And if she did not go on quickly the bus would start without her. Let it start and then walk up and knock on Tony’s door and say quite simply: “I’ve missed my bus, so I’ve come to see Roddy.” Roddy would spring forward to greet her. All would be made right with Tony. For a moment that seemed the clear, delightful inevitable solution. But what would their faces hide from her or betray? What unbearable amusement, suspicion, astonishment, contempt? And what was there to do on such a night save to say to Roddy: “I love you,” and then go away again? To dare everything, run to him and cry: _I am Lazarus come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I will tell you all._ But what if he should answer with that disastrous answer: _That is not what I meant at all, That is not it, at all._ If he were to stare and coldly reply, with real speech: ‘Are you mad?’ Oh, but it should be risked!... She stood still, hesitating, her hand pressing the wall, power and intoxication dying out of her. She felt the night cold and damp, and heard approaching footsteps, a torn fragment of laughter, a male voice raised for a moment in the distance. She looked up once more at Tony’s window and saw that the curtains had been drawn; and she sprang away from the wall and ran towards the street in urgent flight from her wound, from the deliberate-seeming insult, the cruelty of drawn curtains. The college bus was packed with girls. Heads were craning out in search of her. ‘Oh, Judy! There you are! We’ve been keeping the bus and keeping it. What on earth happened to you?’ ‘I couldn’t get in. The room was locked. And then--Oh dear, I’ve run so! Is there room for me?’ ‘Yes, here. Come on, Judy. Here. Come and sit down. You’re all out of breath. Come in.’ They welcomed her. Their little voices and gestures seemed to stroke and pat. They were so glad she had come in time, so considerate and kindly, so safe. The bus rolled through the streets, past where the solemn lamps and the buildings ended, out on to the road where was only the enveloping night wind. The bus swayed and the rows of bodies swayed and the faces smiled faintly across at each other, amused at their own shaking and jerking; but all half-dreaming, half-hypnotized by the noise and the motion; all warm, languid, silent. The noise and the motion and the swaying faces seemed eternal. Nothing else had ever been, would ever be. Of course Roddy had not been there: he had never been there at all. 5