a mere friend. I want to I have to share my life with her. We I guess you two wouldn't understand very well it's so far from the kind of lives you've led." Tay caught her breath again. "But if it can make any difference with Dad's position, Millicent and I will go to some other place. She can teach almost anywhere, you know. I'll finish my doctorate wherever she teaches, if it's going to make any diff The words stopped then. But Tay's father took up.

"My child, how can you suppose that I wouldn't understand? How could I have been Doan of Men over at State all these years without knowing the facts of life?" Then the tips of his fingers came together, which they did whenever he must consider any subject carefully. And his mouth took on that tight look which it did whenever the subject might offer unpleasant connections.

Tay's mother opened her mouth, then closed it abruptly. It seemed to Tay that all of life had suspended. Even her own breath stopped. Then her father spoke again, slowly.

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"No, it won't make any real difference with my work. In fact, you might be surprised at how many of the faculty well, at how many prefer to live with their own sex rather than to enter conventional marriage." He stopped again, now to clear his throat. "It isn't that I wouldn't be happy more than happy to see you the wife of Don. But your life is your own. Most of all for that life, my child, I want happiness."

Tay then turned to her mother. "I think,' her father added, more quickly now, "that I can explain with satisfaction to the rest of the family. Not, perhaps, that they'll need too much explaining. After all, this is the second half of the twentieth century, you know.

Tay smiled, faintly. She said, "Thank you, Dad." Then she walked to the large bay window where she could sit and look across at the trees. They towered over the campus like some sentient shelter. Just beyond the tallost of the oaks and slightly to the left, stood the apartment house where Millicent lived. Joy and peace and a