He sat up, looking up into her face, his hands clasped round his knees.

“That means you haven’t forgiven me?”

“It means that I judge and despise you,” she said passionately; “and that it was not an attraction to me to find you here—­quite the reverse!”

“Yet here you are—­sitting with me in this garden—­and you are looking delicious!  That dress becomes you so—­you are so graceful—­so exquisitely graceful.  And you never found a more perfect setting than this place—­these lawns and trees—­and the old college walls.  Oxford was waiting for you, and you for Oxford.  Are you laughing at me?”

“Naturally!”

“I could rave on by the hour if you would listen to me.”

“We have both something better to do—­thank goodness!  May I ask if you are doing any work?”

He laughed.

“Ten hours a day.  This is my first evening out since March.  I came to meet you.”

Constance bowed ironically.  Then for the first time, since their conversation began, it might have been seen that she had annoyed him.

“Friends are not allowed to doubt each other’s statements!” he said with animation.  “You see I still persist that you allowed me that name, when—­you refused me a better.  As to my work, ask any of my friends.  Talk to Meyrick.  He is a dear boy, and will tell you anything you like.  He and I ‘dig’ together in Beaumont Street.  My schools are now only three weeks off.  I work four hours in the morning.  Then I play till six—­and get in another six hours between then and 1 a.m.”

“Wonderful!” said Constance coolly.  “Your ways at Cannes were different.  It’s a mercy there’s no Monte Carlo within reach.”

“I play when I play, and work when I work!” he said with emphasis.  “The only thing to hate and shun always—­is moderation.”

“And yet you call yourself a classic!  Well, you seem to be sure of your First.  At least Uncle Ewen says so.”

“Ewen Hooper?  He is a splendid fellow—­a real Hellenist.  He and I get on capitally.  About your aunt—­I am not so sure.”

“Nobody obliges you to know her,” was the tranquil reply.

“Ah!—­but if she has the keeping of you!  Are you coming to tea with me and my people?  I have got a man in college to lend me his rooms.  My mother and sister will be up for two nights.  Very inconsiderate of them—­with my schools coming on—­but they would do it.  Thursday?—­before the Eights?  Won’t my mother be chaperon enough?”

“Certainly.  But it only puts off the evil day.”

“When I must grovel to Mrs. Hooper?—­if I am to see anything of you?  Splendid!  You are trying to discipline me again—­as you did at Cannes!”

In the semidarkness she could see the amusement in his eyes.  Her own feeling, in its mingled weakness and antagonism, was that of the feebler wrestler just holding his ground, and fearing every moment to be worsted by some unexpected trick of the game.  She gave no signs of it, however.