gh he had made
a start in some fresh journey through the fields of thought.

CHAPTER II

ANTONIA

Five years before the journey just described Shelton had stood one
afternoon on the barge of his old college at the end of the summer
races. He had been "down" from Oxford for some years, but these Olympian
contests still attracted him.

The boats were passing, and in the usual rush to the barge side his arm
came in contact with a soft young shoulder. He saw close to him a young
girl with fair hair knotted in a ribbon, whose face was eager with
excitement. The pointed chin, long neck, the fluffy hair, quick
gestures, and the calm strenuousness of her grey-blue eyes, impressed
him vividly.

"Oh, we must bump them!" he heard her sigh.

"Do you know my people, Shelton?" said a voice behind his back; and
he was granted a touch from the girl's shy, impatient hand, the
warmer fingers of a lady with kindly eyes resembling a hare's, the dry
hand-clasp of a gentleman with a thin, arched nose, and a quizzical
brown face.

"Are you the Mr. Shelton who used to play the 'bones' at Eton?" said the
lady. "Oh; we so often heard of you from Bernard! He was your fag, was
n't he? How distressin' it is to see these poor boys in the boats!"

"Mother, they like it!" cried the girl.

"Antonia ought to be rowing, herself," said her father, whose name was
Dennant.

Shelton went back with them to their hotel, walking beside Antonia
through the Christchurch meadows, telling her details of his college
life. He dined with them that evening, and, when he left, had a feeling
like that produced by a first glass of champagne.

The Dennants lived at Holm Oaks, within six miles of Oxford, and two
days later he drove over and paid a call. Amidst the avocations of
reading for the Bar, of cricket, racing, shooting, it but required a
whiff of some fresh scent--hay, honeysuckle, clover--to bring Antonia's
face before him, with its uncertain colour and its frank, distant eyes.
But two years passed before he again saw her. Then, at an invitation
from Bernard Dennant, he played cricket for the Manor of Holm Oaks
against a neighbouring house; in the evening there was dancing oh
the lawn. The fair hair was now turned up, but the eyes were quite
unchanged. Their steps went together, and they outlasted every other
couple on the slippery grass. Thence, perhaps, sprang her respect for
him; he was wiry, a little taller than herself, and seemed to talk