The man was lost to her in two ways, she had quickly realized and accepted. It wasn’t just her youth; he was then twenty-­two, later on the six years’ difference would scarcely matter. But he was buried in his work, had already published an acclaimed thesis on animal behavior. His second devotion was obviously Dr. Wanda Lindstrom, another assistant in her father’s department. The woman biologist was Peter Hubbard’s age, like him a prodigy with an early doctorate. At twenty-­six now, she was a leading expert in the field of Entomology, insects in layman’s language. And, contrarily, she was beautiful, with silken blond hair down to her shoulders and a walk like Marilyn Monroe. Unfair! the young Elizabeth had jealously thought. But a handsome pair Peter Hubbard and Wanda Lindstrom had made, young Elizabeth conceded. She had turned to her own interests—music and literature—and had taken care to be otherwise engaged when her father invited the two for dinner.

Now, with Peter Hubbard in her grandfather’s house, Elizabeth was looking at the man not only through her own, older eyes, but through the interest of the Yarkie men. She saw first the sensitivity of Hubbard’s broad mouth, as she remembered it. The others marked first the honest, strong light of the scientist’s blue eyes, which reflected quick intelligence and hard-­earned knowledge. Elizabeth saw the sensitivity of Hubbard’s hands, as she had once fantasized they might embrace her. The Yarkie men were taking in the squareness of the scientist’s shoulders, the jut of his chin that said he would not be put off by difficulties. They reserved judgment, in their way, but they liked what they saw.

Actually, Elizabeth considered, there was much of her father about Peter Hubbard. He was as tall, and had the same appealing gangling posture. She supposed the biologists got it from their constant bending over laboratory apparatus, the cages, dissecting tables, microscopes and their endless log books.

Peter Hubbard, in his turn, was taking in the people in the room. He showed a profound interest that was flattering and a profound curiosity that was unnerving. Elizabeth felt his eyes turn to her, and she fought again not to blush. She was twenty now, not sixteen; he was twenty-­six, not twenty-­two. On Yarkie, with a common problem, it would be impossible to avoid him as she had done in Cambridge. But the last thing she wanted was more complication in her life. She turned her attention to the coffee tray.