"It may be then, that she is not hostile?" He was remembering the telephone call from Mrs. Carr just before he left for the East, when she had seemed to be trying to check on the activities of Evelyn Sawtelle. "It may be. Yet at times I have been aware of her looking at me long and strangely." There was a knock. It was the porter come for the bags. "Be in Hempnell in five minutes, sir. Shall I brush you in the corridor?" But Norman tipped him and declined the service. He also told him they would carry their own bags. The porter smiled jerkily and backed out. Norman crossed to the forward window. There was only the gravel wall of a gully, and, above it, dark trees flashing indistinctly past. But almost immediately the gravel wall gave way to a wide panorama, as the tracks swung around and down the hillside. There was more woodland than field in the valley. The trees seemed to encroach on the town, dwarfing it. From this particular point it looked quite tiny. But the college buildings stood out with a cold distinctness. He fancied he could make out the window of his office. Those cold gray towers and darker roofs were like an intrusion from some other, older world, and his heart began to pound, as if he had suddenly sighted the fortress of the enemy. XIII. Norman looked briefly across the campus before he went into Morton. The thing that startled him most was something he had not expected--the air of normality. True, he had not looked forward--at least consciously--to any outwardly demoniac manifestations, any physical stench of evil. But this feeling of wholesomeness--the little swarms of students trooping back to the dormitories or over to the campus soda fountain, the file of girls in white bound for a tennis lesson, the friendly smiles and nods, the way his own steps fell so easily and gratefully into the old familiar paths--almost for a moment he wondered if everything else were not some crazy dream. It came to him almost with a shock that things were outwardly as normal as they had ever been, that only with respect to himself had they changed. "Don't fool yourself," the voice inside told him. "Some of those laughing girls are already infected. Their very respectable mammas have given them delicate hints. Don't be too sure you know what they're thinking while they sip their cokes or chatter about their boy friends." But there was much to be done this afternoon, and he had no right to waste a second. He turned into Morton and quickly mounted the stairs. His capacity for surprise was not yet exhausted, however, as he realized when he saw a group of students emerging from the classroom at the other end of the third-floor corridor, after having waited the usual ten minutes for him to appear. That was right--he had classes, and committee meetings, and appointments. He slipped around the bend in the corridor before he was noticed.