And yet she had never hesitated when he had asked her to marry him.  Ride with him—­laugh with him—­quarrel with him, yes!—­marry him, no!  Something very deep in her recoiled.  She refused him, and then had lain awake most of the night thinking of her mother and feeling ecstatically sure, while the tears came raining, that the dear ghost approved that part of the business at least, if no other.

And how could there be any compunction about it?  Douglas Falloden, with his egotism, his pride in himself, his family, his wits, his boundless confidence in his own brilliant future, was surely fair game.  Such men do not break their hearts for love.  She had refused his request that he might write to her without a qualm; and mostly because she imagined so vividly what would have been his look of triumph had she granted it.  Then she had spent the rest of the winter and early spring in thinking about him.  And now she was going to do this reckless thing, out of sheer wilfulness, sheer thirst for adventure.  She had always been a spoilt child, brought up with boundless indulgence, and accustomed to all the excitements of life.  It looked as though Douglas Falloden were to be her excitement in Oxford.  Girls like the two Miss Mansons might take possession of him in public, so long as she commanded those undiscovered rides and talks which revealed the real man.  At the same time, he should never be able to feel secure that she would do his bidding, or keep appointments.  As soon as Lady Laura’s civil note arrived, she was determined to refuse it.  He had counted on her coming; therefore she would not go.  Her first move had been a deliberate check; her second should be a concession.  In any case she would keep the upper hand.

Nevertheless there was an inner voice which mocked, through all the patting and curling and rolling applied by Annette’s skilled hands to her mistress’s brown hair.  Had not Falloden himself arranged this whole adventure ahead?—­found her a horse and groom, while she was still in the stage of thinking about them, and settled the place of rendezvous?

She could not deny it; but her obstinate confidence in her own powers and will was not thereby in the least affected.  She was going because it amused her to go; not because he prescribed it.

The following day, Saturday, witnessed an unexpected stream of callers on Mrs. Hooper.  She was supposed to be at home on Saturday afternoons to undergraduates; but the undergraduates who came were few and shy.  They called out of respect for the Reader, whose lectures they attended and admired.  But they seldom came a second time; for although Alice had her following of young men, it was more amusing to meet her anywhere else than under the eyes of her small, peevish mother, who seemed to be able to talk of nothing else than ailments and tabloids, and whether the Bath or the Buxton waters were the better for her own kind of rheumatism.

On this afternoon, however, the Hoopers’ little drawing-room and the lawn outside were crowded with folk.  Alexander Sorell arrived early, and found Constance in a white dress strolling up and down the lawn under a scarlet parasol and surrounded by a group of men with whom she had made acquaintance on the Christ Church barge.  She received him with a pleasure, an effusion, which made a modest man blush.