Silence, again. And in this lack of substance in response, something fell away from him. It was as if he had leaned all his soul against an answer and found only emptiness. He was glad. He would go away. He would never come back. He feared lest perhaps the Professor should be there. He tried to retreat. And the door opened. There he was—big and undiminished, smiling invulnerably at him. His outstretched hand drew Quincy back.
“Will you wait—just five minutes? I am busy with another man.”
There was no way of escape. Quincy sat down on the step and waited. His mind was empty. He felt the grey stone stair about him. He saw a break in the plastered ceiling. He put his fingers against his eyes and asked how it was that what these round things saw, he also seemed to see. He tried to rehearse the ordeal that impended—to ascertain what it was to be. He got no farther than: “How do you do, Mr. Deering?” He repeated this, over and over and over. It became a drone and a sing-song and a mockery.... And then, he was actually within—alone with him. And he had forgotten to say the one thing he had rehearsed: “How do you do, Mr. Deering?”
The Professor looked at him searchingly, made him sit down at the big desk, stood, himself, between him and the window, his generous hands clasped behind his back.
“Well, Mr. Burt—what brings you here?” A pause. “You are in trouble?”
“Yes, Mr. Deering.”
The big man’s face softened. He moved away beneath a high rack of books, in order that the boy should not need to stare into the light.
“Would you rather have me sit down, also?”
Quincy felt his consideration. “No,” he said.
“Very well, then—” The Professor’s face was gently serious, as if he could not brook the weakness of a delay in starting.