Mademoiselle Pouchée was overjoyed when the girl announced herself ready, next day, to deliver her letters of introduction. ‘We shall see what such presentations lead to,’ exclaimed the kindly soul, her round face beaming. ‘A dinner here, a lunch there--the highest gentlemen in Cambridge to be met at each! I predict a _succès fou_! Not all the world, let me tell you, brings such letters to the University. By after to-morrow you will have every evening of your week engaged.’ ‘The University will keep its head, dear Pouchée. A singularly insignificant young person from the Channel Islands runs no risk of becoming a sensation. The highest gentlemen in Cambridge will pay Marjorie Bartrand just attention enough to ask her name--and forget it.’ Nevertheless, on the score of invitations, Pouchée’s forecast proved a true one. Before night, arrived a friendly invitation bidding Marjorie to dine at the house of the Master of Matthias next day. As Miss Bartrand looked forward to studying in Cambridge, the note added, a lady high in authority at Girton had been asked to meet her. ‘Of that Girton lady I speak not,’ observed Pouchée, when the hour came on the morrow for Marjorie to dress. ‘About Newnham and Girton I am dumb.’ Imagine Pouchée dumb on any subject, earthly or terrestrial! ‘I have lived by brain work, I have been a teacher over nineteen years. See my whitening hairs, my lost illusions, my disenchantments! In that sad trade the woman’s heart breathes not. Make yourself charming, fillette! The most distinguished society of Cambridge is to be met with at the table of the Master of Matthias. For a child of eighteen there may be better things in store than coming out high in a Tripos; yes, or standing on a level with the first wrangler of them all.’ Marjorie’s presumptive triumphs caused the whole Pouchée household to expand. Wax candles--rare extravagance--stood lit before her mirror. Flowers were on her toilette-table. Her white dinner dress, with its simple adjuncts, was lovingly laid ready for her by Mademoiselle’s hands. But in Marjorie’s restless heart there was no place for pretty dresses, for anticipation of social success. She drew aside her curtain. She gazed down through a chink of blind upon the street, hoping against hope, as she had so often done before, to discover the face of her false sweetheart among the passers-by.