that lay monastery, that cloister for artists who wished
between Oxford and the world a space unstressed by anything save ordered
meditation. Michael was captured anew by the idea he had first
propounded, and they talked gayly of its advantages, foreseeing, if the
right people could be induced to come, a period of intense stimulation
against a background of serenity. Then Guy began to talk of how day by
day he was subduing words to rhyme and meter.

"And you, what would you do?" he asked.

At once Michael realized the futility of their scheme for him.

"I should only dream away another year," he said rather sadly, "and so
if you don't mind, old chap, I think I won't join you."

"Rot!" Guy drawled. "I've got it all clear now in my mind. Up at seven.
At breakfast we should take it in turns to read aloud great poetry. From
eight to ten retire to our cells, and work at a set piece--a sonnet or
six lines of prose. Ten to eleven a discussion on what we'd done. Eleven
to one work at our own stuff. One o'clock lunch with some reading aloud.
All the afternoon to do what we like. Dinner at seven with more reading
aloud, and in the evening reading to ourselves. Not a word to be spoken
after nine o'clock, and bed at eleven. After tea twice a week we might
have academic discussions."

"It sounds perfect," said Michael, "if you're already equipped with the
desire to be an artist, and what is more important if deep down in
yourself you're convinced you have the least justification for ambition.
But, Guy, what a curious chap you are. You seem to have grown so much
younger since you went down."

Guy laughed on a note of exultation that sounded strange indeed in one
whom when still at Balliol Michael had esteemed as perhaps the most
perfect contemporary example of the undergraduate tired by the
consciousness of his own impeccable attitude. Guy had always possessed
so conspicuously that Balliol affectation of despising accentuations of
seriousness, of humor, of intention, of friendship, of everything indeed
except parlor rowdiness with cushions and sofas, that Michael was almost
shocked to hear the elaborately wearied Guy declare boisterously:

"My dear chap, that is the great secret. The moment you go down, you do
grow younger."

He must be in love, thought Michael suddenly; and, so remote was love
seeming to him just now, he blushed in the implication by his inner self
of having penetrated uninvited the secret of a friend.

Gu