"Of course you didn't."
He immediately regretted his sharpness. Why the devil should he rebuke
a student for failing to reverence trustees as representatives of
deity? Why pretend he didn't want the chairmanship? Why conceal his
contempt for half the faculty? The anger he thought he had worked
out of his system surged up with redoubled violence. On a sudden
irresistible impulse he tossed his lecture notes aside and started in
to tell the class just what he thought of the world and Hempnell. They
might as well find out young!
Fifteen minutes later he came to with a jerk in the middle of a
sentence about "dirty-minded old women, in whom greed for social
prestige has reached the magnitude of a perversion." He could not
remember half of what he had been saying. He searched the faces of his
class. They looked excited but puzzled, most of them, and a few looked
shocked. Gracine Pollard was glaring. Yes! He remembered now that he
had made a neat but nasty analysis of the politic motives of a certain
college president who could be none other than Randolph Pollard. And
somewhere he had started off on that premarital-relations business, and
had been ribald about it, to say the least. And he had--
Exploded. Like a Prince Rupert drop.
He finished off with half a dozen lame generalities. He knew they must
be quite inappropriate, for the looks grew more puzzled.
But the class seemed very remote. A shiver was spreading downward from
the base of his skull, all because of a few words that had printed
themselves in his mind.
The words were: A fingernail has flicked a psychic filament.
He shook his head, jumbling the type. The words vanished.
There were thirty minutes of class time left. He wanted to get away. He
announced a surprise quiz, chalked up two questions, and left the room.
* * * * *
The cut finger had started to bleed again through the bandage, and
there was blood on the chalk.
And dried blood on the obsidian knife. He resisted the impulse to
finger it, and sat staring at the top of his desk.
It all went back to that witchcraft business, he told himself. It had
shaken him much more than he had dared to admit. He had tried to put it
out of his mind too quickly. And Tansy had appeared to forget it too
quickly, too. A person could not shake an obsession that easily. He
must thrash it out with her, again and again, or the thing would fester.
But with Tansy seeming so happy and relieved the last three days, that
might be the wrong course to take, the selfish course--
His eyes started to stray toward the window, but the telephone recalled
him.
"Professor Saylor?... I'm calling for Dr. Pollard. Could you come in
and see Dr. Pollard this afternoon?... Four o'clock?... Thank you."
He leaned back with a smile. At least he had gotten the chairmanship.
It grew darker as the day progressed, the ragged clouds sweeping lower
and lower. But the storm held off until almost four.
Big raindrops splattered the dusty steps as he ducked into the portico
of the Administration Building. Thunder crackled and crashed, as if
acres of metal sheeting were being shaken above the clouds. He turned
back to watch. Lightning threw the Gothic roofs and towers into sharp
relief. Again the crackle, building to a crash. He remembered he had
left a window open in his office. But there was nothing that would be
damaged by the wet.
Wind swooped down past the portico with a strident, pulsating roar.
The unmusical voice that spoke into his ear had the same quality.
"Isn't it a pretty storm?"
Evelyn Sawtelle was smiling for once. It had a grotesque effect on her
features, as if a horse had suddenly discovered how to smirk.
"You've heard the news, of course?" she went on. "About Hervey?"
Hervey popped out from behind her. He was grinning, too, but
embarrassedly. He mumbled something that was lost in the storm, and
extended his hand vaguely, as if he were in a receiving line.
Evelyn never took her eyes off Norman. "Isn't it wonderful?" she
hissed. "Of course, we expected it, but still--"
Norman guessed. He forced himself to grasp Hervey's hand, just as the
latter was withdrawing it flusteredly.
"Congratulations, old man," he said briefly.
"I'm very proud of Hervey," Evelyn announced possessively, as if he
were a small boy who had won a prize for good behavior.
Her eyes followed Norman's hand. "Oh, you've cut yourself." The smirk
seemed to be a permanent addition to her features. The wind wailed
fiendishly. "Come, Hervey!" And she walked out into the storm as if it
weren't there.
