones rather high, the chin conspicuous.  The eyes—­very dark and heavily lidded—­were set forward under strongly marked eyebrows; and both they, the straight nose with its close nostrils, and the red mouth, seemed to be drawn in firm yet subtle strokes on the sunburnt skin, as certain Dutch and Italian painters define the features of their sitters in a containing outline as delicate as it is unfaltering.  The aspect of this striking person was that of a young king of men, careless, audacious, good-humoured; and Constance Bledlow’s expression, as she held out her hand to him, betrayed, much against her will, that she was not indifferent to the sight of him.

“Well met, indeed!” said the young man, the gaiety in his look, a gaiety full of meaning, measuring itself against the momentary confusion in hers.  “I have been hoping to hear of you—­for a long time!—­Lady Constance.  Are you with the—­the Hoopers—­is it?”

“I am staying with my uncle and aunt.  I only arrived yesterday.”  The girl’s manner had become, in a few seconds, little less than repellent.

“Well, Oxford’s lively.  You’ll find lots going on.  The Eights begin the day after to-morrow, and I’ve got my people coming up.  I hope you’ll let Mrs. Hooper bring you to tea to meet them?  Oh, by the way, do you know Meyrick?  I think you must have met him.”  He turned to his companion, a fair-haired giant, evidently his junior.  “Lord Meyrick—­Lady Constance Bledlow.  Will you come, Lady Connie?”

“I don’t know what my aunt’s engagements are,” said Constance stiffly.

The trio had withdrawn into the shade of a wide doorway belonging to an old Oxford inn.  Annette was looking at the windows of the milliner’s shop next door.

“My mother shall do everything that is polite—­everything in the world!  And when may I come to call?  You have no faith in my manners, I know!” laughed the young man.  “How you did sit upon me at Cannes!” And again his brilliant eyes, fixed upon her, seemed to be saying all sorts of unspoken things.