102
PARTISAN REVIEW
Howe said, "What's this 'professor' business?"
"Mother told me," Hilda said. "You've been promoted. And I
want to take your picture."
"Next year," said Howe. "I won't be a professor until next year.
And you know better than to call anybody 'professor'."
"It
was just in fun," Hilda said. She seemed disappointed.
"But you can take my picture if you want. I won't look much
different next year." Still, it was frightening. It might mean that he
was to stay in this town all his life.
Hilda brightened. "Can I take it in this?" she said, and touched
the gown he carried over his arm.
Howe laughed. "Yes, you can take it in this."
"I'll get my things and meet you in front of Otis," Hilda said. "I
have the background all picked out."
On the campus the Commencement crowd was already large. It
stood about in eager, nervous little family groups. As he crossed, Howe
was greeted by a student, capped and gowned, glad of the chance to
make an event for his parents by introducing one of his teachers. It
was while Howe stood there chatting that he saw Tertan.
He had never seen anyone quite so alone, as though a circie had
been woven about him to separate him from the gay crowd on the campus.
Not that Tertan was not gay, he was the gayest of all. Three weeks had
passed since Howe had last seen him, the weeks of examination, the lazy
week before Commencement, and this was now a different Tertan.
On
his head he wore a panama hat, broadbrimmed and fine, of the shape
associated with South American planters. He wore a suit of raw silk,
luxurious but yellowed with age and much too tight, and he sported a
whangee cane. He walked sedately, the hat tilted at a devastating angle,
the stick coming up and down in time to his measured tread. He had,
Howe guessed, outfitted himself to greet the day in the clothes of that
ruined father whose existence was on record in the Dean's office. Gravely
and arrogantly he surveyed the scene-in it, his whole hearing seemed
to say, hut not of it. With his haughty step, with his flashing eye, Tertan
was coming nearer. Howe did not wish to he seen. He shifted his position
slightly. When he looked again, Tertan was not in sight.
The chapel clock struck the quarter hour. Howe detached himself
from his chat and hurried to Otis Hall at the far end of the campus.
Hilda had not yet come. He went up into the high portico and, using
the glass of the door for a mirror, put on
his
gown, adjusted the hood
on his shoulders and set the mortarboard on his head. When he came
down the steps Hilda had arrived.
Nothing could have told him more forcibly that a year had passed
than the development of Hilda's photographic possessions from the box
camera of the previous fall. By a strap about her neck was hung a leather
case, so thick and strong, so carefully stitched and so molded to its
contents that it could only hold a costly camera. The appearance was
