once dreamed that you had done anything the least improper, but I thought there must be something to the girl's story. She told it in such detail. Really, Professor Saylor, some of the girls that come to Hempnell nowadays are terrible. Where they get such loathsome ideas from is quite beyond me."

"Would you like to know?"

She looked up at him blankly.

"They get them," he told her concisely, "from a society which seeks simultaneously to stimulate and inhibit one of their basic drives. They get them, in brief, from a lot of dirty-minded adults!"

"Really, Professor Saylor! Why—"

"There are a number of girls here at Hempnell who would be a lot healthier with real love affairs rather than imaginary ones. A fair proportion, of course, have already made satisfactory adjustments."

He had the satisfaction of hearing her gasp as he abruptly turned into Morton. His heart was pounding pleasantly. His lips were tight. When he reached his office he lifted the phone and asked for an on-campus number.

"Thompson?... Saylor. I have a couple of news items for you."

"Good, good! What are they?" Thompson replied hungrily, in the tone of one who poises a pencil.

"First, the subject for my address to the Off-campus Mothers week after next, 'Pre-marital Relations and the College Student.' Second, my theatrical friends—you know the ones I mean—will be playing in the city at the same time, and I shall invite them to be guests of the college."

"But—" The poised pencil had obviously been dropped like a red-hot poker.

"That's all, Thompson. Perhaps I shall have something more interesting another time. Good-by."

He felt a stinging sensation in his hand. He had been fingering a little obsidian knife he used for slitting envelopes. It had gashed his finger. Blood smeared the clear volcanic glass where once, he told himself, had been the blood of sacrifice or ritual scarification. Clumsy—The nine-o'clock buzzer cut short his musing. He ripped a bandage from his handkerchief.

As he hurried down the corridor, Bronstein fell into step with him.

"We're pulling for you this morning, Dr. Saylor," he murmured heartily.

"What do you mean?"

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