restaurant! In either setting Stella Croyle was a formidable
antagonist. But combine the settings and she took to herself, at once by
nature, the seduction of both!

"Poor devil, he won't have a dog's chance!" the baronet concluded; and
he watched approvingly what appeared to him to be Luttrell's endeavour
to avoid joining battle on this unfavourable field. He could only trust
feebly in that and in the strength of the "something else," the secret
reason he was never to know.

It was about half-way through dinner when Stella Croyle, who had
directed many a furtive, anxious glance to the averted face of her
companion, attacked directly.

"What is the matter with you to-night?" she asked, interrupting him in
the midst of a rattle of futilities. "Why should you recite to me from
the guide-book about the University of Upsala?"

"It appears to be most interesting, and quaint," replied Luttrell
hastily.

"Then we might hire a motor-car and run out there to luncheon.
To-morrow! Just you and I."

"No." Harry Luttrell exclaimed suddenly and Stella Croyle drew back. Her
face clouded. She had won the first round, but victory brought her no
ease. She knew now from the explosion of his "No" and the swift alarm
upon his face that something threatened her.

"You must tell me what has happened," she cried. "You must! Oh, you turn
away from me!"

From the dark steep garden at their feet rose a clamour of cheers--to
Luttrell an intervention of Providence.

"Listen," he said.

Here and there a man or a woman rose at the dinner tables and looked
down. Upwards along a glimmering riband of path, a group of students
bore one of their number shoulder-high. Luttrell leaned over the
balustrade. The group below halted; speeches were made; cheers broke out
anew.

"It is the Swedish javelin-thrower. He won the championship of the world
this afternoon."

"Did he?" asked Stella Croyle in a soft voice at his side. "Does he
throw javelins as well as you? You wound me every time."

Luttrell raised his head. It was not fear of defeat which had kept his
looks averted from Stella's dark and starry eyes. No thought of lists
set and a contest to be fought out had even entered his head. But he did
fear to see those eyes glisten with tears--for she so seldom shed them!
And even more than the evidence of her pain he feared the dreadful
submission with which women in the end receive the stroke of fortune. He
had to meet her gaze now, however.