Judith thought of Roddy, blushed and said no. ‘Oh well, you’re too young I suppose. I’m twenty and two months--God!... Perhaps we shall both get engaged while we’re here. Me first, I hope.’ She chuckled deeply. ‘But we shan’t have time for anything except work,’ said Judith. ‘Mabel says we’re expected to do at least eight hours a day.’ ‘Christ! Does she though! Just the sort of miserable immorality she would feed you up with. We’re in the world to enjoy ourselves, not to pass exams, aren’t we? Well then ... I have a prejudice against intellectualism. It leads to all sorts of menaces. Perhaps you don’t know.... I dare say you were brought up in blackest ignorance,--like me. But I’ve managed to overcome all obstacles in the way of enlightenment. Do you call innocence a virtue? I don’t. I call it stupidity.’ She talked on so rapidly that her words ran into each other and got blurred. Leaning heavily on the mantelpiece she continued. ‘Are these photographs your people? They look divinely aristocratic. You’re not an Honourable are you? You look as if you might be. Come and see my room. I say, let’s make our rooms absolutely divine, shall we?’ ‘Mother told me to get whatever furniture and things I wanted,’ said Judith. ‘But what’s the good with that carpet?’ ‘I’ve turned mine upside down,’ said Jennifer. ‘It’s an artistic buff now. Come and look.’ She led the way back to her room and opened the door upon a scene of chaos. Her clothes had been half-unpacked and left about in heaps. The room was full of smoke and reeked of stale Gold Flakes. Gramophone records, biscuits, apples, cake-knives, spoons, glasses and cups smeared with cocoa-sediment were strewn about the floor. ‘It isn’t as nice as I thought,’ said Jennifer. ‘The swine have feasted and rioted; _and_ left me to clear up after them. Christ! What a spectacle! Have an apple.’ She sat down in her trunk and looked discouraged. ‘I say, Judith Earle, do you think you’re going to enjoy College?’ ‘Not much. It’s so ugly and vulgar.’ ‘It is. And the students are such very jolly girls.’ ‘Yes. And I’m frightened of them. I don’t know a soul. I’ve never in my life been with a lot of people and I don’t feel I shall ever get used even to the smell of them. It’s different for you. You’ve heaps of friends already.’ ‘Nonsense. There’s no one. I’ve been screeching like a parrot all the evening, pretending to be awfully jolly too; but it strikes me as pretty grim....’ She brooded and whistled. ‘More than a little grim....’ She drooped, flickered out completely. ‘We’d--we’d better stick it out together,’ said Judith with a blush, fearful lest her suggestion should condemn her to Jennifer--for Mabel had said it and she had felt sick.