absence would
not be noticed in whatever spare bedroom it had previously been hung.
Every book seemed either a survival of school or the inexpensive pastime
of a railway journey. The very clock on the mantelpiece, which was still
drearily ticking, looked like the first prize of a consolation race,
rather than the gratification of a personal choice. Michael reproached
the young man for being able to spend three terms a year without an
attempt to garnish decently the gothic bookshelves, without an effort to
leave upon this temporary abode the impression of his lodging. He almost
endowed the room itself with a capacity for criticism, feeling it must
deplore three terms of such undistinguished company. Yet, after all, he
had left nothing to tell of his sojourn here. Although he and the dull
young freshman had both used this creaking wicker-chair, for their
successors neither of them could preserve the indication of their
precedence. One relic of his own occupation, however, he did find in the
fragments of envelopes which he had stuck to the door on innumerable
occasions to announce the time of his return. These bits of paper that
straggled in a kite's tail over the oak door had evidently resisted all
attempts to scrub them off. There were usually a few on every door in
college, but no one had ever so extensively advertised his movements as
Michael, and to see these obstinate bits of tabs gave him a real
pleasure, as if they assured him of his former existence here. Each one
had marked an ubiquitous hour that was recorded more indelibly than many
other occasions of higher importance.

There was not, however, much time for sentimentalizing over the past, as
somewhere before one o'clock his mother and Stella would arrive, and
they must be met. Alan came with him to the railway station, and it was
delightful to see Wedderburn with them, and in another part of the train
Maurice with his mother and sisters. They must all have lunch at the
Randolph, said Wedderburn immediately. Mrs. Fane was surprised to find
the Randolph such a large hotel, and told Michael that if she had known
it were possible to be at all comfortable in Oxford, she would have come
up to see him long before. In the middle of lunch Lonsdale appeared,
having according to his own account traced Michael's movements with
tremendous determination. He was introduced to Mrs. Fane, who evidently
took a fancy to him. She was looking, Michael thought, most absurdly
young