we kept up a frequent correspondence. She said twice over that she

wanted to talk to me, that letters didn't convey what one wanted to

say, and I went up to Oxford pretty definitely tosee her-though I

combined it with one or two other engagements-somewhere in

February. Insensibly she had become important enough for me to make

journeys for her.

But we didn'tsee very much of one another on that occasion. There

was something in the air between us that made a faint embarrassment;

the mere fact, perhaps, that she had asked me to come up.

A year before she would have dashed off with me quite unscrupulously

to talkalone, carried me off to her room for an hour with a minute

of chaperonage tosatisfy the rules. Now there was always some one

or other near us that it seemed impossible to exorcise.

We went for a walk on the Sunday afternoon with old Fortescue, K.

C., who'd come up tosee his two daughters, both great friends of

Isabel's, and some mute inglorious don whose name I forget, but who

was in astate of marked admiration for her. The six of us played a

game of conversational entanglements throughout, and mostly I was

impressing the Fortescue girls with the want of mental concentration

possible in a rising politician. We went down Carfex, Iremember,

to Folly Bridge, and inspected the Barges, and then back by way of

Merton to the Botanic Gardens and Magdalen Bridge. And in the

Botanic Gardens she got almost her only chance with me.

"Last months at Oxford," she said.

"And then?" I asked.

"I'm coming to London," she said.

"To write?"

She was silent for a moment. Then she said abruptly, with that

quick flush of hers and a sudden boldness in her eyes: "I'm going to

<<BackPagesTo menuForward>>