rectly where he had been, he would have told her
about Neptune Crescent, and possibly even about Lily. But as she did
not, he could reveal nothing of the past fortnight. It would have seemed
to him like the boring recitation of a dream, which from other people
was a confidence he always resented.

"Stella and Alan are in the studio," she told him.

They chatted for a while of unimportant things, and then Michael said he
would go and find them. As he crossed the little quadrangle of pallid
grass and heard in the distance the sound of the piano he could not keep
back the thought of how utterly Alan's company had replaced his own. Not
that he was jealous, not that he was not really delighted; but a period
of life was being rounded off. The laws of change were being rather
ruthless just now. Both Alan and Stella were so obviously glad to see
him that the fleck of bitterness vanished immediately, and he was at
their service.

"Where have you been?" Stella demanded. "We go to Richmond. We send
frantic wires to you to join us on the river, and when we come back
you're gone. Where have you been?"

"I've been away," Michael answered, with a certain amount of
embarrassment.

"My dear old Michael, we never supposed you'd been hiding in the
cistern-cupboard for a fortnight," said Stella, striking three chords of
cheerful contempt.

"I believe he went back to Oxford," suggested Alan.

"I am going up to-morrow," Michael said. "When is your Viva?"

"Next week. Where are you going to stay?"

"In college, if I can get hold of a room."

"Bother Oxford," interrupted Stella. "We want to know where you've been
this fortnight."

"You do," Alan corrected.

"I'll tell you both later on," Michael volunteered. "Just at present I
suppose you won't grudge me a secret. People who are engaged to be
married should show a very special altruism toward people who are not."

"Michael, I will not have you being important and carrying about a
secret with you," Stella declared.

"You can manage either me or Alan," Michael offered. "But you simply
shall not manage both of us. Personally, I recommend you to break-in
Alan."

With evasive banter he succeeded in postponing the revelation of what he
was, as Stella said, up to.

"We're going in for Herefords," Alan suddenly announced without
consideration for the trend of the talk. "You know. Those white-faced
chaps."

Michael looked at him in astonishment.

"I was thinking about this plac