The third of February was a day so bland and of such spring-like texture that the quickened blood demanded adventure.

This was why Tony Croom sent an early wire and set out at noon from Bablock Hythe in his old but newly-acquired two-seater. The car was not his ‘dream,’ but it could do fifty at the pinch he liked to give it. He took the nearest bridge, ran for Abingdon, and on past Benson to Henley. There he stopped to snatch a sandwich and ‘fill up,’ and again on the bridge for a glimpse at the sunlit river softly naked below the bare woods. From there on he travelled by the dock, timing himself to reach Melton Mews at two o’clock.

Clare was not ready, having only just come in. He sat in the downstairs room, now furnished with three chairs, a small table, of quaint design, cheap owing to the slump in antiques, and an amethyst-coloured chased decanter containing sloe gin. Nearly half an hour he sat there before she came down the spiral stairs in fawn-coloured tweeds and hat, with a calfskin fur coat over her arm.

“Well, my dear! Sorry to have kept you. Where are we going?”

“I thought you might care to have a look at Bablock Hythe. Then we might come back through Oxford, have high tea there, wander about a bit among the colleges, and be back here before eleven. That do?”

“Perfect. And where will you sleep?”

“I? Oh! tool along home again. I’d be there by one.”

“Poor Tony! A hard day!”

“Oh! Not two hundred and fifty miles. You won’t want your fur on yet, the car doesn’t open — worse luck.”

They passed out at the westward mouth of the mews, narrowly missing a motor cyclist, and slid on towards the Park.

“She goes well, Tony.”

“Yes, she’s an easy old thing, but I always feel she might bust at any moment. Stapylton gave her a terrible doing. And I don’t like a light-coloured car.”

Clare leaned back, by the smile on her lips she was enjoying herself.

There was little conversation on that, the first long drive they had taken together. Both had the youthful love of speed, and young Croom got every ounce out of the car that the traffic would permit. They reached the last crossing of the river under two hours.

“Here’s the inn where I dig,” he said presently. “Would you like tea?”

“Not wise, my dear. When I’ve seen the boxes and paddocks, we’ll get out of here to where you’re not known.”

“I must just show you the river.”

Through its poplars and willow trees the white way of the river gleamed, faintly goldened by the sunken sun. They got out to look. The lamb’s tails on the hazels were very forward.

Clare twisted off a spray.

“False spring. There’s a lot to come before the real spring yet.”

A current of chilly air came stealing down the river, and mist could be seen rising on the meadows beyond.

“Only a ferry here, then, Tony?”

“Yes, and a short cut into Oxford the other side, about five miles. I’ve walked it once or twice: rather nice.”

“When the blossom and meadow flowers come, it’ll be jolly. Come along! Just show me where the paddocks lie, and we’ll get on to Oxford.”

They got back into the car.

“Won’t you see the boxes?”

She shook her head.

“I’ll wait till the mares are here. There’s a subtle distinction between your bringing me to look at boxes and my coming to look at mares. Are they really from Nejd?”

“So Muskham swears. I shall believe or not when I’ve seen the syces in charge of them.”

“What colour?”

“Two bays and a chestnut.”

The three paddocks sloped slightly towards the river and were sheltered by a long spinney.

“Ideal drainage and all the sun there is. The boxes are round that corner under the spinney. There’s a good deal to do still; we’re putting in a heater.”

“It’s very quiet here.”

“Practically no cars on this road; motor cycles now and then — there’s one now.”

A cycle came sputtering towards them, stopped, wrenched round, and went sputtering back.

“Noisy brutes!” murmured young Croom. “However, the mares will have had their baptism by the time they get here.”

“What a change for them, poor dears!”

“They’re all to be golden something: Golden Sand, Golden Houri, and Golden Hind, these three.”

“I didn’t know Jack Muskham was a poet.”

“It stops at horses, I think.”

“Really marvellous, the stillness, Tony!”

“Past five. The men have stopped work on my cottages — they’re converting.”

“How many rooms?”

“Four. Bedroom, sitting-room, kitchen, bathroom. But one could build on.”

He looked at her intently. But her face was averted.

“Well,” he said abruptly, “all aboard. We’ll get to Oxford before dark.”

Oxford — between lights, like all towns, at its worst — seemed to say: “Doomed to villadom, cars, and modernity, I am beyond your aid.”

To those two, hungry and connected with Cambridge, it offered little attraction till they were seated in the Mitre before anchovy sandwiches, boiled eggs, toast, muffins, scones, jam, and a large pot of tea. With every mouthful the romance of Oxford became apparent. This old inn, where they alone were eating, the shining fire, red curtains being drawn, the unexpected cosy solitude, prepared them to find it ‘marvellous’ when they should set forth. A motor cyclist in leather overalls looked in and went away. Three undergraduates chirped in the doorway, selected a table for dinner, and passed on. Now and again a waitress renewed their toast or fiddled at some table. They were deliciously alone. Not till past seven did they rise.

“Let’s scout,” said Clare. “We’ve lots of time.”

The Oxford world was dining, and the streets were almost empty. They wandered at random, choosing the narrower ways and coming suddenly on colleges and long old walls. Nothing seemed modern now. The Past had them by the throat. Dark towers, and old half-lit stone-work; winding, built in, glimpsy passages; the sudden spacious half-lighted gloom of a chanced-on quadrangle; chiming of clocks, and the feeling of a dark and old and empty town that was yet brimming with hidden modern life and light, kept them almost speechless; and, since they had never known their way, they were at once lost.

Young Croom had entwined her arm in his, and kept his step in time to hers. Neither of them was romantic, but both just then had a feeling as if they had wandered into the maze of history.

“I rather wish,” said Clare, “that I’d been up here or at Cambridge.”

“One never got a nooky feeling like this at Cambridge. In the dark this is much more medi?val. There the colleges are together in a line. The ‘backs’ lay over anything they’ve got here, but the old atmosphere here is far stronger.”

“I believe I could have enjoyed the past. Palfreys and buff jerkins. You’d have looked divine, Tony, in a buff jerkin, and one of those caps with a long green feather.”

“The present with you is good enough for me. This is the longest time we’ve ever spent together without a break.”

“Don’t get soppy. We’re here to look at Oxford. Which way shall we go now?”

“All the same to me,” said his remote voice.

“Hurt? That’s a big college! Let’s go in.”

“They’ll be coming out of hall. Past eight; we’d better stick to the streets.”

They wandered up the Cornmarket to the Broad, stood before the statues on the right, then turned into a dim square with a circular building in the centre, a church at the end, and colleges for its side walls.

“This must be the heart,” said Clare. “Oxford certainly has its points. Whatever they do to the outside, I don’t see how they can spoil all this.”

With mysterious suddenness the town had come to life; youths were passing with short gowns over their arms, flapping free, or wound round their necks. Of one of them young Croom asked where they were.

“That’s the Radcliffe. This is Brasenose, and the High’s down there.”

“And the Mitre?”

“To your right.”

“Thanks.”

“Not at all.”

He bent his uncapped head towards Clare and flapped on.

“Well, Tony?”

“Let’s go in and have cocktails.”

A motorist, well capped and leathered, standing by his cycle, looked after them intently as they went into the hotel.

After cocktails and biscuits, they came out f............