"I was stroke in the 'Varsity boat that year, and rowed at six in the Christ Church Eight that night."

"Then you must be Strangeways?"

"Yes, Corporal Strangeways of the Northwest Mounted Police, but Strangeways of the Oxford boat at one time. I fancied I knew you; you rowed at seven for Corpus, and it was you who won that race."

"I and seven others," laughed Granger; "but what brings you up here at this time?"

"We'll talk about that later. At present I'm hungry; I've hardly had a meal since I left God's Voice."

"Then you're travelling in haste?"

"Yes, in haste."[76]

[76]

Granger set to work to prepare a meal, while Strangeways talked to him of the Cornmarket, the Turl, and the Hinkseys, running over the familiar geography for the sheer pleasure of recalling kindly Oxford names. Presently he asked him if he remembered the little maid who had served in the river-inn of the King's Arms at Sanford. Granger had had a summer love-affair with that same maid, as had many a young water-man before and after him. One quiet Sunday evening, when her fickle passion had reached its short-lived height, he had even been allowed the felicity of accompanying her to vespers at the quaint old Norman Church, which lay snuggled away in woods behind the Thames. They had returned to the inn by a roundabout way, through the meadows beneath the twilight, speaking all manner of intense things, and, very wonderfully, believing both themselves and their sayings to be sincere. When he had entered his skiff and pushed out from the bank, she had called him back and royally permitted him to give her his first and, as it proved, only kiss. But he had not known that, and had rowed elated Oxfordwards between the hayfields, dreaming his ecstasy on into the future—when it had already achieved its climax, and slipped out of his life. Since then it had come to seem very simple and absurd, as do all love affairs, however august, which are lived down—for no love affair was ever outlived. So, because he had been fond of her, he was glad to listen to Strangeways, even when he related her newer conquests over more recent undergrads, and her later romantic history. By all accounts she was a modern Helen of Troy, uncontaminate, forever fair and forever juvenile.

And all the while he was listening, Granger was plan[77]ning by what means he might detain Strangeways, and 

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