"I'm sure of it. She's a new-comer, however, and she doesn't get into Percival's set if I can help it." "Dan! It can't be so bad if Mrs Reeves is willing to go. She accepted in a minute. I heard her myself." "She goes everywhere, to the wildest fellows' rooms. She has her own ideas, no doubt, but I don't profess to understand them." He hesitated, puckering his brows, and looking at her with dark, questioning eyes. "I have no authority over you, Darsie, but I wish--" "Ralph saved my life," interrupted Darsie simply. Dan looked at her sharply, stared with scrutinising attention at her face, but spoke no further word of protest. He evidently realised, as Darsie did herself, that it would be a mean act to reject the friendship of a man who had wrought so great a service. Half an hour later the two girls slowly wended their way past the tower gateway of Trinity, past Caius, with its twinkling lights, stately King's, and modest Catherine's, to the homelike shelter of their own dear Newnham. "Well!" cried Hannah, breaking a long silence, "you had a big success and I had--_not_! But you're not a bit happier than I, that I can see. Men are poor, blind bats. I prefer my own sex; they are much more discriminating, and when they like you--they _like_ you, and there's no more shilly-shally. Those men never know their own minds!" CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. MRS. REEVES MAKES A PROPOSAL. Four days later Darsie went by appointment to her _tete-a-tete_ tea with the professional chaperon with a pleasurable expectation which was largely streaked with curiosity. If physiognomy counted for anything, Mrs Reeves must surely be a most sweet and noble character. Her grey eyes looked into yours with a straight, transparent gaze, her lips closed one upon another firmly enough to debar all trace of weakness, yet not so firmly as to hint at undue severity, her hair waved back from a broad white brow. It was, as Dan had said, difficult to understand how such a woman could be the willing companion of men whom even fellow-students were anxious to shun. Darsie wondered if the afternoon's conversation would throw any light on this knotty point. She was shown, not into the drawing-room but into a cosy little den on the second floor, a sort of glorious edition of a college study, where Mrs Reeves sat reading by the fire, clad in a loose velvet gown of a curious reddish-brown, like the autumn tint of a leaf, which matched the high lights of her chestnut hair. Darsie watched her with fascinated attention as she presided over the tea-table, with lithe, graceful movements which made a poem out of the every-day proceeding, and Mrs Reeves studied her in return, as she chatted lightly about a dozen casual subjects. Then the tea-things were carried away, and with the drawing nearer to the fire conversation took a more intimate turn.