Captain Langrishe, but he knew
quite as well as if he had that the colour came again to his cheek, that
the brown eyes looked unhappily conscious.

"I have met Miss Drummond several times," he answered.

"Ah, you must dine with us one evening."

Young Langrishe looked at him in a startled way.

"Thank you very much, sir," he said, "but, as a matter of fact, I am
negotiating a change into an Indian regiment. I don't know how long I
shall be here. And I shall be very busy, I'm afraid."

"Ah! Just as you like--just as you like." The General, by the easiest of
transitions, passed on to the subject of soldiering in India. He had an
unwontedly exhilarated feeling which later had its reaction in a
consciousness of guilt.

"What would poor Gerald have said?" he thought, as he walked homewards
that evening. "And I've nothing against Robin--I've nothing really
against Robin, except his Peace Societies and all the rest of it. And
the Dowager--yes, there's always the Dowager. I should like to know what
on earth ever induced poor Gerald to marry the Dowager."

CHAPTER VIII

GROVES OF ACADEME

After that keen disappointment about the baby's forgetting her, although
she excused it to herself, arguing that at twenty months one cannot be
expected to have a long memory, Mary was more reconciled to the changed
conditions of her life.

"I hope we are going to be together for a good many years," Lady Anne
said, "and presently you must be able to play and sing to me, to read to
me and take an interest in the things in which I am interested. You are
to go to school, Mary."

So Mary went to school, first to the Queen's Preparatory School, then to
the Queen's College. Her years there were very happy ones, especially
those years at the College, after she had found her feet and made
friends, and gained confidence in herself and the world.

"She sucks up knowledge as a sponge sucks up water," was the report of
the Principal, Miss Merton, to the delighted Lady Anne. "I hope Lady
Anne, that you will permit her to go in for her B.A. I should not be
surprised, indeed, if she captured a fellowship."

"No fellowships," Lady Anne said, firmly. "What would she do with a
fellowship? I propose, as soon as she has done with you, to take her
abroad. I have a mind to see the world again through young eyes. And it
will put the coping-stone on her education. I shouldn't dare leave her
too long with you. Learning so often destroys a woman'