coat-closet under the stairs, and as the thin music seeped in, Stewart
whispered:

"I can't stand it, this breaking up after four years! The happiest years
of life."

She believed it. "Oh, I know! To think that in just a few days we'll be
parting, and we'll never see some of the bunch again!"

"Carol, you got to listen to me! You always duck when I try to talk
seriously to you, but you got to listen to me. I'm going to be a big
lawyer, maybe a judge, and I need you, and I'd protect you----"

His arm slid behind her shoulders. The insinuating music drained her
independence. She said mournfully, "Would you take care of me?" She
touched his hand. It was warm, solid.

"You bet I would! We'd have, Lord, we'd have bully times in Yankton,
where I'm going to settle----"

"But I want to do something with life."

"What's better than making a comfy home and bringing up some cute kids
and knowing nice homey people?"

It was the immemorial male reply to the restless woman. Thus to the
young Sappho spake the melon-venders; thus the captains to Zenobia; and
in the damp cave over gnawed bones the hairy suitor thus protested to
the woman advocate of matriarchy. In the dialect of Blodgett College but
with the voice of Sappho was Carol's answer: