“After the ball? Shall I be awake? Let’s settle it on Wednesday!” He could get no more definite promise from her, and must needs take his leave. Before he went, he asked her to keep the first four dances for him at the Marmion ball, and two supper-dances. But Constance evaded a direct assent. She would do her best. But she had promised some to Mr. Pryce, and some to Mr. Radowitz. Falloden’s look darkened. “You should not allow him to dance with you,” he said imperiously. “He is too eccentric. He doesn’t know how to behave; and he makes his partners conspicuous.” Constance too had risen, and they confronted each other—she all wilfulness. “I shall certainly dance with him!” she said, with a little determined air. “You see, I like foreign ways!” He said good night abruptly. As he stood a few minutes on the further side of the room, making a few last arrangements as to the ball with Mrs. Hooper and Alice, Constance, still standing by the piano, and apparently chatting with Herbert Pryce, was really aware of Falloden’s every movement. His manner to her aunt was brusque and careless; and he forgot, apparently, to say good night either to Alice or Nora. Nobody in the room, as she well knew, except herself, found any pleasure in his society. Nora’s hostile face in the background was a comic study. And yet, so long as he was there, nobody could forget or overlook him; so splendid was the physical presence of the man, and so strong the impression of his personality—even in trivial things. Meanwhile, everybody in the house had gone to bed, except Nora and her father. She had lit a little fire in his study, as the night had grown chilly; she had put a little tray with tea on it by his side, and helped him to arrange the Greats papers, in which he was still immersed, under his hand. And finally she brought his pipe and filled it for him. “Must you sit up long, father?” “An hour or two,” said Ewen Hooper wearily. “I wish I didn’t get so limp. But these Honour exams take it out of one. And I have to go to Winchester to-morrow.” “For the scholarship?” He nodded. “Father! you work a great deal too hard—you look dog-tired!” cried Nora in distress. “Why do you do so much?” He shook his head sadly. “You know, darling.”