Falloden had long since looked at her.  He turned carelessly to his mother.  “There’s Meyrick, mother, on that barge in front.  You know you’re dining with him to-night in Christ Church.  And that’s Constance Bledlow beside him, to whom I asked you to write.”

“Oh, is it?  A good-looking girl,” said his mother approvingly.  “And who is that man beside her, with the extraordinary hair?  He looks like somebody in Lohengrin.”

Falloden laughed, but not agreeably.

“You’ve about hit it!  He’s a Marmion man.  A silly, affected creature—­half a Pole.  His music is an infernal nuisance in college.  We shall suppress it and him some day.”

“What barge is it, Duggy?  Are we going there?”

Falloden replied impatiently that the barge they were nearing belonged to Christ Church, and they were bound for the Marmion barge, much further along.

Meanwhile he asked himself what could have taken the Hooper party to the Christ Church barge?  Ewen Hooper was a Llandaff man, and Llandaff, a small and insignificant college, shared a barge with another small college some distance down the river.

As they approached the barge he saw that while Constance had Radowitz on her 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 “the House,” was still a lecturer there, and very popular.  He had probably invited the Hoopers with their niece.  It was, of course, the best barge in the best position.  Falloden remembered how at the Vice-Chancellor’s party Sorell had hovered about Constance, assuming a kind of mild guardianship; until he himself had carried her off.  Why?  What on earth had she to do with Sorell?  Well, he must find out.  Meanwhile, she clearly did not intend to take any further notice of his neighbourhood.  Sorell and Radowitz absorbed her.  They were evidently explaining the races to her, and she stood between them, a docile and charming vision, turning her graceful head from side to side.  Falloden and his party crossed her actual line of sight.  But she took no further notice; and he 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, who happened to be an “Honourable,” the daughter of a small peer, and terribly conscious of the fact.  She might have reigned in Oxford; she preferred to be a much snubbed dependent of London, and the smart people whose invitations she took such infinite trouble to get.  For she was possessed of two daughters, tall and handsome girls, who were an obsession to her, an irritation to other people, and a cause of blushing to themselves.  Her instinct for all men of family or title to be found among the undergraduates was amazingly extensive and acute; and she had paid much court to Falloden, as the prospective heir to a marquisate.  He had hitherto treated her with scant attention, but she was not easily abashed, and she fastened at once on Lady Laura, whom she had seen once at a London ball.