“Mr. Falloden,” said Constance presently, “I want you to promise me something.”

“Ask me,” he said eagerly.

“I want you to give up ragging Otto Radowitz!”

His countenance changed.

“Who has been talking to you?”

“That doesn’t matter.  It is unworthy of you.  Give it up.”

Falloden laughed with good humour.

“I assure you it does him a world of good!”

She argued hotly; astonished, in her young inexperience, that his will could so soon reassert itself against hers; sharply offended, indeed, that after she had given him the boon of this rendezvous, he could hesitate for a moment as to the boon she asked in return—­had humbled herself to ask.  For had she not often vowed to herself that she would never, never ask the smallest favour of him; while on her side a diet of refusals and rebuffs was the only means to keep him in check?

But that diet was now gaily administered to herself.

Falloden argued with energy that a man who has never been to a public school has got to be “disciplined” at the university; that Otto Radowitz, being an artist, was specially in need of discipline; that no harm had been done him, or would be done him.  But he must be made to understand that certain liberties and impertinences would not be tolerated by the older men.

“He never means them!” cried Constance.  “He doesn’t understand.  He is a foreigner.”

“No!  He is an Englishman here—­and must behave as such.  Don’t spoil him, Lady Connie!”

He looked at her imperiously—­half smiling, half frowning.

“Remember!—­he is my friend!”

“I do remember,” he said drily.  “I am not likely to forget.”  Constance flushed, and proudly dropped the subject.  He saw that he had wounded her, but he quietly accepted it.  There was something in the little incident that made her more aware of his overbearing character than ever.

“If I married him,” she thought, “I should be his slave!”

Tea had been daintily spread for them under a birch-tree near the keeper’s lodge.  The keeper’s wife served them with smiles and curtsies, and then discreetly disappeared.  Falloden waited on Constance as a squire on his princess; and all round them lay the green encircling rampart of the wood.  In the man’s every action, there was the homage of one who only keeps silence because the woman he loves imposes it.  But Constance again felt that recurrent fear creeping over her.  She had been a fool—­a fool!

He escorted her to the gate of the wood where Joseph was waiting.

“And now for our next merry meeting?” he said, as he got down to tighten her stirrup which had stretched a little.

Constance hurriedly said she could not promise—­there were so many engagements.

Falloden did not press her.  But he held her hand when she gave it him.

“Are you angry with me?” he said, in a low voice, while his eyes mocked a little.