“Oh, he has a studio?”
“Didn’t you know?”
“I don’t take very much interest in his movements,” Alan loftily explained.
They smoked on for a while without speaking.
“I must go to bed,” announced Alan at last.
“Not yet, not yet,” Michael urged him. “I don’t think you’ve quite realized that this is our last night in Ninety-nine.”
“I’ve settled to stay on here during Commem Week,” said Alan. “Your people are staying at the Randolph?”
Michael nodded, wondering to himself if it were possible that Alan could really have been so far-sighted as to stay on in St. Giles for the sake of having the most obvious right to escort his mother and Stella home. “But why aren’t you going into college?” he asked.
“Oh, I thought it would be rather a fag moving in for so short a time. Besides, it’s been rather ripping in these digs.”
Michael looked at him gratefully. He had himself feared to voice his appreciation of this last year with Alan: he was feeling sentimental enough to dread on Alan’s side a grudging assent to his enthusiasm.