“Please carry my waterproof, while I button my gloves.”  Pryce was enchanted.  As the party left the house, he and Constance walked on together, ahead of the others.  She put on her most charming manners, and the young man was more than flattered.

What was it, he asked himself, complacently, that gave her such a delicate distinction?  Her grey dress, and soft grey hat, were, he supposed, perfect of their kind.  But Oxford in the summer term was full of pretty dresses.  No, it must be her ease, her sureness of herself that banished any awkward self-consciousness both in herself and her companions, and allowed a man to do himself justice.

He forgot her recent snubs and went off at score about his own affairs, his college, his prospects of winning a famous mathematical prize given by the Berlin Academy, his own experience of German Universities, and the shortcomings of Oxford.  On these last he became scornfully voluble.  He was inclined to think he should soon cut it, and go in for public life.  These university towns were really very narrowing!

“Certainly,” said Constance amiably.  Was he thinking of Parliament?

Well, no, not at once.  But journalism was always open to a man with brains, and through journalism one got into the House, when the chance came along.  The House of Commons was dangerously in want of new blood.

“I am certain I could speak,” he said ardently.  “I have made several attempts here, and I may say they have always come off.”

Constance threw him a shy glance.  She was thinking of a dictum of Uncle Ewen’s which he had delivered to her on a walk some days previously.  “What is it makes the mathematicians such fools?  They never seem to grow up.  They tell us they’re splendid fellows, and of course we must believe them.  But who’s to know?”

Meanwhile, Alice and Sorell followed them at some distance behind, while Mrs. Hooper and three or four other members of the party brought up the rear.  Scroll’s look was a little clouded.  He had heard what passed in the hall, and he found himself glancing uncomfortably from the girl beside him to the pair forging so gaily ahead.  Alice Hooper’s expression seemed to him that of something weak and tortured.  All through the winter, in the small world of Oxford, the flirtation between Pryce of Beaumont and Ewen Hooper’s eldest girl had been a conspicuous thing, even for those who had little or no personal knowledge of the Hoopers.  It was noticed with amusement that Pryce had at last found some one to whom he might talk as long and egotistically as he pleased about himself and his career; and kindly mothers had said to each other that it would be a comfort to the Hoopers to have one of the daughters settled, though in a modest way.

“It is pleasant to see that your cousin enjoys Oxford so much,” said Sorell, as they neared the museum, and saw Pryce and Connie disappearing through the gate of the park.