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."