nce. Now Cambridge
was doing the same and avenging those past defeats. Humiliating to
watch those Tabs waving hats and yelling and ultimately carrying their
captain from the field of glory! Comforting to reflect that when
Oxford won they won soberly and with restraint, as though victory were
for them the normal and accustomed thing! Only Tabs would behave like
that. With such thoughts he tried to soothe his anger and disgust.

In the evening, because Freda had a headache, Martin dined with
Lawrence and became expensively drunk: later he had memories of a
crowded music hall, of distant singers and dancers flitting incessantly
before white scenery: they worried him and he shouted at them to go
away, but seemingly they refused. There were recollections of drinks
with an old Elfreyan and the toasting of the school, of an elaborate
conversation in French with a woman who only spoke Cockney, of a speech
to the Indian nation begun on the crowded promenade and ended
magnificently from the fountain at Piccadilly Circus. Probably there
was supper somewhere and more noise and then he must have walked miles,
for suddenly he became sober and found himself far down the Fulham
Road. He picked up a taxi, and managed to get into bed more or less
successfully about half-past three.

Freda, too, had spent a dull autumn. She had spoken the truth when she
said that she was just too good for dull toil and not good enough for
real work. The system was gradually devouring her and she had long ago
reached the stage at which the one thing in life that matters is six
o'clock, the hour of release from the drudgery and sordid gloom of the
office. She lived for her leisure and on her leisure she had nothing
to spend. There were friends whom she saw at intervals, but their
intimacy had limitations and was only close enough to drive home the
need for real companionship.

In one matter she had been fortunate. She had found a cheap room at
the top of an old house in Bloomsbury and was thus spared the necessity
of going to one of those gloomy mansions for working women. It was a
small room, high up and chilly: but it was hers, and even the gas-fire
could not rob it of real comfort.

Martin had not meant to linger in London as he had work to do. But he
soon realised the impossibility of going away. Not only did he need
Freda, but she too needed him. There was no advantage in denying the
mutual emptiness and mutual satisfaction. So he