"How can you about Sylvia?"
He hesitated, flushed, opened his lips and shut them again in his old tantalising way.
"I don't know," he answered as we entered the Randolph, and walked to the end of the hall where the three girls were awaiting us.
Robin had provided an imposing flotilla for our accommodation. His own punt was reserved for Cynthia, himself, and the luncheon-baskets; a mysterious reconciliation had placed Garton's at the disposal of Philip, Gladys, and myself, while Sylvia and the Seraph were stowed away in a Canadian canoe, detached by act of sheer piracy from the adjoining Univ. barge. We took the old course through Mesopotamia and over the Rollers, mooring for luncheon half a mile above the Cherwell Hotel. Hunger and a sense of duty secured my presence for that meal and tea; in the interval I retired for a siesta. Distance, I find, lends enchantment to a chaperon.
It was in my absence that Philip asked Gladys to marry him. On my reappearance at tea-time, Robin shouted the news across a not inconsiderable section of Oxfordshire. I affected the usual surprise, warned Philip that he must await my brother's approval, and shook hands with him avuncularly. Then I watched the orgy of kissing that seems inseparable from announcements of this kind. A mathematician would work out the possible combinations in two minutes, but his calculation would, as ever, be upset by the intrusion of the personal equation, for Robin kissed Gladys not once, but many times, less with a view to welcoming her as a sister than from a reasonable belief that such ill-timed assiduity would exasperate her elder brother.
In time it occurred to some one to make tea, and at six o'clock the flotilla started home. Robin ostentatiously transferred me from Philip's punt to his own, and with equal ostentation announced his intention of starting last so as to round up the laggards. The Canadian canoe shot gracefully ahead, and was soon lost to view; a fast stream was running, and the boat needed little assistance from the paddle. I have no doubt that in the late afternoon sun, and with an accompaniment of rippling water gently lapping the sides of the boat, time passed all too quickly. Fragments of conversation were disinterred for my benefit in the course of the following weeks, to set me wondering anew what sympathetic nimbus I must wear that girls and boys like Sylvia and the Seraph should unlock their hearts for my inspection.
I gather that Sylvia called for the verdict on the success of their expedition to Oxford, and that the Seraph found for her, but with reluctant, qualified judgment.
"You're not sorry you came?" she asked. "Well, what's lacking? I'm responsible for bringing you here; I want everything to be quite perfect."
"Everything is perfect, Sylvia."