Edith's aunt (her name, Stoner had learned earlier, was Emma Darley, and she had been widowed for a number of years) met him at the door and asked him to come in. She was a short, plump woman with fine white hair that floated about her face; her dark eyes twinkled moistly, and she spoke softly and breathlessly as if she were telling secrets. Stoner followed her into the parlor and sat, facing her, on a long walnut sofa, the seat and back of which were covered with thick blue velvet. Snow had clung to his shoes; he watched it melt and form damp patches on the thick floral rug under his feet.
"Edith tells me you teach at the University, Mr. Stoner," Mrs. Darley said.
"Yes, ma'am," he said and cleared his throat.
"It's so nice to be able to talk to one of the young professors there again," Mrs. Darley said brightly. "My late husband, Mr. Darley, was on the board of trustees at the University for a number of years—but I guess you know that."
"No, ma'am," Stoner said.
"Oh," Mrs. Darley said. "Well, we used to have some of the younger professors over for tea in the afternoons. But that was quite a few years ago, before the war. You were in the war, Professor Stoner?"
"No, ma'am," Stoner said. "I was at the University."
"Yes," Mrs. Darley said. She nodded brightly. "And you teach—?"
"English," Stoner said. "And I'm not a professor. I'm just an instructor." He knew his voice was harsh; he could not control it. He tried to smile.
"Ah, yes," she said. "Shakespeare . . . Browning . . ."
A silence came between them. Stoner twisted his hands together and looked at the floor.
Mrs. Darley said, "I'll see if Edith is ready. If you'll excuse me?"
Stoner nodded and got to his feet as she went out. He heard fierce whispers in a back room. He stood for several minutes more.
Suddenly Edith was standing in the wide doorway, pale and unsmiling. They looked at each other without recognition. Edith took a backward step and then came forward, her lips thin and tense. They shook hands gravely and sat together on the sofa. They had not spoken.
She was even taller than he remembered, and more fragile. Her face was long and slender, and she kept her lips closed over rather strong teeth. Her skin had the kind of transparency that shows a hint of color and warmth upon any provocation. Her hair was a light reddish-brown, and she wore it piled in thick tresses upon her head. But it was her eyes that caught and held him, as they had done the day before. They were very large and of the palest blue that he could imagine. When he looked at them he seemed drawn out of himself, into a mystery that he could not apprehend. He thought her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and he said impulsively, "I—I want to know about you." She drew back from him a little. He said hastily, "I mean—yesterday, at the reception, we didn't really have a chance to talk. I wanted to talk to you, but there were so many people. People sometimes get in your way."
"It was a very nice reception," Edith said faintly. "I thought everyone was very nice."
"Oh, yes, of course," Stoner said. "I meant . . ." He did not go on. Edith was silent.
He said, "I understand you and your aunt will be going to Europe in a little while."
"Yes," she said.
"Europe . . ." He shook his head. "You must be very excited."
She nodded reluctantly.
"Where will you go? I mean—what places?"
"England," she said. "France. Italy."
"And you'll be going—in the spring?"
"April," she said.
"Five months," he said. "It isn't very long. I hope that in that time we can—"
"I'm only here for three more weeks," she said quickly. "Then I go back to St. Louis. For Christmas."
"That is a short time." He smiled and said awkwardly, "Then I'll have to see you as often as I can, so that we can get to know each other."
She looked at him almost with horror. "I didn't mean that," she said. "Please . . ."
Stoner was silent for a moment. "I'm sorry, I— But I do want to call on you again, as often as you'll let me. May I?"
"Oh," she said. "Well." Her thin fingers were laced together in her lap, and her knuckles were white where the skin was stretched. She had very pale freckles on the backs of her hands.
Stoner said, "This is going badly, isn't it? You must forgive me. I haven't known anyone like you before, and I say clumsy things. You must forgive me if I've embarrassed you."
"Oh, no," she said. She turned to him and pulled her lips in what he knew must be a smile. "Not at all. I'm having a lovely time. Really."
He did not know what to say. He mentioned the weather outside and apologized for having tracked snow upon the rug; she murmured something. He spoke of the classes he had to teach at the University, and she nodded, puzzled. At last they sat in silence. Stoner got to his feet; he moved slowly and heavily, as if he were tired. Edith looked up at him expressionlessly.
"Well," he said and cleared his throat. "It's getting late, and I— Look. I'm sorry. May I call on you again in a few days? Perhaps . .
It was as if he had not spoken to her. He nodded, said, "Good night," and turned to go.
Edith Bostwick said in a high shrill voice without inflection, "When I was a little girl about six years old I could play the piano and I liked to paint and I was very shy so my mother sent me to Miss Thorndyke's School for Girls in St. Louis. I was the youngest one there, but that was all right because Daddy was a member of the board and he arranged it. I didn't like it at first but finally I just loved it. They were all very nice girls and well-to-do and I made some lifelong friends there, and—"
Stoner had turned back when she began to speak, and he looked at her with an amazement that did not show on his face. Her eyes were fixed straight before her, her face was blank, and her lips moved as if, without understanding, she read from an invisible book. He walked slowly across the room and sat down beside her. She did not seem to notice him; her eyes remained fixed straight ahead, and she continued to tell him about herself, as he had asked her to do. He wanted to tell her to stop, to comfort her, to touch her. He did not move or speak.
She continued to talk, and after a while he began to hear what she was saying. Years later it was to occur to him that in that hour and a half on that December evening of their first extended time together, she told him more about herself than she ever told him again. And when it was over, he felt that they were strangers in a way that he had not thought they would be, and he knew that he was in love.
Edith Elaine Bostwick was probably not aware of what she said to William Stoner that evening, and if she had been she could not have realized its significance. But Stoner knew what she said, and he never forgot it; what he heard was a kind of confession, and what he thought he understood was a plea for help.
As he got to know her better, he learned more of her childhood; and he came to realize that it was typical of that of most girls of her time and circumstance. She was educated upon the premise that she would be protected from the gross events that life might thrust in her way, and upon the premise that she had no other duty than to be a graceful and accomplished accessory to that protection, since she belonged to a social and economic class to which protection was an almost sacred obligation. She attended private schools for girls where she learned to read, to write, and to do simple arithmetic; in her leisure she was encouraged to do needlepoint, to play the piano, to paint water colors, and to discuss some of the more gentle works of literature. She was also instructed in matters of dress, carriage, ladylike diction, and morality.