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This remark of Jock's, delivered in a manner that testified to his absolute stupefaction, became the last made by either of them for some time. Cecily pulled her coat collar high and was hidden except for her eyes, which regarded the rear of a parked truck filled with crates. Jock sat motionless; the million mingled noises of the streets assailed his ears and aggravated him. . . . Once, in college, he had taken an examination upon which everything depended. (In those days, "everything" meant keeping on in college.) It was a mathematical examination, and the answer to one of its questions, the most important one, had eluded him. It had jumped just an infinitesimal length beyond his brain. And the feelers of his brain had reached for it—almost caught it countless times—and every time, a boy who sat in the seat behind him had coughed. Then he had had to begin all over again. . . . The street sounds now brought back the experience. They seemed to shatter his reasoning powers as that remembered cough had shattered them, so that he could not wrestle with his problem.

"Cecily," he said finally, "I give up. I just don't get it, that's all. The whole thing is a misunderstanding. I didn't mention the engagement because I simply took it for granted you knew. It's so much a part of me that I'm foolish enough to expect everyone who knows me to know it, just as they know my hair's black. As for Yvonne—well, that's what stumps me. She probably had some reason for telling you what she did—but she shouldn't have—because it isn't true. We are engaged. We have been engaged for almost a year. Why, we're going to be married within a month."

He could not even be sure that Cecily had heard him, so rigidly still she remained . . . until her voice came