"If you don't go, I'm hauling you out of this cozy little room, away from your books and your solitude, and putting you back in our room, back in the lecture rooms when you're not in school or at work. Now do you understand?"

Mark nodded, but didn't look at Barry again. "All right," he said sullenly.

Chapter 26

The party had started already when Mark entered the auditorium. They were dancing at the far end, and between him and the dancers a group of girls stood whispering. They turned to look at him, and one of them left the group. There was giggling behind her, and she motioned her sisters to stop, but the giggling continued.

"Hello, Mark," she said. "I'm Susan."

Before he realized what she was doing she had slipped off her bracelet and was trying to put it over his hand. There were six little bows on the bracelet.

"No," Mark said hurriedly, and jerked away. "I… No. I'm sorry." He backed up a step, turned and ran, and the giggling started again, louder than before.

He ran to the dock and stood looking at the black water. He shouldn't have run. Susan and her sisters were seventeen, maybe even a little older. In one night they would have taught him everything, he thought bitterly, and he had turned and run. The music grew louder; soon they would eat and then leave in couples, in groups, everyone but Mark, and the children too young for the mat play. He thought of Susan and her sisters and he was first hot, then cold, then flushing hot again.

"Mark?"

He stiffened. They wouldn't have followed him, he thought in panic. He whirled around.

"It's Rose," she said. "I won't give you my bracelet unless you want it."

She came closer, and he turned his back and pretended to be looking at something in the river, afraid she would be able to see him in the dark, see the redness he could feel pounding in his neck and cheeks, sense his wet palms. Rose, he thought, his age, one of the girls he had trained in the woods. For him to blush and become bashful before her was more intolerable than running from Susan had been.

"I'm busy," he said.

"I know. I saw you before. It's all right. They shouldn't have done that, not all of them together. We all told them not to."

He didn't reply, and she moved to his side. "There's nothing to see, is there?"

"No. You'll get cold out here."

"You will too."

"What do you want?"

"Nothing. Next summer I'll be old enough to go to Washington or Philadelphia."

He turned angrily. "I'm going to my room."

"Why did I make you mad? Don't you want me to go to Washington? Don't you like me?"

"Yes. I'm going now."