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Mifflin College, Pennsylvania
1955

Pam blamed her roommate, even though it was Roy who had persuaded her to let him stay after ten o'clock. "Just one more kiss, babe," he'd said, and Pam couldn't refuse because Roy had flashed his white smile and deep dimples, and he'd looked at her with pleading blue eyes. He really was such a nice boyfriend; Pam felt lucky to be going steady with him, felt lucky that she'd been dating him for a few years already and would probably be Mrs. Anderson one day. Mrs. Roy Anderson. Last year she had scrawled it in her notebook and surrounded it with a heart.

But it was definitely her roommate's fault. The matron had reminded them at the beginning of the school year that no boys were to be in the girls' rooms after 9:30, and that they absolutely must leave the premises of the women's dormitory at 10 p.m. Pam knew it, and she had told Roy that when she started at Mifflin College the year before. Shirley blew it though. She'd walked in the room just as Roy's right hand had gently closed on her breast. Roy never went too far and always respected her, but at moments like those, when Roy's thumb would just brush the tip of her breast, Pam would wish he was touching her skin, that he was grasping her nipple between his fingers to ease the ache.

Shirley had seen him do it, even though she'd said she would be at the library until "very late" that evening. Instead she'd surprised them and seen Roy and Pam separate abruptly and Pam's flushed cheeks and tousled hair. Shirley merely stood up even straighter and pushed her glasses up her nose with one finger. Turning on her heel, she'd left the room, and Pam knew she was in trouble.

Roy looked sheepish, and they'd left the room to walk slowly downstairs, where the matron would be waiting. The matron of Dunder Hall, Mrs. O'Brien, eyed Roy as if he were a speck of lint on her wool skirt.

"Mr. Anderson, I shall ask you to leave the hall immediately, and I'm afraid I cannot allow you to come again in the future. You will, of course, address yourself to your dormitory's master in the morning about this incident. Good night."

Roy looked lost, helpless as he mouthed, "I'm sorry" to Pam. He stuck his hands into his trouser pockets and walked down the steps of the main entrance to Dunder Hall.

Shirley was still standing there, probably feeling smug about tattling on her "loose" roommate. Pam had once overheard Shirley gossiping with her best friend Angela about Roy and her and how Pam was such a fast girl, how she had probably even gone all the way with her boyfriend.

Mrs. O'Brien turned to Shirley. "Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Miss Baldwin. Sleep well, dear." Shirley looked a little disappointed that she wouldn't witness Pam's chastisement, but she obeyed the matron and disappeared up the stairs.

Pam was looking down, wringing her hands, knowing that whatever Mrs. O'Brien was about to say wouldn't be pleasant.

"Miss Beesly, I've been concerned about your behavior this year. Last year it seemed that you and Mr. Anderson were merely casually dating, but lately I wonder if it hasn't grown too serious for your own good. I find myself wondering how far you've let Roy go; if you've made him stop after just kissing." Mrs. O'Brien paused. "Please look at me, Pam."

Pam could feel the heat rush to her cheeks, her neck, and her chest where one extra button of her blouse was unbuttoned. Had Roy unfastened it? Had she? And she knew she was flushing not because Roy had gone further, but because she wanted him to go further. She wanted to let him touch her everywhere, as she had earlier when Roy's hand stole a caress of her very clothed breast. "We've never done anything but kiss, Mrs. O'Brien."

"I'm very glad to hear that. Young men often get carried away with their girlfriends. I'm sure your mother has spoken to you about this, but it is incumbent on you to stop a boy if he tries to go too far. That sort of activity must be restricted to marriage, do you understand?" Mrs. O'Brien's voice sounded stern, but her green eyes were kind and maternal.

"I do, Mrs. O'Brien." Except Pam didn't understand.

"Very good, Miss Beesly. Well then, for this infraction I'd like you to compose an essay about the value of being a virtuous young lady. I'll then ask you to read it for your fellow residents at this week's afternoon tea. It needn't be very long, just five minutes or so." Mrs. O'Brien paused. "Are you in a composition class this semester, Pam?"

"Yes." Composition class. It conjured up the image of Professor Halpert, the very tall Professor Halpert. She always sat in the second row in the lecture hall, so that she could see his hands and commit them to memory to sketch later.

