"Very lucky," he said.
"Was it not? Then I spent Wednesday at Oxford, which I was determined to see before I left England. Most beautiful and interesting it is. I lunched with the Master of Magdalen College, whom I met in London several times, and saw the statue they put up on the place where Shelley died."
"I thought he was drowned," said Lily.
"Very likely, dear," said Mrs. Murchison; "and now I come to think of it, the place is near the river, so I expect they put it up as near as they could. You couldn't wish to see them put a recumbent statue, a very recumbent statue indeed, so it is, in ten feet of water, dear," she observed, with great justice.
Mrs. Murchison sipped her tea in a very ecstasy of content. It was barely a year since she had first seen Toby, and marked him down as the ideal husband for Lily; and there they were all three of them, drinking tea, as she said to herself, in the stately homes of England, how beautiful they stand! Her siege of London had been rapid and brilliantly successful. The fortifications had fallen sudden and flat, like the walls of Jericho; and she made no more of dining at the Criterion with that marvellous Lady Tarling than of washing her hands or going to America.
"Yes, the Master of Magdalen College was most kind," continued Mrs. Murchison, "and said he remembered Toby well. Dear me, what a lot I shall have to tell your father, Lily! And after lunch—really, a most excellent lunch, I assure you, with quails in asps—we went down to the Ibis."
"To the where?" asked Lily.
"To the river," said Mrs. Murchison, suspecting a difficulty, "and saw where the college boats rowed their races—torpedoes, I think the Master called them, and I remember wondering why. His own torpedo won the last races."
Here Toby choked violently over his tea, and left the room with a rapid uneven step.
"Perhaps it's not torpedoes, then," went on his mother-in-law, supposing that he would have corrected her if he had been able to speak; "but it's something very like. Dear me, what a terrible noise poor Toby makes! Had we better go and pat him on the back? Then yesterday I went to the 'Messiah' at the Albert Hall, which made me cry."