Christine couldn’t think of an apt reply. “That’s interesting,” she said. “Très interessant.” The streetcar was coming at last; she opened her purse and got out a ticket.

“I go with you now,” he said. His hand clamped on her arm above the elbow.

“You… stay… here,” Christine said, resisting the impulse to shout but pausing between each word as though for a deaf person. She detached his hand—his hold was quite feeble and could not compete with her tennis biceps– and leapt off the curb and up the streetcar steps, hearing with relief the doors grind shut behind her. Inside the car and a block away she permitted herself a glance out a side window. He was standing where she had left him; he seemed to be writing something on his little pad of paper.

When she reached home she had only time for a snack, and even then she was almost late for the Debating Society. The topic was, “Resolved: That War Is Obsolete.” Her team took the affirmative and won.

Christine came out of her last examination feeling depressed. It was not the exam that depressed her but the fact that it was the last one: it meant the end of the school year. She dropped into the coffee shop as usual, then went home early because there didn’t seem to be anything else to do.

“Is that you, dear?” her mother called from the living-room. She must have heard the front door close. Christine went in and flopped on the sofa, disturbing the neat pattern of cushions.

“How was your exam, dear?” her mother asked.

“Fine,” said Christine flatly. It had been fine; she had passed. She was not a brilliant student, she knew that, but she was conscientious. Her professors always wrote things like “A serious attempt” and “Well thought out but perhaps lacking in elan” on her term papers; they gave her Bs, the occasional B+. She was taking Political Science and Economics, and hoped for a job with the Government after she graduated; with her father’s connections she had a good chance.