He sat by the open window and waited. He saw the worn briefcase on the living-­room table, its open flap and straps hanging down over the edge, ready to be buckled; he had been about to put in his books for the morning class. But this was all right, he told himself: class or no class, it was far more important that he settle this thing now—one way or the other, for good and all.

But he was filled with an almost physical apprehension of Cliff’s coming. There was no sense in kidding himself. Maybe nothing would happen; but he knew what he himself would go through merely to have Cliff sitting opposite him in the same room, with no one in the world knowing what they were doing or not doing, no one knowing where they were. Cliff’s calling him on the telephone had not been accident. John Grandin knew only too well, after the note he had left in the Dune House box, that he himself was to blame; Cliff had not even needed to look him up in the book. Nor was this the first time he had called, according to Cliff’s own words. What was the meaning of the projected meeting? What did it intend on Hauman’s part? For the first time, Grandin had the feeling that he was being played with; and for once he didn’t give a damn. Let school and the first class of the summer semester go to hell. Let Cliff come; let what might happen happen.

The hot morning seemed interminable. In spite of his decision, he could not but feel a real guilt to think that the new students would be assembled and waiting—wondering what had become of their professor on this, the first day, while he remained here in the apartment, indifferent to them and helpless in himself. About ten-thirty, the buzzer rang.

Before answering it, John Grandin gave a last look around the living room, thinking, as he did so, that it was a ludicrous and irrelevant thing to be doing; he had tidied it thoroughly the morning he left for Woods Hole. Assuming a calm he was far from feeling, he stepped to the door.

Cliff came in breathless, but with a radiant smile, a smile of complete health and charm.

“How are you, Johnnie? Gee!”

He seemed irrationally delighted to be here, happy—not at all restless (for the moment) as he had been during their farewell in Sconset on that last unhappy evening, an evening unhappy for John Grandin because he thought he would never be seeing him again.