In a smoker once Fanshaw had overheard a story about a rose. The recollection brought a curious little feeling of sickness, stale cigar smoke and smutty eyes in a leer, flabby jowls laughing. "I mean all our group at college," he heard himself saying. "What else can they do, they've none of them the guts to do anything or be anything.... Nan hasn't settled down." "I was going to say. She has just started on the rampage." "That's because she is a woman. They go on developing. Men don't." They were walking up Mt. Auburn Street. A group of boys passed them, striding jauntily, chattering in high voices. Fanshaw caught the eager tilt of heads, the smoothness of the contours of faces in the greenish lamplight. There was a catch in his voice. "How like a ghost it makes you feel," he said. "Do you mean you wish you were back there again." "After all youth is the only thing." "If there is anything in my life I bitterly resent it is that. The time I wasted in college.... Sentimentality about youth is the cheapest of all sentimentalities." "Won't you come in a minute, here we are." Wenny shook his head. They stood irresolute a moment on the doorstep. "Do come up and tell me what you mean by your hatred of youth. You so rarely commit yourself to an arguable statement like that.... I'm open to conviction of almost anything." "I must go along home," said Wenny. He turned, raising an arm, and walked fast down the street. The stairs creaked under the carpet as Fanshaw climbed slowly, two steps at a time, to his room. He turned the key and went in. Objects were illuminated by a greenwhite swath of light from the arclight at the corner that cut through the curtains and made a bright oblong on the ceiling. On the broad desk beside the window papers gleamed white and an inkbottle gave a glint of jet. Fanshaw pulled down the shades of the two windows and clicked on the reading lamp on the desk. Examination books in blue covers made a neat pile on one corner. On another were bundles of folded papers held tight by elastics. In the center were many pencils and pens of different colors in a shallow copper tray. Fanshaw felt the peevish despair slipping off him. He went into the alcove where the bed was, took off his shoes and coat slowly thinking of nothing, his eyes following the twisting figures on the chintz window curtains. Then he walked across the floor to the bookcase, his feet at ease in slippers, and pulled aside the blue silk curtain that kept the dust off his books. For a long time he contemplated the colored oblongs of their backs, reading the gilt and black and red type of titles, deciding what he should read. * * * * The air was raw. Clouds ruddy from the glare of arclights sagged like awnings over the streets. They were walking briskly down an oozy black alley near the market. "Where are you taking us, Wenny?" said Nan. She rested a greygloved hand on Fanshaw's arm for a moment as she stepped over a pile of fruit-skins on the curb.