one of her students until she introduced him as her husband. The disparity in their ages made Brooke fidgety and he soon drifted away.
The room where the discussion had been held was actually half of a long hall, divided by a folding partition. A meeting of some kind had just begun on the other side. All the voices were male, and Brooke guessed that they belonged to a group of scoutmasters who were holding a convention in the hotel. He stood at one end of the refreshment table and ate little sandwiches with pennants sticking out of them onto which someone had typed literary quotations about food and drink. He saw Abbot at the other end, looking out over the room and smirking to himself. Brooke hoped that he would not become the kind of academic who believes that his ideas are not accepted because they are too profound and original. He went over to Abbot and showed him one of his pennants.
âWhat did you get?â he asked.
âNothing,â Abbot said. âIâm on a diet.â He stared into his coffee, the surface of which had an iridescent sheen.
âTell me,â Brooke said, âwhat are you working on now?â
Abbot drew a deep breath, put the cup down, and walked past Brooke and out of the room.
âOuch,â said the woman on the other side of the table.
Brooke turned to her. She was striking; not beautiful, really, but very blonde and heavily made-up. âYou saw that?â
âYes. You tried, anyway.â She reached below the table and brought up a fresh platter of sandwiches. âHave one,â she said. âSalami and cheese.â
âNo thanks. Those quotations are hard to swallow.â
She lowered the platter, her face as red as if sheâd been slapped.
Brooke turned one of the pennants with his finger. âYou did all these, didnât you?â
âYes.â
âIâm very sorry I said that. I was just being clever.â
âItâs all right.â
âIâm going to keep my mouth shut,â Brooke said. âEvery time I open it I hurt someoneâs feelings.â
âI didnât really understand what the panel was all about,â she said, âbut he was the one who kept interrupting all the time. I thought you were nice. I could tell, listening to you, that I would like you. But that woman. If anybody ever talked to me like that I would die. I would just die.â
She leaned toward Brooke and spoke quietly, as though imparting confidences. Her lips were unusually full and, like the Wife of Bath, she had a gap between her front teeth. Brooke was going to tell her that in Chaucerâs time a gap between your teeth meant that you were a very sensual person, but he decided not to. She might take it wrong.
On the other side of the partition the scoutmasters were saying the Pledge of Allegiance.
âWhere did you get all the quotes?â Brooke asked.
âFrom Bartlettâs. It was a dumb idea.â
âNo it wasnât. It was very thoughtful.â Brooke meant to end the conversation there, but the woman asked him several questions and he thought that he should ask her some questions in return. Her name was Ruth. She was a nurse at Bellingham General and had lived in the town all her life. She was unmarried. The local waitersâ union, to which the caterers belonged, had gone on strike and Ruth had been asked to help out at the conference by a college teacher who belonged to her literary society.
âLiterary society,â Brooke said. âI didnât know they had them any more.â
âOh yes,â Ruth said. âItâs the most important thing in my life.â
At that moment another woman ran up with a list of items for Ruth to collect at the hotel kitchen. As Ruth turned away she looked over her shoulder and smiled.
By this time there were several people standing in line for sandwiches. Brooke moved to make room and soon found himself in a corner with a graduate student