He noticed also that no one who looked at her could help looking again; and that the nervous expression natural to a young girl, who realises that she is admired but that policy and manners forbid her to show any pleasure in the fact, was entirely absent.
"She is so used to all her advantages that she forgets them," thought the Master, adding with an inward smile--"but if we forgot them--perhaps that would be another matter! Yes--she is like her mother--but taller." For on that day ten years earlier, when Ella Risborough had taken Oxford by storm, she and Lord Risborough had found time to look in on the Master for twenty minutes, he and Lord Risborough having been frequent correspondents on matters of scholarship for some years.

And Lady Risborough had chattered and smiled her way through the Master's lonely house--he had only just been appointed head of his college and was then unmarried--leaving a deep impression.
"I must make friends with her," he thought, following Ella Risborough's daughter with his eyes.

"There are some gaps to fill up." He meant in the circle of his girl protegees.

For the Master had a curious history, well known in Oxford.

He had married a cousin of his own, much younger than himself; and after five years they had separated, for reasons undeclared.