‘Do you ever go up to Oxford now?’ said Merton.

’Not often.  Sometimes a St. Ursula girl gets a room in the town for me.  I have coached two or three of them at little reading parties.  It gets one out of town in autumn:  Bloomsbury in August is not very fresh.  And at Oxford one can “tout,” or “cadge,” for a little work.  But there are so many of us.’

‘What are you busy with just now?’

‘Vatican transcripts at the Record Office.’

‘Any exciting secrets?’

’Oh no, only how much the priests here paid to Rome for their promotions.  Secrets then perhaps:  not thrilling now.’

‘No schemes to poison people?’

’Not yet:  no plots for novels, and oh, such long-winded pontifical Latin, and such awful crabbed hands.’

‘It does not seem to lead to much?’

‘To nothing, in no way.  But one is glad to get anything.’

’Jephson, of Lincoln, whom I used to know, is doing a book on the Knights of St. John in their Relations to the Empire,’ said Merton.

‘Is he?’ said Miss Willoughby, after a scarcely distinguishable but embarrassed pause, and she turned from Merton to exhibit an interest in the very original scheme of mural decoration behind her.

‘It is quite a new subject to most people,’ said Merton, and he mentally ticked off Miss Willoughby as safe, for Jephson, whom he had heard that she liked, was a very poor man, living on his fellowship and coaching.  He was sorry:  he had never liked or trusted Jephson.

‘It is a subject sure to create a sensation, isn’t it?’ asked Miss Willoughby, a little paler than before.

‘It might get a man a professorship,’ said Merton.

‘There are so many of us, of them, I mean,’ said Miss Willoughby, and Merton gave a small sigh.  ‘Not much larkiness here,’ he thought, and asked a transient waiter for champagne.

Miss Willoughby drank a little of the wine:  the colour came into her face.

‘By Jove, she’s awfully handsome,’ thought Merton.

‘It was very kind of you to ask me to this festival,’ said the girl.  ’Why have you asked us, me at least?’

‘Perhaps for many besides the obvious reason,’ said Merton.  ’You may be told later.’

’Then there is a reason in addition to that which most people don’t find obvious?  Have you come into a fortune?’

’No, but I am coming.  My ship is on the sea and my boat is on the shore.’

’I see faces that I know.  There is that tall handsome girl, Miss Markham, with real gold hair, next Mr. Logan.  We used to call her the Venus of Milo, or Milo for short, at St. Ursula’s.  She has mantles and things tried on her at Madame Claudine’s, and stumpy purchasers argue from the effect (neglecting the cause) that the things will suit them.  Her people were ruined by Australian gold mines.  And there is Miss Martin, who does stories for the penny story papers at a shilling the thousand words.  The fathers have backed horses, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.  Is it a Neo-Christian dinner?  We are all so poor.  You have sought us in the highways and hedges.’