She drifted into the terminal. She looked at the clock. Twelve thirty-five. The bus upriver must have left five minutes ago and of course she wouldn’t hang around there for twenty-five more minutes waiting for the next one. But the bus was late and was still standing there. She went up to the ticket window. “One for King’s Landing,” she said.

She got into the bus and sat up front near the driver. There were a lot of soldiers on the bus, but it was still early in the day and they hadn’t had time to get drunk yet and they didn’t whistle at her.

The bus pulled out. The motion of the bus lulled her and she drowsed with her eyes open. Trees flashed by, newly budded; houses, stretches of river; there were glimpses of faces in a town. Everything seemed washed and beautiful and unreal. Behind her the soldiers sang, young men’s voices blending together, in “Body and Soul.” There was a Virginia voice among the others, a slow Southern tone, sweetening the song’s lament. Nothing could happen to her. Nobody knew where she was. She was between event and event, choiceless, unchoosing, floating among soldiers’ yearning voices.

The bus drew to a halt. “King’s Landing, miss,” the driver said.

“Thank you,” she said and stepped down neatly onto the side of the road. The bus pulled away. Soldiers blew kisses at her through the windows. She kissed her fingers to the young men in return, smiling. She would never see them again. They knew her not, nor she them, and they could not guess her errand. Singing, their voices waning, they disappeared north.

She stood on the side of the empty road in the hushed Saturday afternoon sunlight. There was a gas station and a general store. She went into the store and bought herself a Coke from a white-haired old man in a clean, faded, blue shirt. The color pleased her eye. She would buy herself a dress that color, fine, clean, pale cotton, to wear on a summer evening.

She went out of the store and sat down on a bench in front of it to drink her Coke. The Coke was icy and sweet and stung the back of her mouth in little tart explosions. She drank slowly. She was in no hurry. She saw the graveled road leading away from the highway to the river. The shadow of a little cloud raced down it, like an animal running. It was silent from one coast to the other. The wood of the bench under her was warm. No cars passed. She finished her Coke and put the bottle down under the bench. She heard the ticking of the watch on her wrist. She leaned back, to catch the weight of the sun on her forehead.

Of course she wasn’t going to go to the house on the river. Let the food go cold, let the wine go unpoured, let the suitors languish by the side of the river. Unknown to them, their lady is near, playing her single, teasing game. She wanted to laugh, but would not break the wilderness silence.

It would be delicious to push the game further. To go halfway down the gravel road between the stands of second-growth birch, white pencils in the woodshade. Go halfway and then return, in inner mirth. Or better still, weave through the forest, in and out of the shadows, Iroquois maiden, silent on her stockinged feet over last year’s leaves, down to the river, and there, from the protection of the trees, spy out, Intelligence agent in the service of all virgins, and watch the two men, their lusty plans prepared, sitting waiting on the porch. And then steal back, her crisp dress flecked with bark and sticky buds, safe, safe, after the edge of danger, but feeling her power.

She stood up and crossed the highway toward the leafy entrance of the gravel-top road. She heard a car coming fast, from the south. She turned and stood there, as though she were waiting for a bus to take her in the direction of Port Philip. It wouldn’t do to be seen plunging into the woods. Secrecy was all.

The car swept toward her, on the far side of the road. It slowed, came to a halt opposite her. She did not look at it, but kept searching for the bus she knew wouldn’t appear for another hour.

“Hello, Miss Jordache.” She had been named, in a man’s voice. She could feel the blush rising furiously to her cheeks as she turned her head. She knew it was silly to blush. She had every right to be on the road. No one knew of the two black soldiers waiting with their food and liquor and their eight hundred dollars. For a moment she didn’t recognize the man who had spoken, sitting alone at the wheel of a 1939 Buick convertible, with the top down. He was smiling at her, one hand, in a driving glove, hanging over the door of the car on her side. Then she saw who it was. Mr. Boylan. She had only seen him once or twice in her life, around the plant which bore his family’s name. He was rarely there, a slender, blond, tanned, cleanly shaven man, with bristly blond eyebrows and highly polished shoes.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Boylan,” she said, not moving. She didn’t want to get close enough for him to be able to notice her blush.

“What in the world are you doing all the way up here?” Privilege his voice suggested. He sounded as though this unexpected discovery, the pretty girl alone in her high heels at the edge of the woods, amused him.

“It was such a lovely day.” She almost stammered. “I often go on little expeditions when I have an afternoon off.”

“All alone?” He sounded incredulous.

“I’m a nature lover,” she said lamely. What a clod he must think I am, she thought. She caught him smiling as he looked down at her high-heeled shoes. “I just took the bus on the spur of the moment,” she said, inventing without hope. “I’m waiting for the bus back to town.” She heard a rustle behind her and turned, panic-stricken, sure that it must be the two soldiers, growing impatient and come to see if she had arrived. But it was only a squirrel, racing across the gravel of the side road.

“What’s the matter?” Boylan asked, puzzled by her spasmodic movement.

“I thought I heard a snake.” Oh, good-bye, she thought.

“You’re pretty jittery,” Boylan said gravely, “for a nature lover.”

“Only snakes,” she said. It was the stupidest conversation she had ever had in her life.

Boylan looked at his watch. “You know, the bus won’t be along for quite some time,” he said.

“That’s all right,” she said, smiling widely, as though waiting for buses in the middle of nowhere was her favorite Saturday afternoon occupation. “It’s so nice and peaceful here.”

“Let me ask you a serious question,” he said.

Here it comes, she thought. He’s going to want to know whom I’m waiting for. She fumbled for a serviceable short list. Her brother, a girl friend, a nurse from the hospital. She was so busy thinking, she didn’t hear what he said, although she knew he had said something.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I missed that.”

“I said, have you had your lunch yet, Miss Jordache?”

“I’m not hungry, really. I …”

“Come.” He gestured to her with his gloved hand. “I’ll buy you lunch. I despise lunching alone.”

Obediently, feeling small and childish, under adult orders, she crossed the road behind the Buick and stepped into the car, as he leaned over from his side to open the door for her. The only other person she had ever heard use the word “despise” in normal conversation was her mother. Shades of Sister Catherine, Old Teacher. “It’s very kind of you, Mr. Boylan,” she said.

“I’m lucky on Saturdays,” he said as he started the car. She had no notion of what he meant by that. If he hadn’t been her boss, in a manner of speaking, and old besides, forty, forty-five at least, she would have somehow managed to refuse. She regretted the secret excursion through the woods that now would never take place, the obscene, tantalizing possibility that perhaps the two soldiers would have glimpsed her, pursued her … Limping braves on tribal hunting grounds. Eight hundred dollars worth of war paint.

“Do you know a place called The Farmer’s Inn?” Boylan asked as he started the car.