glad to hear she was not conspicuously quartered.

'So many people have come down already for Commem,' he said. 'I suppose
they are anxious to see the Generals get their degrees. But hadn't we
better go somewhere and lunch?'

They went down the stone staircase, past the battalion of boots, and
across the quad. He felt that all the windows were alive with eyes, but
she insisted on standing still and admiring their ivied picturesqueness.
After lunch he shamefacedly borrowed the dunce's punt. The necessities
of punting, which kept him far from her, and demanded much adroit
labour, gradually restored his self-respect, and he was able to look the
uncelebrated oarsmen they met in the eyes, except when they were
accompanied by their parents and sisters, which subtly made him feel
uncomfortable again. But Winifred, piquant under her pink parasol, was
singularly at ease, enraptured with the changing beauty of the river,
applauding with childish glee the wild flowers on the banks, or the
rippling reflections in the water.

'Look, look!' she cried once, pointing skyward. He stared upwards,
expecting a balloon at least. But it was only 'Keats' little rosy
cloud', she explained. It was not her fault if he did not find the
excursion unreservedly idyllic.

'How stupid,' she reflected, 'to keep all those nice boys cooped up
reading dead languages in a spot made for life and love.'

'I'm afraid they don't disturb the dead languages so much as you think,'
he reassured her, smiling. 'And there will be plenty of love-making
during Commem.'

'I am so glad. I suppose there are lots of engagements that week.'

'Oh, yes--but not one per cent come to anything.'

'Really? Oh, how fickle men are!'

That seemed rather question-begging, but he was so thrilled by the
implicit revelation that she could not even imagine feminine
inconstancy, that he forebore to draw her attention to her inadequate
logic.

So childish and thoughtless indeed was she that day that nothing would
content her but attending a 'Viva', which he had incautiously informed
her was public.

'Nobody will notice us,' she urged with strange unconsciousness of her
loveliness. 'Besides, they don't know I'm not your sister.'

'The Oxford intellect is sceptical,' he said, laughing. 'It cultivates
philosophical doubt.'

But, putting a bold face on the matter, and assuming a fraternal air, he
took her to the torture-chamber, in which candidates sat dolefully on a
row of ch