Not less averse¹ than from dogging the Duke was I from remaining another instant in the presence of Miss Dobson. There seemed to be no possible excuse for her. This time she had gone too far. She was outrageous². As soon as the Duke had had time to get clear away, I floated out into the night.  
I may have consciously reasoned that the best way to forget the present was in the revival³ of memories. Or I may have been driven by a mere⁴ homing instinct. Anyhow, it was in the direction of my old College that I went. Midnight was tolling⁵ as I floated in through the shut grim gate at which I had so often stood knocking for admission.
 
The man who now occupied my room had sported his oak—my oak. I read the name on the visiting-card attached thereto—E. J. Craddock—and went in.
 
E. J. Craddock, interloper, was sitting at my table, with elbows squared and head on one side, in the act of literary composition. The oars⁶ and caps on my walls betokened⁷ him a rowing-man. Indeed, I recognised his somewhat heavy face as that of the man whom, from the Judas barge⁹ this afternoon, I had seen rowing “stroke” in my College Eight.
 
He ought, therefore, to have been in bed and asleep two hours ago. And the offence of his vigil was aggravated¹⁰ by a large tumbler that stood in front of him, containing whisky and soda¹¹. From this he took a deep draught¹². Then he read over what he had written. I did not care to peer over his shoulder at MS. which, though written in my room, was not intended for my eyes. But the writer’s brain was open to me; and he had written “I, the undersigned Edward Joseph Craddock, do hereby leave and bequeath all my personal and other property to Zuleika Dobson, spinster. This is my last will and testament¹³.”
 
He gnawed¹⁴ his pen, and presently altered the “hereby leave” to “hereby and herewith leave.” Fool!
 
I thereby¹⁵ and therewith left him. As I emerged through the floor of the room above—through the very carpet that had so often been steeped in wine, and encrusted with smithereens of glass, in the brave old days of a well-remembered occupant—I found two men, both of them evidently reading-men. One of them was pacing round the room. “Do you know,” he was saying, “what she reminded me of, all the time? Those words—aren’t they in the Song of Solomon?—‘fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and... and...’”
 
“‘Terrible as an army with banners,’” supplied his host—rather testily¹⁷, for he was writing a letter. It began “My dear Father. By the time you receive this I shall have taken a step which...”
 
Clearly it was vain to seek distraction¹⁸ in my old College. I floated out into the untenanted meadows. Over them was the usual coverlet of white vapour, trailed from the Isis right up to Merton Wall. The scent¹⁹ of these meadows’ moisture is the scent of Oxford²⁰. Even in hottest noon, one feels that the sun has not dried THEM. Always there is moisture drifting across them, drifting into the Colleges. It, one suspects, must have had much to do with the evocation²¹ of what is called the Oxford spirit—that gentlest spirit, so lingering and searching, so dear to them who as youths were brought into ken⁸ of it, so exasperating²² to them who were not. Yes, certainly, it is this mild, miasmal²³ air, not less than the grey beauty and gravity of the buildings, that has helped Oxford to produce, and foster eternally, her peculiar²⁴ race of artist-scholars, scholar-artists. The undergraduate, in his brief periods of residence, is too buoyant to be mastered by the spirit of the place. He does but salute²⁵ it, and catch the manner. It is on him who stays to spend his maturity²⁶ here that the spirit will in its fulness gradually descend²⁷. The buildings and their traditions keep astir in his mind whatsoever²⁸ is gracious; the climate, enfolding and enfeeblin............