The Seducer

3

Now, a quarter of a century after Fern, at three o’clock in the afternoon of a Friday in his classroom at Peermont College, Brad was waiting for Maggie McCall.

It is hardly exact to say that he was waiting at three o’clock, however, for he had just dismissed his last class of the day, and Maggie could hardly have been expected to arrive on the instant from wherever she herself was required to be at that hour, conceding that she was required to be anywhere at all.

By ten minutes after, though, Brad certainly considered himself to be waiting, and he didn’t like it. By a quarter after he was definitely annoyed and feeling considerably less amiable than he had formerly felt. But then she arrived, at precisely a quarter after, a little flushed and breathless, and Brad began immediately to feel amiable again, and rather amused in a patronizing way.

She came in and stood at something like attention in front of his desk, like a private before his captain. He told her to sit down and relax, for God’s sake, and she did, crossing her legs and showing her knees, which he observed and admired.

“I’m sorry I’m late, Professor Cannon,” she said, “but I was on my way here, and would have been here at three or just a little after, as I promised, but then I met Buddy outside the library on the way, and he was even more difficult than usual. I had to stop and talk with him and explain why I couldn’t do something we had planned to do, which took simply forever, and that’s why I got here late instead of getting here on time, as I really intended.”

She completed this explanation, miraculously, with a reserve of breath, and he watched her for a few seconds afterward with his amused expression, one of his best that involved the precise cocking of the left eyebrow, while she waited quietly for whatever judgment he would decide to pronounce.

“Oh, that’s all right,” he said. “I only meant as near to three as you could make it. Who’s Buddy?”

“Buddy? Buddy’s a boy I know. Buddy Jensen. He’s a student here. I don’t suppose you’ve ever met him because he never takes anything like mathematics that might turn out to be difficult.”

“I do hope that he’s not the reason for your having neglected to prepare a single trigonometry assignment since the term began.”

“No, no. You mustn’t blame Buddy. He’s persistent and often a bother, but I never permit him to interfere with anything I really want to do.”

“Am I to deduce that you didn’t really want to be here on time?”

“Oh, no. Why should you think so?”

“You said you never permitted Buddy to interfere with anything you really wanted to do, but you did, I believe, permit him to delay you.”

“Well, I didn’t mean it to be taken quite like that. I often have trouble saying exactly what I mean, to tell the truth, and some clever person like you is always twisting me up to mean something that I didn’t intend at all. Anyhow, Buddy was all upset because I couldn’t do this thing we had planned to do. I didn’t think a few minutes one way or the other would be very important.”

“Quite right. I rather suspect that Buddy himself isn’t very important. What do you say to disposing of him?” Brad picked up her paper, which had been lying at hand, and opened it. “This is a most charming little note, Miss McCall. I agree with you completely that stealing the top thirty-one feet of a pyramid was an exceptional piece of vandalism.”

“Besides removing the outer limestone casing.”

“True. Besides removing the outer limestone casing.

I’m flattered, since we apparently cannot communicate trigonometrically, so to speak, that you have devised this means of reaching me.”

“You aren’t angry?”

“Angry? Not at all.”

“I’m so glad. I thought you might be, and it would make me unhappy if you were. I only wanted to please you and make you notice me.”

“You’re an attractive girl, Miss McCall. It’s probable that I’d have noticed you in any event.”

“Thank you. It’s kind of you to say so.”

“It’s merely the truth, and I suspect that you are well aware of it.”

“Well, anyhow, I’ve never been told so by anyone so clever and important as you. It’s a great relief to know that everything is all right, after all.”

“Not entirely. We still have the small matter of trigonometry to discuss.” He tapped the paper with an index finger. “I’m gratified that you exonerate me of all blame for your almost perfect ignorance. As a matter of fact, I’m inclined to admire you, in a way. It must surely require considerable intelligence and ingenuity to sit in a class as long as you have sat in this one and learn absolutely nothing.”

She uncrossed her knees and placed them together and tugged at her skirt without any apparent effort. Lacing her fingers in her lap, she stared down at them and shook her head slowly and looked up again sadly.

“You’re being sarcastic,” she said. “It’s all right, of course, because I deserve it. I suppose you will put me out of the class.”

“I haven’t said that.”

“I won’t blame you if you do. I admit that I’m hopeless.”

“Perhaps you would tell me why you enrolled in the class in the first place. You were surely aware of your deficiency in mathematics.”

“Oh, yes. I know practically nothing about mathemaries, except simple things that almost everyone knows.”

“I’m curious as to how you managed it. As you must know, there are certain prerequisites to the study of trigonometry. Have you ever had, for example, algebra and geometry?”

“I’ve had them, naturally, for I wouldn’t have been permitted to enroll in trig if I hadn’t. But I didn’t learn anything, or hardly anything, and so they don’t help much.”

“But you must have passed the courses. How do you explain that?”

“I think it must have been because the teachers liked me for some reason and wanted to be kind or something.”

“I see.”

“My marks weren’t very good, of course.”

They must have been average, he knew, or she would have been denied entrance into his class. He was tempted to ask if her teachers had been men or women, but the question would have been strictly rhetorical, for its answer and implications were already clear enough.

Watching her with lively curiosity accompanied by the faint prickliness, he tried to diagnose the quality of the impression she gave. A kind of compromised innocence? Suggestive demureness? He liked both phrases and repeated them in his mind. Sensing the deception of her overt propriety, he felt as if he had peeped into a pair of cotton bloomers and found the private parts of the Queen of Sheba.

“We still haven’t solved the mystery of your enrollment,” he said. “You obviously don’t care for mathematics. I’m sorry to say that it’s equally obvious that mathematics is something that you know practically nothing about. You have admitted as much. Why in the devil, then, did you take my class?”

