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principled ambition. So, in violation of the library rules, he dialed the college directory on his cell phone and eventually found himself in conversation with Dr. Lara Purcell.
    "We probably met at the dean's drinks party," Dr. Purcell said. She had a pleasant voice, with an accent that continually surprised, with Britishisms and French words pronounced in English. It was not disagreeable. She was said to have grown up in the Windward Islands.
    "Yes, probably," Michael said. They agreed to meet at her office in half an hour.
    All over the campus, college groundsmen were salting walkways to keep traction underfoot for pedestrians, fighting a losing battle with the oncoming cold of night. The offices in the political science building were lighted as Ahearn jogged up the ornate steps, past the allegorical statues attending them.
    The secretary had gone home but the department's door was open. He wandered in and found Professor Purcell at her desk. He knocked twice on her office door.
    "Are you Michael Ahearn?" the woman asked him. She got to her feet and came out from behind her desk.
    "Professor Purcell?"
    She was only slightly shorter than Michael, who stood six feet. She was wearing an elegant purple turtleneck jersey with a small horn-shaped ornament on a gold chain around her neck. A short leather skirt, dark tights and boots.
    "I've heard so much about you from Phyllis," Professor Purcell said. "You're her mentor and ideal."
    "Well, bless her. She's a terrific kid."
    "Is she?" asked Professor Purcell.
    The wall behind the desk was decorated with paintings in bright tropical colors. There were photographs too, taken in palm-lined gardens with ornamental fountains and wrought-iron balconies. In the photographs Lara Purcell appeared with people of different racial types, all of whom shared a cool, confident air of sophistication. Almost everyone portrayed seemed attractive. The exception was a pink, overweight and unwholesome-looking man standing next to Professor Purcell herself. His features were distantly familiar to Michael—a politician, unsympathetic, one from the wrong side. But Michael had no time to study the office appointments closely. "Well, I think so," Michael said.
    "Call me Lara," Professor Purcell told him. She wore her dark hair shoulder length, streaked from the forehead with a shock of white. Her skin was very pale, her eyes nearly green, large, round and unsurprised. Beneath them were slightly swelling moons of unlined flesh, a certain puffiness that was inexplicably alluring. It somehow extended and sensualized the humor and intelligence of her look. Her mouth was provocative, her lips long and full.
    Lara offered him a chair. "She's so serious, is Phyllis. And she thinks you make serious things seem funny."
    "Who, me?"
    The professor laughed agreeably. "Yes."
    "Does she think that's good?" Michael inquired.
    "I think she had her doubts. She didn't think it could be done. But now she sees the point of you."
    The lady's cool impudence made him blink. It was not how people spoke to each other in Fort Salines.
    "I'm glad to hear it. I'm very possessive about Phyllis."
    "Rest assured you possess her, Mr. Ahearn."
    "Please call me Michael. Phyllis," he said, "is very big on you too."
    Lara only smiled. She looked at her watch. "I usually stop for coffee at Beans about now. Like to join me?"
    Michael's usual refreshment at the same hour was a glass of the whiskey he kept in his carrel. He decided the drink could wait.
    It was tough going downhill on the icy pathway. From time to time one of them began to slide and had to be rescued with a hand from the other. Beans, the coffee shop that served the campus, was at the college end of Division Street, four blocks of thriving retail stores and service establishments that ended in the courthouse square. It was bright, its windows cheerfully frosted. The place was full of kids. At a table beside the door, some of the foreign graduate students and junior faculty were