The college and its guests were assembled. Peter and his eight, with members of the crews they had defeated, were seated at the high table. The bump-supper was in progress. Scarcely anyone was absolutely sober. For the first time in history Calvary had gone up seven places and had finished head of the river.

Stoop-shouldered dons, men who held themselves aloof with a scholar’s shyness, broke their rule to-night and hobnobbed with undergraduates. The dim old college hall was-uproarious with strong laughter and bass voices. The animal splendor of youth, the rage of life, as seen that afternoon on the river, had lured them away from cramped texts and grievous truths contained in books—had opened their eyes to a more vigorous and primitive conception of living.

A German Rhodes scholar, seated next to the college chaplain, was trying to teach him that scandalous libel against all parsons, The Ballad of The Parson’s Cow. The chaplain, who on more formal occasions would have felt insulted, was doing his eager best to pick up the words and tune. He kept assuring the German Rhodes scholar of his immense gratitude. He compared The Ballad of The Parson’s Cow to Piers the Ploughman, and affected to regard it as a literary pearl of great price.

Somewhere in the distance, behind clouds of tobacco smoke, Harry was singing his latest. Dons said “Shish!” gazing round with half-hearted severity. Nobody paid them much attention. Topsy-turvydom ruled; discipline was at an end. Behind the clouds of tobacco smoke the irrepressible voice sang on; other voices swelled the volume, taking up the chorus:

“Ever been born on a Friday?

What, never been born on a Friday!

What, never been born on a Friday yet,

When your mother wasn’t at home!”

Even Professor Benares Usk, the greatest Homeric scholar in Europe, let himself go under the influence of wine. His bald egg-shaped head perspired profusely. “I don’t mind telling you,” he kept saying. He was one of those self-important pedants who never minded telling anybody. He had made a corner in one fragment of human knowledge; consequently the things which he didn’t mind telling people would fill a library. Just at present he was explaining to Roy Hardcastle, with a sugar bowl for a galley and forks for oars, the technique of Greek rowing as revealed in Homer. Hardcastle repeatedly broke in on him with skittish references to Olympian immoralities. He propounded the theory to the Professor that the Iliad, in its day, had been no more than a bad boy’s book of frisky stories. The Professor was sufficiently not himself to contest the theory warmly.

Flushed faces, eager eyes, gusty laughter! From painted canvases, on paneled walls, grim founders looked down on bacchanalia, some of them sourly, others indifferently, and yet others with envy because, since becoming angels, they could no longer enjoy a glass of port.

The air was getting stifling. Speeches were commencing. The grave old warden was turning to Peter, and addressing him. Hardly a word was audible above the cheers. Hardcastle, as captain of the rowing, rose to reply.

Outside, behind stained-glass windows, the cool dusk of summer drifted noiselessly. Creepers rustled against crumbling masonry. The faint sweet smell of bean fields, far-blown from wide hillsides, met the wistful fragrance of imprisoned rose-gardens; they wandered together like ghostly lovers through the shadowy quiet of the quads.

Peter wanted to be out there—wanted to go to her. For the first time in a year he had seen her. Strange how little he had forgotten! He half-closed his eyes, picturing and remembering: her nun-like trick of carrying her hands against her breast; the way her voice slurred; her meek appearance of gay piety, which the red defiance of her mouth and the challenge of her eyes denied. She was a girl-woman, borrowing the attitudes of sophistication, yet exquisitely young and poignantly ignorant of the world.

He hadn’t been able to say much to her—only, “I heard you, Cherry”; to which she, shy in the presence of his parents, had replied, “I’m glad. I was afraid—so afraid that you wouldn’t win the race.”

They had walked up through the meadows, all of them together; he, with his mother and Kay on either side; she, between his father and the Faun Man. He had heard her tripping footsteps following behind. At the college-gate he had said, “I’ll see you again”; and she, “Perhaps.” No more than that. He had not dared to appoint a place of meeting; his parents didn’t know—they wouldn’t understand. Then he had had to run off to change for dinner.

She might be leaving early to-morrow. Did she care for him? She had seemed more sorry for him, more as though she were trying to be kind to him than in love with him. She was non-committal, elusive. But she was in Oxford to-night. Where, and with whom?

All down the long hall they were pushing back their chairs, struggling up from tables and tumbling out into the cool twilight. Men were hurrying to their rooms to put on their oldest clothes; there was going to be a “rag.” A piano struck up; then ceased suddenly. A groping of feet in the darkness of a wooden staircase! From one of the doorways a jostling, shouting crowd emerged. The piano was set down in the open quad; a chair was tossed out of a window. Harry took his seat at the key-board and commenced jingling over the air of, “What, never been born on a Friday yet, when your mother wasn’t at home!” Several of the crew seized Peter and hoisted him on to the top of the piano. He stood there an unwilling statue on a burlesque pedestal. They joined hands and danced about him in a circle. Then came the old wander-song of his childhood, bringing thoughts of her and of the Happy Cottage, “I’ve been shipwrecked off Patagonia.” Harry shouldn’t have played that.

A new diversion! They took him by the arms and ran him away: others followed, staggering under the weight of the piano. Through a passage a red glow grew up. In a neighboring quad a bon-fire had been kindled. It wasn’t high enough, broad enough, big enough—wasn’t worthy of the occasion. From windows, two and three stories up, men leant out and hurled down furniture. Very often it wasn’t their furniture. Who cared? The sky rained desks, and chairs, and tables.

