ridiculous to see Wedderburn in a red cloak and inconvenient
sword dancing the Templars quadrille.

"I think the English are curious people," said Michael. "How absurd that
all these undergraduates should belong to an Apollo Lodge and wear these
aprons and dress up like this! Look at Wedders!"

"Enter Second Ruffian, what?" Lonsdale chuckled.

"I suppose it does take the place of religion," Michael ejaculated, in a
tone of bewilderment. "Can you see my sister and Alan Merivale
anywhere?" he added casually.

"When's that coming off?" asked Lonsdale. He had taken to an eyeglass
since he had been in London, and the enhanced eye glittered very wisely
at Michael.

"You think?"

"What? Rather! My dear old bird, I'll lay a hundred to thirty. Look at
them now."

"They're only dancing," said Michael.

"But what dancing! Beautiful action. I never saw a pair go down so
sweetly to the gate. By the way, what are you going to do now you're
down?"

Michael shrugged his shoulders.

"I suppose you wouldn't like to come into the motor business?"

"No, thanks very much," said Michael.

"Well, you must do something, you know," said Lonsdale, letting fall his
eyeglass in disapproval. "You'll find that out in town."

Michael was engaged for the next dance to one of Maurice's sisters. Amid
the whirl of frocks, as he swung round this pretty and insipid creature
in pink crepe-de-chine, he was dreadfully aware that neither his nor her
conversation mattered at all, and that valuable time was being robbed
from him to the strains of the Choristers waltz. Really he would have
preferred to leave Oxford in a manner more solemn than this, not tangled
up with frills and misses and obvious music. Looking down at Blanche
Avery, he almost hated her. And to-morrow there would be another ball.
He must dance with her again, with her and with her sister and with a
dozen more dolls like her.

Next morning, or rather next noon, for it was noon before people woke
after these balls that were not over until four o'clock, Michael looked
out of his bedroom window with a sudden dismay at the great elms of the
deer park, deep-bosomed, verdurous, entranced beneath the June sky.

"This is the last whole day," he said, "the last day when I shall have a
night at the end of it; and it's going to be absolutely wasted at a
picnic with all these women."

Michael scarcely knew how to tolerate that picnic, and wondered
resentfully why everybody else seemed t