Lady Connie | Page 6

a large and varied world, who took all
things without surprise, as they came. Dr. Hooper had felt some
emotion, and betrayed some, in this meeting with his sister's motherless
child; but the girl's only betrayal of feeling had lain in the sharpness
with which she had turned away from her uncle's threatened effusion.
"And how she looks at us!" thought Alice. "She looks at us through and
through. Yet she doesn't stare."
But at that moment Alice heard the word "prince," and her attention
was instantly arrested.
"We had some Russian neighbours," the newcomer was saying; "Prince
and Princess Jaroslav; and they had an English party at Christmas. It

was great fun. They used to take us out riding into the mountains, or
into Italy." She paused a moment, and then said carelessly--as though
to keep up the conversation--"There was a Mr. Falloden with them--an
undergraduate at Marmion College, I think. Do you know him, Aunt
Ellen?" She turned towards her aunt.
But Mrs. Hooper only looked blank. She was just thinking anxiously
that she had forgotten to take her tabloids after lunch, because Ewen
had hustled her off so much too soon to the station.
"I don't think we know him," she said vaguely, turning towards Alice.
"We know all about him. He was introduced to me once."
The tone of the eldest Miss Hooper could scarcely have been colder.
The eyes of the girl opposite suddenly sparkled into laughter.
"You didn't like him?"
"Nobody does. He gives himself such ridiculous airs."
"Does he?" said Constance. The information seemed to be of no
interest to her. She asked for another cup of tea.
"Oh, Falloden of Marmion?" said Dr. Hooper. "I know him quite well.
One of the best pupils I have. But I understand he's the heir to his old
uncle, Lord Dagnall, and is going to be enormously rich. His father's a
millionaire already. So of course he'll soon forget his Greek. A horrid
waste!"
"He's detested in college!" Alice's small face lit up vindictively.
"There's a whole set of them. Other people call them 'the bloods.' The
dons would like to send them all down."
"They won't send Falloden down, my dear, before he gets his First in
Greats, which he will do this summer. But this is his last term. I never
knew any one write better Greek iambics than that fellow," said the
Reader, pausing in the middle of his cup of tea to murmur certain

Greek lines to himself. They were part of the brilliant copy of verses by
which Douglas Falloden of Marmion, in a fiercely contested year, had
finally won the Ireland, Ewen Hooper being one of the examiners.
"That's what's so abominable," said Alice, setting her small mouth.
"You don't expect reading men to drink, and get into rows."
"Drink?" said Constance Bledlow, raising her eyebrows.
Alice went into details. The dons of Marmion, she said, were really
frightened by the spread of drinking in college, all caused by the bad
example of the Falloden set. She talked fast and angrily, and her cousin
listened, half scornfully, but still attentively.
"Why don't they keep him in order?" she said at last. "We did!" And
she made a little gesture with her hand, impatient and masterful, as
though dismissing the subject.
And at that moment Nora came into the room, flushed either with
physical exertion, or the consciousness of her own virtue. She found a
place at the tea-table, and panting a little demanded to be fed.
"It's hungry work, carrying up trunks!"
"You didn't!" exclaimed Constance, in large-eyed astonishment. "I say,
I am sorry! Why did you? I'm sure they were too heavy. Why didn't
Annette get a man?"
And sitting up, she bent across the table, all charm suddenly, and soft
distress.
"We did get one, but he was a wretched thing. I was worth two of him,"
said Nora triumphantly. "You should feel my biceps. There!"
And slipping up her loose sleeve, she showed an arm, at which
Constance Bledlow laughed. And her laugh touched her face with
something audacious--something wild--which transformed it.
"I shall take care how I offend you!"

Nora nodded over her tea.
"Your maid was shocked. She said I might as well have been a man."
"It's quite true," sighed Mrs. Hooper. "You always were such a tomboy,
Nora."
"Not at all! But I wish to develop my muscles. That's why I do Swedish
exercises every morning. It's ridiculous how flabby girls are. There isn't
a girl in my lecture I can't put down. If you like, I'll teach you my
exercises," said Nora, her mouth full of tea-cake, and her expression
half friendly, half patronising.
Connie Bledlow did not immediately reply. She seemed to be quietly
examining Nora, as she had already examined Alice, and