"Say what, you little scug?"

"'Thank God, I've got you out!'" laughed the child, laying her cheek
against his coat-sleeve. "That's what you're thinking. You know you are.
I say, Duggy, you do look jolly in those colours!"

"Don't talk rot!" grumbled Falloden, but he winked at her in brotherly
fashion, and Trix was more than happy. Like her mother, she believed
that Douglas was simply the handsomest and cleverest fellow in the
world. When he scolded it was better than other people's praise, and
when he gave you a real private wink, it raised a sister to the skies.
On such soil does male arrogance grow!

Soon they were in the stream of people crossing Christ Church river on
their way to the boats. The May sunshine lay broad on the buttercup
meadows, on the Christ Church elms, on the severe and blackened front of
Corpus, on the long gabled line of Merton. The river glittered in the
distance, and towards it the crowd of its worshippers--young girls in
white, young men in flannels, elderly fathers and mothers from a
distance, and young fathers and mothers from the rising tutorial homes
of Oxford--made their merry way. Falloden looked in all directions for
the Hooper party. A new anxiety and eagerness were stirring in him which
he resented, which he tried to put down. He did not wish, he did not
intend, if he could help it, to be too much in love with anybody. He was
jealous of his own self-control, and intensely proud of his own strength
of will, as he might have been of a musical or artistic gift. It was his
particular gift, and he would not have it weakened. He had seen men do
the most idiotic things for love. He did not intend to do such things.
Love should be strictly subordinate to a man's career; women should be