Dessert over, cards began; but it was not whist. Everybody voted that slow. Frank himself thought that he never had played so enticing a game as loo. When he knocked in that night at five minutes to twelve, he fancied the porter eyed him suspiciously and knew that he had returned minus a few pounds and plus a racking headache. His suspicions were right. Few read more rightly or more quickly the character and career of the undergraduates than the porters who open to them nightly.
But, in spite of his headache, Frank managed to be up at four o’clock next morning. He had accepted Morton’s invitation to breakfast at six, after hearing the choir sing the May-Morning Hymn on the college tower. George, the porter, as he opened the Lodge-gates to Frank and others, thought, in spite of his pale face, that he at least could not have been up to much mischief last night, or he would not have been up so early after it. And George, usually infallible, began to retract his last night’s opinion.
As he stood on the leads and looked down through the grey battlements on the faint fresh green that was brightening the trees in the Botanical Gardens; on the distant spires and towers; and on the less fortunate crowds in the street below; and as the sweet voices of the choir rose and blended through the soft morning air, a feeling, whether it was regret or remorse he hardly knew, came over him. Anyhow he felt that this was a sweeter, purer pleasure than the gambling of last night, and confessed to himself that he had been “an utter fool for his pains.”
It was a blazing afternoon about the end of May. The river—meaning thereby the Isis, the main river, to distinguish it from its tributary the Cherwell—was deserted save for a few energetic men in outrigged skiffs practising for sculling races, and the boatmen, in charge of the various college barges, sweltering in the sun, and, as fast as the heat would allow them, making preparations for the work of the evening. The Cherwell, with its slow, shady stream, its winding banks and drooping trees, was the favourite resort, but even here all was quiet. Every now and then a canoe flashed by lazily, or a punt plunged up in search of some cool nook. There was a momentary disturbance, perhaps, as it bumped against one already moored; and pairs of sleepy eyes would look up to scowl at the new-comer, if a stranger; or greet him lazily if a friend.
Just in one of the pleasantest corners, Frank and Monkton had fixed their craft, and were lying face upwards on a couple of enormous cushions—Monkton smoking or pretending to smoke; Frank reading or pretending to read.
“Are you going to stay for the Eights?” asked Monkton.
“Rather,” answered Frank. “Why? aren’t you?”
“No, not I! In the first place, I don’t care about them; and in the second place, I’ve promised Morton to drive to Abingdon at seven. It’ll be getting cool then.”
“It seems to me you’re rather fond of going to Abingdon,” answered Frank. “What’s the attraction?”