"I'm glad to hear that. I'd like you to have your professor look at it and advise you as to the clarity of your argument and its appropriateness as an oratorical composition." Mrs. O'Brien smiled then. "You may go to your room now, Miss Beesly. I'll look forward to your speech."

Pam's feet felt like lead as they ascended the stairs. How could she write about something she didn't believe in?

****

She kept her small desk light on until very late that night, writing her best effort of a speech about virtue. She gleaned a little satisfaction from the idea that the light bothered Shirley's sleep.

The next day she dressed carefully, choosing a full skirt, a prim white blouse buttoned all the way to her neck, and low-heeled sensible pumps. She needed to look ladylike, for some reason. She felt she had to look convincing even if she didn't believe in it.

Today Professor Halpert was discussing Aristotle's Poetics. "Aristotle gives us very clear instructions on diction," he said. "For instance," he quoted, "'What is needed, therefore, is a blend, so to speak, of these ingredients, since the unfamiliar element will save the diction from being commonplace and drab, while the colloquial element will ensure its clarity.'" He looked up from the book. "What do you think of this advice?"

A girl from the front row responded in her usual overeager but uninspired way. "I think Aristotle is correct here. He's asking writers to look for a happy medium, to be neither too flashy nor too dull."

Professor Halpert looked encouragingly at her. "Yes, you've summed it up well, Ruth." He smiled and pushed his too long hair from his forehead. Pam filed away yet another image of his hands and his mouth. "Does anyone else have an opinion? How do you see this applying to your compositions? Feel free to disagree with Aristotle."

The class chuckled a little, perhaps unsure about challenging a great philosopher. One boy in black rimmed glasses and a crew-cut spoke up. "I'm not sure his advice is universally true. What if the effect the writer seeks is to be outlandish?"

This time, the professor's smile struck Pam as more genuine. "Good. Though this is good advice, it's sometimes more effective, not to mention more interesting, if you disobey the rules. I'd like you all to keep that in mind for your next assignment—again, it’s due next Friday. Enjoy your afternoon."

The words made Pam's breath catch as everyone around her stood up to gather their things. Disobey the rules; that's exactly what she wanted to do.

Professor Halpert stood at the oak desk, lingering so as to give his students an opportunity to ask him questions. He made a stack of his lecture notes and books, smiling genially as his students filed out of the hall.

Taking a steeling breath, Pam descended the stairs to where he stood. When she was next to him, she felt so small, not just because he was so much taller, but because he had this intellectual aura that overwhelmed her. Even from across the desk, she could smell him. Maybe it was his soap, but maybe also something else that was just...him, male. Pam had never been hit by Roy's scent like that.

His voice distracted her thoughts. "Hi, Pam." He smiled brightly at her, as he always did whenever she came to meet with him. "I know you can’t already have started the assignment I just gave you, so I’m assuming you came down to tell me I have spinach in my teeth. I do have a meeting with my department’s chair later today, so thank you, I—" He paused, his face instantly sobering. "Bad joke. What can I help you with?"

Pam thought he must have seen how nervous she was. Normally their meetings were friendly—she had never thought she could be friends with a teacher until meeting Professor Halpert. "I... um, I have to ask for your help with something. My dorm matron has asked me to write a speech for our next afternoon tea but she also wants me to get a professor's advice about how it flows and I thought you might be willing to help even though it’s not a class assignment." It came out in a rush, belying her nervousness.

He smiled at her, "Pam, you don’t even have to ask. Of course I can help. What’s the speech about?"

"Virtue."

He screwed up his face a little. "Virtue? Why would your dorm matron ask you to--"

She cut him off. "Of—of young women."

He licked his lips and swallowed, and Pam could see his Adam's apple moving up and down in his throat. "All right. Is this some sort of rotating speech you each make at the dorm tea?"

Pam looked at her feet, unsure of how to phrase this without seeming like the fast girl Shirley said she was. She couldn't come up with a way that sounded less damning than what she said. "No. No, it isn’t like that. My boyfriend was in my room after curfew. I'm writing the speech because I'm supposed to show my conviction about the importance of being virtuous." Pam was fussing with the top button of her blouse, twisting it back and forth with her fingers. In her other hand she held the typed pages of her speech.

"I see. When do you have to give this speech?"

"Friday." Pam could feel his eyes on her; they seemed to pin her to the spot where she stood. She couldn't make herself look at him.

