“One to myself, Daunchey. And one to Mr. Paunceford, at my address. And bind them both in that _eau-de-nil_ calf I had before.”
Side by side, he planned, David and he would read them while dawn broke upon their last dear day as clerks of Oxenford.…
Commemoration Week, as may be expected, did not linger. Lady Penhaligon, obedient and rejuvenated as ever, arrived from Reno, Nev., on the very day before the river-side festivities.
“Such a lonesome trip home, dearest Gav,” she murmured at the station. “Don’t you like this toque, darling? I got it at New Orleans--oh, you _should_ have seen the central heating we had there last fall.…”
“But how topping to get you back, Mums,” he said, “and you’re just in time for to-morrow!”
“But am I late for something to-day, dear?” she asked so wistfully that her son had to burst out laughing.
“You’re never that, Mums!” he cried, and kissed her.
“I don’t understand it all, Gavvy,” and she smiled in her deliciously puzzled fashion. “But you always seem to get the last word nowadays.”
Dear Lady Julia! She spoke more truthfully than she knew, more truthfully than even Gaveston could have foreseen.…
But once at Malmaison Lodge, Gaveston had to rush back to the station to meet Lady Blandula and Lady Jordan and Uncle Wilkinson who were to make up the house party.…
Hard on the heels of each day followed another. Between the college balls which Gav and his mother and Lady Blandula nightly graced, there seemed scarcely a few fleeting hours for river parties under the wine-red hawthorns of Islip or Newnham, and almost before anyone had realized it--the last day of all had come! At last it was there, that fateful Thursday when Gaveston would have to face the examiners in Divinity Moderations and place the crown on his academic career.
“You’ll all come to my _viva_, of course,” Gav had said to the assembled house party at Malmaison Lodge. “David will give you the tickets. It’s at six o’clock (do be punctual, Mums!)--and it’ll all be over in time for us to change before dinner here at seven.”
“You’re sure it won’t last too long, Gav darling. You mustn’t tire yourself,” Lady Penhaligon’s voice was heard above the delighted murmurs of assent.
“No, mother dear,” Gav laughed, “I’m seeing to that.”