Reluctantly, and without looking at her, he took it. The touch of it roused a tempest in him. He crushed it and threw it away from him.
"Oh! if you'd never seen that man!" he groaned.
She got up without a word, and presently they were walking through the "backs," and she was gradually taming and appeasing him. By the time they reached the street gate of King's he was again in the full tide of musical talk and boasting, quite aware besides that his good looks and his magnificent physique drew the attention of the passers-by.
"Why, they're a poor lot—these 'Varsity men!" he said once contemptuously, as they passed a group of rather weedy undergraduates—"I could throw ten of em at one go!"
And perpetually he talked of money, the cost of his lodgings, of his railway fare, the swindling ways of the south. After all, the painful habits of generations had not run to waste; the mother began to show in the son.
In the street they parted. As he was saying good-bye to her, his look suddenly changed.
"I say!—that's the girl I travelled down with yesterday! And, by Jove! she knew me!"
And with a last nod to Laura, he darted after a tall woman who had thrown him a glance from the further pavement. Laura recognised the smart and buxom daughter of a Cambridge tradesman, a young lady whose hair, shoulders, millinery, and repartees were all equally pronounced.
* * * * *
Miss Fountain smiled, and turned away. But in the act of doing so, she came to a sudden stop. A face had arrested her—she stood bewildered.