“Dear old chap! I hope he doesn’t come another cropper.”
“He says he can’t, but he won’t explain why. And d’you know, I believe he’s given Papa back the two thousand pounds that he lost.”
“I don’t believe it. What makes you think that?”
“Because Papa’s stopped talking against him, and because I caught him looking up those guide-books to Italy again.”
We turned off from the Abingdon Road and curved round to the left through the sheep-farms of Hinksey. Hedges bristled bare on either side. Uplands rose bleak against the steely sky. Rutted lanes were brittle beneath our feet, crusted over here and there with ice. On thatched roofs of cottages sparrows squatted with ruffled feathers. Icicles hung down from spouts. The lambing season was just commencing. As we drew near farms the warm smell of sheep packed close together assailed our nostrils. From far and wide a constant, distressful bleating went up. Quickly and silently, rising out of the ground, dropping down from the sky, darkness closed in about us. In the cup of the valley, with the river sweeping round it, lay Oxford with its glistening towers and church spires. Little pin-points of fire sprang up, shining hard and frosty through the winter’s shadows. They raced through the city, as though a hundred lamp-lighters had wakened at once and were making up for lost time. Soon the somber mass was a blazing jewel, flinging up a golden blur into the night.
Ruthita hugged my arm. “Doesn’t it make you glad to be alive? I’m never so happy as when I’m alone with you, Dante. It isn’t what we say that does it. It’s just being near one another.”
She spoke like a child, groping after words, feeling far more than she could ever utter. But I knew what she meant. The woman in her was striving. Just as her flowerlike womanhood, unfolding itself to me secretly, made me hungry for Vi, so my masculinity stung her into wistful eagerness for a man’s affection.
“You’re a queer little kiddie. What you need’s a husband. I shall be frightfully jealous of him. At first I shall almost hate him.”
“If you hated him, I shouldn’t marry him. Besides, I don’t believe I shall ever marry.”
We trudged back to Oxford in a gay mood, carrying on a bantering conversation. When we had entered Lazarus, I left her at the lodge, telling her to go to Fellows’ Quad while I ordered tea at the pantry. As I approached my rooms, I heard the sound of voices. Opening the door, I saw the lamp had not been lit. By the flare of the fire, I made out the profile of Ruthita as she leant back in the arm-chair, resting her feet on the fender. Standing up, looking down on her, with his arm against the mantelshelf was Lord Halloway.