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‘Mustn’t let your maths get rusty before October.’
    â€˜I’ll try,’ said the boy. He behaved a little sheepishly to his companion. Dora wondered if they could be father and son, and decided that they were more likely to be master and pupil. There was something pedagogic about the older man.
    â€˜What an adventure for you young people,’ said the man, ‘going up to Oxford! I bet you’re excited?’
    â€˜Oh, yes, ’ said the boy. He answered quietly, a little nervous of a conversation in public. His companion had a loud booming voice and no one else was talking.
    â€˜I don’t mind telling you, Toby, I envy you,’ said the man. ‘I didn’t take that chance myself and I’ve regretted it all my life. At your age all I knew about was sailing boats!’
    Toby, thought Dora. Toby Roundhead.
    â€˜Awfully lucky,’ mumbled the boy.
    Toby is trying to please his master, thought Dora. She took the last cigarette from her packet, and having peered inside several times to make sure that it was empty, threw the packet, after some indecision, out of the window, and caught a look of disapproval, immediately suppressed, on the face of the man opposite. She fumbled to tuck her blouse back into the top of her skirt. The afternoon seemed to be getting hotter.
    â€˜And what a splendid subject!’ said the man. ‘If you’re an engineer you’ve got an honest trade that you can take with you anywhere in the world. It’s the curse of modern life that people don’t have real trades any more. A man is his work. In the old days we were all butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers, weren’t we?’
    â€˜Yes,’ said Toby. For some time now he had been conscious of Dora’s stare. An anxious smile came and went upon his prominent and, it occurred to Dora, admirably red lips. He moved his leg nervously and his foot touched hers. He jerked back and tucked his feet under the seat. Dora was amused.
    â€˜That’s one of the things we stand for,’ said the man. ‘To bring dignity and significance back into life through work. Too many people hate their work nowadays. That’s why arts and crafts are so important. Even hobbies are important. Have you any hobbies?’
    Toby was reticent.
    Dora noticed some children standing on the embankment and waving at the train. She waved back; and found herself smiling. She caught Toby’s eye; he began to smile too, but quickly looked away. As she continued to watch him he began to blush. Dora was delighted.
    â€˜A problem for our whole society,’ the man was saying. ‘But meanwhile, we have our individual lives to live, haven’t we? And heaven help liberalism if that sense of individual vocation is ever lost. One must never be frightened of being called a crank. After all, there’s an example to set, a way of keeping the problem before people’s eyes, symbolically as it were. Don’t you agree?’
    Toby agreed.
    The train began to slow down. ‘Why, here we are in Oxford!’ said the man. ‘Look, Toby, there’s your city!’
    He pointed, and everyone in the carriage turned to look at a line of towers, silvered by the heat into a sky pale with light. Dora was suddenly reminded of travelling with Paul in Italy. She had accompanied him once on a non-stop trip to consult some manuscript. Paul detested being abroad. So, on that occasion, did Dora: barren lands made invisible by the sun, and poor starving cats driven away from expensive restaurants by waiters with flapping napkins. She remembered the towers of cities seen always from railways stations, with their fine names, Perugia, Parma, Piacenza. A strange nostalgic pain woke within her for a moment. Oxford, in the summer haze, looked no less alien. She had never been there. Paul was a Cambridge man.
    The train had stopped now, but the pair opposite made no move. ‘Yes, symbols are