Chapter 23: Vane Makes His Position Plain

The summons arrived during morning free period, slid under the dormitory door in an envelope with no return notation, just his name in Vane's handwriting, which was the kind of handwriting that had been trained rather than developed — upright, even, nothing wasted. Inside, a single card: *Please come to the Administrative Office at two o'clock this afternoon. A.V.*

Not the warm office. Elliot registered this immediately and turned the card over, but the back was blank. The warm office was the one with the fire burning wrong and the leather chairs and the teacups that arrived without being asked for. The Administrative Office was three doors down the same corridor, and it had no fire and two windows that faced the inner courtyard and a table with eight chairs arranged around it for faculty meetings. He had walked past it enough times to know the layout from the glass panel in the door. He had also never seen it used for anything that required only one student.

He set the card on his desk and looked at it for a while.