Stoner

When he came to the last sheet of typescript he leaned back in happy exhaustion and stared at the gray cement wall before him. Although it seemed only a few minutes had elapsed since he started reading, he glanced at his watch. It was nearly four- thirty. He scrambled to his feet, gathered the manuscript hastily, and hurried out of the library; and though he knew it was too late for it to make any difference, he half ran across the campus to Jesse Hall.

As he passed the open door of the main office on his way to his own, he heard his name called. He halted and stuck his head in the doorway. The secretary--a new girl that Lomax had recently hired--said to him accusingly, almost insolently, "Miss Driscoll was here to see you at three o'clock. She waited nearly an hour."

He nodded, thanked her, and proceeded more slowly to his office. He told himself that it didn't matter, that he could return the manuscript to her on Monday and make his apologies then. But the excitement he had felt when he finished the manuscript would not subside, and he paced restlessly around his office; every now and then he paused and nodded to himself. Finally he went to his bookcase, searched for a moment, and withdrew a slender pamphlet with smeared black lettering on the cover: Faculty and Staff Directory, University of Missouri. He found Katherine Driscoll's name; she did not have a telephone. He noted her address, gathered her manuscript from his desk, and went out of his office.

About three blocks from the campus, toward town, a cluster of large old houses had, some years before, been converted into apartments; these were filled by older students, younger faculty, staff members of the University, and a scattering of townspeople. The house in which Katherine Driscoll lived stood in the midst of these. It was a huge three-storied building of gray stone, with a bewildering variety of entrances and exits, with turrets and bay windows and balconies projecting outward and upward on all sides. Stoner finally found Katherine Driscoll's name on a mailbox at the side of the building, where a short flight of cement steps led down to a basement door. He hesitated for a moment, then knocked.

When Katherine Driscoll opened the door for him William Stoner almost did not recognize her; she had swept her hair up and caught it carelessly high in the back, so that her small pink-white ears were bare; she wore dark-rimmed glasses, behind which her dark eyes were wide and startled; she had on a mannish shirt, open at the neck; and she was wearing dark slacks that made her appear slimmer and more graceful than he remembered her.

"I'm--I'm sorry I missed our appointment," Stoner said awkwardly. He thrust the folder toward her. "I thought you might need this over the weekend."

For several moments she did not speak. She looked at him expressionlessly and bit her lower lip. She moved back from the door. "Won't you come in?"

He followed her through a very short, narrow hall into a tiny room, low-ceilinged and dim, with a low three-quarter bed that served as a couch, a long, low table before it, a single upholstered chair, a small desk and chair, and a bookcase filled with books on one wall. Several books were lying open on the floor and on the couch, and papers were scattered on the desk.

"It's very small," Katherine Driscoll said, stooping to pick up one of the books on the floor, "but I don't need much room."

He sat in the upholstered chair across from the couch. She asked him if he would like some coffee, and he said he would. She went into the little kitchen off the living room, and he relaxed and gazed around him, listening to the quiet sounds of her moving around in the kitchen.

She brought the coffee, in delicate white china cups, on a black lacquered tray, which she set on the table before the couch. They sipped the coffee and talked strainedly for a few moments. Then Stoner spoke of the part of the manuscript he had read, and the excitement he had felt earlier, in the library, came over him; he leaned forward, speaking intensely.

For many minutes the two of them were able to talk together unselfconsciously, hiding themselves under the cover of their discourse. Katherine Driscoll sat on the edge of the couch, her eyes flashing, her slender fingers clasping and unclasping above the coffee table. William Stoner hitched his chair forward and leaned intently toward her; they were so close that he could have extended his hand and touched her.

They spoke of the problems raised by the early chapters of her work, of where the inquiry might lead, of the importance of the subject.

"You mustn't give it up," he said, and his voice took on an urgency that he could not understand. "No matter how hard it will seem sometimes, you mustn't give it up. It's too good for you to give it up. Oh, it's good, there's no doubt of it."

She was silent, and for a moment the animation left her face.