The ecstasy grew, making her stomach feel drained and helpless and beating in odd pulses all over her.
She bent over the desk, pretending to write, and making shaky pencil marks.
Somebody got up and switched on the light; and all at once darkness had fallen outside, and the window-pane was a purple-blue blank.
Roddy was in Tony’s room, leaning against the mantelpiece, quite near. She would pass Tony’s staircase on her way out: it was the one in the corner, facing the Chapel. She had seen his name every time she went by. Once she had met him coming out of the doorway, and he had looked through her; and once as she passed, someone in the court had shouted ‘Tony’! and he had leaned from his high window to reply.
Oh, this intolerable lecture!
Suddenly it was over. She came out and saw the bulk of King’s Chapel in the deep twilight with its row of buttresses rising up pale, like giant ghosts.
‘Oh, I’ve left my essay behind in the lecture room. I must go back. Don’t wait for me.’
She went back a few steps until the gloom had swallowed them, and waited alone in the dark court. There was a light in Tony’s window. Lingeringly she crept towards it and paused beneath it, stroking the wall. She lifted her head and cried speechlessly: ‘Oh come! Come!’
Nobody came and looked out through the uncurtained pane. Nobody came running down the stairs.
And if she did not go on quickly the bus would start without her.