Much later that night, in the close, warm darkness of his bed, they talked. They exchanged childhoods, truthfully. Margot spoke of Ray and Hank and all the people like him who had made her very afraid to love anyone or to feel anything. Eric talked of his sense of social purpose, of stewardship, of right, and of too much wrong in the wrong, of what he had tried to do in life and what was still before him. He spoke of inequalities, racial and intellectual, of making a revolution, and of the responsibilities of his generation and the changes they must make. Margot did not care for causes: she had had a single one all her life, and she knew in her mind, in the single bed pressed very close to Eric with her breasts against his body and feeling his breathing inside herself as he talked on and on, that, unlike him, she had come closer to her singular goal in the last five hours than Eric would ever get to all of his during his life. She was happy. And she cared no more for talk of causes, even as Eric’s voice went on beside her. To bring the talk closer to herself, she told him how she disliked school and how his coming had saved her from becoming an academic animal. Eric was sympathetic. He stopped his monologue and allowed her to talk. He found that her talking, her carrying the conversation, made him feel at ease and he knew that he would try very hard to keep the racial thing from touching them. Then he touched her in the dark, ever so gently, in a neutral place with his hand, and knew that the same thought was with her when she covered his hand with her own.

GOING TO THE BATHROOM late that next morning, Margot passed through the living room where Jerry was sitting, apparently waiting for just this opportunity. He smiled knowingly and she pulled Eric’s blue cloth robe close about her throat.

“Sleep good?” Jerry said. He smiled.

“Fine,” she said.

“How was it?”

She thought of ignoring him and the comment. But then she could not because she quite suddenly had the thought that now should be the time to put Jerry in his place for the duration. “Very good,” she told him.

Jerry smiled confidently. He was handsome and he had always known it. “I can do better,” he said. He maintained the smile so that she could see his very white teeth shine beneath his black moustache.

“Shall I tell Eric that?” she said. “Or will you?”

“What the hell,” Jerry said. “He knows it.” He smiled some more. Then he added, almost an intentional afterthought: “I’ll call you sometime this week.”

Now she looked at him and smiled, indicating with her eyes not flattery but amusement. “Don’t bother.”

“You can’t be serious about him. He’s a crazy liberal. He doesn’t even know what he’s doing yet.”