Later on in the quad when the undergraduate members of the dinner party discussed the evening, Maurice rallied Michael on his conversation.
“If you can talk your theories, why can’t you write them?” he complained.
“Because they’d be almost indecently diaphanous,” said Michael.
“Good old Fane!” said Grainger. “But, I say, you are an extraordinary chap, you know.”
“He did it for me,” said Lonsdale. “Pumpkin-head would have burst, if I’d let out I didn’t know what part of the jolly old world my governor used to run.”
CHAPTER X
STELLA IN OXFORD
Alan, when he met Michael at Paddington, was a great deal more cheerful than when they had gone up together for the previous term. He had managed to achieve a second class in Moderations, and he had now in view a term of cricket whose energy might fortunately be crowned with a blue. Far enough away now seemed Greats and not very alarming Plato and Aristotle at these first tentative encounters.
Michael dined with Alan at Christ Church after the Seniors’ match, in which his host had secured in the second innings four wickets at a reasonable price. Alan casually nodded to one or two fellow hosts at the guest table, but did not offer to introduce Michael. All down the hall, men were coming in to dinner and going out of dinner as unconcernedly as if it had been the dining-saloon of a large hotel.
“Who is that man just sitting down?” Michael would ask.