“We had more music and sat up talking till late. He’s really beginning to be quite human….”

I was in Ireland over a month and returned to London for the beginning of the autumn term. It was September, and in a few weeks, if they followed their usual plan, my parents would return to America. I wondered what it would feel like to be on my own in London; I was halfway thrilled at the prospect.

I didn’t see Brad for a few days; then suddenly he met me as I was leaving a lecture. We shook hands and he asked about Ireland. “Did you climb any mountains?”

“Not exactly mountains. We hiked about, though. There were plenty of hills.”

“Did you visit Donegal?”

“No. Should I?”

“Someone told me that in the mountains there you get quartzite with a capping of sandstone—obviously the result of denudation….” He went on, when I didn’t answer: “Geology’s one of the things I wish I knew more about. Do you enjoy walking?”

“Yes, very much.”

“Would you care to take a walk with me next Sunday?”

I said I would and he looked me up and down as if for the first time he were reckoning me physically. “Good legs and good boots are all you need.”

“Shoes,” I corrected. “And I don’t know anything about geology, but I’d like to.”

I thought he might be relieved to feel there was always a topic in reserve.

* * * * *

We went to Cambridge by an early train because he had to call at the Cavendish Laboratory there to leave some papers. It was the first time I had been to the university town and I wouldn’t have minded sight-seeing, but apparently this was not part of his program; we ignored the colleges and began a brisk walk along the riverbank. After what Mathews had said, I was quite prepared to cover the miles without comment or complaint, but as a great concession, doubtless, we picked up a bus at some outlying village and the bus happened to be going to Ely. The way I’m telling this sounds as if I were having fun at his expense all the time; and so, in a quiet way, I was, because people who are too serious always make me feel ribald inside. Not that he was as serious as I had expected. We didn’t discuss geology once—perhaps because there isn’t much geology between Cambridge and Ely. There were just large expanses of mud everywhere, and especially by the river, for heavy rain had fallen and the sky was full of clouds threatening more. Ely was like a steel engraving, but inside the Cathedral the octagon window had the look of stored- up sunshine from a summer day. I said it would be strange if some of the medieval stained-glass experts had actually discovered how to do this, and he assured me gravely that they couldn’t have, it was scientifically impossible. I then gave him a short lecture on English Perpendicular, to which he listened as if he thought me clever though what I was saying relatively unimportant. “But of course you’re only interested in scientific things,” I ended up.

“No, that’s not true. Your mother played some Mozart to me the other evening—it was the first time I really liked classical music.”

“She loves Mozart.”

“Of course when she was younger she had time and opportunity to cultivate a sense of beauty—that’s hard for the average American.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s Americans who do cultivate things, as a rule.”

“Then she just has them—was born with them, perhaps. Generations of aristocratic background.”

“My mother’s people wouldn’t like you to call them aristocrats. They’re a fairly well-known Yorkshire family—commoners, but we can trace ourselves back for a few centuries without much trouble.”

“She happened to mention a sister—Lady Somebody, I forget the name.”

“That’s nothing. Tides don’t mean aristocracy. All my aunt did was to marry a man who got knighted—that can happen to anyone.”

“You sound rather cynical about it.”

“I’m not. But it’s amusing, sometimes, the way Americans make mistakes. My aunt and uncle were once visiting us in Florida and the local paper called them English blue bloods. They’re no more blue-blooded than you are.”

“Speaking scientifically?”

“No, speaking snobbishly.