ceremony. Yesterday the Duke had looked keenly forward to his
excursion. It was only in those too rarely required robes that he had
the sense of being fully dressed. But to-day not a thought had he of
them.

Some clock clove with silver the stillness of the morning. Ere came
the second stroke, another and nearer clock was striking. And now
there were others chiming in. The air was confused with the sweet
babel of its many spires, some of them booming deep, measured
sequences, some tinkling impatiently and outwitting others which had
begun before them. And when this anthem of jealous antiphonies and
uneven rhythms had dwindled quite away and fainted in one last
solitary note of silver, there started somewhere another sequence; and
this, almost at its last stroke, was interrupted by yet another, which
went on to tell the hour of noon in its own way, quite slowly and
significantly, as though none knew it.

And now Oxford was astir with footsteps and laughter--the laughter and
quick footsteps of youths released from lecture-rooms. The Duke
shifted from the window. Somehow, he did not care to be observed,
though it was usually at this hour that he showed himself for the
setting of some new fashion in costume. Many an undergraduate, looking
up, missed the picture in the window-frame.

The Duke paced to and fro, smiling ecstatically. He took the two studs
from his pocket and gazed at them. He looked in the glass, as one
seeking the sympathy of a familiar. For the first time in his life, he
turned impatiently aside. It was a new kind of sympathy he needed
to-day.