Steve was floating in heaven that week. For the first time in his life, there was actual substance to his longings, a merging of reality with his dreams. She was no longer his Spectre Maiden. She was his date for Thursday night.
His well-meaning professors could not fail to see the new glint in his eye and his unprecedented zest for life. They knew all about that glassy-eyed dizziness, that spurting response that has nothing to do with the question asked, that bubbly good-heartedness that rises above anything distasteful or disagreeable in anyone. They’d seen it many times before. It was unmistakable. It made you wonder what the world would be like if everyone were always in the first flush of love.
Monday morning they didn’t take their eyes off one another from the moment they caught sight of each other on the staircase between the second and the third storeys of Old Main. They didn’t say a word as they passed each other. They didn’t have to. The vibration between them said it all. That evening she stopped at his bench. He stood up and they shyly exchanged a few words with each other. On Tuesday evening she sat down for a moment or two. On Wednesday evening she sat down for several moments. They didn’t really say much to each other then, except through their eyes. Neither of them was embarrassed by the silence. They were just finding out what it was like to be near one another.
The music that came from that center window now seemed even fuller and sweeter to Steve. It bore his heart up with it into the treetops where it was floating. If it was doing this for him, he wondered, what must it be doing for her, its creator? For him, he supposed, it was all about her. But for her, doubtless, it was all about the music.
From where he sat he could not discern her frequent glances out the window to see if he was still there. It was just one of those things: she did it almost without thinking.