Hervey goggled at her in surprise. He mumbled something apologetic
to Norman, pumped his hand up and down again, and then obediently
scampered after his wife.
Norman watched them. There was something unpleasantly impressive about
the way Evelyn Sawtelle marched through the sheets of rain, getting
both of them drenched to no purpose except to satisfy some strange
obstinacy. He could see that Hervey was trying to hurry her and not
succeeding. Lightning flared viciously, but there was no reaction
apparent in her angular, awkward frame. Once again he became dimly
aware of an alien, explosive emotion deep within him.
And so that little poodle dog of hers, he thought, is to have the final
say on the educational policy of the sociology department. Then what
the devil does Pollard want to see me for? To offer his commiserations?
Almost an hour later he slammed out of Pollard's office, tense with
anger, wondering why he had not handed in his resignation on the spot.
To be interrogated about his actions like some kid, on the obvious
instigation of busybodies like Thompson and Mrs. Carr and Gracine
Pollard! To have to listen to a lot of hogwash about his "attitudes"
and "the Hempnell spirit," with veiled insinuations about his "moral
code."
At least he had given somewhat better than he had taken! At least he
had forced a note of confusion into that suave, oratorical voice, and
made those tufted gray eyebrows pop up and down more than once!
Mrs. Gunnison was standing at the door of her husband's office. Like
a big, strong slug, he told himself, noting her twisted stockings and
handbag stuffed full as a grab bag, the inevitable camera dangling
beside it. His exasperation shifted to her.
"Yes, I cut myself!" he told her, observing the direction of her
glance. His voice was hoarse from the tirade he had delivered to
Pollard.
Then he remembered something and did not stop to weigh his words. "Mrs.
Gunnison, you picked up my wife's diary last night--by mistake. Will
you please give it to me?"
"_You're_ mistaken," she replied tolerantly.
"I saw you coming out of her bedroom with it."
Her eyes became lazy slits. "In that case you'd have mentioned it last
night. You're overwrought, Norman. I understand." She nodded toward
Pollard's office. "It must have been quite a disappointment."
"I'm asking you to return the diary!"
"And you'd really better look after that cut," she continued unruffled.
"It doesn't look any too well bandaged, and it seems to be bleeding.
Infections can be nasty things."
He turned on his heel and walked away. Her reflection confronted him,
murky and dim in the glass of the outer door. She was smiling.
* * * * *
Outside Norman looked at his hand. Evidently he had opened the cut when
he banged Pollard's desk. He drew the bandage tighter.
The storm had blown over, and yellow sunlight was flooding from under
the low curtain of clouds to the west, flashing richly from the wet
roofs and upper windows. Surplus rain was sprinkling from the trees.
The campus was empty. A flurry of laughter from the girls' dormitories
etched itself on the silence. He shrugged aside his anger, and let his
senses absorb the new-washed beauty of the scene.
He prided himself on being able to enjoy the moment at hand. It seemed
to him one of the chief signs of maturity.
He tried to think like a painter, identifying hues and shades,
searching for the faint rose or green hidden in the shadows. There was
really something to be said for Gothic architecture. Even though it was
not functional, it carried the eye along pleasantly from one fanciful
bit of stonework to the next. Now take those leafy finials topping the
Estrey tower--
And then suddenly the sunlight was colder than ice, and the roofs of
Hempnell were like the roofs of hell, and the faint laughter like the
crystalline cachinations of fiends. Before he knew it, he had swerved
sharply away from Morton, off the path and on to the wet grass,
although he was only halfway across campus.
No need to go back to the office, he told himself shakily. Just a long
climb for a few notes. They can wait until tomorrow. And why not go
home a different way tonight, around Estrey? Why always take the direct
route that led through the gate between Estrey and Morton? Why--
He forced himself to look up again at the open window of his office. It
was empty now, as he might have expected. That other thing must have
been some moving blur in his vision, and imagination had done the rest,
as when a small shadow scurrying across the floor becomes a spider.