Knight's Natica became a near obsession to Stephen. Between classes, at his desk, his mind would wander from the text he was preparing for assignment to recapture the sharp quick step with which she entered the dining hall and the open friendly smile she would toss in his direction as she passed his table. In chapel he would look for her and wonder irritably what she was doing if she wasn't there. And soon his fantasies were taking a bolder turn. He imagined her joining him in the throng after a Sunday service, suddenly clutching his arm to draw him aside and whisper miserably that she couldn't stay with Tommy another day. She had fallen in love with him, hopelessly in love with him, and she had to tell him that very minute! At night in bed he would toss and turn with lustful thoughts. She seemed now the sole female element in a world of unrelieved maleness. It was as if she had sprung from the middle of the green campus, like Botticelli's Venus from the sea, thrusting into the shadows of the surrounding buildings stray members of the cruder sex and withered examples of her own.
