“Not very much, Miss Martin.”
“For goodness’ sake,” said the Dean, “chuck that perishing old Ducange and Meyer-Lübke or whoever it is and go away and play. I’m always having to chase the Schools people off to the river and into the country,” she added, turning to Harriet. “I wish they’d all be like Miss Camperdown-she was after your time. She frightened Miss Pyke by dividing the whole of her Schools term between the river and the tennis courts, and she ended up with a First in Greats.”
Miss Newland looked more alarmed than ever. “I don’t seem able to think,” she confessed. “I forget things and go blank.”
“Of course you do,” said the Dean, briskly. “Sure sign you’re doing too much. Stop it at once. Get up now and get yourself some food and then take a nice novel or something, or find somebody to have a knock-up with you.”
“Please don’t bother. Miss Martin. I’d rather go on with this. I don’t feel like eating and I don’t care about tennis-I wish you wouldn’t bother!” she finished, rather hysterically.
“All right,” said the Dean; “bless you, I don’t want to fuss. But do be sensible.”
“I will, really. Miss Martin. I’ll just finish this paper. I couldn’t feel comfortable if I hadn’t. I’ll have something to eat then and go to bed. I promise I will.”
“That’s a good girl.” The Dean passed on, out of the Library, and said to Harriet:
“I don’t like to see them getting into that state. What do you think of your horse’s chance?”
“Not much,” said Harriet. “I do know her. That is, I’ve seen her before. I saw her last on Magdalen Tower.”
“What?” said the Dean. “Oh, lord!”
Of Lord Saint-George, Harriet had not seen very much during that first fortnight of term. His arm was out of a sling; but a remaining weakness in it had curbed his sporting activities, and when she did see him, he informed her that he was working. The matter of the telegraph pole and the insurance had been safely adjusted and the parental wrath avoided. “Uncle Peter,” to be sure, had had something to say about it, but Uncle Peter, though scathing, was as safe as houses. Harriet encouraged the young gentleman to persevere with his work and refused an invitation to dine and meet “his people.” She had no particular wish to meet the Denvers, and had hitherto successfully avoided doing so.
Mr. Pomfret had been assiduously polite. He and Mr. Rogers had taken her on the river, and had included Miss Cattermole in the party. They had all been on their best behaviour, and a pleasant time had been enjoyed by all, the mention of previous encounters having, by common consent, been avoided. Harriet was pleased with Miss Cattermole; she seemed to have made an effort to throw off the blight that had settled upon her, and Miss Hillyard’s report had been encouraging. Mr. Pomfret had also asked Harriet to lunch and to play tennis; on the former occasion she had truthfully pleaded a previous engagement and, on the second, had said, with rather less truth, that she had not played for years, was out of form and was not really keen. After all, one had one’s work to do (Le Fanu, ‘Twixt Wind and Water, and the History of Prosody among them made up a fairly full programme), and one could not spend all one’s time idling with undergraduates. On the evening after her formal introduction to Miss Newland, however, Harriet encountered Mr. Pomfret accidentally. She had been to see an old Shrewsburian who was attached to the Somerville Senior Common Room, and was crossing St. Giles on her way back, shortly before midnight, when she was aware of a group of young men in evening dress, standing about one of the trees which adorn that famous thoroughfare. Being naturally inquisitive, Harriet went to see what was up. The street was practically deserted, except for through traffic of the ordinary kind. The upper branches of the tree were violently agitated, and Harriet, standing on the outskirts of the little group beneath, learned from their remarks that Mr. Somebody-or-the-other had undertaken, in consequence of an after-dinner bet, to climb every tree in St. Giles without interference from the Proctor. As the number of trees was large and the place public, Harriet felt the wager to be rather optimistic. She was just turning away to cross the street in the direction of the Lamb and Flag when another youth, who had evidently been occupying an observation-post, arrived, breathless, to announce that the Proggins was just coming into view round the corner of Broad Street. The climber came down rather hastily, and the group promptly scattered in all directions-some running past her, some making their way down side-streets, and a few bold spirits fleeing towards the small enclosure known as the Fender, within which (since it belongs not to the Town but to St. John’s) they could play at tig with the Proctor to their hearts’ content. One of the young gentlemen darting in this general direction passed Harriet close, stopped with an exclamation, and brought up beside her.
“Why, it’s you!” cried Mr. Pomfret, in an excited tone.
“Me again,” said Harriet. “Are you always out without your gown at this time of night?”
“Practically always,” said Mr. Pomfret, falling into step beside her. “Funny you should always catch me at it. Amazing luck, isn’t it?… I say, you’ve been avoiding me this term. Why?”
“Oh, no,” said Harriet; “only I’ve been rather busy.”
“But you have been avoiding me,” said Mr. Pomfret. “I know you have. I suppose it’s ridiculous to expect you to take any particular interest in me. I don’t suppose you ever think about me. You probably despise me.”
“Don’t be so absurd, Mr. Pomfret. Of course I don’t do anything of the sort. I like you very much, but-”
“Do you?… Then why won’t you let me see you? Look here, I must see you. There’s something I’ve got to tell you. When can I come and talk to you?”
“What about?” said Harriet, seized with a sudden and awful qualm.
“What about? Hang it, don’t be so unkind. Look here, Harriet-No, stop, you’ve got to listen. Darling, wonderful Harriet-”
“Mr. Pomfret, please-”
But Mr. Pomfret was not to be checked. His admiration had run away with him, and Harriet, cornered in the shadow of the big horse-chestnut by the Lamb and Flag, found herself listening to as eager an avowal of devotion as any young gentleman in his twenties ever lavished upon a lady considerably his senior in age and experience.
“I’m frightfully sorry, Mr. Pomfret. I never thought-No, really, it’s quite impossible. I’m at least ten years older than you are. And besides-”
“What does that matter?” With a large and clumsy gesture Mr. Pomfret swept away the difference of age and plunged on in a flood of eloquence, which Harriet, exasperated with herself and him, could not stop. He loved her, he adored her, he was intensely miserable, he could neither work nor play games for thinking of her, if she refused him he didn’t know what he should do with himself, she must have seen, she must have realized-he wanted to stand between her and all the world-
Mr. Pomfret was six feet three and broad and strong in proportion.
“Please don’t do that,” said Harriet, feeling as though she were feebly saying “Drop it, Caesar,” to somebody else’s large and disobedient Alsatian. “No, I mean it. I can’t let you-” And then in a different tone: “Look out, juggins! Here’s the Proctor.”
Mr. Pomfret, in some consternation, gathered himself together and turned as to flee. But the Proctor’s bull-dogs, who had been having a lively time with the tree-climbers in St. Giles, and were now out for blood, had come through the archway at a smart trot, and seeing a young gentleman not only engaged in nocturnal vagation without his gown but actually embracing a female (mulier vel meretrix, cujus consortio Christianis prorsus interdictum est) leapt gleefully upon him, as upon a lawful prey.
“Oh, blast!” said Mr. Pomfret. “Here, you-”