“We shall see you promptly at the start of next Michaelmas but one,” Mr. Butters said. He shook Tom’s hand briskly. “Good day.”

After that, it was the work of a few hours. He called a firm in London and a storage facility in the Banbury Road, and arranged for his possessions to be moved. There was nothing he could not leave behind; Tom kept nothing too personal here. He rang the Massot store on Bond Street and asked about the brooch; it had been sold, but the salesman, who was enjoyably deferential, recommended another, a flower with leaves of gold, petals of mother-of-pearl, and a fine garnet in the centre. Tom agreed and made the arrangements. It would be sent to Flora McAllister at once. He felt virtuous; that was a kind way to leave her.

Flora had not been devious like Gemma or unforgiving like Polly; she deserved it. Well, I won’t be sorry to be rid of the lot of them, Tom thought.

He left notes for some of his drinking buddies; none could particularly be called friends, except possibly Simon Lancaster—a brilliant but reserved historian, and like him, heir to a lot of money. Tom and Simon had been close since they had discovered this circumstance, although Simon seemed to regard it as an unwanted burden. He could not have been more unlike Tom if he’d tried, and yet the two were firm friends. Simon admired Massot’s rakish success with women and complete disregard of academic work; Tom said and did things he would not have dreamed of himself. And Tom, although he would never have admitted it, liked Simon’s steadiness of purpose and quiet, methodical achievement.

He walked quickly over to the bar to find him. It was six, and Simon invariably went to the bar at that hour, drank two gin and tonics, and then returned to his rooms to study. Tom would say a temporary goodbye; he would have Simon over to Paris as a guest, he thought, show him some real living. He could shake that English reserve out of him.

He ran along Tom Quad, then cut down towards the bar. It was crowded as usual; the subsidized alcohol, one of Oxford’s greatest pleasures, was as enduringly popular as ever.

Tom scanned the room. A few acquaintances beckoned him over, shouting drunkenly, but he grinned and shook his head. A few weeks back he’d have been here first and got drunk with the best of them; today it seemed somehow beneath him. I’m growing up, he thought, proudly. Simon was not here—he’d have to go call on him in his rooms, otherwise it would be a phone call. He had no intention of delaying; he wanted to get out of this little English backwater right now, and be on the Eurostar to Paris before midnight—