."

"Let's have him alone," murmured Agnes.

"My dear girl, I should die through the floor! Oh, it'll be all right
about breakfast. I rather think we shall get asked this evening by that
shy man who has the pretty rooms in Trinity."

"Oh, very well. Where is it you breakfast, Rickie?"

He faltered. "To Ansell's, it is--" It seemed as if he was making some
great admission. So self-conscious was he, that he thought the two women
exchanged glances. Had Agnes already explored that part of him that did
not belong to her? Would another chance step reveal the part that did?
He asked them abruptly what they would like to do after lunch.

"Anything," said Mrs. Lewin,--"anything in the world."

A walk? A boat? Ely? A drive? Some objection was raised to each. "To
tell the truth," she said at last, "I do feel a wee bit tired, and what
occurs to me is this. You and Agnes shall leave me here and have no more
bother. I shall be perfectly happy snoozling in one of these delightful
drawing-room chairs. Do what you like, and then pick me up after it."

"Alas, it's against regulations," said Rickie. "The Union won't trust
lady visitors on its premises alone."

"But who's to know I'm alone? With a lot of men in the drawing-room,
how's each to know that I'm not with the others?"

"That would shock Rickie," said Agnes, laughing. "He's frightfully
high-principled."

"No, I'm not," said Rickie, thinking of his recent shiftiness over
breakfast.

"Then come for a walk with me. I want exercise. Some connection of ours
was once rector of Madingley. I shall walk out and see the church."

Mrs. Lewin was accordingly left in the Union.

"This is jolly!" Agnes exclaimed as she strode along the somewhat
depressing road that leads out of Cambridge past the observatory. "Do I
go too fast?"

"No, thank you. I get stronger every year. If it wasn't for the look of
the thing, I should be quite happy."

"But you don't care for the look of the thing. It's only ignorant people
who do that, surely."

"Perhaps. I care. I like people who are well-made and beautiful. They
are of some use in the world. I understand why they are there. I cannot
understand why the ugly and crippled are there, however healthy they
may feel inside. Don't you know how Turner spoils his pictures by
introducing a man like a bolster in the foreground? Well, in actual life
every landscape is spoilt by men of worse shapes still."

"You sound like a bolster with the stuffin