But it was plain to all the world, no less than to Mrs. Hooper, that
Falloden of Marmion, who had seemed to be in possession of her the night
before, had been brusquely banished from her side; that Oxford's
charming newcomer had put her supposed suitor to open contumely; and
that young Radowitz reigned in his stead.

* * * * *

Radowitz walked home in a whirl of sensations and recollections that
made of the Oxford streets an "insubstantial fairy place," where only
Constance lived.

He entered Marmion about four o'clock in a pearly light of dawn.
Impossible to go to bed or to sleep!

He would change his clothes, go out for a bathe, and walk up into the
Cumnor hills.

In the quadrangle he passed a group of men in evening dress returned
like himself from the ball. They were talking loudly, and reading
something which was being passed from hand to hand. As he approached,
there was a sudden dead silence. But in his abstraction and excitement
he noticed nothing.

When he had vanished within the doorway of his staircase, Meyrick, who
had had a great deal too much champagne, said fiercely--

"I vote we give that young beggar a lesson! I still owe him one for that
business of a month ago."

"When he very nearly settled you, Jim," laughed a Wykehamist, a
powerfully built fellow, who had just got his Blue for the Eleven, had
been supping freely and was in a mood for any riotous deed.

"That was nothing," said Meyrick--"but this can't be stood!"

And he pointed to the sheet that Falloden, who was standing in the
centre of the group, was at the moment reading. It was the latest number
of an Oxford magazine, one of those _ephemerides_ which are born, and
flutter, and vanish with each Oxford generation. It contained a verbatim
report of the attack on the Marmion "bloods" made by Radowitz at the
dinner of the college debating society about a fortnight earlier. It was
witty and damaging in the highest degree, and each man as he read it had
vowed vengeance. Falloden had been especially mocked in it. Some pompous
tricks of manner peculiar to Falloden in his insolent moods, had been
worked into a pseudo-scientific examination of the qualities proper to
a "blood," with the happiest effect. Falloden grew white as he read it.
Perhaps on the morrow it would be in Constance Bledlow's hands. The
galling memories of the evening just over were burning too in his veins.
That open humiliation in the sight