Then I said: 'Sure. Fine. I'll be glad to.'

He closed his eyes and rubbed his temple with his fingertips.

Then he blinked at me. 'Thank you,' he said.

'No, really.'

'If you want to take some of your things back to school this afternoon, you're more than welcome to borrow the car,' he said evenly.

I got his drift. 'Sure,' I said, and it was only after I'd loaded my suitcases in the car and driven them to Monmouth and got Security to unlock my room that I called Bunny from the pay phone downstairs, a safe half hour later.

Chapter 4

Somehow I thought that when the twins returned, when we were settled in again, when we were back at our Liddell and Scotts and had suffered through two or three Greek Prose Composition assignments together, we would all fall back into the comfortable routine of the previous term and everything would be the same as it had been before. But about this I was wrong.

Charles and Camilla had written to say they would arrive in Hampden on the late train, around midnight on Sunday, and on Monday afternoon, as students began to straggle back to Monmouth House with their skis and their stereos and their cardboard boxes, I had some idea that they might come to see me, but they didn't. On Tuesday I didn't hear from them either, or from Henry or anybody but Julian, who had left a cordial little note in my post-office box welcoming me back to school and asking me to translate an ode of Pindar's for our first class.

On Wednesday I went to Julian's office to ask him to sign my registration cards. He seemed happy to see me. 'You look well,' he said, 'but not as well as you ought. Henry's been keeping me up to date on your recovery.'

'Oh?'

'It was a good thing, I suppose, that he came back early,' said Julian, glancing through my cards, 'but I was surprised to see him, too. He showed up at my house straight from the airport, in the middle of a snowstorm, in the middle of the night.'

This was interesting. 'Did he stay with you?' I said.

'Yes, but only a few days. He'd been ill himself, you know. In Italy.'

'What was the matter?'

'Henry's not as strong as he looks. His eyes bother him, he _, has terrible headaches, sometimes he has a difficult time… I " didn't think he was in a proper condition to travel, but it was lucky he didn't stay on or he wouldn't have found you. Tell me.

How did you end up in such a dreadful place? Wouldn't your parents give you money, or didn't you want to ask?'

'I didn't want to ask.'

'Then you are more of a stoic than I am,' he said, laughing.

'But your parents do not seem very fond of you, am I correct?'

'They're not that crazy about me, no.'

'Why is that, do you suppose? Or is it rude of me to ask? I should think that they would be quite proud, yet you seem more an orphan than our real orphans do. Tell me,' he said, looking up, 'why is it that the twins haven't been in to see me?'

'I haven't seen them, either.'

'Where can they be? I haven't even seen Henry. Only you and Edmund. Francis telephoned but I only spoke to him for a moment. He was in a hurry, he said he would stop by later, but he hasn't… I don't think Edmund's learned a word of Italian, do you?'

'I don't speak Italian.'

'Nor do I, not anymore. I used to speak it rather well. I lived in Florence for a while but that was nearly thirty years ago. Will you be seeing any of the others this afternoon?'

'Maybe.'

'Of course, it's a matter of small importance, but the registration slips should be at the Dean's office this afternoon and he will be irritated that I haven't sent them. Not that I care, but he is certainly in a position to make things unpleasant for any of you, if he chooses.'

I was somewhat annoyed. The twins had been in Hampden three days and hadn't called once. So when I left Julian's I stopped by their apartment, but they weren't home.

They weren't at dinner that night, either. Nobody was.

Though I had expected at least to see Bunny, I stopped by his room on the way to the dining hall and found Marion locking his door. She told me, rather officiously, that the two of them had plans and would not be in until late.

I ate alone and walked back to my room in the snowy twilight, with a sour, humorless feeling as if I were the victim of a practical joke. At seven I called Francis, but there was no answer. There was no answer at Henry's, either.

I read Greek till midnight. After I'd brushed my teeth and washed my face and was almost ready for bed, I went downstairs and called again. Still no answer anywhere. I got my quarter back after the third call and tossed it up in the air. Then, on a whim, I called Francis's number in the country.

There was no answer there, either, but something made me hold the line longer than I should have and finally, after about thirty rings, there was a click and Francis said gruffly into the receiver, 'Hullo?' He was making his voice deep in an attempt to disguise it but he didn't fool me; he couldn't bear to leave a phone unanswered, and I had heard him use that silly voice more than once before.

'Hullo?' he said again, and the forced deepness of his voice broke into a quaver at the end. I pressed the receiver hook and heard the line go dead.

I was tired but I couldn't sleep; my irritation and perplexity were growing stronger, kept in motion by a ridiculous sense of unease.

I turned on the lights and looked through my books until I found a Raymond Chandler novel I had brought from home. I had read it before, and thought that a page or two would put me to sleep, but I had forgotten most of the plot and before I knew it I'd read fifty pages, then a hundred.

Several hours passed and I was wide awake. The radiators were on full blast and the air in my room was hot and dry. I began to feel -^ -as sputlgs'g and deserted. Everything smelled of fresh paint. I walked through the laundry room – pristine, brightly lit, its creamy walls alien without the tangle of graffiti which had accumulated during the term before – and bought a can of Coke from the phosphorescent bank of machines which hummed at the end of the hall.

Walking around the other way, I was startled to hear a hollow, tinny music coming from the common rooms. The television was on; Laurel and Hardy, obscured by a blizzard of electronic snow, were trying to move a grand piano up a great many flights of stairs. At first I thought they were playing to an empty room, but then I noticed the top of a shaggy blond head, lolling against the back of the lone couch that faced the set.

I walked over and sat down. 'Bunny,' I said. 'How are you?'

He looked over at me, eyes glazed, and it took him a second or two to recognize me. He stank of liquor. 'Dickie boy,' he said thickly. 'Yes.'

'What are you doing?'

He burped. 'Feeling pretty sick, to tell you the God's honest truth.'

'Drink too much?'

'Naah,' he said crossly. 'Stomach flu.'

Poor Bunny. He never would own up to being drunk; he'd always say he had a headache or needed to get the prescription for his glasses readjusted. He was like that about a lot of things, actually. One morning after he'd had a date with Marion, he showed up at breakfast with his tray full of milk and sugar doughnuts and when he sat down I saw that there was a big purple hickey on his neck above the collar. 'How'd you get that, Bun?' I asked him. I was only joking, but he was very offended.

'Fell down some stairs,' he said brusquely, and ate his doughnuts in silence.

I a…-.-~. =«e stuniac R-ITu ruse. 'Maybe il thing you picked up overseas,' I said.

'Maybe.'

'Been to the infirmary?'

'Nope. Nothing they can do. Got to let it run its course Better not sit so close to me, old man.'

Though I was all the way at the opposite end of the couch, I shifted down even further. We sat looking at the television for a while without saying anything. The reception was terrible. Ollie had just pushed Stan's hat down over his eyes; Stan was wandering in circles, bumping into things, tugging desperately at the brim with both hands. He ran into Ollie and Ollie smacked him on the head with the heel of his palm. Glancing over at Bunny, I saw that he was gripped by this. His gaze was fixed and his mouth slightly open.