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altogether. The next moment he realized that it was Mrs. Carr. He waited for her to catch up with him.
    The mistake was a natural one. In spite of her surely seventy years, the silver-haired Dean of Women had a remarkably youthful figure and carriage. Her gait was always brisk and almost supple. Only the second glance revealed the darkened neck, the network of heavy wrinkles, showed you that the slimness was of age not youth. Her manner didn’t seem an affectation of girlishness or a pathetic clinging to sex — or, if it were, a very subtle one — but rather a hungry infatuation with youthfulness, with dewiness, with freshness, so great that it influenced the very cells and electrical tensions of her body.
    There is a cult of youth among the faculty members of our colleges, Norman began to think, a special form of the great American cult of youth, an almost vampiristic feeding on young eager feelings… .
    Mrs. Carr’s arrival cut him short.
    “And how is Tansy?” she asked, with such sweet solicitude that for a moment Norman wondered if the Dean of Women had even more of an inside wire on the private lives of the faculty than was generally surmised. But only for a moment. After all, sweet solicitude was the Dean of Women’s stockin-trade.
    “We missed her at our last faculty wives’ meeting,” Mrs. Carr continued, “She’s such a gay soul. And we do need gaiety these days.” Cold morning sunlight glinted on her thick glasses and glowed frostily on her apple-red cheeks. She put her hand on his arm. “Hempnell appreciates Tansy, Professor Saylor.”
    Norman’s “And why not?” changed to “I think that shows good judgment” as he said it. He derived sardonic amusement from recalling how ten years ago Mrs. Carr was a charter member of The-Saylors- are-a-demoralizing-influence Club .
    Mrs. Carr’s silvery laughter trilled in the chilly air. “I must get on to my student conferences,” she said. “But remember, Hempnell appreciates you too, Professor Saylor.”
    He watched her hurry off, wondering if her last remark meant there had been an unexpected improvement in his chances of getting the vacant chairmanship of the Sociology Department. Then he turned into Morton Hall.
    When he had climbed to his office, the phone was ringing. It was Thompson, who handled Hempnell’s public relations — almost the only administrative duty considered too vital to be entrusted to a mere professor.
    Thompson’s greeting was exceptionally affable. As always, Norman had the vision of a man who would be much happier selling soap. It would take a psychoanalyst, he thought, to discover what weird compulsion made Thompson cling to the fringes of the academic world. We only know that some potentially great salesmen feel impelled to do so.
    “A rather delicate matter,” Thompson was saying. Delicate matters were one of his fortes. “Just now one of the trustees phoned me. It seems he had heard a very odd story — he wouldn’t tell me the source of his information — concerning you and Mrs. Saylor. That over Christmas vacation in New York you had attended a party given by some prominent but… er… very gay theatrical people. He couldn’t be quite straight about where it happened, the party seemed to have wandered all over New York. In fact it all sounded very unlikely. There was something about an impromptu act staged in a night club, and an academic gown, and an… er… strip-tease dancer. I told him I’d look into it. But naturally I thought… and I was wondering if you’d…” . .
    “If I’d issue a denial? Sorry, but it wouldn’t be honest. The story’s substantially true.”
    “Oh… I see. Well, that’s all there is to it then,” Thompson answered bravely after a moment. “I thought you’d like to know though. The trustee… Fenner… was very hot under the collar. Talked my ear off about how these particular theatrical people were conspicuous for drunkenness and divorce.”
    “He was right about the