"Indeed," Gretchen answered, returning his smile. "I quite understand how one needs permanent lodgings—the more quickly one can find them in a strange city, why, the quicker one is able to settle into life, get one's bearings in a foreign port."
"So true," he replied with a firm nod.
A few moments later, a juncture seemed to have been reached in their conversation. Their coffees were at an end, and neither of them had touched their cups for what seemed ages, so engaged had they become in their conversation.
"But now," Professor Bridwell exclaimed, with a glance to his pocket watch, "I should not be keeping you away from your supper or—or your other duties any longer. Please allow me to escort you home, Miss Haviland—or where you may be going."
"Thank you, Professor—but really there is no need," she declared. She thought that sounded too firm, and she smiled easily, to show that she meant it only literally, not as a rebuff. "My rooms are close by, and the evening air will do me good, you see. It shan't take me more than ten minutes at a brisk pace."
"Yes," he agreed. "I believe I shall walk myself. The air is good for the circulation, as long as one's pace is brisk."
Gretchen rose, and took a curtsey. The Professor held her coat and stood attentively while she donned her gloves. "I do thank you most kindly for the enchanting evening, Professor Bridwell. It—it has been marvelous."
"Likewise, Miss Haviland. I sincerely hope we shall have the pleasure again soon."
With a few more words of parting, Gretchen stepped into the street, followed by Professor Bridwell, and they went their separate ways. She fancied that he stood in the street and gazed at her until she turned the next corner, but she dared not glance back. The evening was extremely cold, though not overcast, and her wool coat, even with a shawl wrapped beneath, did not keep the chill from seeping into her bones. She rarely wore hats, but that evening she wished she had one—one of those large fur hats so favored in Russia, she thought—that would be most appropriate, since she could pull it down around her ears. By the time she arrived at her rooming house a few minutes later, she was shivering. She undressed and went straight to bed beneath layers of feather comforters with a hot water bottle pressed against her chest. She had no appetite for supper, and resolved to arise early and eat a hearty breakfast to compensate.
Sleep was elusive in the extreme, but Gretchen found herself strangely delighted that she could not sleep, for she had the leisure to think over in detail all that had happened that day. And especially, she had time to ponder her interlude with Professor Bridwell. He was a most intriguing man. He was a professor of English Literature—well, that could mean almost anything, she supposed—yet he did not have that _way_ about him. Nearly every professor of English she had ever met—and a good many students of literature as well—were continually spouting clever quotes gleaned from the works of obscure authors, living and dead—they were not particular about that. It often seemed to her that the more obscure the quotation, the more it was admired amongst their cronies. She had always found such practices revolting. But Professor Bridwell was not at all like that. Why, the entire evening—and it had been two hours in fact that they had sat over cups lukewarm coffee—he had never quoted an author, famous or otherwise. Yet, his choice of words, his demeanor, the hint of some foreign influence in his accent—the way he talked of Liszt—all pointed to an intimacy with the most literate form of the English language. Through clear thoughts and meticulous expression—rather than through haphazardly quoting other men—he exuded what she believed was a real professorial air, built upon a solid foundation without pretense. She found him refreshingly attractive, both for his own sake and as a change from the pompous professors she encountered so often in the library. As she drifted into sleep, the hot water bottle pressed against herself, she hoped she would have the opportunity for another such conversation with Professor Bridwell.