Of course, Quincy laughed at this legend. But its conclusion--that the marriage was unhappy, that the great man had been betrayed, that he needed sympathy and rescue--stuck attractively in his mind. For this very reason, perhaps, he failed to see how the myth reflected the student body’s general emotional condition. As Garsted told him, since his state also was reflected by the myth, there was no mystery in his failure to psychologize it. It was plain, all of that freshman year, however, that strange conflicts raged in the boy about the Deering household. “She always comes in and bothers him,” he remarked. “And the minute she comes in, he tells her just what we’ve been talking about.” “He knows you don’t mind,” said Garsted. “But I do!” “Will you stop confiding in him? Doesn’t that prove you don’t object?” At length came an hour alone with her. “Come in to see _me_, some afternoon,” she called to him from the stairs, as the Professor and he sat in the study. Later, as he was leaving, he found her watering the flowers. She was dressed in a frock of faint rose. A bonnet hid all of her black hair. Her hands were covered with sod. “Come next Monday, Mr. Burt,” she said, scarce looking up from her work, and not in the least anxious as to an answer. Quincy found it awkward to accept to the back of her head. So he went on, without a word, perfectly aware that he would be expected. His anticipation of the visit was perturbed. He was fearful of what it would entail. He was unwilling to leave it to hazard. He improvised their dialogue; he edited his inventions and kept constantly transforming them. All of his fancies were delightful. In them, he impressed Mrs. Deering greatly. And in the later ones, when he gained courage, she told him that she liked him more than any other of the students. She confided in him what she had kept hidden from Garsted--the secrets of her life. Quincy did not go into details with this. He thought he might best leave that to her. But at the end, he went completely disgusted with himself. He knew that the reality and his imaginings would not agree. In his own fancies, he had exhausted the pleasant possibilities. Infallibly, therefore, that which was going to take place could not be pleasant. As he rang the bell, he felt that he had injured the prospect of a happy time by imagining that happy time. And then, as she opened the door for him, he forgot his speculations. He began living in the present.