This farewell to
Oxford herself was harder, and Michael wished that from the very first
moment of his arrival he had concentrated upon the object of a
Fellowship. Such a life would have suited him well. He would not have
withered like so many dons: he would each year have renewed his youth in
the stream of freshmen. He would have been sympathetic, receptive, and
worldly enough not to be despised by each generation in its course. Now,
since he had not aimed at such a career, he must go. The weather
opulently fine mocked his exit.

Michael and Alan had decided to stay up for Commemoration. Stella and
Mrs. Fane had been invited: Lonsdale and Wedderburn were coming up:
Maurice was bringing his mother and sisters. For a brief carnival they
would all be reunited, and rooms would be echoing to the voices of their
rightful owners. Yet after all it would be but a pretense of reviving
their merry society. It was not a genuine reunion this, that was
requiring women to justify it. Oxford, as Michael esteemed her, was
already out of his reach. She would be symbolized in the future by these
rooms at 99 St. Giles, and Michael made up his mind that no intrusion of
women should spoil for him their monastic associations. He would stay
here until the last day, and for Commemoration he would try to borrow
his old rooms in college, thus fading from this wide thoroughfare
without a formal leave-taking. He would drop astern from the bay-window
whence for a time he had watched the wrack and spume of the world
drifting toward the horizon in its wake. Himself would recede so with
the world, and without him the bay-window would hold a tranquil course,
unrocked by the loss or gain of him or the transient voyagers of each
new generation. Very few eves and sunsets were still his to enjoy from
this window-seat. Already the books were being stacked in preparation
for their removal to the studio at 173 Cheyne Walk. Dusty and derelict
belongings of him and Alan were already strewn about the landings
outside their bedrooms. Even the golf-bag of Alan's first term, woolly
now with the accumulated mildew of neglect, had been dragged from its
obscurity. Perhaps it would be impossible to drop astern as
imperceptibly as he would have liked. Too many reminders of departure
littered the rooms with their foreboding of finality.

"I'm shore I for one am quite sorry you're going," said the landlady. "I
never wish to have a nicer norer quieter pair of gentlemen. I