Lady Connie by Mrs. Humphry Ward
page 76 of 450 (16%)
page 76 of 450 (16%)
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"Yours sincerely,
"DOUGLAS FALLODEN." "Will that offend her?" he thought. "But a pin-prick is owed. I was distinctly given to understand that if the proprieties were observed, she would come." In reality, however, he was stimulated by her refusal, as he was by all forms of conflict, which, for him, made the zest of life. He shut himself up that evening and the following morning with his Greats work. Then he and Meyrick rushed up to the racket courts in the Parks for an hour's hard exercise, after which, in the highest physical spirits, a splendid figure in his white flannels, with the dark blue cap and sash of the Harrow Eleven--(he had quarrelled with the captain of the Varsity Eleven very early in his Oxford career, and by an heroic sacrifice to what he conceived to be his dignity had refused to let himself be tried for it)--he went off to meet his mother and sister at the railway station. It was, of course, extremely inconsiderate of his mother to be coming at all in these critical weeks before the schools. She ought to have kept away. And yet he would be very glad to see her--and Nelly. He was fond of his home people, and they of him. They were his belongings--and they were Fallodens. Therefore his strong family pride accepted them, and made the most of them. But his countenance fell when, as the train slowed into the railway station, he perceived beckoning to him from the windows, not two |
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