m_. Michael often asked himself if it really were possible he
could appear to that merry rout at the other end of J.C.R. in truly
heroic mold. He supposed, with a smile at himself for so gross a fraud,
that he really did for them pass mortal stature and that already he had
a bunch of legends dangling from his halo. Down in Venner's after wine,
Michael fancied the shouts of the freshmen wandering round Cloisters
were more raucous than once they had seemed. Sometimes really they were
almost irritating, but the After was capital, although the new comic
song of the new college jester lacked perhaps a little the perfect lilt
of "Father says we're going to beat them." Yet, after all, the Boer war
had been over three years now: no doubt "Father says we're going to beat
them" would have sounded a little stale. Last term, however, at Two
Hundred and Two it had rung as fresh as ever. But the singer was gone
now. It was meet his song should perish with his withdrawal from the
Oxford scene. Still the After was quite good sport, and Michael was glad
to think he and Grainger and Sterne were giving the last After but one
of this term. He bicycled back to the digs with his head full of
chatter, of clinking glasses and catchy tunes. Nevertheless, all
consciousness of the evening's merriment faded out, as he hurried up the
crooked staircase to the sitting-room where Alan, upright at the table
amid Thucydidean commentaries, was reading under the lamp's immotionable
rays, his hair glinting with what was now rare gold.

During this autumn term neither Michael nor Alan spoke of Stella except
as an essentially third person. She was in London, devoting so much of
herself so charmingly to her mother that Mrs. Fane nearly abandoned
every other interest in her favor. There were five Schumann recitals, of
which press notices were sent to 99 St. Giles. Michael as he read them
handed them on to Alan.

"Jolly good," said he, in a tone of such conventional praise that
Michael really began to wonder whether he had after all changed his mind
instead of merely concealing his intention. However, since conversation
between these two had been stripped to the bare bones of intercourse,
Michael could not bring himself to violate this habit of reserve for the
sake of a curiosity the gratification of which in true friendship should
never be demanded, nor even accepted with deeper attention than the
trivial news of the day casually offered. Nor would Michael hav