"Don't they look sweet together?" said Joyce, half to herself, as our faces were subjected to a quick, searching glance.

"What about a turn before supper?" I suggested.

"Am I having it with you?"

"If you will."

"I should like to."

We started round the room, half-way through the waltz. Joyce was a beautiful dancer, easy, light, and rhythmical. It was too good to spoil with talking; I contented myself with one final remark.

"After all," I said, "you may as well start getting used to me."

CHAPTER VI

THE SECOND ROUND

"One sleeps, indeed, and wakes at intervals, We know, but waking's the main part with us, And my provision's for life's waking part.

Accordingly, I use heart, head and hand All day, I build, scheme, study and make friends; And when night overtakes me, down I lie, Sleep, dream a little, and get done with it, The sooner the better, to begin afresh.

What's midnight doubt before the dayspring's faith?

You, the philosopher that disbelieve, That recognise the night, give dreams their weight-- To be consistent--you should keep your bed, Abstain from healthy acts that prove you man, For fear you drowse perhaps at unawares!

And certainly at night you'll sleep and dream, Live through the day and bustle as you please.

And so you live to sleep as I to wake, To unbelieve as I to still believe?

Well, and the common sense o' the world calls you Bedridden,--and its good things come to me."

ROBERT BROWNING: "Bishop Blougram's Apology."

The Bullingdon Ball took place on the Tuesday night, and Joyce returned to town the following morning. Her brother may have mentioned the time, or it may have been pure coincidence that I should be buying papers and watching the trains when she arrived at the station with the girl she was chaperoning. We met as friends and exchanged papers: I gave her the _Morning Post_ and received the _New Militant_ in return. As the train slipped away from the platform, she waved farewell with a carefully gloved left hand. Then Dick and I strolled back to the House.

In drowsy, darkened chamber Robin was sleeping the sleep of the just.

As I voyaged round his rooms, I reflected that undergraduate humour changes little through the ages, and in Oxford as elsewhere the unsuspecting just falls easy prey to wakeful, prowling injustice. An enemy had visited that peaceful home of slumber. Half-hidden by disordered bed-clothes, a cold bath prematurely awaited Robin's foot, and on his table was spread a repast such as no right-thinking man orders for himself after two nights' heavy dancing. Moist, indecorous slabs of cold boiled beef, beer for six, two jars of piccalilli and a round of over-ripe Gorgonzola cheese, offered piteous appeal to a jaded, untasting palate. Suspended from the overmantel--that soul might start on equal terms with body--hung the pious aspiration--"God Bless our Home."

"Garton, for a bob!" Robin exclaimed when I described the condition of his rooms.

Flinging the bed-clothes aside, he fell heavily into the bath, extricated himself to the accompaniment of low, vehement muttering that may have been a prayer, and bounded across the landing to render unto Garton the things that were Garton's. I followed at a non-committal distance, and watched the disposal of two pounds of boiled beef in unsuspected corners of Garton's rooms. Three slices were hidden in the tobacco jar, the rest impartially distributed behind Garton's books--to mature and strengthen during sixteen weeks of Long Vacation. Balancing the jug of beer on the door-top--whence it fell and caved in the fraudulent white head of a venerable scout--Robin hastened back to his own quarters and sported the oak.

"I was thinking of a touch of lunch on the Cher," he observed, exchanging his dripping pyjamas for a dressing-gown and making for a window-seat commanding Canterbury Gate, a cigarette in one hand and a Gorgonzola cheese in the other. "If you wouldn't mind toddling round to Phil and the Seraph and routing the girls out, we might all meet at the House barge at one. I'll cut along and dress as soon as I've given Garton a little nourishment. I suppose the pickles 'ud kill him," he added with a regretful glance at the two-pound glass jars.

I communicated the rendezvous to Philip, threw an eye over the "Where is Miss Rawnsley?" article as I crossed the Quad, and dropped anchor in the Seraph's rooms. His quaint streak of femininity showed itself in the bowls of "White Enchantress" carnations with which the tables and mantelpiece were adorned. A neat pile of foolscap covered with shorthand characters indicated early rising and studious method. I found him working his way through the _Times_ and _Westminster Gazette_ for the last three days.

"I suppose there is no news?" I said when I had told him Robin's arrangements for the day and described the Battle of the Beef.

"Nothing to-day," he answered. "Have you seen yesterday's _Times_?"

I had been far too busy with Joyce and my three wards to spare a moment for the papers. I now read for the first time that the Prime Minister had moved for the appropriation of all Private Members' days.

The Poor Law Reform Bill would engage the attention of the House for the remainder of the Session, to the exclusion of Female Suffrage and every other subject.

"That's Rawnsley's answer to _this_," I said, giving the Seraph my copy of the _New Militant_.

"I wonder what the answer of the _New Militant_ will be to Rawnsley,"

he murmured when he had read the article.

"That is for you to say," I told him. "You read the Heavens and interpret dreams and forecast the future...."

"Fortunately I can't."

This was an unexpected point of view.

"Wouldn't you if you could?" I asked.

"Would any one go on living if he didn't cheat himself into believing the future was not going to be quite as black as the present?"

This was not the right frame of mind for a man who had spent two nights dancing with Sylvia--to the exclusion of every one else, and I told him so.

"Come along to the Randolph," he exclaimed impatiently. "To-day, to-night; and to-morrow all will be over. I was a fool to come. I don't know why I did."

We picked up our hats and strolled into King Edward Street.

"You came because Sylvia invited you," I reminded him. "I heard the invitation. Young Rawnsley was not there, but Culling and Gartside were, and a dozen more I don't know by name. Any of them might have been chosen instead, but--they weren't. You should be more grateful for your advantages, my young friend."

"I'm not."

I linked my arm in his, and tried to find out what was upsetting him.

"You've been having some senseless, needless quarrel with her...." I hazarded.

"How can two people quarrel when they've not a single point in common?

Our lives are on parallel lines, continue them indefinitely and they'll never meet. Therefore--it's a mistake to bring the parallels so close together that one can see the other."

For a moment I wondered whether he had put his fortune to the test and received a rebuff.

"Does Sylvia think your lives are on parallel lines?" I asked.

"What experience or imagination do you think a girl like that's got?

It never occurs to them that everybody's not turned out of the same machine as themselves, with the same ideas, beliefs, upbringing, position, means. D'you suppose Sylvia appreciates that she spends more money on dress in six months than I earn in a year? Can she imagine that I hate and despise all the little conventions that she wouldn't transgress for all the wealth of the Indies? The doctrines she's learnt from her mother, the doctrines she'll want to teach her children--can she imagine that I regard them as so much witchcraft that I wouldn't imperil my soul by asking any sane child to believe?

I'm an infidel, a penniless, unconventional Bohemian, and she--well, you know the atmosphere of Brandon Court. What's the good of our going on meeting?"

"Nigel is neither infidel, unconventional, nor Bohemian," I said.

"Moreover, he stands on the threshold of a big career...."

"I daresay," said the Seraph as I paused.

"Nigel was not invited. Gartside may be an infidel if he ever troubles to think of such things; he is certainly not penniless or Bohemian. He is a large-framed, large-hearted hero, with every worldly advantage a girl could desire. Gartside was not invited. No more were the others.

You were."