All He Ever Wanted by Anita Shreve Page A

these.”
    “But the principle is the same, is it not?”
    Fitch swiveled in his chair, nearly putting his back to me, and gazed for some time into the fire. I guessed that he was pondering
     his dilemma and making judgments. I groped wildly for a subject that I might introduce to distract him from the matter at
     hand, but my thoughts were too confused. I longed for an open window, a hint of light in that gloomy room. The silence was
     so profound that one could hear each tick of the clock over the mantel. After a time (after an agony of time, it seemed to
     me), Fitch turned around.
    “Well, Van Tassel.”
    “Sir.”
    My nerves had pitched my voice embarrassingly high. I cleared my throat.
    Fitch sighed once. A decision had been made.
    “I should not like to lose you after all this time,” he said. “But I shall be forced to if there is a second offense.”
    “There was no first offense.”
    “You seem firm in your denial.”
    “I must. There was no crime.”
    “I shall have to pay great attention to your work.”
    “I hope you have been doing so all along,” I said.
    “We shall say no more about this now,” he said, making a small notation on a piece of paper in the folder. I strained to see
     what he had written but could not in the darkened room.
    “No, sir.” I sought to hide my considerable relief (not to mention my trembling hands) by crossing my arms and once again
     clearing my throat.
    Fitch folded his fingers under his nose and regarded me for some time. Beyond the door, I could hear the echo of boot steps
     making their way along the corridor.
    “I hear you have been walking out with a young woman,” he said.
    “She is not a young woman,” I said inanely, rattled by the abrupt change in subject. “She is twenty-five.”
    “Van Tassel, sometimes you strike me as excessively… accurate.”
    “I should hope so, sir.”
    “Well, I know the person in question. I have dined with Etna Bliss. You’re a lucky man.”
    “Dined with her?”
    “Yes. It must have been, let me think, three weeks ago. Bliss had a few of us to dinner.”
    Us
to dinner? Who exactly were the
us?
I wondered. And why had I been excluded? The thought rankled.
    “A handsome woman, Van Tassel,” he said.
    “Thank you,” I said.
    Fitch stood. The interview was over. Across the desk, he handed me Severence’s monograph, which I had no choice but to accept.
     “I believe we have said all there is to say on the subject of coincidence,” he said.
    “Thank you, sir.”
    “And unless I was absolutely convinced of a deliberate, as opposed to a careless, wrong, I should see no point in discussing
     the matter with any other person.”
    Fitch, I knew, was a man of his word. Perhaps I did then betray some relief, for he fixed me with his gaze, as if in final
     assessment.
    There was a knock upon the door, my own summons to depart. With quickening step, I brushed gratefully past a worried-looking
     student.
    When the door had closed, I leaned against the wall in the corridor. It was the worst infraction I had ever been accused of.
     I thought of Moxon’s importunate appearance, of my missed chance with Etna on the college path, and of Fitch’s intolerable
     suspicions; and I imagined the day could not possibly get any worse, until I happened to glance at my pocket watch and saw
     that I was late for my tutorial with Edward Ferald.
    Ferald was waiting for me in my sitting room — leaning with a languid pose against a stool near the window, one foot on the
     floor, the other on a rung, his hands insouciantly folded upon his thigh. He was looking out at the view and pretended not
     to notice me when I entered the room.
    “Yes, Ferald,” I said. “Sorry for the delay.”
    My breath was short and tight, and I was perspiring mightily, which put me at a distinct disadvantage with the preternaturally
     cool Ferald; but there was little I could do about it beyond sitting down in one of the wing chairs by the fire and unwrapping