se no one ever believes you when you say it.
Besides, it would have annoyed her, so I was silent.

"You see you have not got much older, and I have. I couldn't bounce a
ball up and down two hundred and thirteen times now."

Again I used abstinence and stopped myself from telling her that she
could never have done it, for she was quite solemn, and I thought we
were getting at something. I hoped, too, that we should get it
quickly, for a tired feeling was creeping over me.

"You are only eighteen," I said.

"I am nineteen next week," she answered, and I knew that she meant this
both as a rebuke and a reminder.

"That's not very old."

"It's old enough for me to know that you and I will never quarrel about
trifles," she said.

"Then will you come to the 'Varsity match?" I asked.

"You don't think the 'Varsity match a trifle, do you?"

"I'm not going to sit here and quibble; you're too clever altogether,"
I said, and I got up and wondered in which direction there was most to
do, but Nina stood up, too, and put her hand through my arm.

"Let us go for a walk by the river before dinner," she said, and after
asking what good she thought that would do I went.

"My dear Godfrey, you are simply splendid," she went on, "the dearest
old bungler I know. You remind me of the Faulkners' ostrich, which
goes on tapping at the window when it has been opened and there is
nothing to tap at."

I did not know what she meant, and if that ostrich had not been rather
a friend of mine I should have been insulted. As it was I did not feel
pleased.

"You will spend your life running your head against brick walls," she
continued.

"I am not going down to the river if you are going to preach to me,"
but we were already half-way there. "What about the 'Varsity match?"

"You don't understand things, Godfrey."

"Fred has told me that already," I said sulkily.

"Oh, has he?" she replied, and I saw that I had stumbled upon something
which made her think. We sat down by the river and did not speak to
each other for a long time, and when Nina broke the silence her mood
had changed completely. She cajoled me; I think that must have been
what she did, and I was weak enough to like it. It was so nice to have
me home again; we were going to have a splendid time together, we
always had been together; Mrs. Faulkner said Oxford spoiled so many men
at first, it made them prigs; but there was no chance of me becoming a
prig, I was just