Perhaps he, too, had been somewhat formal—had fenced himself round with forms and ceremonies—lest some lurking sentiment which he had never dared to analyse, or even to think about, should grow stronger. He wanted to be honest; he wanted to be true and loyal. But the lovely young face, so piquant, so entrancing in its exquisite girlishness, came across his fancies too often for perfect repose of conscience. The memory of those two summer days at Fontainebleau—idle, foolish, unconsidered hours—was an ever-present part of his mind. It was so small a thing; yet it haunted him. How much better it would have been, he thought, if Daphne had been more candid, had allowed him to speak freely of that innocent adventure! Concealment gave it a flavour of guilt. A hundred times he had been on the point of letting out the secret by this or that allusion, when Daphne’s blush and the quiver of Daphne’s lip had startled him into caution. This made a secret understanding between them in spite of his own desire to be honest; and it worried him to think that there should be any such hidden bond. Madoline was the love of his life, the hope and glory of his days. He had no doubt as to his feelings about her. From his boyhood he had admired, revered, and loved her. He was only three years her senior, and in their early youth the delicately-nurtured, carefully-educated girl, reared among grown-up people, and far in advance of her years, had seemed in all intellectual things the boy’s superior. Lady Geraldine was idle and self-indulgent; she petted and spoiled her son, but she taught him nothing. Had he not a private tutor—a young clergyman who preferred the luxurious leisure of the Abbey to the hard work of a curacy—and was not his education sufficiently provided for when this well-recommended young Oxonian had been engaged at a munificent salary? The young Oxonian was as fond of shooting, billiards, cricket, and boating as his pupil; so the greater part of Gerald’s early youth was devoted to these accomplishments; and it was only the boy’s natural aptitude for learning whatever he wished to learn which saved him from being a dunce. At fifteen he was transferred to Eton, where he found better cricketing and a better river than in Warwickshire.