at night and she’s as bald as an egg without it; but I suppose anyway baldness doesn’t matter in true love.... It’s a warning isn’t it?’ ‘Pleasant idiocy,’ said Judith very quietly in the yell of laughter that followed. ‘Idiotic pleasantry.’ ‘Did you speak?’ said the girl on her other side. ‘N--no.’ ‘I suppose you’ve come up for a little visit? I wonder whose guest?...’ ‘No, no. I’ve come up for good--I’ve just arrived. I came up a day late. I----’ ‘You mean you’re a fresher?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘But you’re at the wrong table!’ said the girl, horrified. ‘There’s your table at the other end of the room. This is a second year table.’ ‘Oh, dear! How awful! Does it matter? I couldn’t recognize anybody and nobody told me anything.... I don’t know a soul....’ She felt the shameful tears coming. Such a bad beginning.... ‘Never mind,’ said the girl almost kindly. ‘It doesn’t matter for once. And you’ll soon get to know people. Isn’t there anyone here from your school?’ ‘I’ve never been to school. This is the first time I’ve ever been away from home....’ Stupid weakening thing to say, inducing self-pity, bringing more tears. ‘Oh, really?’ said the girl, and added politely after a pause: ‘Do you know Cambridge?’ ‘A bit. I came once with Da--my father. He simply adored it. He was always coming back. That’s why he wanted me to----’ ‘Oh, really? How naice. I expect he’ll often be running up to see you then, won’t he?’ She turned her head away in silence. Never, never would he be running up to see her, to rescue her. Why had she mentioned him? He had vanished and left her stranded among creatures who dared to assume he was still alive.... Trips. Labs. Lectures. Dons. Vacs. Chaperons. The voices gabbled on. The forks clattered. The roof echoed. ‘Ugly and noisy,’ muttered Judith. ‘Ugly and noisy and crude and smelly....’ You could go on for ever. There were eyes staring from everywhere, necks craning to look at her.... ‘But I can abstract myself. I can ignore their rudeness....’ It was the moonlight filling the blue that made it so cold and pure. Above the icefields and the snow lay the cold translucent pastures of the air.... She studied the row of faces opposite her, and then more rows, and more, of faces. Nearly all plain, nearly all with a touch of beauty: here and there well-cut heads, broad white placid brows; young necks; white teeth set in pleasant smiles; innocent intelligent lovely eyes. Accepting, revealing faces they were, with no reserves in them, looking at each other, at things--not inward at themselves. But just a herd, when all was said: immature, untidy, all dull, and all alike, commonplace female creatures in the mass. But boring it was! If you could see Mariella’s clear thorough-bred face among them,--would that too get merged?