se after the war? It's all right now,
of course, for the moment, with the Colleges full of cadets and
wounded men. But would you put the old Oxford back if you could?'

He lay on his elbows looking up at her. Elizabeth's eyes sparkled a
little. She realized that an able man was experimenting on her,
putting her through her paces. She asked what he meant by 'the old
Oxford,' and an amusing dialogue sprang up between them as to their
respective recollections of the great University--the dons, the
lectures, the games, the Eights, 'Commem.' and the like. The Captain
presently declared that Elizabeth had had a much nicer Oxford than
he, and he wished he had been a female student.

'Didn't you--didn't you,' he said, his keen eyes observing her, 'get
a prize once that somebody had given to the Women's Colleges for
some Greek iambics?'

'Oh,' cried Elizabeth, 'how did you hear of that?'

'I was rather a dab at them myself,' he said lazily, drawing his hat
over his eyes as he lay in the sun, 'and I perfectly remember
hearing of a young lady--yes, I believe it was you!--whose
translation of Browning's "Lost Leader" into Greek iambics was
better than mine. They set it in the Ireland. You admit it? Capital!
As to the superiority of yours, I was, of course, entirely
sceptical, though polite. Remind me, how did you translate "Just for
a ribbon to put on his coat"?'

With a laughing mouth, Elizabeth at once quoted the Greek.

The Captain made a wry face.

'It sounds plausible, I agree,' he said slowly, 'but I don't believe
a Greek would have understood a word of it. You remember that in the
dim Victorian ages, when one great Latin scholar gave, as he
thought, the neatest possible translation of "The path of glory
leads but to the grave," another great Latin scholar declared that
all a Roman could have understood by it would have been "The path of
a public office leads to the jaws of the hillock"?'

The old Oxford joke was new in the ears of this Georgian generation,
and when the laugh subsided, Elizabeth said mildly:

'Now, please, may I have yours?'

'What--my translation? Oh--horribly unfair!' said the Captain,
chewing a piece of grass. 'However, here it is!'

He gave it out--with unction.

Elizabeth fell upon it in a flash, dissected and quarrelled with
every word of it, turned it inside out in fact, while the Captain,
still chewing, followed her with eyes of growing enjoyment.

'Well, I'll take a vote when I get b