her--and never said a word!--a single word!"

Ewen Hooper shrugged his shoulders.

"I'm sure I don't know, my dear."

Mrs. Hooper turned to her daughter who had been standing silent and
neglected beside her, suffering, as her mother well knew, torments of
wounded pride and feeling. For although Herbert Pryce had been long
since dismissed by Connie, he had not yet returned to the side of the
eldest Miss Hooper.

"I don't like such ways," said Mrs. Hooper, with sparkling eyes. "It was
ill-bred and underhanded of Connie not to tell us at once--I shall
certainly speak to her about it!"

"It makes us look such fools," said Alice, her mouth pursed and set. "I
told Mr. Pryce that Connie knew no one to-night, except Mr. Sorell and
Mr. Falloden."

* * * * *

The hall grew more crowded; the talk more furious. Lord Glaramara
insisted, with the wilfulness of the man who can do as he pleases, that
Constance Bledlow--whoever else came and went--should stay beside him.

"You can't think what I owed to her dear people in Rome three years
ago!" he said to the Vice-Chancellor. "I adored her mother! And
Constance is a charming child. She and I made great friends. Has she
come to live in Oxford for a time? Lucky Oxford! What--with the Hoopers?