The air of the examination room was heavy and smelt of chalk. Through the open windows from the yard drifted the whir of lawnmowers and the fragrance of cut grass. Fanshaw had just finished three hundred words on The Classical Subject in Racine. He found himself listening to the lawnmowers and breathing in the rifts of warm sweetness that came from the mashed grass. It almost made him cry. The spring of Freshman year, the end of Freshman year. The fragrance of years mown down by the whirring, singsong blades. He stared at the printed paper: Comparative Literature 1. Devote one hour to one of the following subjects.... And the girl in the blue dress had plunked herself down under a tree and cried. What a fool I was to walk away like that. "What's that perfume? Mary Garden," she had said, and her grey glance had wriggled into his eyes and his hands had moved softly across the fluffy dress, feeling the whalebone corsets under the blue fluff. No, that's when I helped her back into the canoe. Elise Montmorency, the girl in the blue dress, had plunked herself down under a tree and cried because he hadn't kissed her. But he had kissed her; he had come back and lain on the grass beside her and kissed her till she wriggled in his arms under the blue fluff and the sunshine had lain a hot tingling coverlet over his back. He sat stiff in his chair staring in front of him, his hands clasped tight under the desk. All his flesh was hot and tingling. He breathed deep of the smell of cut grass that drifted in through the window, under the smell of mashed grass and cloverblossoms, sweetness, heaviness, Mary Garden perfume. Gee, am I going to faint? And there on beds of violets blue And freshblown roses washed in dew, Filled her with thee a daughter fair So buxom blithe and debonair. Fanshaw felt the blood suddenly rush to his face. If the proctor sees me blushing he'll think I've been cribbing. He hung his head over his paper again. Devote one hour ... She was common and said ain't. That was not the sort of girl. He was glad he hadn't kissed her... The spotless armor of Sir Galahad. Maybe that was temptation. Maybe he'd resisted temptation. And lastly, Mr. Crownsterne's voice was booming in his ears: And lastly, fellows, let me wish each one of you the best and loveliest and most flower-like girl in the world for your wife. A lot old Crowny knew about it. Marriage was for ordinary people, but for him, love, two souls pressed each to each, consumed with a single fire. Not the angels in heaven above Nor the demons down under the sea Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.