‘Go back to school!’ he exclaimed. ‘What, after having tasted liberty, and learnt to shoot Stratford bridge, and to beat her master at billiards—for that last cannon makes the hundred, Daphne! Back to school, indeed! What a little humbug you must be to talk of such a thing!’ ‘Yes,’ answered Daphne coolly, as she put away her cue, and came quietly round to her sister’s side; ‘I am a little bit of a humbug. I think I try to humbug myself sometimes. I persuaded myself this morning that I really thirsted for knowledge; but my father contrived to quench that righteous thirst with a very big dose of cold water—so henceforth I renounce all attempts to improve myself.’ The clock on the chimney-piece struck the half-hour after ten. ‘I ordered my dog-cart for ten,’ said Gerald; ‘I hope we have not transgressed, Lina, by staying so late?’ ‘I am not going till eleven, unless Miss Lawford sends me away,’ said Turchill. ‘Eleven is the mystic hour at which Sir Vernon usually tells me to go about my business. I know the ways and manners of the house better than a wretched wanderer like you, whose last idea of time is derived from some wretched old Dalecarlian town-clock.’ ‘We had better go back to the drawing-room,’ suggested Madoline. ‘My father has finished his letters by this time, I daresay.’ ‘Then good-night everybody,’ said Daphne. ‘I’m going into the garden to cool myself after that fearful struggle, and then to bed.’ She ran off through the conservatory while Gerald was opening the opposite door for Madoline to go up to the drawing-room by the indoor staircase. Daphne stopped to draw breath on the moonlit terrace. ‘How ridiculously I have been gabbling!’ she said to herself, with her hands clasping her burning forehead. ‘Why can’t I hold my tongue? I am detestable to myself and everybody.’ ‘Daphne,’ said someone close at her side, in a tone of friendliest concern, ‘I’m afraid you’re really tired.’ It was Edgar Turchill, who had followed her through the conservatory. ‘Tired! Not at all. I would play against you again to-night—and beat you—if it were not too late.’ ‘But I am sure you are tired; there is a something in your voice—strained, unnatural. Have you been vexed to-day? My poor little Daphne,’ he went on tenderly, taking her hand, ‘something has gone wrong with you, I am sure. Has your aunt been lecturing?’ ‘No. My father was unkind to me this morning; and I was weak enough to take his unkindness to heart; which I ought not to have done, being so well broken in to it.’ ‘And did you really and truly wish to go back to school?’ ‘I really and truly felt that I was an ignoramus, and that I had better go on with my education while I was young enough to learn.’ ‘Daphne, if you had all the knowledge of all the girls in Girton screwed into that little golden head of yours, you wouldn’t be one whit more charming than you are now.’