"I don't know about that, father," Lord Hayle replied. "As a matter of fact, I should much prefer to stay the night at Packington, as you and Connie may possibly do so. In fact, I know the dean would give me permission at once, especially as I am with you. However, I quite agree with you about the joys of motoring, as I propose to drive the car back to Oxford myself whether you two return or not."
The bishop smiled. He was proud of his bright, handsome son, who had done him so much credit in his University career, and was already becoming a pronounced favourite of society.
"Well, Gerald," he said, "we look at things from a different point of view. Has the duke any motors, by the way?"
"He has lots of motors," Lord Hayle answered, "but only one up here, which he does not often use. In fact, I use it as much as he does. He is a riding man, you know. He sticks to the horses. Now then, father, I must run back to college and change. I will be back in time to start."
"We had all better change, I think," said the bishop, and smiling at his son he took his daughter by the arm, pinching it playfully, and they left the sitting-room for their respective bedrooms.
As his valet assisted him the bishop thought with a pleasant glow that his daughter had never looked more beautiful.
There was something changed about her. Of that he felt quite certain, and once more he thanked God for all the blessings of his life.
It is a blessed thing, indeed, to be an earl of old lineage, and the bishop of a famous cathedral city, a handsome and portly man, with a beautiful son and daughter, the friend of princes, and designate to the archiepiscopal chair.
Constance, as the maid brushed out that hair like ripe corn, that wonderful hair that so many men had eulogised, so many poets sung of, that hair which was often referred to by the society papers as if it was a national possession, sat thinking over the events of the afternoon.