And, thought Guy with a compassionate feeling for mere friendship, what a much more wonderful May Day should be this when Pauline was twenty. There was now her birthday present to buy, and Guy set out on the quest of it with as much exaltation as Percival may have sought the Holy Grail. He wished it were a ring he could buy for her; and indeed ultimately he could not resist a crystal set on a thin gold circlet that she, his rose of girls, would wear like a dewdrop. This ring, however, could not be his formal gift, but it would have to be offered when they were alone, and it must be worn nowhere but in the secret country they haunted with their love. The ring, uncostly as it was, took nearly all Guy's spare money, and he decided to buy a book for her, because in Oxford bookshops he still had accounts running. The April afternoon wore away while in his own particular bookshop kept by Mr. Brough, an ancient man with a white beard, he took down from the shelves volume after volume. At last he found a small copy of Blake's Lyrics bound in faded apple-green calf and tooled in a golden design of birds, berries and daisies. This must be for Pauline, he decided, since someone must have known the pattern of that nursery wall-paper and, loving it, have wished it to be recorded more endurably. What more exquisite coincidence could assure him that this book was meant for Pauline? Yet he was half-jealous of the unknown designer who had thought of something of which himself might have thought. Oh, yes, this must be for Pauline; and, as Guy rescued it from the dust and darkness of the old shop, he ascribed to the green volume an emotion of relief and was half-aware of promising to it a new and dearer owner who with cherishing would atone for whatever misfortune had brought it to these gloomy shelves.
Next morning, when Guy was ready to start, Michael presented him with a glazier's diamond pencil.
"When you fall in love, Guy, this will serve to scribble sonnets to your lady on the lattices of Plashers Mead. I shall probably come there myself when term's over."
"I wish you'd come and live there with me," said Guy in a last effort to persuade Michael. "You see, if you shared the house, it wouldn't cost so much."
"Perhaps I will," said Michael. "Who knows? I wonder what your Rectory people would think of me."
"Oh, Pauline would like you. Pauline's the youngest, you know," added Guy. "And I'm pretty certain you'd like Monica."
Michael laughed.
"Really, Guy, I must tell them in Balliol that, since you went down, you've become an idle matchmaker. Good-bye."
"Good-bye. You're sure you won't mind the fag of forwarding my bicycle? I'll send you a postcard from Oldbridge."
Guy, although there was still more than a week before he would see Pauline, felt, as he hurried towards the boat-builder's moorings, that he would see her within an hour, such airy freedom did the realization of being on his way give to his limbs.