Michael listened vaguely to Lonsdale’s babble. He was watching the passage of the cigars and cigarettes down the table. Thank heaven, Stella had let the cigars go by.
The party of 196 Holywell broke up. Outside in the shadowy street of gables they stood laughing and talking for a moment. Guy Hazlewood, Comeragh and Anstruther looked down from the windows at their parting guests.
“It’s been awfully ripping,” these murmured to their hosts. The hosts beamed down.
“We’ve been awfully bucked up by everything. Special vote of thanks to Miss Fane.”
“You ought all to get Firsts now,” said Wedderburn.
Then he and Lonsdale and Michael and Maurice set off with Stella and Mrs. Ross to the High Street rooms. In different directions the rest of the party vanished on echoing footsteps into the moon-bright spaces, into the dark and narrow entries. Voices faint and silvery rippled along the spell-bound airs of the May night. The echoing footsteps died out to whispers. There was a whizzing of innumerable clocks, and midnight began to clang.
“We must hurry,” said the escort, and they ran off down the High toward St. Mary’s, reaching the lodge on the final stroke.
“Shall I come up to your rooms for a bit?” Maurice suggested to Michael.
“I’m rather tired,” objected Michael, who divined that Maurice was going to talk at great length about Stella.
He was too jealous of Alan’s absence that evening to want to hear Maurice’s facile enthusiasm.
Mrs. Ross and Stella left Oxford two days after the party, and Michael was really glad to be relieved of the dread that Stella in order to assert her independence of personality would try to smash the glass of fashion and dint the mold of form. Really he thought the two occasions during her visit on which he liked her best and admired her most were when she was standing on the station platform. Here she was expressed by that city of spires confusing with added beauty that clear sky of Summer. Here, too, her personality seemed to add an appropriate foreground to the scene, to promise the interpretation that her music would give, a promise, however, that Michael felt she had somehow belied.
Alan dropped out of the Varsity Eleven the following week, and he was in a very gloomy mood when Michael paid him a visit of condolence.