Singing and shouting everywhere! An impromptu loving-cup was drunk, composed of anything alcoholic that came handy.

“Barrington! Hardcastle! Barrington!”

He and Hardcastle had to make speeches to one another.

A rocket soared into the night and burst among the stars. A rocket from a neighboring college answered the challenge. Soon the sky became a target against which Oxford aimed burning arrows.

A dispute arose as to the details of the last great race. Hardcastle insisted that there was nothing for it but to row it all afresh. With grave solemnity the crewmen, as though they were taking their places in an eight, were made to seat themselves in a line along the path. A rival crew, selected from among the defeated oarsmen of other colleges, was arranged ahead of them. Peter took his place at stroke in this sham rehearsal of an event accomplished. A pistol was fired; with empty hands, the eightsmen went through all the motions of rowing, to an accompaniment of yells of encouragement.

It must be nearly twelve—the out-of-college men and guests were departing. Peter wished he could follow them. Good-byes were being said with exaggerated fervor, as if long journeys were in prospect. The last of them had seized his gown and run. The porter was locking the gate of the lodge. Big Tom boomed the hour. The college was closed; there would be no more knocking in or out until to-morrow. And to-morrow she might be gone.

Peter caught Harry by the arm and led him aside. “Where’s she staying?”

“Who?”

“Cherry, of course.”

Harry laughed slyly. “Cherry, of course! Who else? Staying! Lorie’s taken a room for her in Bath Place. You know—between Holywell and Hell Passage.”

“Which room?”

Harry became serious. “Look here, old chap, what d’you want to know for?”

“Because i’m going to her.”

“Oh, are you?”

“Yes, to-night. You know what she is—may be gone before breakfast.”

“Here, you’d better come to bed.”

As they strolled across quad to Peter’s room, Harry asked him, “Whatever put such a mad scheme into your head? You can’t get out of college—the gate’s shut. If you did and got caught, you’d be sent down for a certainty.”

When the door had closed behind them, Peter didn’t sit down—he didn’t start to undress. He went to the window, threw it open and leant out. “I’m going, Harry, and I shan’t get caught, either. You’ve got to help. It’s a twenty-foot drop. If I knot my sheets together they’ll be long enough. You wait here till I come back and haul me up.”

Harry didn’t approve of it; but he was the mouth-organ boy and the adventure was in keeping with the night. The rope of sheets was flung out. For a moment Peter balanced on the sill; then he slipped down, hand-over-hand, into the blackness.

“All right.”

The rope was withdrawn.

The street was intensely quiet—empty of all sound. Houses slept. Not a shadow stirred. A cool breeze blew upon his forehead. He had the world to himself. He felt immensely young and exultant.

He began to run stealthily and on tiptoe, keeping close to the wall. There was never any telling—someone might come round a corner suddenly and take him unawares.

As he passed Professor Usk’s house, he thought for a moment of Glory. In one of those prim rooms she was lying safe in bed—she and Riska. He’d seen Riska laughing with Hardcastle on the barge. Who the dickens had introduced her? She was quite capable of having introduced herself. Then he forgot everything and everyone but Cherry and the purpose of his errand.

He came out on to High Street, flowing in a slow curve past churches and ancient doorways. As he went by All Souls he had the sense of still gardens and cool turf, lying steeped in moonlight. He wanted to laugh, wanted to shout to the silent city that he would soon be talking with her.

He turned down by Hell Passage and dived under an archway into a little court, where a lamp smoldered in an iron bracket and echoes played hide-and-seek behind his footsteps. There was an uncared for garden. In one corner stood a public house, with all the lights extinguished. Along one side, hugging the wall of a low-roofed house, ran the narrow path. He stepped back and looked up at the windows; that must be hers to the left.

He whispered her name, “Cherry. Cherry.”

Was she awake? He fancied that he heard her stir. He picked up some earth and threw it against the panes. He had startled her; something creaked, as though she sat up sharply.

“Don’t be frightened. It’s Peter,” he called beneath his breath.

She was coming. Soon she would look out. He saw her, leaning down on him, white clad, with her dark hair falling all about her face.

“I couldn’t stop away any longer, Cherry. I had to come to you. I want you to promise that you’ll be here to-morrow. When I asked you before you only said, ‘Perhaps.’ Only perhaps, Cherry, after a year of waiting! Promise me, ‘Yes.’”

Was she laughing? Was she angry? He was whispering to her again. “They’d locked all the doors. I was afraid that I’d never get out. I climbed down, when everyone was in bed. I had to come to you.”

“Oh, Peter, Peter!” She wasn’t cross with him. She was laughing. “You’re so persistent. It took you to do that.”

Silence again.

“But promise,” he urged. He wished that he might see her clearly. They had called her Cherry because her lips were red. “But promise. Won’t you say ‘Yes’?”

Her answer came so that he could scarcely hear it. “If I promise, will you go now?”

He nodded like a child, to give emphasis.

“Then yes—but only if you go now at once.”

She waited to see him start. He turned away reluctantly. As he entered the shadow of the archway he thought she kissed her hand.