"That's before our next class. Unfortunately I can’t go over it with you right now—I actually do have a meeting with the chair in a half an hour or so. Would you be free to meet Wednesday afternoon?" He held his hand out to take the thin sheaf of paper.

Pam nodded and handed them to him, hoping he wouldn’t start looking at it with her right there. "After three o'clock is fine."

"Good. I'll see you Wednesday at four o'clock, then." He smiled. "I should hope you’ve learned how to get to my office by now, Pam."

Pam could feel herself blushing; she had been seeing Professor Halpert to talk about assignments since the beginning of the semester and had more than once gotten lost in the labyrinth of his office’s building. She finally raised her head to look at him. Though she had heard amusement in his voice, looking at his face didn't confirm her thoughts that he was making fun of her. He just looked-she wasn't sure how to interpret it-interested. He just seemed to want to help. She dropped her hand from her throat and smiled at him. "Thank you." It came out as barely more than a whisper. "Good-bye."

"Bye, Pam."

****

Jim walked slowly back to his office, unbelievably, inappropriately stirred by Pam Beesly. She had come to see him almost every week since the beginning of the semester, unsure of her writing assignments. Pam’s writing was good, but she never thought so herself. They were friends, in an academic way. But right now he was thinking of her in a decidedly non-academic sense.

When her hand had dropped from her throat she had unintentionally undone her top button and he could see a patch of red in the hollow of her throat, evidence that when she blushed it was more than her face.

Would she blush like that all over? The image of Pam's white skin tinted red filled his mind; how she would look if she were under him, eager for his touch.

Swallowing, he took a deep breath of the early spring air and tried to clear that image from his brain. After today, he wasn't sure how he'd make it through a private meeting with her about a speech on sexual morality, of all things. But he couldn't wait to read her speech. He wanted to see how she thought about "virtue," and if this composition would follow her previous pattern.

He entered the building where the English department was located and nodded hello to a few of his colleagues. Fantasizing about a student was the least professional thing he could possibly do, and he felt like a sham of a professor as he saw others in his department. He shut the door to his office, shut out reminders that this was incredibly wrong. Somehow the improper nature of his thoughts made them all the more enticing.

He was a young professor, barely into his thirties, and he knew that some of his female students harbored crushes on him. He supposed it was inevitable; just a fact of life. But he had always looked on those infatuations with amusement, knowing that part of the attraction for the young women was his unattainable status. And yet, here he was, intensely desiring a student; something he had never done before. No, he was lying. Pam had always struck him as beautiful and intelligent, and he had more than once cursed the fact that she was a student. His student. But never had his thoughts been as sexual as they were right now. He felt just as ridiculous as the college freshmen who looked at him with schoolgirl love in their eyes.

He sat in the worn leather chair and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb, as if that might erase the images floating through his brain. He spread out the typewritten pages of Pam's composition, smiling at the typographic errors that she had carefully fixed. Pam's writing had always been extremely competent but somehow false, as if she were hiding her true personality and writing what she thought others wanted her to write. He wished he could coax a truer self out of her, but he knew that she would succeed just fine in college writing as she did.

This paper was no exception, except that maybe it was not as well-written as he knew she was capable of. "After my inappropriate actions last week, I have come to realize just how important my virtue is. It is something to be protected and saved for marriage. In doing what I did, I disrespected my roommate, Shirley, and myself. For this I am profoundly sorry. In the future I will strive to set a good example and in doing so contribute to the well-being of both myself and of this community."

Jim shook his head. There was no way she believed this. Every word was there only to appease her matron, and presumably, Shirley.

He couldn't wait until Pam came to visit.

*****
This time Roy decided to pick Pam up in his car. This way, they wouldn't bother either that dragon-lady matron or the stiff roommate Shirley.

He could tell Pam was smiling under her umbrella as she approached the car. They hadn't seen each other in days, not since the incident in her room, and she was probably just as excited as he.

"Hi, babe." He smiled at her.

"Hi!" She giggled a little.

She bounced into the car, sliding a bit on the leather upholstery, and closed her umbrella so that it could lie on the floor in the back seat.

