He took a sip, then pointed to his tie. “It seems my tie is the focus of your attention. Deservedly so! It was carefully chosen. Gentlemen! Are you such prisoners of your ivory tower that you can be unaware? The town is celebrating the thirtieth anniversary this week of the founding of MFGCSS.” He paused for a moment to gather the blank looks before continuing. “The Male Friends of Girton College Suffragist Society. As a mark of our respect and support, the men of Cambridge have undertaken to sport the college colours for a week. Why? You have answered your own question by simply asking it! So that men like yourselves would take notice of a gross injustice! Might perhaps consider doing likewise. Might calculate that, half a century on from the inauguration of the first women’s college, the fact of being female deprives some of your brightest scholars of the degrees they have worked for and deserved.” He paused for breath and was prepared to roll on in the same vein with some relish since he saw that each face—with the exception of young Digby—was frozen in disbelief and distaste. At last, someone interrupted him.

“Good Lord! Fetch him a soapbox! The fellow’s preaching at us!” Quintus Crewe exclaimed, applying a monocle to his eye socket to emphasise his disbelief. “Is he confessing himself to be a foot soldier in the monstrous regiment of women?”

“Or a camp follower?” someone suggested peevishly.

“I’d have said, rather, a regimental pipe band, all raucous squeals and no sabres,” sneered Hubert Sackville.

“Nothing like pinning your colours to the mast,” Rendlesham offered.

“But you must be prepared to have them instantly shot to ribbons.” Fanshawe wagged a warning finger.

Dickie thought he must be the first person to have mentioned the female cause—or possibly even the word “female”—within these walls. Judging by their startled reaction and the quips that followed thick and fast, he’d annoyed the hell out of them. He’d begun to understand how their game worked.

The hounds fell silent, eyeing him, assessing his lies and the confidence with which he’d reeled them off. Looking for his strengths? More likely homing in on the jugular, he decided.

As pack leader, Fanshawe broke the silence. He took a careful sip of his sherry to demonstrate a state of effortless superiority, then asked, “Did someone just sound les trois coups? Give a blast on the trumpet? I missed it.” He directed a humourless smile at Dickie. “You have drawn our attention—what do you now propose? Is this the moment you produce your battered attaché case and try to sell each of us a souvenir Girton tie? A set of Trinity apostle spoons in white metal? A winsome teddy bear sporting a Jude’s scarf?” He turned to the others, hands raised in appeal. “Rendlesham, you didn’t warn us that you were offering us an itinerant haberdasher! A wandering huckster!”