But since she and Nora had last met, something had happened. Some heat of feeling or of sympathy had fused in her the elements of being; so that a more human richness and warmth, a deeper and tenderer charm breathed from her whole aspect. Nora, though so much the younger, had hitherto been the comforter and sustainer of Connie; now for the first time, the tired girl felt an impulse—firmly held back—to throw her arms round Connie’s neck and tell her own troubles. She did not betray it, however. There were so many things she wanted to know. First—how was it that Connie had come back so soon? Nora understood there were invitations to the Tamworths and others. Mr. Sorell had reported that the Langmoors wished to carry their niece with them on a round of country-house visits in the autumn, and that Connie had firmly stuck to it that she was due at Oxford for the beginning of term. “Why didn’t you go,” said Nora, half scoffing—“with all those frocks wasting in the drawers?” Connie retorted that, as for parties, Oxford, had seemed to her in the summer term the most gay and giddy place she had ever been in, and that she had always understood that in the October and Lent terms people dined out every night. “But all the same—one can think a little here,” she said slowly. “You didn’t care a bit about that when you first came!” cried Nora. “You despised us because we weren’t soldiers, or diplomats, or politicians. You thought we were a little priggish, provincial world where nothing mattered. You were sorry for us because we had only books and ideas!” “I wasn’t!” said Connie indignantly. “Only I didn’t think Oxford was everything—and it isn’t! Nora!”—she looked round the Oxford street with a sudden ardour, her eyes running over the groups of undergraduates hurrying back to hall—“do you think these English boys could ever—well, fight—and die—for what you call ideas—for their country—as Otto Radowitz could die for Poland?” “Try them!” The reply rang out defiantly. Connie laughed. “They’ll never have the chance. Who’ll ever attack England? If we had only something—something splendid, and not too far away!—to look back upon, as the Italians look back on Garibaldi—or to long and to suffer for, as the Poles long and suffer for Poland!” “We shall some day!” said Nora hopefully. “Mr. Sorell says every nation gets its turn to fight for its life. I suppose Otto Radowitz has been talking Poland to you?” “He talks it—and he lives it,” said Connie, with emphasis. “It’s marvellous!—it shames one.” Nora shrugged her shoulders. “But what can he do—with his poor hand! You know Mr. Sorell has taken a cottage for him at Boar’s Hill—above Hinksey?” Yes, Connie knew. She seemed suddenly on her guard. “But he can’t live alone?” said Nora. “Who on earth’s going to look after him?”