“Well, Mr. and Mrs. Hooper are going, cook says, to the Isle of Wight, and Miss Alice is going with them,” said Annette, “and Miss Nora’s going to join them after a bit in Scotland.”

“I know all that,” said Constance impatiently.  “The question is—­do you see me sitting in lodgings at Ryde with Aunt Ellen for five or six weeks, doing a little fancy-work, and walking out with Aunt Ellen and Alice on the pier?”

Annette laughed discreetly over her knitting, but said nothing.

“No,” said Connie decidedly.  “That can’t be done.  I shall have to sample Aunt Marcia.  I must speak to Uncle Ewen to-morrow.  Now put the light out, please, Annette; I’m going to sleep.”

But it was some time before she went to sleep.  The night was hot and thunderous, and her windows were wide open.  Drifting in came the ever-recurring bells of Oxford, from the boom of the Christ Church “Tom,” far away, through every variety of nearer tone.  Connie lay and sleepily listened to them.  To her they were always voices, half alive, half human, to which the dreaming mind put words that varied with the mood of the dreamer.

Presently, she breathed a soft good night into the darkness—­“Mummy—­mummy darling! good night!” It was generally her last waking thought.  But suddenly another—­which brought with it a rush of excitement—­interposed between her and sleep.

“Tuesday,” she murmured—­“Mr. Sorell says the schools will be over by Tuesday.  I wonder!—­”

And again the bluebell carpet seemed to be all round her—­the light and fragrance and colour of the wood.  And the man on the black horse beside her was bending towards her, all his harsh strength subdued, for the moment, to the one end of pleasing her.  She saw the smile in his dark eyes; and the touch of sarcastic brusquerie in the smile, that could rouse her own fighting spirit, as the touch of her whip roused the brown mare.

* * * * *

“Am I really so late?” said Connie, in distress, running downstairs the following afternoon to find the family and various guests waiting for her in the hall.

“Well, I hope we shan’t miss everybody,” said Alice sharply.  “How late are we?”

She turned to Herbert Pryce.

The young don smiled and evaded the question.

“Nearly half an hour!” said Alice.  “Of course they’ll think we’re not coming.”

“They” were another section of the party who were taking a couple of boats round from the lower river, and were to meet the walkers coming across the Parks, at the Cherwell.

“Dreadfully sorry!” said Connie, who had opened her eyes, however, as though Alice’s tone astonished her.  “But my watch has gone quite mad.”

“It does it every afternoon!” murmured Alice to a girl friend of Nora’s who was going with the party.  It was an aside, but plainly heard by Constance—­whose cheeks flushed.

She turned appealingly to Herbert Pryce.