She scooted over so that she was next to Roy, and he could wrap his arm around her as they drove. She kissed him on the cheek and rested her head on his shoulder. She was so perfect for him, and he wanted to love and protect her forever. They had been dating for several years now and he knew he would marry her one day. His family wasn't as sure as he. "Who are the Beeslys?" his mother had once asked. He guessed his mother didn't think Pam was sophisticated enough to be the next Mrs. Anderson, but he was sure. Pam was it.

"What do you want to do?" she asked.

"Drive-in?" He looked down at her with what he hoped was a meaningful look.

She nodded.

****

Once at the drive-in they didn't bother with the speaker. The movie was On the Waterfront, and even though Pam thought Eva Marie Saint was beautiful and wished she had pale blond, non-frizzy hair like hers, Pam only wanted to be close to Roy. They had already seen this movie, anyway.

His hand was playing with her hair, pulling out the pins that held it away from her face so that he could more fully run his hands through it. He looked down at her, and Pam felt adored.

She couldn't stop thinking about Professor Halpert, though. Until today, she had never seen him as anything more than her friend and professor, but after their brief meeting today, it seemed like something had changed. He had made her feel uneasy, like she was on edge, or something. She couldn't figure out why she would want to feel that way, but she did. It was like Professor Halpert could see right through the prim façade she had put extra care into that morning, and she both wanted to show it to him and hide at the same time.

Roy, though, was solid and sure. He never pushed her, he never seemed discontent. He was safe and comforting, even if he could be a little oblivious sometimes.

Roy was kissing her, then, his lips not too demanding, his hand firm but not possessive on her head. He was kissing her the same way he'd kissed her for years. Pam opened her mouth a little, willing him to kiss her harder, and deeper. Predictably, he did, pulling her closer to him and kissing her fully.

Pam made a noise, something like a moan, and pressed herself to Roy. His left hand, as always, slid up from her waist, over her sweater, to her breast. He squeezed gently but didn't try to unbutton her blouse. She wanted him to.

So she pressed harder. She took her own hand and placed it over his, pressing his hand into her so that she could feel her heat. Letting go of his hand, she began unbuttoning her blouse, pulling it out of the waistband of her skirt when she reached her waist. She unbuttoned it all the way, and Roy pulled back.

Pam didn't say anything. She took Roy's hand once more and placed it on her chest with only her bra between them. Instead of looking happy about it, Roy looked confused. But he leaned in again and kissed her, his hand once again just gently, hesitantly touching her.

He didn't go any further. Pam pulled back after a while, lying back against the blue leather bench seat. Disappointed, she was still breathing hard. Roy was too. Pam's blouse was still opened over her chest, so she began to button it up again.

"Babe, I..." Roy didn't seem to know how to continue. "I love you, Pam, but I want to marry you someday. And maybe this doesn't make any sense but I don't want to really touch you until you're my wife. I do...I do want to, just not now. Believe me, Pam, I want to." He wrapped his arm around her again, his thumb rubbing her shoulder, squeezing her to him.

Pam smiled, hoping Roy couldn't tell how disappointed she was. "It's okay. I understand. I want to marry you someday, too." Stretching her neck, she kissed him quickly on the cheek.

They didn't stay for the rest of the movie.

On the way back to the dorm, the only thing Pam could think was that Professor Halpert wouldn't hesitate like Roy had. She had no evidence, but she was sure of it.

****
Shirley shot Pam another self-satisfied look when Pam entered their room that night. It was only later, when Pam was undressing for bed, that she noticed she had mis-buttoned her blouse. As Pam lay in the semi-darkness, with Shirley still typing away on her Underwood well after midnight, she couldn't think of anything but her meeting the next day with Professor Halpert.

Once again she dressed with care. A pink blouse this time, a grey skirt, a new pair of tan stockings, her best bra. She tried her best to tame her hair into a chignon at the base of her neck, but she knew it didn't look like Grace Kelly's did in the movies. It was armor, she realized, something to steel herself against the uneasiness she knew she would feel when she met with Professor Halpert.

After she knocked, his voice came surprisingly loudly through the old solid wood door. "Come in."

He smiled at her when she shut the door behind her and gestured at the chair opposite the large oak desk. "Hi, Pam. Have a seat."

He laid her speech on the desk in front of her; she could see the copious amounts of red markings all over it, overshadowing the neat typewritten words. She hadn't thought it would be possible to be more nervous, but she was. She definitely was.

