"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.