“Oh,” Deacon shrugged; “of course,” he went on a bit carelessly, “we want to see Baliol on top as often——­” He stopped, then broke into a chuckle as the stroke of the gentlemen’s eight suddenly produced from the folds of his sweater a bottle from which he drank with dramatic unction while his fellow-oarsmen clamoured to share the libation and the coxswain abused them all roundly.

The eyes of the coach never left the young man’s face.  But he said nothing while Deacon took his fill of enjoyment of the jovial scene, apparently forgetting the sentence which he had broken in the middle.

But that evening something of the coach’s meaning came to Deacon as he sat on a rustic bench watching the colours fade from one of those sunset skies which have ever in the hearts of rowing men who have ever spent a hallowed June on the heights of that broad placid stream.  The Baliol graduates had lost their race against the gentlemen of Shelburne, having rowed just a bit worse than their rivals.  And now the two crews were celebrating their revival of the ways of youth with a dinner provided by the defeated eight.  Their laughter and their songs went out through the twilight and were lost in the recesses of the river.  One song with a haunting melody caught Deacon’s attention; he listened to get the words.

  Then raise the rosy goblet high,
  The senior’s chalice and belie
  The tongues that trouble and defile,
  For we have yet a little while
  To linger, you and youth and I,
  In college days.

A group of oarsmen down on the lawn caught up the song and sent it winging through the twilight, soberly, impressively, with ever-surging harmony.  College days!  For a moment a dim light burned in the back of his mind.  It went out suddenly.  Jim Deacon shrugged and thought of the morrow’s race.  It was good to know he was going to be a part of it.  He could feel the gathering of enthusiasm, exhilaration in the atmosphere—­pent-up emotion which on the morrow would burst like a thunderclap.  In the quaint city five miles down the river hotels were filling with the vanguard of the boat-race throng—­boys fresh from the poetry of Commencement; their older brothers, their fathers, their grandfathers, living again the thrill of youth and the things thereof.  And mothers and sisters and sweethearts!  Deacon’s nerves tingled pleasantly in response to the glamour of the hour.

“Oh, Jim Deacon!”

“Hello!” Deacon turned his face toward the building whence the voice came.

“Somebody wants to see you on the road by the bridge over the railroad.”

“See me?  All right.”

Filled with wonder, Deacon walked leisurely out of the yard and then reaching the road, followed in the wake of an urchin of the neighbourhood who had brought the summons, and could tell Deacon only that it was some one in an automobile.

It was, in fact, Jane Bostwick.

“Jump up here in the car, won’t you, Jim?” Her voice was somewhat tense.  “No, I’m not going to drive,” she added as Deacon hesitated.  “We can talk better.”