ead swimming. He opened his mouth but nothing
whatever came out. He shut his mouth and tried to think what to do with
his hands. They were hanging foolishly at his sides. The girl came even
closer, something Forrester would have thought impossible.

Time stopped. Forrester swam in a pink haze of sensations. Only one
small corner of his brain refused to lose itself in the magnificence of
the moment. In that corner, Forrester felt feverishly uncomfortable. He
tried again to remember the girl's name, and failed again. Of course,
there was really no reason why he should have known the name. It was,
after all, only the first day of class.

"Please," he said valiantly. "Miss--"

He stopped.

"I'm Maya Wilson," the girl said in his ear. "I'm in your class, Mr.
Forrester. Introductory World History." She bit his ear gently.
Forrester jumped.

None of the textbooks of propriety he had ever seen seemed to cover the
situation he found himself in. What did one do when assaulted
(pleasantly, to be sure, but assault was assault) by a lovely girl who
happened to be one of your freshman students? She had called him Mr.
Forrester. That was right and proper, even if it was a little silly. But
what should he call her? Miss Wilson?

That didn't sound right at all. But, for other reasons, Maya sounded
even worse.

The girl said: "Please," and added to the force of the word with another
little wriggle against Forrester. It solved his problems. There was now
only one thing to do, and he did it.

He broke away, found himself on the other side of his desk, looking
across at an eager, wet-lipped freshman student.

"Well," he said. There was a lone little bead of sweat trickling down
his forehead, across his frontal ridge and down one cheek. He ignored it
bravely, trying to think what to do next. "Well," he repeated at last,
in what he hoped was a gentle and fatherly tone. "Well, well, well,
well, well." It didn't seem to have any effect. Perhaps, he thought, an
attempt to put things back on the teacher-student level might have
better results. "You wanted me to see you?" he said in a grave,
scholarly tone. Then, gulping briefly, he amended it in a voice that had
suddenly grown an octave: "You wanted to see me? I mean, you--"

"Oh," Maya Wilson said. "Oh, my goodness, _yes_, Mr. Forrester!"

She made a sudden sensuous motion that looked to Forrester as if she had
suddenly abolished bones. But it wasn't unpleasant. Far from it. Quite