Cambridge at eight thirty on a bright October morning was one of George Hastings’ secret pleasures. He was smiling as he walked along Garden Street toward the Radcliffe dormitories, smiling because in a few moments he would see Pen, smiling at the gray-haired lady winding in and out of traffic on her bicycle, the basket filled with books and papers, at the stream of students moving in the opposite direction to his, so he caught them in full flood, a parade of girls in bright coats, enormous notebooks under their arms, or a green bag slung over one shoulder, and threaded through by their elders, the tweed jackets, the gray flannels, the distinguished worn faces as the professors also made their way to nine o’clock classes. Among these, solemn packs of small children moved toward the public school—late ones, subdued by their lateness. It seemed at this hour as if the whole city were a learning city, as if everyone’s chief concern were school. If, by chance, a wife in slacks on her way to market, or a Babbitty banker carrying no books, appeared for a moment among them, it was only rather a joke, so incongruous did anyone with different concerns appear. George thought it all rather like a ballet, the beautiful girls, the books, the leaves golden in the gutters, for everything in the clear autumn sunlight seemed so airy, so graceful and alive. And in a few moments he would see Pen. Unless—he glanced hurriedly at his watch—she had already gone. But it felt like such a lucky day, she could not have gone. He had so much to tell her. Her presence and the excitement it raised in him, made it possible for him to see all kinds of things he didn’t know he knew, to discover shades and nuances, a form of showing off no doubt—but such a pleasure as a beginning to a new day. Pulled forward as he turned into Shepard Street, he began to run and almost missed Pen altogether, as he skirted a group of girls talking on the steps of one of the houses, and she at the same moment was making a detour round the other side.

“George”—it was she who saw him first. “Where on earth are you going?”

They stood in the path, her face as always intent, unsmiling in the first second, as if she must always rediscover him, was always a little surprised to find him there, perhaps not even pleased till she could get used to the idea.

“I was looking for you of course. I want you to come to Cavan’s seminar today—if you can”—for he caught the hesitation in her eyelid, as she dropped her eyes. “It’s at two.”