I remember him very distinctly as he stood there; his light blue eyes and the iron-rimmed spectacles, and the greenish Norfolk jacket that didn’t seem to fit anywhere, and the grey flannel trousers, baggy at the knees, and his fair hair, very straight and lanky, one lock of it flopping down over his forehead. His mouth I noticed even then, rather wide and thin-lipped; a sensitive, rather beautiful mouth, and he had beautiful hands, but that I did not notice till much later.
I felt then chiefly amused at him. He looked so funny blinking there in the sun, and I knew that Guy was very much annoyed with him, and equally well, that he would not say anything at all.
‘You didn’t tell me you couldn’t come at half-past two,’ said George mildly.
‘No—I’m awfully sorry—I didn’t think it would take so long; I had something to finish.’
‘All right, we’ll come along now,’ said Guy. ‘This is my cousin Miss Woodruffe, and Miss Addington.’
Walter bowed jerkily at us, and we all went downstairs and out.
IV
It is strange about that picnic; I remember so little about it. It merges in my mind into so many others. I remember that we went up the Cherwell; a long way up, past Water Eaton and under Islip Bridge, and that we had tea and supper, and came back late; but all that was the same as many other picnics, and I cannot remember anything distinctive about this one, except being in a canoe with Walter for a part of the time, and finding him hard to talk to.
It is curious to realize that it made so little impression on my mind when it made so much on his. He told me afterwards that he had hesitated about coming. He wanted to finish a bit of work that afternoon, and then George ran into him in the quad and asked him to come.
‘Half-past two at Guy Laurier’s rooms,’ George had said, and he had answered: ‘Oh, thanks awfully. I’d love to come,’ and gone on to his room, thinking; ‘I needn’t go, after all, if I don’t want to. I’ll wait and see what I feel like when the time comes.’