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relaxed afterwards. "Most of them just peck at their food. But, then, most of them don't have your figure, Jan."
How could I help being thrilled a iittle at the admiration I saw in his eyes as they took in the high-breasted slimness revealed by the shorts and shirt I wore? Or help being glad that my hair curled naturally and stayed in place in spite of my being constantly up and down on hands and knees?
Although sometimes I would still question my right to have such a friend in so attractive a man, there was still no feeling that he was intruding. He was not robbing me of my closeness with Bill. Rather, he made a pleasant addition to my life — never stepping into that closed circle that bound me to my dead husband, but only making another circle that was Jan and Kirk.
If there were any danger of my becoming too interested in Kirk, I thought, surely I would have been jealous of his outside interests. I wasn't. I liked to hear the bits of gossip he would bring back after some faculty party. Although Kirk was totally unaware of his own charm I knew that the wives of his fellow -professors were earnestly match-making for him and constantly bringing some pretty girl for him to meet.
I would laugh with him over his description of these parties and teas, feeling a "warm glow of pride in the admiration others must feel for him — for his strength and honesty, for the tenderness and good-humor that lay behind his reserve. Even for the handsomeness of his crisp, slightly-curling brown hair and the lean hollows of his tanned cheeks. .
"Dean Tilden," he said to me one afternoon, smiling, "can't understand why I won't show up for any of the faculty suppers. It's nice of her to worry about me, but I explained that I' had very important things to do between five and eight — every evening." And his eyes caught mine with a look that said we shared a guilty secret between us.
For a moment my heart caught and lifted. It meant a lot to Kirk, then — these hours we spent together! And a strange, giddy happiness made me tremble all over.
The moment was dangerously, thrillingly sweet . . . and then reason whispered that Kirk had meant something different. Of course he liked these hours together. There was peace here and good work shared. He loved gardening and he liked to play with the dogs and he enjoyed planning with me the restoration of his old house. It was nothing more than that for him and it couldn't be more than that for me.
It couldn't, I told myself sternly! And silenced with a firm hand that tiny little wonder in my heart.
This corner of the garden where we talked and worked had seemed lately a growing place of enchantment, so perfect was the brooding late-fall peace that hung over it. And not just the weather and the physical beauty alone. Before I had known Kirk I had felt that her > I walked most closely with Bill. This was (Continued on page 91)
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