He paused, and after a moment Fred asked, “Well?  What did you say to that?”

“Nothin’.  I started to, but—­”

Again Fred thought it tactful to turn and look out the window, while the agitation of his shoulders betrayed him.

“Go on and laugh!  Well, so we stayed there quite a while, but before we left she got kind of more like everyday, you know, the way people do.  It was half-past nine when we walked back in town, and I was commencin’ to feel kind of hungry, so I asked her if she wasn’t, and she sort of laughed and seemed to be ashamed of it, as if it were a disgrace or something, but she said she guessed she was; so I left her by that hedge of lilacs near the observatory and went on over to the ’Teria and the fruit store, and got some stuffed eggs and olives and half-a-dozen peanut butter sandwiches and a box o’ strawberries—­kind of girl-food, you know—­and went on back there, and we ate the stuff up.  So then she said she was afraid she’d taken me away from my dinner and made me a lot of trouble, and so on, and she was sorry, and she told me good-night—­”

“What did you say then?”

“Noth—­ Oh, shut up!  So then she skipped out to her Dorm, and I came on home.”

“When did you see her next, Ramsey?”

“I haven’t seen her next,” said Ramsey.  “I haven’t seen her at all—­not to speak to.  I saw her on Main Street twice since then, but both times she was with some other girls, and they were across the street, and I couldn’t tell if she was lookin’ at me—­I kind of thought not—­so I thought it might look sort o’ nutty to bow to her if she wasn’t, so I didn’t.”

“And you didn’t tell her you wouldn’t be one of the ones to help her with her pacifism and anti-war stuff and all that?”

“No.  I started to, but—­ Shut up!”

Fred sat up, giggling.  “So she thinks you will help her.  You didn’t say anything at all, and she must think that means she converted you.  Why didn’t you speak up?”

“Well, I wouldn’t argue with her,” said Ramsey.  Then, after a silence, he seemed to be in need of sympathetic comprehension.  “It was kind o’ funny, though, wasn’t it?” he said, appealingly.

“What was?”

“The whole business.”

“What ’whole bus’—­”

“Oh, get out!  Her stoppin’ me, and me goin’ pokin’ along with her, and her—­well, her crying and everything, and me being around with her while she felt so upset, I mean.  It seems—­well, it does seem kind o’ funny to me.”

“Why does it?” Fred inquired, preserving his gravity.  “Why should it seem funny to you?”