"So, what do you think I’ll say?" He looked at her evenly, expectantly. He was wearing what all the professors wore; white shirt and a thin tie. His shirt cuffs were rolled up to his elbows, the tie slightly loosened around his neck. A tweed jacket hung on the back of his chair. She couldn't identify his expression.

"There's a lot of red ink on it," she began. "I guess you'll say you don't like it."

"That is true, but maybe not for the reasons you think." He paused. "You write well, as I’ve told you so often. Maybe this paper isn’t your best effort, but I didn’t dislike any of its mechanical or stylistic aspects."

Pam felt hopeful. "I'm glad to hear--"

But Professor Halpert hadn't finished, and he sighed. "Pam, I didn’t like the content. I don't believe you. It just seems forced, false somehow." Suddenly Pam felt exposed, as if he knew her secret. "I'd like you to stand up and deliver the speech as you would at your dorm tea. I want to see if you can convince me."

"Now?"

He nodded. His face didn’t seem stern, just serious. He wasn’t joking around like he normally did.

She stood, tightening her shoulderblades to ensure good posture. "Today I'd like to address my fellow Dunder Hall residents on the subject of what is and is not proper behavior when interacting with the opposite sex." She paused, but his expression hadn't changed. "Recently I was caught in a situation that tested my, uh, my resolve to behave virtuously."

"Why did you hesitate, Pam?"

"I just had to take a breath." She was lying but hoped he couldn't tell.

"I don’t think so. Keep going." He could tell.

"My roommate found my boyfriend and me in my room after curfew last weekend. What we were doing was not appropriate behavior for a responsible college student."

"You never clarified in your paper, but what exactly were you and your boyfriend doing?"

It was crossing the line, she knew. He shouldn’t, but she wanted to answer him. She didn’t want him to think the worst of her. "We were kissing on my bed."

"Is that all? I find it hard to believe just kissing would bring about such an embarrassing punishment." His words seemed stern, but he wasn't actually angry, she didn't think.

"We were... petting, too."

"I see." He stood up then and walked to her side of the desk. He took the paper from her. "I think your speech will satisfy your matron, but it doesn't convince me." He took a step closer, suffocating her, until all she could see, smell, and feel was this tall man. "I think we should find out what you really think, Pam."

***

Jim knew he was crossing the line. He had pushed it by asking her to practice the speech in front of him. But now, now he was physically too close to her; what he was doing was wrong but he couldn't help it. "I don't believe you," he said again, and looked somewhat sadly at her. Why don’t we sit down and talk about what’s behind all this?" He sat down in the chair next to the one she had sat in when she first came in the office.

She sat next to him, and he could smell what he thought was Joy perfume. "You mean you don't believe that's what Roy and I were doing?" she asked. She sounded unsure, intimidated, but definitely interested in the conversation.

"No, I believe that's what you and Roy were doing. What I don't believe," he said, and he noticed her eyes widen a little more, as if she was preparing herself for what he was about to say. "What I don't believe is that you think it's necessary to be what your matron would call a virtuous young woman. I don't sense that you put any stock in your own argument."

She looked surprised, but she didn’t respond.

"You don’t, do you?" Jim kept his voice soft; he didn’t want her to think he was disappointed in her.

She looked down and shook her head. "No. No, you’re right, I don’t." She took a deep breath, like she was fighting back tears.

Jim smiled. "Pam, I’ll bet many girls your age don’t either. They just don’t have the courage to admit it. The young men, on the other hand, well, there I can speak from experience. They definitely don’t."

Pam looked up at him fervently, tears in her eyes. "Except Roy. Roy does! He’ll barely even kiss me."

"I thought you said your roommate found you two doing a little more than kissing."

"It’s me—I have to push him to do anything. I just want, oh, I don’t know. That’s it, I guess. I want." She took a deep breath, but kept looking right at him.

Jim gulped and tried to force himself back into professor-mode. This had gone too far; he had let it go too far. Now he was sitting next to Pam, whom he had thought about constantly all week. She seemed vulnerable but at the same time relieved to have shared this with someone. It seemed it physically hurt him, but this had to stop.

****

Pam had thought this would be a mortifying discussion, but Professor Halpert didn’t judge her. She felt safe, relieved that she could finally talk about this with someone. He just looked at her intently.

