Falloden saluted her joyously.  He rode a handsome Irish horse, nearly black, with a white mark on its forehead; a nervous and spirited creature, which its rider handled with the ease of one trained from his childhood to the hunting field.  His riding dress, with its knee-breeches and leggings pleased the feminine eye; so did his strong curly head as he bared it, and the animation of his look.

“This is better, isn’t it, than ’’ammer, ’ammer, ’ammer on the ’ard ’igh road!’ I particularly want to show you the bluebells—­they’re gorgeous!  But they’re quite on the other side—­a long way off.  And then you’ll be tired—­you’ll want tea.  I’ve arranged it.”

“Joseph”—­he turned to the groom—­“you know the head keeper’s cottage?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, go off there and wait.  Tell the keeper’s wife that I shall bring a lady to tea there in about an hour.  She knows.”  Joseph turned obediently, took the left hand road, and was soon out of sight.

The two riders paced side by side through the green shadows of the wood.  Constance was flushed—­but ’she looked happy and gracious.  Falloden had not seen her so gracious since Oxford had brought them again across each other.  They fell at once, for the first time since her arrival, into the easy talk of their early Riviera days; and he found himself doing his very best to please her.  She asked him questions about his approaching schools; and it amused him, in the case of so quick a pupil, to frame a “chaffing” account of Oxford examinations and degrees; to describe the rush of an Honour man’s first year before the mods’ gate is leaped; the loitering and “slacking” of the second year and part of the third; and then the setting of teeth and girding of loins, when a man realises that some of the lost time is gone forever, and that the last struggle is upon him.

“What I am doing now is degrading!—­getting ‘tips’ from the tutors—­pinning up lists—­beastly names and dates—­in my rooms—­learning hard bits by heart—­cribbing and stealing all I can.  And I have still some of my first year’s work to go through again.  I must cut Oxford for the last fortnight—­and go into retreat.”

Constance expressed her wonder that any one could ever do any work in the summer term—­

“You are all so busy lunching each other’s Sisters and cousins and aunts!  It is a great picnic—­not a university,” she said flippantly.

“Distracting, I admit—­but—­”

He paused.

“But—­what?”

After a moment, he turned a glowing countenance towards her.

“That is not my chief cause of flight!”

She professed not to understand.

“It is persons distract me—­not tea-parties.  Persons I want to be seeing and talking to—­persons I can not keep myself away from.”

He looked straight before him.  The horses ambled on together, the reins on their necks.  In the distance a cuckoo called from the river meadows, and round the two young figures one might have fancied an attendant escort of birds, as wrens, tits, pippets, fled startled by their approach.