On every side the Oxford and Cambridge boys laughed and shouted, pushed and elbowed.  They had begun to cast off restraint, and the god that is rowdy on a rowdy throne compelled them to their annual obeisance at his feet.  Some of them moved along singing, and interrupting their song with shouts.  Friends, when they met in the crowd, yelled shrill recognitions at each other, and nicknames sang in the air like noisy birds.  Rows of men linked arms, and, striding forward, compelled the throng to yield them difficult passage, swinging this way and that to make their progress more comprehensive.  The attendants, standing by the wall like giants, calmly smiled on the growing uproar, into which they darted now and then with a sudden frenzy of dutiful agility to eject some rude wit who had transgressed their code of propriety.  The very spirit of lusty youth was in this crowd of hot, careless, blatant, roving youths, mad to find themselves away from the cool and grey Oxford towers, and from the vacant banks of the Cam, in passionate Leicester Square, fired by the scarlet ballet, and the thunder of the orchestra, and the sight of smart women.  Sudden emancipation is the most flaming torch to human passions that exists in the world.  It flared through all that mob, urging it to conflagration, to the flames that burst up in hearts that are fresh and ardent, and that so curiously confuse joy with wickedness.

Flames! flames!  The word ran in Julian’s mind, and in his breast flames surely burned that night, for, when he suddenly ran against Valentine and Cuckoo in the throng, he caught Valentine by the arm and said: 

“Val, you were right just now.  There was no flame; there could have been no flame where Margaret stood.  She was too pure.  What can fire have to do with snow?  Cuckoo, I was a fool.  Catch hold of my arm.”

He pulled her arm roughly through his, never noticing how pale the girl’s face was, how horror-stricken were her eyes.  He wanted to bathe himself, and her, and Valentine, in this crowd that influenced him and that he helped to influence.  He felt as the diver feels, who, when he plunges, has a sacred passion for the depths.  There are people who have an ardour for going down comparable to the ardour felt by those who mount.  Tonight such an ardour took hold of Julian.

Valentine fell in with it, seeing the humour of his friend, and Cuckoo, prisoned between the two men, did not attempt to resist them.  As they moved on Valentine said, in a voice he made loud that it might be heard: 

“Now, you feel the strength of the spring, Julian.  Is it not better than all my teachings of asceticism?”

“Yes, by ——­, it is.”