Symes grinned at him. Symes undoubtedly thought the grin gave him a pleasant and carefree expression. It didn't. "Suppose I go have a look for Gerda myself," he said casually, heading up the stairs toward the temple entrance. "After all, you're so busy looking at books, you might have missed her."
And what, Forrester asked himself, was the answer to that—except a punch in the mouth?
It really didn't matter, anyhow. Symes was on his way into the temple, and Forrester could just ignore him.
But, damn it, why did he let the young idiot get his goat that way? Didn't he have enough self-control just to ignore Symes and his oafish insults?
Forrester supposed sadly that he didn't. Oh, well, it just made another quality he had to pray to Athena for.
Then he glanced at his wristwatch and stopped thinking about Symes entirely.
It was twelve-forty-five. He had to be at work at thirteen hundred.
Still angry, underneath the sudden need for speed, he turned and sprinted toward the subway.
"And thus," Forrester said tiredly, "having attempted to make himself the equal of the Gods, Man was given a punishment befitting such arrogance." He paused and took a breath, surveying the twenty-odd students in the classroom (and some, he told himself wryly, very odd) with a sort of benign boredom.