a year. But what
exactly was himself doing on the committee? He could contribute, outside
money, nothing of force to help in driving the new magazine along to
success. Still, somehow he had allowed his name to appear in the
preliminary circular, and next October when the first number was
published somehow he would share however indirectly in the credit or
reproach accruing. Meanwhile, there were the mere externals of this
first summer term to be enjoyed, this summer term whose beginning he had
hailed from St. Mary's tower, this dream of youth's domination set
against the gray background of time's endurance that was itself spun of
the fabric of dreams.

Divinity and Pass Moderations would occur some time at the term's end,
inexplicable as such a dreary interruption seemed in these gliding
river-days which only rain had power for a brief noontide or evening to
destroy. Yet, as an admission that time flies, the candidates for Pass
Mods and Divvers attended a few sun-drowsed lectures and never omitted
to lay most tenderly underneath the cushions of punt or canoe the
text-books of their impertinent examinations. Seldom, however, did
Cicero or the logical Jevons emerge in that pool muffled from sight by
trellised boughs of white and crimson hawthorn. Seldom did Socrates have
better than a most listless audience or St. Paul the most inaccurate
geographers, when on the upper river the punt was held against the bank
by paddles fast in the mud; for there, as one lay at ease, the world
became a world of tall-growing grasses, and the noise of life no more
than the monotony of a river's lapping, or along the level water meadows
a faint sibilance of wind. This was the season when supper was eaten by
figures in silhouette against the sunset, figures that afterward drifted
slowly down to college under the tree-entangled stars and flitting
assiduous bats, with no sound all the way but the rustle of a bird's
wing in the bushes and the fizz of a lighted match dropped idly over the
side of the canoe. This was the season when for a long while people sat
talking at open windows, and from the Warden's garden came sweetly up
the scent of May flowers.

Sometimes Michael went to the Parks to watch Alan play in one or two of
the early trial matches, and sometimes they sat in the window of Alan's
room looking out into Christ Church meadows. Nothing that was important
was ever spoken during these dreaming nights, and if Michael tried to
bring th