live in a house she's seen in Park
Street, but I want to take a house in Cheyne Walk. I hope you like
Cheyne Walk, because this house has got a splendid studio in the
garden and I thought with some mauve brocades it would look
perfectly lovely. There's a very good _paneled_ room that you could
have, and of course the studio would be half yours. I am working
at a Franck concerto. I'm being painted by rather a nice youth, at
least he would be nice, if he weren't so much like a corpse. I
suppose you'll condescend to ask me down to Oxford next term.

Yours ever,

Stella.

P.S.--I've come to the conclusion that mere brilliancy of execution
isn't enough. Academic perfection is all very well, but I don't
think I shall appear in public again until I've lived a little. I
really think life is rather exciting--unless it's spelt with a
capital letter.

Michael was glad that there seemed a prospect of employing his vacation
in abolishing the thin red house in Carlington Road. He felt he would
have found it queerly shriveled after the spaciousness of Oxford. He was
sufficiently far along in his first term to be able to feel the
privilege of possessing the High, and he could think of no other word to
describe the sensation of walking down that street in company with
Lonsdale and Grainger and others of his friends.

Term drew to a close, and Michael determined to mark the occasion by
giving a dinner in which he thought he would try the effect of his
friends all together. Hitherto the celebrations of the freshmen had been
casual entertainments arranged haphazard out of the idle chattering
groups in the lodge. This dinner was to be carefully thought out and
balanced to the extreme of nice adjustment. This terminal dinner might,
Michael thought, almost become with him a regular function, so that
people would learn to speak with interest and respect of Fane's terminal
dinners. In a way, it would be tantamount to forming a club, a club
strictly subjective, indeed so personal in character as really to
preclude the employment of the sociable world. At any rate, putting
aside all dreams of the future, Michael made up his mind to try the
effect of the first. It should be held in the Mitre, he decided, since
that would give the company an opportunity of sailing homeward
arm-in-arm along the whole length of the High. The guests should be
Avery, Lonsdale, Wedderburn,