As Coco descended into its small whitewashed brick room, she was immediately immersed in a congestion of undergraduates. They jostled her as they came up the steps, taking away tea and ploughboys—bread baked around hard-boiled eggs. They blocked her way in a bottleneck at the front counter where they placed orders for full English breakfasts—aside from an older man and woman eating at a far table, the rest all appeared to be young men escaping the morning’s plain bread-and-butter commons found at most colleges.Beyond the competitive front counter, the tiny dining common had a leisurely if slightly crowded milieu: half a dozen tables, most with students clustered around them, young men reading newspapers or books or chatting in the quiet intonations, the round vowels, of young, well-off gentlemen. She spotted James Stoker at the back. He stood; he’d been holding a table, one under the place’s only window, the outward view being that of passing feet on the sidewalk outside. Coco made her way to him, laughing at how out of place he looked.
