“The brute must have followed the others into B.N.C.,” I panted.  “I’d love to see them come out.”

“I think he’s a scream,” said Agatha.  “If he could only see himself in that hat....”

She dissolved into peals of laughter.

“I agree.  But I’d rather watch from the stalls than assist him in one of his turns.”

“Stalls?  This is more like the gallery.”

“True.  But remember.  ‘Who sups with the devil should hold a long spoon.’  All the same, if you can bear another proverb, ‘It’s an ill wind,’ etc.  If I hadn’t been hard up for a refuge, I should never have thought of bringing you up here, and for any one to get an idea of Oxford it’s as good a place as I know.”

Miss Deriot gazed at the magnificent prospect before replying.

“It ought to make me feel very small,” she said suddenly, “but somehow it doesn’t.  It’s so terribly old and all that, but it’s got such a kind look.”

“That,” said I, “is the quality of Oxford.  And I congratulate you.  You are articulate where wise men have stood dumb.  Perhaps it’s because you’re so much alike.”

“Who.”

“You and Oxford.”

“Am I so terribly old?”

I shook my head.

“But you’re beautifully built, and you’ve got a kind look and handsome ways, and your temples are a dream, and all our swains commend you, and——­”

“Stop, stop.  You’re getting mixed.”

“Not at all.  My intellect was never less clouded.  In spite of two glasses of ginger beer, my hand is like a spade—­I mean a rock.  Insert a fly in your eye, and I will remove it unhesitatingly.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” said Agatha.

“One of these days I shall compare you to a burst of melody.  At the present moment I am between your dimple and the deep sea.”

“The dimple you are,” said Agatha, with a smile that promised laughter with difficulty suppressed.

Amusedly I regarded her.

She was very tastefully dressed.  A blue silk coat and a white laced blouse beneath it, a pale grey skirt of some soft stuff, grey silk stockings and small grey shoes—­these with a hat of crocheted silk that matched her jersey—­suited her pretty figure and the April day to rare perfection.

Leaning easily against the worn masonry of the balustrade, slight, lithe and graceful, she was the embodiment of vitality in repose.  She stood so still, but there was a light shining in the brown eyes, that were cast down and over the parapet, keeping a careful watch for any indication of Berry’s activity, a tell-tale quiver of the sensitive nostrils, an eagerness hanging on the parted lips, which, with her flushed cheeks, lent to a striking face an air of freshness and a keen joie de vivre that was exhilarating beyond description.

“I wonder what’s happening,” said Agatha, nodding down at the gateway.  “Can they get out another way?”