Ten suspended conversations were resumed, as he sat down; and Waring reverted to his own gloomy thoughts. Unaccustomed to look more than a day ahead, he was only beginning to recognize that in twenty-four hours he would have gone down from Oxford for the last time and that within four months he would have to begin reading for the bar. He had interrupted his dressing an hour before to stare out of the window, sprawling on the sill and dangling a collar and tie with idle hand.
Outside, the setting sun of a late June day filled the Broad with sleepy warmth and dyed the crumbling stone of the Sheldonian rose-red. In the middle of the road two cabmen slumbered on their boxes, pillowing their heads on their arms and leaving their horses to munch contentedly from frayed nosebags and to twitch an ear or flick a tail at too persistent flies. Rare groups of sight-seers approached the deserted gates of Trinity and Balliol, sought inspiration from guide-books and vanished diffidently from view. Oxford belonged to the ages; and for the first twenty-fifth part of the twentieth century Waring had fancied that it belonged to him. A hansom, overfilled by an American and her two daughters, jingled lazily from Holywell; the driver exhibited a contempt for Oxford no less profound than for America and waved his whip from side to side in rough time with the scornful scraps of information which he drawled through the trap.
"Ol' Clar'nd'n Buildin'. Bodleian be'ind it. Trin'ty. Balliol."
Three heads nodded and turned mechanically from right to left. The driver paused for new instructions, and an anxious voice from inside exclaimed:
"Gracious! it's a quarter of seven! Say, how many blocks are we from the depot?"
The high nasal intonation seemed to shiver the warm repose of the afternoon, and in another moment the Broad was echoing with life. A stream of bicycles poured down Parks Road; blazers of every colour flashed into sight and disappeared; men bareheaded and men in panamas, men with tennis racquets and men with dogs, men in flannels and men in tweeds, a few, even, still in white ties and coats of subfusc hue, parading the bondage of the Examination Schools, all hurried back to make ready for Hall. Oxford still belonged to them. At the gates of the colleges, deserted a moment since, the heirs of all the undergraduate ages assembled in careless disregard of their heritage; the last bicycles were tumbled into place; the last rainbow blazers and hat-ribbons vanished from sight; pipes were replaced in pockets, and necks bared from the dingy embrace of tattered gowns.
With a glance at the watch on his dressing-table, Jack Waring twisted himself to catch the reflection of his bottle-green dress-coat. It was the envied livery of the Phoenix Club, which—consistently with its name—died and came to life again once a year. At the end of every summer term not more than one survivor remained; the following Michaelmas the new president proposed and elected his own friends, choosing one junior to carry on the life and traditions of the club at the year's end. The institution had ensured for nearly two university generations and was the one constructive effort of Lord Loring's life at Oxford. With the grave self-absorption of nineteen he had demanded a club to which none but his own friends had access and of which he could nominate himself president and ordain the rules as he went on. He had long wanted a pretext, he explained in his inaugural address, for wearing a bottle-green dress-coat with brass buttons and white silk facings; and his position as founder of the club would give him an excuse for revisiting Oxford at the end of his lawful term.
A faint frown of regret and perplexity hovered over Jack Waring's plump and cheerful face, as he resumed his dressing. He had no fault to find with Oxford, where he had done more than most men and all that could be expected of any man. A case full of silver cups testified to his success in college and university Grinds; he had been Master of the Drag and a member of the Bullingdon; less than three days before he had shewn his versatility by proceeding, without the ostentation of an Honour School, to the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Colonel Waring had urged him to enjoy himself, and the four years had passed very satisfactorily.
"Eric!"