Still a bit flushed, a bit breezy, with his brisk sprint across the chill November campus, he was just slipping out of his overcoat in the doorway of the President's office when the name "Daphne Bretton" first struck across his startled senses. Half hampered by a balky overshoe, half pinioned by a ripped sleeve- lining he thrust his head alone into the conference.
"What?" he demanded.
"This will hit Burnarde rather roughly, I'm afraid," whispered the History Man to the Biology Woman. "She's quite his star English pupil, I imagine. Has done one little bit of lyric verse 41 already, they say, that is really rather remarkable. Very young of course, very ingenuous, but quite remarkably knowing."
"Maybe now we can guess where she gets her 'knowingness,'" murmured the new Bible Instructor behind her pure white ringers.
"What?" demanded John Burnarde all over again. The winter wind seemed to have faded oddly from one cheek but was still spotting hecticly in the other. "What?" he persisted bewilderedly, still struggling with his overshoes.
"Why it's the Bretton girl!" prompted a sharp voice from some dark seat in the corner.
"That pretty little Bretton girl," regretted a gentler tone.
"Yes—I—I—know who you mean," stammered Burnarde. "But—but——"
"Always made me think of apple-blossoms—somehow," confided the old Mathematics professor a bit surreptitiously.
"Apple-blossoms?" mumbled poor Burnarde.