Wenny walked among the muddy paths of the Fenway. Patches of snow among the shrubberies were crumbling fast in the tingle of spring that flushed the misty afternoon. The twigs of forsythias showed intensest yellow against the sopping grey of turf. In the gravel paths there was a tiny lisping sound of water as the frost came out of the ground. The rustle of it in the ruddy light was maddening like the rustle of silk. This womanish hysteria, he was saying to himself; to escape it tense and collected the way the earth slithers out from between the tight fists of winter. A man and a woman frowsy and middle-aged, a hat with mauve pansies beside a dust-grained derby; as Wenny passed the woman was tapping restlessly on the gravel with a narrow pointed toe. The thought came to him: Perhaps Nan and I will be like that, afraid to look in each other's eyes because we didn't dare when we were young and talk about if we'd done this and if we'd done that... What a rotten thing to think about the first day of spring. In his back pocket a hard shape pressed against the fleshy part of his thigh; from its focus his whole being was stiffening to hardness. He turned and with a sudden spring in his step crossed the street from the park, passed the livid tomblike oblong of the Dental Clinic, and pulled open the glass door of the Swansea. A grindorgan was playing at the curb. The glass door slammed behind him, cutting off the Marseillaise on an upward note. He ran up the stairs and stood still a moment in front of the reddish-stained door. Through a bitter film of constraint he saw Nan in a pearlgrey dress pulling open the door for him. "I never saw that one before." "This dress? Do you like it?" Down the hall came the aviary sound of people at tea. "They'll be gone in a minute; don't look so worried." Nan looked in his face with a little mocking smile that faded out tremulously as she spoke. "Do wait, Wenny, I want to talk to you." He followed the swish of her dress down the corridor. Richly the curve of her neck caught a glow of creamy rose from the pearlcolored silk. "Have a cup of tea," she said in her hostess voice after introducing him to a large woman with beaded tragedy eyes and a lean whiny-voiced man who stood beside the teatable. Balancing a cup, Wenny settled himself against the wall beside the mantel, tried to think of nothing. "... Dreadful, isn't it, how Boston is being transformed?" "No, really, you wouldn't know it any more." "We'd got used to the Irish, but now walking across the Common you don't see a soul who's not a Jew or an Italian." "But don't you think they bring us anything?" Nan's voice, indifferent, from the teatable. "What can they bring but fleas? The scum of south Europe... "... O, Nancibel, you do have the most delightful teas."