"I think I've got hold of the thing pretty well now, sir." The dunce rose and smiled, and his tutor realised how little the dunce had to learn in some things. He felt quite grateful to him.
"Oh, well, you'll come and see me again after lunch, won't you, if one or two points occur to you for elucidation," he said, feeling vaguely a liar, and generally guilty. But when, on the departure of the dunce, Winifred held out her arms, everything fell from him but the sense of the exquisite moment. Their lips met for the first time, but only for an instant. He had scarcely time to realise that this wonderful thing had happened before the mobile creature had darted to his book-shelves and was examining a Thucydides upside down.
"How clever to know Greek!" she exclaimed. "And do you really talk it with the other dons?"
"No, we never talk shop," he laughed. "But, Winifred, what made you come here?"
"I had never seen Oxford. Isn't it beautiful?"
"There's nothing beautiful here," he said, looking round his sober study.
"No," she admitted; "there's nothing I care for here," and had left another celestial kiss on his lips before he knew it. "And now you must take me to lunch and on the river."
He stammered, "I have—work."
She pouted. "But I can't stay beyond to-morrow morning, and I want so much to see all your celebrated oarsmen practising."
"You are not staying over the night?" he gasped.