r; I must be.

Give me time, please. It is because I care so much for
you that I ask it. Don't worry if you don't hear from me
for weeks. My silence won't mean that I have forgotten
you; it will mean that I am thinking of you.

Sincerely,
HUGH.

Her answer came promptly:

Hugh, my dear--

I was a fish to write that letter--and I know that I'll
never forgive myself. But I couldn't help it--I just
couldn't help it. I am glad that you are keeping your
head because I've lost mine entirely. Take all the time
you like. Do you hate me for losing my pride? I do.

Your stupid
CYNTHIA.

Weeks went by, and Hugh found no solution. He damned college with all
his heart and soul. What good had it done him anyway? Here he was with a
serious problem on his hands and he couldn't solve it any better than he
could have when he was a freshman. Four years of studying and lectures
and examinations, and the first time he bucked up against a bit of life
he was licked.

Eventually he wrote to her and told her that he was fonder of her than
he was of any girl that he had ever known but that he didn't know
whether he was in love with her or not. "I have learned to distrust my
own emotions," he wrote, "and my own decisions. The more I think the
more bewildered I become. I am afraid to ask you to marry me for fear
that I'll wreck both our lives, and I'm afraid not to ask you for the
same reason. Do you think that time will solve our problem? I don't
know. I don't know anything."

She replied that she was willing to wait just so long as they continued
to correspond; she said that she could no longer bear not to hear from
him. So they wrote to each other, and the tangle of their relations
became more hopelessly knotted. Cynthia never sent another letter so
unguarded as her first, but she made no pretense of hiding her love.

As Hugh sank deeper and deeper into the bog of confusion and distress,
his contempt for his college "education" increased. One night in May he
expressed that contempt to a small group of seniors.

"College is bunk," said Hugh sternly, "pure bunk. They tell us that we
learn to think. Rot! I haven't learned to think; a child can solve a
simple human problem as well as I can. College has