“Oh!” It was a cry of protest.  Coming nearer she put her two hands lightly on his shoulders—.

“Do you think”—­he saw her breath fluttering—­“do you think I should let any one—­any one—­kiss me—­like that! just because I was sorry for them—­or for some one else?”

He stood motionless beneath her touch.

“You are sorry for me—­you angel!—­and you’re sorry for Otto—­and you want to make up to everybody—­and make everybody happy—­and—­”

“And one can’t!” said Connie quietly, her eyes bright with tears.  “Don’t I know that?  I repeat”—­her colour was very bright—­“but perhaps you won’t believe, that—­that”—­then she laughed—­“of my own free will, I never kissed anybody before?”

“Constance!” He threw his strong arms round her again.  But she slipped out of them.

“Am I believed?” The tone was peremptory.

Falloden stooped, lifted her hand and kissed it humbly.

“You know you ought to marry a duke!” he said, trying to laugh, but with a swelling throat.

“Thank you—­I never saw a duke yet I wanted to marry.”

“That’s it.  You’ve seen so little.  I am a pauper, and you might marry anybody.  It’s taking an unfair advantage.  Don’t you see—­what—­”

“What my aunts will think?” asked Constance coolly.  “Oh, yes, I’ve considered all that.”

She walked away, and came back, a little pale and grave.  She sat down on the arm of a chair and looked up at him.

“I see.  You are as proud as ever.”

That hurt him.  His face changed.

“You can’t really think that,” he said, with difficulty.

“Yes, yes, you are!” she said, wildly, covering her eyes a moment with her hands.  “It’s just the same as it was in the spring—­only different—­I told you then—­”

“That I was a bully and a cad!”

Her hands dropped sharply.

“I didn’t!” she protested.  But she coloured brightly as she spoke, remembering certain remarks of Nora’s.  “I thought—­yes I did think—­you cared too much about being rich—­and a great swell—­and all that.  But so did I!” She sprang up.  “What right had I to talk?  When I think how I patronised and looked down upon everybody!”

“You!” his tone was pure scorn.  “You couldn’t do such a thing if you tried for a week of Sundays.”

“Oh, couldn’t I?  I did.  Oxford seemed to me just a dear, stupid old place—­out of the world,—­a kind of museum—­where nobody mattered.  Silly, wasn’t it?—­childish?” She drew back her head fiercely, as though she defied him to excuse her.  “I was just amusing myself with it—­and with Otto—­and with you.  And that night, at Magdalen, all the time I was dancing with Otto, I was aiming—­abominably—­at you!  I wanted to provoke you—­to pay you back—­oh, not for Otto’s sake—­not at all!—­but just because—­I had asked you something—­and you had refused.  That was what stung me so.  And do you suppose I should have cared twopence, unless—­”