994
PARTISAN REVIEW
the elbow, he led her from the room. Elspeth could hear her voice
moaning in the corridor. "Why did they take him away? What have
I done to be treated in this way?" and the Professor's voice soothing,
pacifying, reassuring.
It was many weeks later when Elspeth returned to Oxford. She
spent the first evening of term with Kenneth Orme, the Steffansson
Reader in Old Norse, also an ex-pupil of Professor Searle. To him
she felt able to disclose the whole story of that fateful evening.
" ... I didn't wait to see either of them the next morning" she
ended. "I just packed my bag and stole out. I do not wish ever to see
her again, and he, I felt, would have been embarrassed. It may be
even that I have had to sacrifice
his
friendship in order to help."
Elspeth hoped that her voice sounded calm, that Kenneth could not
guess what this conclusion meant to her. "All the same whatever the
cost I think it did some good. Drunk as she was I think she realized
that there were some people with whom she could not play tricks, who
were quite prepared to give her what she deserved. At any rate, it
let a breath of fresh air into a very fetid atmosphere."
Kenneth Orme looked at her with curiosity. "Breaths of air can
be rather dangerous" he said. "People catch chills from them, you
know, and sometimes they are fatal chills."
"Oh, no fear of that with Miranda Searle" said Elspeth. "I wish
there was, but she's far too tough."
"I wasn't thinking of Mrs. Searle" replied Kenneth. "I was
thinking of the Professor. He's not returning this term, you know. He's
had a complete breakdown."
