Page:Fidelia, (IA fidelia00balm).pdf/91



IDELIA left Alice and Dave in the hallway of the big, tall, spired building known as "old University"; for she had business with the registrar before she could start classes. Alice and Dave went together into the lecture-room where Dave's attention was soon turned to practical affairs; for this first lecture was on economics and the mention of money in large sums set him to thinking about that ten thousand dollars which he had borrowed to start himself in the automobile agency business.

The lecture-room was large and pleasant, lighted by several tall windows; it had seats for about forty students and Dave had a chair in a position he usually chose, which was about half way back and near, but not on the edge of, the aisle separating the male and female members of the class.

They might sit mixed together; occasionally they did for there was no rule enforcing the ethics of a Quaker meeting; there was merely a custom of separation. So Alice was on the opposite side of the aisle from Dave and her place was a couple of rows behind him; for she liked a position from which she could see him and she had a way of keeping him in sight without even her seatmates suspecting how frequently she gazed at him.