“Is one young more than once?” Gav would often enquire in soliloquial mood. And the spring breezes, wandering over from the quickening woods and copses of Wolvercote, heavy with the drowsy scents of hawthorn and maids’-morrow and beggar-my-neighbour, would always answer “No!” * * * * * A break with the past, then, there must be. And Gaveston decided that David would be the best confidant for his great discovery. True, the old friends had lost touch with each other a little during the feverishly brilliant passage of Gav’s last few months, but it was not hard to pick up the unravelled skein of so close an affection. Up the stone stairs of the turret staircase like a whirlwind, and Gav burst tempestuously into David’s room. He was reading quietly by the casement window. “What’s the book, David?” he asked. “Baudelaire, Gav,” said David solemnly. “Oh, that’s all rot!” cried Gaveston with a peal of fresh springlike laughter. And, seizing the exquisitely bound volume of the famous French _symboliste_, he pitched it far out into the quad. The affrighted rooks cawed and wheeled round it. “Just about fit for them!” laughed Gav. But poor David was puzzled. “You gave it me yourself, Gavvy,” he said reproachfully. “Ages and ages ago, David.” “It was only----” “Now listen, boy! That’s dead, that world. We’ve done with being decadent and _fin de siècle_ and all that. Now we’re going to be _commencement de siècle_. All that London can give, we have got. Paris holds no secrets for us.” He raised his hands in the attitude of a Corinthian statue of Apollo of the best period as he went on, the spring in his voice, the morning sun flaming on his hair. “We must have done, David, with the fescennine dimness of artificial things. We must be Pagan now, but Pagan in a new way--savage faun-like creatures, lithe and blithe and primitive, we shall cease to be the jaded votaries of the perverse and we shall hurl inexorably down our grinning unbelieved-in idols!” “Good,” interrupted David impulsively. “And how do we start?” “We must free our bodies and our souls,” Gav went on, never at a loss. “We’ll give rein to our instincts and we’ll hire a punt.” “Yes, let’s!” cried David, ablaze with god-touched enthusiasm. * * * * * And then, as April turned into May, and May into June, the handsome pair could be seen on all the rivers of Oxford. The Thames knew them well, as also did the Isis, nor was a nook or creek on Cherwell or on Char left unexplored by their venturous oars. David it was who always plied the scull, while Gaveston lay on the punt’s keel in white flannels, sometimes idly holding the tasselled rudder-cords, his shirt of Tussore well open at the neck, revelling in this strenuous out-of-doors life, and watching, day in, day out, his friend standing sculptured above him against the jade-blue sky and athletically wielding the long, dripping oar.