About them, his new tone was no doubt a trifle patronising, but still, quite tolerable.

Ewen Hooper, he vowed, was "a magnificent scholar," and it was too bad that Oxford had found nothing better for him than "a scrubby readership." But "some day, of course, he'll have the regius professorship." Nora was "a plucky little thing--though she hates me!" And he, Falloden, was not so sure after all that Miss Alice would not land her Pryce.

"Can't we bring it about ?" And Falloden ran, laughing, through a catalogue of his own smart or powerful relations, speculating what could be done.

It was true, wasn't it, that Pryce was anxious to turn his back on Oxford and the higher mathematics, and to try his luck in journalism, or politics?
Well, Falloden happened to know that an attractive post in the Conservative Central Office would soon be vacant; an uncle of his was a very important person on the Council; that and other wires might be pulled.
Constance, eagerly, began to count up her own opportunities of the same kind; and between them, they had soon--in imagination--captured the post.

Then, said Falloden, it would be for Constance to clinch the matter.