'Edward!' cried Constance, giving her cousin her hand, 'is this prudent? You ride down Park Lane as if you were riding after hounds, your unhappy attendant--poor girl!--trying in vain to keep up with you; and then you descend openly, and in the eyes of all, alone, at my door--the door of your unmarried cousin. Consider me, my dear Edward, if you are careless about your own reputation. Do you think I have no enemies? Do you think young Lord Chester can go anywhere without being seen and reported? Do you think all women have kind hearts and pleasant tongues?' The young man laughed, but a little bitterly. 'My reputation, Constance, may just as well be lost as kept. What do I care for my reputation?' At these terrible words Constance looked at him in alarm. He was worth looking at, if only as a model, being six feet high, two-and-twenty years of age, strongly built, with crisp, curly brown hair, the shoulders of a Hercules, and the face of an Apollo. But to-day his face was clouded, and as he spoke he clenched his fist. 'What has happened now, Edward?' asked his cousin. 'Anything important? The new groom?' 'The new groom has a seat like a sack, is afraid to gallop, and can't jump. As for her nerve, she's got none. My stable-boy Jack would be worth ten of her. But if a man cannot be allowed--for the sake of his precious reputation--to ride without a girl trailing at his heels, why, I suppose there is no more to be said. No, Constance; it is worse than the new groom.' 'Edward, you are too masterful,' said his cousin, gravely. 'One cannot, even if he be Earl of Chester, fly in the face of all the _convenances_. Rules are made to protect the weak for their own sake; the strong obey them for the sake of the weak. You are strong; be therefore considerate. Suppose all young men were allowed to run about alone?' The Professor shook her head gravely. 'It would be a return,' she said, 'to the practice of the ancients.' 'The barbarous practice of the ancients,' added Constance. 'The grooms might at least be taught how to ride,' grumbled the young man. 'But about this disaster, Edward; is it the postponement of a cricket match, the failure of a tennis game----' 'Constance,' he interrupted, 'I should have thought you capable of believing that I should not worry you at such a moment with trifles. I have got the most serious news for you--things for which I want your help and your sympathy.' Constance turned pale. What could he have to tell her except one thing--the one thing which she had been dreading for two or three years?