He opened his mouth to speak, but Pam talked first. "Thank you. I thought this was going to be horrible, but I should have known better." She reached over with both her hands and grabbed his hand, which was gripping the armrest of his chair. Squeezing it, she said. "Really—thank you."

She let go and tried to pull her hands back, but he held on, his long fingers wrapped around her hand, his thumb making small movements on her palm. He still looked at her, and she felt herself blush. Sometimes, during their meetings, she would look up to see him looking at her as he was now, but she never thought of it as anything more than his being friendly. Now, though, with him touching her hand, she felt more. His gaze and his hand hypnotized her.

He stood up and pulled her up with him. From the inertia of her standing up, she fell close to him, and though she wasn’t touching him, she could feel how warm he was.

"Pam—" his voice was low and gravelly. He didn’t say anything else; he just leaned down and kissed her.

The shock of his lips on hers kept her motionless, but then he let go of her hand and wrapped his arms around her, all the way around her so she was gathered tight against his chest. And she kissed back.

He groaned, and it seemed he pulled her even closer. He ran his tongue along the seam of her lips and kissed her deeply. It was the kind of kiss she always wished Roy would give her.

One of his hands went to her waist and tugged her blouse from the waistband of her skirt. He slid a hand onto the bare skin of her back, and the heat from his hand seared her. Her hands, which had been resting on his shoulders, reached back to thread through his thick brown hair where it curled just above the collar of his shirt.

His mouth broke away, and he began to kiss her neck. Her blouse was almost completely untucked, and his hands were on her ribs, slowly moving up, up. His fingertips just brushed the bottom of her bra, and then they stalled. His mouth did, too, and he rested his forehead on her shoulder.

He pulled back, breathing heavily, his hair mussed. "Oh, Pam." His voice broke a little on her name. It seemed he spoke with great effort. He shook his head. "You—you can’t know how much I don’t want to stop, but--"

He was right; they had to stop. She was disappointed, but she nodded. "No, it’s fine." It wasn’t fine, but he was right. He was her professor; she had a boyfriend who wanted to marry her.

"It isn’t." He was whispering. He pulled her against him one more, hugging her close to him. "I want, Pam."

It made her want to cry. It wasn’t fair—in one afternoon he had made her feel something that Roy never had. No, it was more than that; she had been intrigued by Professor Halpert all semester.

They stood locked together for what seemed like forever to Pam, but finally she pulled back. Anything between them was impossible and the sooner she left the easier it would be.

"I have to go," she said softly, unable to look at him. She pressed on his chest to push herself back, and Jim’s hold on her gradually eased.

"Yeah."

"Professor Halpert—"

"It’s Jim."

She couldn’t think of anything to say to explain what she was feeling, but then he spoke again. "Pam, I understand. You should go."

Finally looking at him, she was surprised by the defeat she saw in his eyes. But she pulled back completely and smiled softly. "Thank you, Jim."

She didn’t cry until she had made it down the hall to the ladies’ room.

****

He gave her an A that semester, with a note on her final paper that read: "Aside from being an excellent writer, Pam, you have an undeniable creative spirit. I encourage you to let that through in your writing. Best wishes, Jim Halpert."

She had never again spoken to Jim outside of class, and rarely in class. She had turned in her best work so that she would feel she deserved her grade. It was hard to look at him, laughing and joking with his students sometimes, at others explaining some concept of rhetoric brilliantly, and she was hurt unbelievably by the knowledge that she could never be with this wonderful man who had made her feel as he had.

When Roy asked her that near the end of the semester to marry him, she said yes without hesitation. She was meant for Roy, and when he slid the engagement ring on her finger, looking at her with the love he felt for her written on his face, she knew she would at least have a loving marriage, if not a passionate one.

After her engagement Roy persuaded her that more college was unnecessary; why should she pay for an education that she wouldn't be able to use, he had argued.

She would withdraw from Mifflin College after that term in order to plan her wedding with her mother, and the following spring she would be Mrs. Roy Anderson, just as she had always expected.

****

Jim saw her for the final time when she was leaving the library with a young man who must have been Roy. Roy's arm was around her shoulders, holding her to him. Pam's hand reached up to grasp Roy's, and Jim saw the sunlight glimmer off the diamond on her ring finger.

He would have stopped them to say hello, but Pam shook her head almost imperceptibly, and he nodded. Taking a deep breath, he continued on to the library, not noticing when Pam turned to watch him walk away.