those high-class finishing establishments where, in spite of the healthy
curriculum, perhaps because of it, there is ever an undercurrent of
interest in the opposing sex; and not even the gravest efforts to
eliminate instinct are quite successful. The disappearance of every
young male thing into the maw of the military machine put a premium on
instinct. The thoughts of Noel and her school companions were turned,
perforce, to that which, in pre-war freedom of opportunity they could
afford to regard as of secondary interest. Love and Marriage and
Motherhood, fixed as the lot of women by the countless ages, were
threatened for these young creatures. They not unnaturally pursued what
they felt to be receding.

When young Morland showed, by following her about with his eyes, what
was happening to him, Noel was pleased. From being pleased, she became a
little excited; from being excited she became dreamy. Then, about a week
before her father's arrival, she secretly began to follow the young man
about with her eyes; became capricious too, and a little cruel. If
there had been another young man to favour--but there was not; and she
favoured Uncle Bob's red setter. Cyril Morland grew desperate. During
those three days the demon her father dreaded certainly possessed
her. And then, one evening, while they walked back together from the
hay-fields, she gave him a sidelong glance; and he gasped out: "Oh!
Noel, what have I done?" She caught his hand, and gave it a quick
squeeze. What a change! What blissful alteration ever since!

Through the wood young Morland mounted silently, screwing himself up to
put things to the touch. Noel too mounted silently, thinking: 'I will
kiss him if he kisses me!' Eagerness, and a sort of languor, were
running in her veins; she did not look at him from under her shady
hat. Sun light poured down through every chink in the foliage; made the