"Here comes Heddy's competition," Stoker interrupted, and my chest tingled at the sight of Anastasia coming towards us. She had exchanged her soiled white shift for a long-sleeved wrapper of red silk, belted at the waist — a sleeping-garment, perhaps — and her hair was piled now high on her head and bound with red ribbon. Beautiful, beautiful she was: her face seemed rather paler, and her eyes were most luminously troubled as she made her way through the brawling crowd.
"Stacey darling!" Mrs. Sear hastened to embrace her. "I heard what happened in the Gorge, dear baby! Did it hurt you terribly?"
What she replied I could not hear, but she acknowledged Mrs. Sear's demonstration with a quick smile and turned her cheek to be kissed. The woman hung onto her, touching now her shoulder, now her hair, and with an arm slipped around her waist led her up to us. Dr. Sear hastened to add his sympathy to his wife's, catching Anastasia's hand briefly in both of his and brushing gracefully with his lips her forehead. For a long moment her eyes were on me, questioning, appraising, and I endeavored to give back a gaze equally intense; but though my mind and flesh were most passionately stirred, there was no clearness left in me, and I swayed on my feet. She flashed a blaming look at Stoker, who was regarding us as usual with huge amusement.
"He's drunk!" she said bitterly.
I pointed my stick at her. "Come here to me, Anastasia." She turned her face away as I approached. "I love you," I said sternly.
"You don't know what you're saying."
Stoker explained to the Sears that I'd made the faux pas of declaring I loved all studentdom equally.
Hedwig purred. "Of course he does, dear: he's supposed to." They both caressed her, and Dr. Sear patted my shoulder also, as if to bridge our differences.
"I'm not upset," Anastasia said crossly. "Maurice is only teasing."
"She's his first Tutee," Stoker said.
"She will be," I declared, and touched the back of my fingers to her neck. She stiffened, but did not withdraw. "But she doesn't believe me yet."
Dr. Sear looked interestedly into my face for a moment and then exclaimed to Stoker: "Splendid fellow! Can't get over it!"
"Enos Enoch with balls," Stoker agreed. "Did you notice his amulet, Hedwig?"
Mrs. Sear did now, caught it up in her hands, and squealed with delight.
"Aren't they a handsome pair," her husband murmured.
"They are, Kennard!"
"No, my dear, I mean Stacey and George. They're nymph and faun." He joined my hand to hers, declaring that all things beautiful ravished his spirit; that Beauty in fact was as close to being the Answer as anything he knew. "I've been exposed to every idea in the University, George," he complained with a smile, "and don't believe in any of them. But if there were such a thing as Finals, and I were the Grand Tutor, I'd pass the two of you just for being beautiful."
Anastasia blushed. When I made to sip my drink she stayed my hand. "Please don't drink any more. Maurice wants to make a fool of you."
I declared myself indifferent to that prospect.
Mrs. Sear embraced us both. "I'd love to paint you together! In the nude!"
"It matters to me," Anastasia said quietly. "He wants to show them you aren't what you say you are."
Dr. Sear agreed with his wife that we would make a splendid group.
"Could you work from a photograph, Heddy?" Stoker asked. "We could photograph them after the funeral."
"Let him do what he wants to," I said to Anastasia, squeezing her hand. "Whatever I do and however I look, I'm still the Grand Tutor."
"Listen to him!" Dr. Sear marveled.
"Didn't I tell you?" Stoker said. "He's a natural."
"A Grand Tutor doesn't get drunk and make a public fool of himself!" Anastasia scolded.
"A Grand Tutor does what I do," I replied, and, not certain I'd made my meaning clear, I added, "It's not what I do, it's because I do it."
"Why — that's perfect!" Dr. Sear exclaimed. "What a thing to say!"
I pointed out to him — not however removing my eyes from Anastasia, on whom I smiled with mounting love — that had I said something stupid instead of wise, it would have made no difference.
"Quite! Quite! Absolutely!"
"We're about ready for the funeral," Stoker put in suavely. "I'm sure the Grand Tutor would like to say a Word of Passage over his friend before the cremation. It's the usual thing."
"Who cares whether it's usual?" Dr. Sear demanded. "George has taken care of that point very brilliantly."
"George," Anastasia pleaded, and blushed when I turned to her. "Let's go to my room. I'm all confused."
"He could even do that!" Dr. Sear affirmed. There was some excitement in his voice.
"Anything at all," Stoker laughed. "This one has it all over Enos Enoch."
"No, really, Maurice, it's actually a rather profound idea…"
"Kiss her, George!" Mrs. Sear commanded.
Anastasia frowned. "Don't, Heddy!" But I kissed her lips at once — marvelous they were, and marvelously pliant her whole body in my arms. It was by way of being my first full experience of human embrace, in its passionate form (a thing unknown in the herd), and the pleasure of it set me afire. I heard cheers from Stoker and others; Mrs. Sear it must have been who stroked our hair and necks as we kissed, and her husband murmured approval.
"Beautiful, beautiful. Figures on a vase."
With my hand in the small of her back I pressed her to my standing wrappered organ. She broke off the kiss then, but put her brow against my chin and said, "Think what you're doing!"
"A Bride of Enos," Dr. Sear remarked suddenly.
"Of course!" cried his wife. "Up on the dais! I wish I could paint it!"
"It's perfect," Dr. Sear insisted. "The will to believe and the will to be believed."
"I'll tell the band," Stoker said. "Why not use the funeral-couch?"
Mrs. Sear clapped her hands and embraced the two of us again. "I don't know which of you I envy more! Kiss me, George! Kiss me, Stacey!"
But it was Anastasia I kissed, lifting her chin in my hand.
"This is terrible," she whispered. "You'd be committing adultery."
In fact I'd not been thinking so far ahead, and even now the word paled before the image. I sipped tears from the long-lashed brims of both her eyes. More faintly yet she said, "At least let's go somewhere else…"
For reply I swept her up, and a jubilant cry rose round about Dr Sear supported me with an arm about my waist; Anastasia hid her face in my shoulder. I had in mind no clear direction or intent; it was stirring enough just to hold her so. But Mrs Sear went before us and Stoker before her, opening an aisle through the guests, who whistled and applauded as we passèd. The roomlights darkened once again, and the floodlit dais gleamed ahead. Dr. Sear spoke quietly and clearly into my ear. "In the old days this was the execution-chamber of Main Detention; they use it for high official funerals now. There's a chute under the dais that leads to one of those natural ovens, like the ones you saw in the Furnace Room, and when a chancellor or vice-chancellor dies, they cremate the body from here and then sound the EAT-whistle to let the campus know. Maurice says the steam-boiler for the EAT-whistle is fired by the crematorium, but he's probably joking. Quite an honor for your late friend, actually, even though its unofficial."
But Anastasia from her slung perch disagreed. "It's just Maurice's idea of a party-joke, Kennard, and you know it. I think it's terrible the things he does in Founder s Hill."