His dark eyes, as she met them, were full of an anxious affection. ‘I have forgotten all my Greek!’ ‘Oh no—not in a month. Prepare me a hundred lines of the “Odyssey,” Book VI! Next week I shall have some time. This first week is always a drive. Miss Nora says she’ll go on again.’ ‘Does she? She seems so—so busy.’ ‘Ah, yes—she’s got some work for the University Press. Plucky little thing! But she mustn’t overdo it.’ Connie dropped the subject. These conferences in the study, which had gone on all day, had nothing to do with Nora’s work for the Press—that she was certain of. But she only said—holding out her hands, with the free gesture that was natural to her— ‘I wish someone would give me the chance of “overdoing it”! Do set me to work—hard work! The sun never shines here.’ Her eyes wandered petulantly to the rainy sky outside, and the high-walled college opposite. ‘Southerner! Wait till you see it shining on the Virginian creeper in our garden quad. Oxford is a dream in October!—just for a week or two, till the leaves fall. November is dreary, I admit. All the same—try and be happy!’ He looked at her gravely and tenderly. She coloured a little as she withdrew her hands. ‘Happy? That doesn’t matter—does it? But perhaps for a change—one might try⸺’ ‘Try what?’ ‘Well!’—she laughed, but he thought there were tears in her eyes—‘to do something—for somebody—occasionally.’ ‘Ask Mrs. Mulholland! She has a genius for that kind of thing. Teach some of her orphans!’ ‘I couldn’t! They’d find me out.’ Sorell, rather puzzled, suggested that she might become a Home Student like Nora, and go in for a Literature or Modern History Certificate. Connie, who was now sitting moodily over a grate with no fire in it, with her chin in her hands, only shook her head. ‘I don’t know anything—I never learnt anything. And everybody here’s so _appallingly_ clever!’ Then she declared that she would go and have tea with the Master of Beaumont, and ask his advice. ‘He told me to learn something,’—the tone was one of depression, passing into rebellion—‘but I don’t want to learn anything!—I want to do _something_!’ Sorell laughed at her. ‘Learning is doing!’ ‘That’s what Oxford people think,’ she said defiantly. ‘I don’t agree with them.’ ‘What do _you_ mean by “doing”?’ Connie poked an imaginary fire. ‘Making myself happy’—she said slowly, ‘and—and a few other people!’ Sorell laughed again. Then rising to take his leave, he stooped over her. ‘Make _me_ happy—by undoing that stroke of yours—at Boar’s Hill!’ Connie raised herself, and looked at him steadily. Then gravely and decisively she shook her head. ‘Not at all! I shall keep an eye on it!—so must you!’ Then, suddenly, she smiled—the softest, most radiant smile, as though some hope within, far within, looked out. It was gone in a moment, and Sorell went his way; but as one who had been the spectator of an event. * * * * *