e instinct to let go when the man was dragging them both under
water," she asserted.

"A Newfoundland bitch would have risen above it."

"You hit back quick and hard."

"I'm a tennis-player and a polo-player and a cricketer."

"What game is there that you don't play?"

"I could tell you of one or two.... But I must really go and speak to some
of these ladies. One of them is an old friend."

"I know whom you mean. If I didn't, her glare of envy would have
enlightened me. Did I tell you that _I_ encountered an old friend--or, at
least, a friend of old--at the Hospital yesterday?"

"You mean poor Fraithorn?"

"Not at all. I'm only a friend of his mother. I had only heard of the boy,
not met him, until I tumbled over him here. But this face--severely framed
in a starched white _guimpe_ and floating black veil--belonged to my Past
in several ways."

He showed interest.

"Your friend is a nun? At the Convent here? How did you come across her?"

"She called to see the Bishop's son--while I was with him. It seems that,
judging by the poor dear boy's religious manuals and medals, and other
High Church contraptions, the Matron had got him on the Hospital books as
a Roman Catholic. And, consequently, when my friend looked in to visit a
day-scholar who was to be operated on for adenoids--I've no idea what they
are, but a thing with a name like that would naturally have to be cut out
of one--she was told of this poor fellow, and has shed the light of her
countenance on him occasionally since. Yesterday was one of the occasions,
and Heavens! what a countenance it is even now! What a voice, what eyes,
what a manner! I believed I gushed a bit.... She met me as though we'd
only parted last week. Nuns are wonderful creatures: _she's_ unique, even
as a nun."

He said: "I believe I had the honour of meeting the lady of whom you speak
when I called at the Convent yesterday afternoon. A remarkable, noble, and
most interesting personality."

Lady Hannah nodded. "All that. But you ought to have seen her at eighteen.
We were at the High-School, Kensington, together, I a brat of ten in the
Juniors' Division, she a Head Girl, cramming for Girton. She carried
everything before her there, and emerged with a B.A. Degree Certificate in
the days when it was thought hardly proper for a woman to go about with
such a thing tacked to her skirts. And all the students idolised her, and
the male lecturers worshipped the ground she trod. And wh