“Do you really want me to tell you?”

“I’d appreciate it.”

“I’m not so sure. Perhaps you wouldn’t. I’m determined to tell you the truth, if I tell you at all, and it’s possible that it would only make everything worse.”

“Come, Miss McCall. I’m quite capable of facing the truth. I even prefer it on most occasions.”

“First you must promise not to be angry or amused or tolerant or anything disgusting.”

“I have no intention whatever of being anything disgusting.”

“Well, it was only because I wanted to be near you, of course, and have a time when I could simply sit and watch you do all the little things that are sometimes important in connection with a particular person, although they are not important at all in connection with anyone else.

“I had seen you on the campus before the term began, you see, and right away I fell in love with you and couldn’t help myself, no matter how I tried and kept telling myself that you were married, which someone told me, and were an older important person and all that. So I decided to enroll in whatever one of your classes was possible, which turned out to be trig, and I knew from the beginning that I would surely flunk it, but I didn’t care.

“I still don’t care, not in the least, but what I care about is that I will be put out of the class before the end of the term. I wish that you would let me stay, but I suppose you won’t.”

She was silent, watching him closely with grave apprehension. He arose slowly from his chair with the gaseous sensation of having had his cords cut.

In a lengthy career of major and minor conquests, he had never felt half so exhilarated as he did now. Certainly he had never been made to feel so absolutely heady by a college girl, many of whom had, naturally, been ready to offer what he had scorned to take.

Moving around his desk to a front corner, he hooked a thigh over it and leaned forward, half sitting and half standing, in the casual position he frequently took when he was inviting a bit of intimacy into a class discussion.

“Miss McCall,” he said, “you are truly a remarkable young woman.”

“Oh, no. I’m quite ordinary, really. As you know, I can’t even learn mathematics or any of the difficult things clever people are always learning.”

“You’re utterly ignorant of mathematics, that’s true, but in your case I’m bound to admit that it hardly matters.”

“But it does matter, in a way, for I’ll surely receive an F in trig.”

“You surely will. You will undoubtedly receive the lowest F I’ve ever given in my entire career as a teacher.”

“Well, there you are. I was afraid you’d do it, and you are doing it. You’re putting me out.”

“Nothing of the sort. I wouldn’t dream of it. If you wish to stay until the end of the term and take your F philosophically, I have no objection whatever. Indeed, I implore you to do so.”

“Honestly? Why?”

“Because you are, however ignorant, delightful and exciting, qualities rarely found in serious students of mathematics, and I should hate like the devil to lose you.”

“That’s settled, then,” she said. “I’ll stay.”

She rose and was suddenly standing quite close to him. She was, in fact, so close that she could have easily, by leaning a little forward, put her arms around his neck and kissed him. Which is precisely what she did, all at once as if by compulsion. It was not a cool kiss or a chaste kiss or a promissory peck, but an accomplished kiss that had in it heat and artistry and a merest touch of tongue. This went on for perhaps half a minute. Then she stopped kissing him as suddenly as she had begun, standing quietly between his knees and observing him with her special gravity.

“Now I’ve really torn it,” she said. “Now you will certainly put me out. I’ve spoiled everything as usual.”

“Are you always so impetuous?” he inquired, feeling oddly shaken.

“Not always. Only about things that I want very much to do. When I want to do something very much, I keep thinking about it, and then when an opportunity arrives to do it, I simply go ahead all of a sudden without thinking any more. It’s a kind of weakness.”

“It’s certainly a good way to make trouble for yourself. Don’t you know that?”

“Well, it hasn’t seemed to work out that way. I’ve never been in any trouble of any consequences.” Her voice was bland and artless.

“You’re fortunate. And in this case, so am I. We might both have been in trouble of some consequence if someone had happened to come into the room just now.”

“There you are. That’s what I mean about myself. I didn’t think of that at all, but just went right ahead and kissed you. If I had got myself into trouble, it would have been no more than I deserved. But it would have been too bad if I had got you into trouble with me, for it was in no way your fault.”

“Never mind. No harm has been done, and I must admit that I feel flattered by your demonstration. It was quite thorough, to say the least.”

“Do you think so? I’m glad. In my opinion, if you want to kiss someone, you had better do it thoroughly or not at all. I simply can’t stand being pecked at, or pecking at someone else. It’s so disappointing, I mean, and gets no one anywhere.”

“Yes. I see what you mean. But now, unfortunately, I must end this interview. Thank you for coming in, Miss McCall. Now that we understand each other, I’m sure we’ll make out very well until the end of the term.”

“I wish you would call me Maggie. It seems silly to keep calling me Miss McCall after we have become friends. We are friends, aren’t we?”

“Yes, indeed, Maggie. Friends we are.”

“It just goes to show you, doesn’t it? You might think, since you are so clever and all at mathematics while I am so ignorant, that we would have nothing at all in common, or any reason for being friends, but it isn’t true in the least, as we have discovered.”

“True. A common devotion to mathematics may not be the most satisfactory basis for friendship after all.”

“That’s what I mean. Other things are important, too. Well, I had better go now. Good-by, Professor Cannon. After a while maybe you will let me call you Brad. That’s what you’re called by your friends, isn’t it? It’s such a fine name, I think. Much better for a man than Maggie is for a girl. Thank you for not putting me out.”

“Don’t mention it. I greatly prefer having you in.”

At the door, she hesitated and looked back with her grave and provocative smile, and then she was gone. He leaned back in his chair and made a tent, fingers tip to tip, and considered the implications.

Soon, reluctantly, he sighed and stood up and began to gather books and papers, for there was someplace else he had to go and someone else he had to meet.