the force

fiction by jess luther

Professor Knight had been lecturing on "The Secret Sharer" for three periods, tracing out the substructure of that subtle and lovely story, when suddenly he glanced mechanically from his notes at the clock at the back of the room and then let his eyes briefly scan the rest of the class. Most of the heads were bent over their notebooks as the students industriously copied down what he was saying. But henoticed again that the pair of eyes caught and held his hypnotically for a full three seconds, as they had a habit of doing in a rather disquieting way. Again he glanced away. This had been repeated several times during the past three weeks, and what he thought was accident had been confirmed during the lectures on "The Secret Sharer." The bell rang as he brought the class to a close. Hastily gathering up his notes, he exchanged remarks with students who had crowded around the lectern. At the back of the group, the eyes peered once more over the heads of the other students, as they had done several times recently, waiting for the others to finish before he spoke. But accident, chance, or fate had always prevented their exchanging words. This time the student did not leave; he waited until all the others had finished their business and departed.

"Sir, may I have a conference?"

"Certainly. This afternoon at four. What do you want to see me about, Mr. Squire?" It was best to remain on a strictly formal footing.

"Well, sir, I have written a paper, the one you assigned, and I would like you to go over it with me before I hand it in."'

99

The professor had noticed the student at first principally because he towered over all the other men, being at least six feet tall and built with the suppleness of a good swimmer rather than the brawn of a football player. All he knew of him, though, was that he was a geology major, that he had entered the literature class because he had needed a humanities course to fill out a science program, not, it seemed at first, because of any innate desire to broaden his knowledge of literature. But the student's sea-green eyes, like the heart of flaming copper, had begun to flash fire during the past three meetings as he had developed his lectures on the story.

17