But far from worshipping her, I felt that I was definitely better stuff in away, and that she was really only raw material for me to work up into a first-class partner. Sometimes, for instance, she had shown a tendency to think for herself. That sort of thing mustn't be allowed. Her function was to be the adoring and helpful wife."

He paused, then concluded, "So you see my wide-awake self does very clearly remember the experiences of the other. If it didn't it wouldn't have any background at all. It would be merely an infant mind. The actual sum of its existence has been far shorter than the other's."

"Do you mean it's never active for more than a few minutes or hours?"

"Sometimes days, even weeks; and it's spells grow longer as I grow older. For the present, at any rate. But I can't help fearing that the general stiffening thatt sets in in middle age will reverse the process. Now let me get back to my story. My first really important spell of wide-awake living was brought on by you, in our third year at Oxford, when we first got to know each other."

"Now," I interrupted, "I understand why you were so inconsequent; first stand-offish, then friendly, then cold again."

"It began," he said, "after that bump supper, when some of us, all a bit tight, invaded your room. Instead of taking it lying down, you had the cheek to make a fuss, so we began chucking things out of the window into the quad. You actually put up a fight, which was surprising and amusing, because we had always regarded you as a worm. You had come from some bloody little unheard-of grammar school, and you had an accent like the mud on a provincial street. We weren't going to stand cheek from that sort. No doubt you remember, when you were being I held down, I stared at you as offensively as I could, and said you reminded me of my hosier. It was then that I came awake. It was your pinched little face that did it. Instead of seeing you as just a type, and a despised type, I suddenly saw you, as I had seen Johnson minor. Somehow I saw you being torn between contempt for us all and irrational envy and self-abasement. And I saw how horribly hurt you were, not simply by our brutality but by your own involuntary treason to yourself."

Interrupting Victor, I said, "I can distinctly remember how your face suddenly changed. Your eyes opened wide with surprise, and your mouth too. Then you turned away with an odd, awkward little laugh. You picked up a book, and sat on the arm of the easy chair, apparently reading."

"Yes, but really I was just feeling mortally ashamed."

"Then suddenly you shut the book, gently, and laid it on the table, and said something about this being pretty caddish, really, and what about stopping it. Then there was an argument, but finally your gang took itself off; and you--it struck me as odd at the time-stayed behind to help me clear up the mess. Remember? First I tried to push you off with the others, and then when you began to go, meek as a lamb, I suddenly changed my mind. What a grind it was, wasn't it, fetching the damaged books and furniture from the quad up the staircase to the top floor."

"Yes, and when we had finished, you offered me cocoa! Cocoa! My God! To me, who considered myself one of the bloods! But I had the sense to accept, for I was thoroughly awake by then. And it was a damned good drink, too. And we sat there talking till the small hours, till you nearly fell asleep. Then I borrowed your Bateson's Heredity and took it off to my own room.