Yes, he could see himself and Alix in Oxford together and walking in Oxfordshire and Berkshire fields and lanes. More than that. There was another figure that Toppie had not brought into her picture; but she would have thought of it. It was the figure that stood between Alix and all those other dreams he had woven round her and Jerry. Who but himself could care for Alix’s mother and accept her into his life? Madame Vervier, he knew, would never have come to Oxford. He need not, disconcertingly, try to see her there. But there were the long holidays when he and Alix might have gone to her. Who but he could have kept Alix’s mother near her? “But it’s only dear Toppie’s dream,” thought Giles, watching the towers glide by. “And there’s Jerry.” It was late one evening, at the end of Commemoration Week, that Jerry burst into his rooms. Ruth and Rosemary and his mother had just left him. Ruth and Rosemary were now old enough to join in any of the Oxford festivities that he could offer them, and his mind was in a daze from the mid-Summer excitement. It bubbled at the bottom of the glass like froth after a long satisfying draught, for he knew that he had done well in his exams and now only his viva lay before him;—so that the wreathed, dancing heads of young girls, and the sun-browned heads of youths on the river, glided past on a queer background of metaphysics. He has seen Jerry dancing, and he had seen him on the river. Lady Mary had waved to him from a barge in mild, unallusive affectionateness, and for a moment they had spoken together in the crowd leaving the Sheldonian.—“I think you could tell me that I might be proud of Jerry,” was what she had said, and it was a very odd thing for Lady Mary to say. It showed Giles that if to him Jerry showed his weakness, to his mother he was showing his strength. It was neither strength nor weakness that Jerry showed him now. All that Giles could read in his headlong face was immense perplexity, and he cried at once on entering: “I’ve had a most amazing letter from Alix.” Giles pulled himself up in his chair and Jerry sat down on the edge of the table beside him. It was a painful perplexity; humiliation; bitterness; cogitation were mingled in it, and as Giles saw it fear rose in his heart, though he asked, “Well?” with the voice of the friend and counsellor. “I was going over in a fortnight,” said Jerry. “I wrote and told her so. And I told Mummy, and Mummy has behaved splendidly. She’s in a frenzy underneath, no doubt; but she shows nothing. I expect she relies on Alix to back her up. Well, by Jove, she may! Alix does more than back her up. Here’s her answer. Am I really dished, do you think?” cried Jerry, “or is it just to put me off?” Giles read. Alix wrote in English as if to make herself more clear.