"It's a long time since you've been in Oxford, isn't it?" Austen asked.
"Yes, it is; I've been at home, in London. But I suppose it hasn't changed much."
No, there wasn't much change, Austen said; old people went and new came.
What had become of all the men who had been with them in College, Arthur asked; he had lost sight of them somehow.
Austen said that some were at the Bar; some in the government offices; one or two in Parliament already; the most of them seemed to be getting on pretty well, he thought, though he had lost sight of many of them, as one did.
"And you've been living on here ever since? I heard you had been made a Fellow. You like it, I suppose?"
Yes, Austen said, he liked it well enough, the work was tiring sometimes; that afternoon he had been going through papers. Arthur noticed that he looked fatigued, and a good deal older. It was dry, hard work no doubt, but still it was not the kind of thing that changed you.
"I say, you have jolly rooms here, Austen; I envy you living in a place like this. Do you remember your old rooms over the garden? I think I used to live in them almost."
As the old memories revived they seemed to grow less shy of each other. Arthur leaned forward, talking in a vague, intermittent way as he stared into the fire. Sometimes he would gaze at nothing, with a vacant, dazed look, for minutes together; or he would take the fire-irons and break up the coals. Once the tongs slipped and fell with a sudden clatter; he started nervously.
"Well," he said at last, rousing himself from a reverie in which he seemed conscious of nothing but the warmth and comfort and pleasant, physical fatigue, "Well, it seems very jolly here, like old times; I almost wish I had never gone away. But then, of course, I couldn't help it," he added; "I wasn't asked."
"You had hard luck," Austen said; "I hope it hasn't made any difference."
The words sounded friendly and sympathetic to Arthur. Hard luck, yes, that was it; he had always had hard luck.
"What have you been doing since?" Austen said politely.
"What have I been doing, Charles? Oh, nothing much; seeing about things at home a little. There were some cottages I had rebuilt. You remember we used to talk about it. It isn't so easy though, or I suppose I'm not so clever at it. But of course you know a great deal more about those things."