"I suppose we'd best have tea and then sight-see them around the colleges till dinner." "I guess the tour is obligatory," he said with a grimace. "Has the Muse been refractory this morning? I saw you rambling round in the garden." "Yes," her lips twisted into a wry smile. "Had to fight out a new idea. It's provoking. You get things nicely planned out, everything marching placidly to a happy ending--then something unexpected turns up, some eleventh-hour disturbance. Something you've got to take time off to think out." "Fine," he said. "You're growing into a more realistic vision of life all the time, B. And that means constantly improving novels." He got up and walked about the room, developing into quite a speech his ideas on the Unexpected Element in Life and how it deserved more recognition in literature. But all the time, while she was appearing to listen in rapture to his wisdom, she was telling herself bitter things about the literal-minded, uncomprehending male. Thursday afternoon as Yetta and Isadore found their places in the train for Oxford they both had an unusual feeling of tongue-tiedness. They were quite tired and it was a relief to have sleepiness as an excuse for not talking. Yetta was not conscious of any stress between them. She believed that Isadore was as sleepy as he pretended to be. It seemed to her the most natural thing in the world to renew old friendships. She opened her eyes now and then for a glimpse at the unfamiliar countryside. But most of the time she dreamily lived over again "the old days." She was generally too busy to think these things out leisurely--as you must if you are to think of them at all. She found it hard to recognize the picture of herself which she drew out of her memory. The few years, which had passed since her marriage, seemed to her much longer and fuller than all her life before. She, a mother of two children, found it very hard to sympathize with the _jeune fille_, who had been so very much in love with this man she had scarcely seen a dozen times. She was half sorry she had accepted the invitation. She was no longer the same person whom Walter and Beatrice had known. Instead of renewing an old acquaintance, her visit to Oxford would be that of a stranger. It would be embarrassing if Walter treated her like the girl he had known. But it never occurred to her that Isadore was suffering from jealous apprehension. "Oxford's the next station," Isadore said. It jerked her out of her revery. As they got off the train there was a kaleidoscopic moment, an impression of many people rushing hither and thither in a senseless chaos. Then suddenly the vagueness dissolved, and there were Walter and Beatrice, the blank look on their faces just melting into a smile of recognition. Everybody shook hands, the women kissed each other, and Walter and Isadore rushed off to check the bags.