The sun sank, and the level light flooded the fields and the river. Now the landscape lost its bright pure definitions of outline, its look as of a picture embroidered in brilliant silks, and veiled its colours with a uniform pearl-like glow. A chill fell and the scent of May grew troubling in the stillness. They turned the canoe towards home. Nearer the town, boats became more frequent. Gramophones clamoured from the bowels of most of them; and they were heavily charged with grey-flannelled youth. Jennifer, observing them with frank interest, pointed out the good-looking ones in a loud whisper; and all of them stared, stared as they passed. Above the quiet secretly-stirring town, roofs, towers and spires floated in a pale gold wash of light. What was the mystery of Cambridge in the evening? Footfalls struck with a pang on the heart, faces startled with strange beauty, and every far appearing or disappearing form seemed significant. And when they got back to College, even that solid red-brick barrack was touched with mystery. The corridors were long patterns of unreal light and shadow. Girls’ voices sounded remote as in a dream, with a murmuring rise and fall and light laughter behind closed doors. The thrilling smell of cowslips and wall-flowers was everywhere, like a cloud of enchantment. In Jennifer’s room, someone had let down the sun-blind, and all was in throbbing shadow. Her great copper bowl was piled, as usual, with fruit, and they ate of it idly, without hunger. ‘Now a little work,’ said Judith firmly. ‘Think! only three weeks till Mays....’ But it was impossible to feel moved. Jennifer, looking childish and despondent, sat down silently by the window with a book. Judith wrote on a sheet of paper: _Tall oaks branch-charmèd by the earnest stars_; and studied it. That _was_ a starry night: the sound of the syllables made stars prick out in dark treetops. Under it she wrote: ... _the foam Of perilous seas in faëry lands forlorn_. What a lot there were for the sea and the seashore!... The page became fuller. _Upon the desolate verge of light Yearned loud the iron-bosomed sea._ _The unplumbed salt estranging sea._ _From the lone sheiling of the misty island Mountains divide us and a world of seas: But still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland; And we in dreams behold the Hebrides._ Ah, that said it all.... The lines came flocking at random. _But the majestic river floated on, Out of the mist and hum of that low land Into the frosty starlight, and there flowed Rejoicing through the hushed Chorasmian waste Under the solitary moon...._ _Ah sunflower weary of time That countest the steps of the sun...._ _Ah sunflower!_... Where were they--the old gardens of the sun where my sunflower wished to go? They half unfolded themselves at the words ... _Nous n’irons plux aux bois Les lauriers sont coupés._