Dixon laughed too. 'Well, I hope this business comes off all right; it would be an awful shame if it didn't, after all these preparations.'

'Yes, wouldn't it? Will you be going to the Ball thing?'

'Yes, I'm afraid so.'

'Afraid so?'

'Well, I'm not really much of a dancing man, you know. It'll be a bit of an ordeal for me, I'm afraid.'

'Why on earth are you going, then?'

'It's too late to get out of it.'

'What?'

'I said I may get some fun out of it.'

'Oh, I expect you will. I'm not much good as a dancer myself, really. I've never learnt properly.'

'You must have had plenty of practice, surely.'

'Not much, as a matter of fact. I haven't been to many dances.'

'We'll be able to sit out together, then.' That's a bit forward, he thought; shouldn't have said that.

'If I come.'

'Yes, if you come.'

The pre-leavetaking pause fell upon them. Dixon felt sad: he realized for the first time that it was really very unlikely that she would come to the Ball, a good deal more unlikely than she had any reason to think, and that it was correspondingly unlikely that he'd ever see her again. It was nasty to think that the deciding factors would be the strength and nature of Bertrand's ambitions, sexual and financial-social.

'Well, thank you again for your help.'

'Not at all. I hope very much you will be coming on Saturday.'

'I hope so too. Well, good-bye. I may be hearing from you later, then.'

'That's right. Good-bye.'

He sat back and puffed out his cheeks, trying to picture her at the other end of the line. She'd be sitting up straight in her office chair, of course, like an airman-clerk told to 'carry on' during an inspection by the Air Vice-Marshal. Or would she? She hadn't sounded like that over the phone; she'd talked in the relaxed style he'd had glimpses of during the sheet and table campaign. But her apparent friendliness over the phone might be an illusion based on her physical absence. On the other hand, how much of her severity at other times was an illusion based on the way she looked? He was feeling for his cigarettes when Johns came in at the door, carrying a sheaf of papers. Had he been listening?

'Can I help you?' Dixon said with caricatured graciousness.

Johns saw that he'd have to speak. 'Where is he?'

Dixon peered searchingly under the desk, into its top drawer, into the wastepaper-basket. 'Not here.'

The other's junket-coloured features stayed where they were. 'I'll wait.'

'I won't.'

Dixon went away with the intention of ringing up the Welches from the Common Room phone. As he was passing the porter's office he heard Maconochie say: 'Ah, there he is now, Mr Michie,' and made his Eskimo face, which entailed, as well as an attempt to shorten and broaden his face by about half, the feat of abolishing his neck by sucking it down between his shoulders. This done, and the final effect held for a few seconds, he turned and saw Michie approaching.

'Ah, Mr Dixon, I hope you're not busy.'

Dixon knew exactly how well Michie knew exactly how and why he, Dixon, couldn't be busy. He said: 'No, not just at the moment. What can I do for you?'

'About your special subject for next year, sir.'

'Yes, what about it?' Until now, the intrigue had been mostly in Dixon's favour; the three pretty girls whom he was plotting to secure for his class had all seemed more 'interested' at their last discussion, while Michie's 'interest', though it hadn't declined, had shown no signs of increasing.

'Shall we go for a stroll on the lawn, sir? It seems a pity to be indoors on such a glorious day, doesn't it? About the syllabus, sir: Miss O'Shaughnessy, Miss McCorquodale, Miss ap Rhys Williams, and I have all been into it very carefully together, and I think the feeling of the ladies is that the reading is a good deal on the heavy side. I don't myself think it is: as I said to them, a subject like this requires considerable background knowledge if it isn't to be quite meaningless. But I'm afraid they weren't convinced. Being women, they're of rather more conservative temperament than ourselves. With Mr Goldsmith's Documents, for instance, they feel on safer ground. They're sure of what they're getting there.'

Dixon was fairly sure too, but he allowed Michie's voice to go on dinning in his ears while they emerged into the heavy, dizzying sunlight and crossed the tacky asphalt to the lawn in front of the main building. Was Michie breaking to him the news that the three pretty girls were crying off and he himself was crying on? He would prevent that, if necessary by unlawful wounding. In a moment he said, without quite succeeding in keeping the plangency out of his voice: 'What am I supposed to do about it, then?'

Michie looked at him. His moustache seemed a size larger than usual; his Windsor-knotted silk tie toned unimprovably with his biscuit-coloured shirt; his lavender barathea trousers swayed gracefully with his walk. 'That's up to you, sir, of course,' he said, with a courtly minimum of surprise.

'I wonder if the thing could be cut down at all,' Dixon said, almost at random.

'I don't think there's much that could easily be sacrificed, Mr Dixon. As far as I'm concerned, the broad basis is the chief attraction.'

This, at any rate, was worth knowing. A basis consisting of a single point - the geometrical entity having position, but no magnitude - was clearly the thing to work for. 'Well, I'll have another look at it, anyway, and see if anything can be cut out.'

'Very well, sir,' Michie said, his demeanour that of a chief of staff about to put into action his general's unworkable plan. 'Will you get in touch with me, then, or shall I…?'

'I'll look through it tonight and see you about it in the morning, if that's convenient.'

'Certainly. Would you care to come to the Second-Year Common Room at about eleven? I'll ask the ladies to come, and we could all have a cup of coffee.'

'That'll be splendid, Mr Michie.'

'Thank you, Mr Dixon.'

After this Victorian, or variety-team, salutation, Dixon went back to the Common Room, which was now empty, and sat down at the phone. Everything that might conceivably interest Michie must be slashed from the syllabus, even, or rather especially, what was indispensable. What did it matter? He'd probably never have to take the course. In that case why was he worrying about the 'interest' shown by Michie and the three pretty girls? He sighed, and picked up the phone.

Things at once happened very quickly. While, as he had reason to know, outgoing calls from the Welches' were liable to take some time, incoming ones were horrifyingly swift. In less than a quarter of a minute Mrs Welch had said to him: 'Celia Welch speaking.'

He felt as if he'd crunched a cracknel biscuit; in his preoccupation he'd forgotten about Mrs Welch. Still, why worry? In an almost normal tone he said: 'Can I speak to Professor Welch, please?'

'That's Mr Dixon, isn't it? Before I get my husband, I'd just like you to tell me, if you don't mind, what you did to the sheet and blankets on your bed when you…'

He wanted to scream. His dilated eyes fell on a copy of the local paper that lay nearby. Without stopping to think, he said, distorting his voice by protruding his lips into an O: 'No, Mrs Welch, there must be some mistake. This is the Evening Post speaking. There's no Mr Dixon with us, I'm quite sure.'

'Oh, I'm most awfully sorry; you sounded at first just like… How ridiculous of me.'

'Quite all right, Mrs Welch, quite all right.'

'I'll get my husband for you straight away.'

'Well, actually it was Mr Bertrand Welch I wanted to speak to really,' Dixon said, smiling at his own cunning as best he could with a distorted mouth; in a few seconds this horror would be over.

'I'm not sure whether he's… Just a minute.' She put the phone down.