Because he hadn’t seen Pen since the awful thing happened—and that was three days ago now, George counted—he felt as if he were coming back to her from some strange land, from a long journey. He was always nervous as he turned the corner onto Shepard Street and looked up at the lights in the dormitories. There was something about this female world, about stepping into Eliot and being looked over by the girl at the switchboard and the one or two other fellows sitting in self-consciously relaxed attitudes in the living room waiting for their dates, which made him feel out of place, old and cynical on the one hand, on the other just ill at ease and gauche. It had happened more than once that one of his English students was there, for intance, and this for some reason was especially embarrassing. He adjusted his tie, scuffed at some leaves like a schoolboy and turned up the cement walk, through the big white pillars at the door, berating himself for his embarrassment. He asked in a firm voice for Miss Pen Wallace and sat down on the bench in the hall to wait. For once there was no one around.

“Hi, how’ve you been?” she was saying, as she stood up. They exchanged the meaningless greetings meant for the lighted hall: “I like your dress,” “Oh, good, you’ve seen it enough times, God knows.” These words, under which their real selves floated in suspense, carried them through the door. But as soon as they had turned off the cement path onto the brick of the street, George took her hand hard in his, and they walked like that as far as Avon Street in an oppressed silence. George wondered sometimes if she had any idea how charged such moments were for him, how locked up and stifled he felt as the great rush of his feeling when he first saw her, even after a few hours, was being dammed up to reasonable proportions.

“Oh Pen …” he said.

“Where are we going, darling?” Her light bright voice denied the appeal, but that was the way she always was. She had to get used to him too, to get back to being human after those long hours of concentrating on a translation of Horace or some medieval Latin text. George reminded himself of this and tried not to feel rejected.

“I’m broke. Beer at the Midget?”

“That seems to be our direction.” She was looking around her with that eager look, as if she could not have enough of life, as if when she emerged from the dorm everything hit her freshly. He followed her glance to the white frame house they were passing, the old pear tree, the rather wild garden where uncut stalks of autumn flowers stood about, and a cat with its paws tucked in sat on the step.