eir
college barge briskly down the river,'), and that, in short, the thing
had been done for good and all, and that was that.

Mrs. Potter still thought she would like to write an Oxford novel.
Because, after all, though there might be many already, none of them were
quite like the one she would write. She had tea with Jane in the
Somerville garden on Sunday, and though Jane did not ask any of her
friends to meet her (for they might have got put in) she saw them all
about, and thought what a nice novel they would make. Jane knew she was
thinking this, and said, 'They're very commonplace people,' in a
discouraging tone. 'Some of them,' Jane added, deserting her own
snobbishness, which was intellectual, for her mother's, which was social,
'are also common.'

'There must be very many,' said Mrs. Potter, looking through her
lorgnette at the garden of girls, 'who are neither.'

'Fewer,' said Jane, stubbornly, 'than you would think. Most people are
one or the other, I find. Many are both.'

'Try not to be cynical, my pet,' said Leila Yorke, who was never this.

2

That was in June, 1912. In June, 1914, Jane and Johnny went down.

Their University careers had been creditable, if not particularly
conspicuous. Johnny had been a fluent speaker at the Union, Jane at the
women's intercollegiate Debating Society, and also in the Somerville
parliament, where she had been the leader of the Labour Party. Johnny had
for a time edited the _Isis_, Jane the _Fritillary_. Johnny had done
respectably in Schools, Jane rather better. For Jane had always been just
a shade the cleverer; not enough to spoil competition, but enough to give
Johnny rather harder work to achieve the same results. They had probably
both got firsts, but Jane's would be a safe thing, and Johnny would be
likely to have a longish _viva_.

Anyhow, here they were, just returned to Potter's Bar, Herts (where Mr.
Percy Potter, liking the name of the village, had lately built a lordly
mansion). Excellent friends they were, but as jealous as two little dogs,
each for ever on the look-out to see that the other got no undue
advantage. Both saw every reason why they should make a success of life.
But Jane knew that, though she might be one up on Johnny as regards
Oxford, owing to slightly superior brain power, he was one up on her as
regards Life, owing to that awful business sex. Women were handicapped;
they had to fight much harder to achieve equal results. People did