At least the bicycle wasn’t seriously damaged; Marya insisted upon walking it down the remainder of the hill. Her heart was still pounding and she couldn’t seem to get her breath but she didn’t want any more of Gregory’s assistance; she didn’t need it.

GREGORY LED THEM to a Holiday Inn where Marya could use the women’s room. She didn’t want to think how she must look—an adult woman with her jeans torn and bloody at the knee, her hair wild, her face dirty, a glassy sheen to her eye. Marya Knauer, humbled and brought low as she deserved. She wondered that people did not stare at her in pity.

Gregory chided her for being so angry, so stubborn. She ought to be grateful, he said, she wasn’t in an emergency room stretched out on a table.

Yes, said Marya sullenly. She knew.

He told her to wash the cuts thoroughly, and to dab on some antiseptic; to bandage them up carefully; then to lie down and rest, even if it was only for five minutes. She’d had a considerable shock after all, she might have died. . . . He would be waiting for her in the coffee shop.

Yes, said Marya, limping away.

At the fleshy-pink door of the ladies’ room Marya turned to look back but Gregory had already left the lobby.

Inside, Marya tore off the bandages with trembling fingers, grateful to be alone. She washed her numerous wounds with soapy water, mercilessly, gritting her teeth against the pain. She might have thought that pain itself had antiseptic virtues.

She stripped off her shirt and washed hurriedly. Her sweaty chest, her breasts, her underarms. . . . There were dozens of tiny pimples, invisible to the eye but hard as grit beneath her fingertips, scattered on her shoulders and chest. Prickly heat, or the aftermath of panic, nerves. . . . How ugly I am after all, she thought, eyeing that pale reproachful face in the mirror.

She bandaged up her wounds again but her fingers lacked Gregory’s deftness; she was still shaking. While trying to comb her snarled hair she thought suddenly that it was past four o’clock and by now the committee would surely have made its decision . . . by now there was no margin for hope. She and Gregory had gone on their desperate little outing while their lives were being decided for them; they were helpless as children; ah, how contemptible! She remembered a telephone booth just outside the door. She could call the college, demand to speak with the Dean himself, or perhaps with her departmental chairman; he would be far more kindly, sympathetic. Oh yes Marya, yes, I’m afraid I have disappointing news for you. . . .

No, Marya thought, frightened, it would be far more dignified to wait for the letter. Dear Miss Knauer, We regret to inform you. . . . Dear Mr. Hemstock, We regret to inform you. . . . But they can’t possibly dismiss us both, she thought.