"Oh, I like the pictures. 'Sixty Years a Queen'--that was lovely. The girl that did Queen Victoria was just sweet." To his own surprise Martin did not object to her taste: he would have loathed any other admirer of "Sixty Years a Queen." "Do you know many people here?" he asked. "I know some girls I was at school with." "No men?" "Not many. I know Mr Carter; Brasenose, isn't he? Do you know him?" "Only by sight. He's going to be chucked out of the varsity boat." "Is he? I'm so sorry. He's awfully nice." "Do you know him well?" "Only a little. I met him in here. He asked me to have tea in his rooms in Beaumont Street, but of course I couldn't." So she had ideas about propriety. There was a silence. "Do you always live in Oxford?" asked Martin. "We live out at Botley." "Pretty deadly spot, isn't it?" "Yes, it's something awful. I want to go to London only my family won't let me go into business. I'm awfully bored." "So am I." "Why are you bored?" "I've got an exam coming on." "Oh, you poor thing! I could never do exams. I think they're horrid. I do hope you'll get on all right!" "Thanks very much!" It pleased Martin to have her sympathy. They chattered on. Her name was May Williams and she seemed to be very, very tired of Botley and her own company. Before Martin went away to dinner he asked her to meet him at the same time the next evening. "It's Wednesday," he said. "So you'll get your new pictures. I think it's nicer at this time: there's such a crush in here after dinner." May agreed with evident pleasure and Martin went back to dinner rejoicing in his courage and his first steps to adventure. He had been right: there was something about Pink Roses, indefinable perhaps, but plainly something. She wasn't just one of the Oxford girls. So they met again and on Saturday night they drove out in a taxi to Abingdon and dined in rather squalid pomp. Henceforward they saw much of one another and had more drives and dinners and were happy: for both had won a release. They did not at all know what they wanted, but both knew quite plainly from what they wanted to escape. Martin wanted to throw off for a few hours the burden of his work, which was neither mere routine, like copying addresses, nor definite creation, like the making of a poem or a good mashie shot. This minute preparation of books and this learning by rote of variant readings and emendations seemed so appalling just because they defied both a mechanical application and a vivid interest. And May wanted to escape from the frigid respectability of a red-brick villa at Botley, where she lived with her father, a retired Oxford tradesman: she wanted to escape from an existence which contained nothing but meals, a bicycle, _The Daily Mirror_, and walks with the girl next door. So she invented an old school friend who had jolly evenings in Walton Street. Her father had the virtue of credulity and allowed her to go her own way, and Martin's.