be good sport to invite everybody to tea at
99 St. Giles.

"Oh, I particularly didn't want that to happen," said Michael, taken
aback.

Alan was puzzled to know his reason.

"You'll probably think me absurd," said Michael. "But I rather wanted to
keep Ninety-nine for a place that I could remember as more than all
others the very heart of Oxford, the most intimate expression of all I
have cared for up here."

"Well, so you can, still," said Alan severely. "My asking a few people
there to tea won't stop you."

"All the same, I wish you wouldn't," Michael persisted. "I moved into
college for Commem just to avoid taking anybody to St. Giles."

"Not even Stella?" demanded Alan.

Michael shook his head.

"Well, of course, if you don't want me to, I won't," said Alan
grudgingly. "But I think you're rather ridiculous."

"I am, I know," Michael agreed. "But thanks for honoring me. Do you
think Stella has altered much since she was in Vienna, and during this
year in town?"

"Not a bit," Alan declared enthusiastically. "And yet in one way she
has," he corrected himself. "She seems less out of one's reach."

"Or else you know better how to stretch," Michael laughed.

"Oh, I wasn't thinking of her attitude to me," said Alan a little
stiffly.

"Most generalizations come down to a particular fact," Michael answered.
But he would not tease Alan too much because he really wished him to
have confidence.

After the Trinity ball it seemed to Michael now not very rash to sound
Stella about her point of view with regard to Alan. For this purpose he
invited her to come in a canoe with him on the Cher. Yet when together
they were gliding down the green tunnels of the stream, when all the
warmth of June was at their service, when neither question nor answer
could have cast on either more than a momentary shadow, Michael could
not bring himself to approach the subject even indirectly. They
discussed lazily the success of the Trinity ball, without reference to
the fact that Stella had danced three-quarters of her program with Alan.
She did not even bother to say he was a good dancer, so much was the
convention of indifference demanded by the brother and sister in their
progress along this fronded stream.

That night in the Town Hall Michael did not dance a great deal himself
at the Masonic ball. He sat with Lonsdale in the gallery, and together
they much diverted themselves with the costumes of the Freemasons. It
was really