“I would like to sit down by the river for a little while,” she said. “Are you cold?” Ben asked, and when she said yes, he got cloaks for them both.

Molly watched the pale water, changing, always changing, and always the same, and she could feel him near, not touching, not speaking. Thin clouds chased across the face of the swelling moon. Soon it would be full, the harvest moon, the end of Indian summer. The man was so cleanly outlined, so unambiguous, she thought. A misshapen bowl, like an artifact made by inexpert hands that would improve with practice.

The moon in the river moved, separated into long shiny ropes that coiled, slid apart, came together, formed a wide band of luminous water that looked solid, then broke up again. Against the shore the voice of the river was gentle, secretive.

“Are you cold?” Ben asked again. His face was pale in the moonlight, his eyebrows darker than in daylight, straight, heavy. He could have been scowling at her; it was hard to tell. She shook her head, and he turned toward the river again.

The river was alive, she thought, and just when you thought you knew it, it changed and showed another face, another mood. Tonight it was beguiling, full of promise, and even knowing the promises to be false, she could hear the voice whispering to her persuasively, could sense the pull of the river.

And Ben thought of the river, swollen in floodtide, flashing bright over gravel, over rocks, breaking up into foam against boulders. He saw again the small fire on the bank, the figure of the girl standing there silhouetted against the gleaming water while the brothers pulled the boat up the hill.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come today,” she said suddenly in a small voice. “I got almost to your door, and then didn’t come the rest of the way. I don’t know why.”

There was a shout of laughter from the auditorium, and he wished he and Molly had walked farther up the river before stopping. A cloud covered the face of the moon and the river turned black, and only its voice was there, and the peculiar smell of the fresh water.

“Are you cold?” he asked again, as if the moonlight had held warmth that now was gone.

She moved closer to him. “Coming home,” she said softly, dreamily, “I kept hearing the river talk to me, and the trees, and the clouds. I suppose it was fatigue and hunger, but I really heard them, only I couldn’t understand the words most of the time. Did you hear them, Ben?”

He shook his head, and although she couldn’t see him now with the cloud over the face of the moon, she knew he was denying the voices. She sighed.

“What would happen if you had an idea, something you wanted to work out alone?” she asked after a moment.

Ben shifted uneasily. “It happens,” he said carefully. “We discuss it and usually, unless there’s a good reason, a shortage of equipment, or supplies, something like that, whoever has the idea goes ahead with it.”

Now the cloud had freed the moon; the light seemed brighter after the brief darkness. “What if the others didn’t see the value of the idea?” Molly asked.

“Then it would have no value, and no one would want to waste time on it.”

“But what if it was something you couldn’t explain exactly, something you couldn’t put into words?”

“What is the real question, Molly?” Ben asked, turning to face her. Her face was as pale as the moon, with deep shadows for eyes, her mouth black, not smiling. She looked up at him, and the moon was reflected in her eyes, and she seemed somehow luminous, as if the light came from within her, and he realized that Molly was beautiful. He never had seen it before and now it shocked him that the thought formed, forced itself on him.

Molly stood up suddenly. “I’ll show you,” she said. “In my room.”

They walked back to the hospital side by side, not touchi............