ortunate circumstance that Oxford was now so
military, so smitten by the war and shorn of her pomp, so empty of
academic life. But after the war Boreham meant among other things to
study Oxford, and if perfectly frank criticism could help her to a
better understanding of her faults in view of the world's
requirements--well, it should have that criticism. Boreham had
considerable leisure, for apart from his big Book which he began to
sketch, he found nothing to do. Every sort of work that others were
doing for the war he considered radically faulty, and he had no scheme
of his own--at the moment. Besides, he felt that England was not all she
ought to be. He did not love England--he only liked living in England.

Boreham had arrived punctually for dinner on that October evening; in
fact, he had arrived too early; but he told Lady Dashwood that his watch
was fast.

"All the clocks in Oxford are wrong," he said to her, as he stood on the
hearthrug in the drawing-room, "and mine is wrong!"

Boreham was tall and fair and wore a fair pointed beard. His features
were not easy to describe in detail, they gave one the impression that
they had been cut with insufficient premeditation by the hand of his
Creator, from some pale fawn-coloured material. He wore a single
eyeglass which he stuck into a pale blue eye, mainly as an aid to
conversation. With Boreham conversation meant an exposition of his own
"ideas." He was disappointed at finding only Lady Dashwood in the
drawing-room; but she had been really good natured in asking him to come
and meet May Dashwood, so he was "conversing" freely with her when the
door opened and Gwendolen Scott came in. Boreham started and put his
eyeglass in the same eye again, instead of exercising the other eye. He
was agitated. When he saw that it was not May Dashwood who had come in,
but a youthful female unknown to him and probably of no conversational
significance, he dropped his glass on to his shirt-front, where it made
a dull thud. Gwen's face was flushed, and her lips still a little
swollen; but there was nothing that betrayed tears to strangers, though
Lady Dashwood saw at once that she had been crying. As soon as the
introduction was over Gwen sank into a large easy-chair where her slight
figure was almost obliterated.

She had got back her self-control. It had not, after all, been so
difficult to get it back--for the glow of a new excitement possessed
her. For the first time in her life