“Oh, I expect the house will be torn down,” she said gloomily. “It’s a white elephant, God knows.”

“You are depressed, aren’t you?”

“I need my tea.” She felt quite cross. “Where on earth is Ellen?” And she pulled the long tasseled cord energetically. “I really die every afternoon at this time. I just ebb away—” and she laughed a laugh which denied this altogether.

“Oh you’ll not ebb away, will she, Horace?” He scratched Horace under the chin affectionately. “She’ll go out like a burst of fireworks, a shower of gold—” he chuckled. Had a little ease crept in with the tea? With the warmth, and Horace, and the whole familiar atmosphere of the room and the time? Perhaps Edward felt it too, for he ate two scones and drank down his tea thirstily.

“I forgot to have lunch,” he apologized, passing his cup back for the third time, and then as he sat there, suddenly thoughtful, but still relaxed, he said, “I have fought with nearly everybody I care about at all in the college.” He seemed bewildered, at a loss to understand why, just what was happening or had happened.

“You’re thinking of Damon——” she hazarded.

“No, as a matter of fact, I’m going there to dinner tonight. Julia asked me.”

“Oh good,” she breathed, fearful of overemphasis. “So that’s going to be all right.”

“Is it?” But he let that drop. Then he told her about Goldberg and his refusal to sign a petition about the Lode case.

“Oh, Goldberg,” and Grace shrugged. What did he expect? Horace, disliking the atmosphere of tension, now got up and flopped down to stretch out full length on the rug, showing the fine seam down his white stomach.

Edward reacted violently to her dismissal of Goldberg. “Goldberg is the nearest thing to a great scholar we have in the department, Grace. You can’t shrug him off.”

“But he’s never been any help to us, surely.”

“This is different. It’s a University matter.” Then he added, “I could trust him about my work. I wanted him to look over the Stevens.”

“Well, he can still do that, I expect,” she said drily.

“No, I won’t see him any more. I told him so yesterday.”

“I see.…” In small, the University was the world. The same splits broke it into pieces, the same tensions were working inside it, like fine fissures which might suddenly gape.

“No, you don’t see,” he said irritably. “You can’t see. More than anything else that’s happened this makes me feel that I don’t belong in this community, Grace. I’ve become a real outsider—Oh, these people mean well. They’re my friends, or imagine that they are.” He paused and then went on quite quietly and gravely, “But they seem really to be profoundly cut off from reality. It’s that.”