The Three Candles

The Three CandlesParis Through the WindowLovers in the Moonlight
Circulation Desk, whither all eyes turned. He stood upon the desktop, as if flushed forth by the CACAFILE: a taller, leaner-jawed Bray than the last I'd seen, less hirsute, more commanding, stronger of voice and odor. His skin shone as if varnished, and even as I had dreamed, he now affected over his white tunic a stiff black cloak, as of hard-shined gabardine. Everyone fell silent. My grandfather humphed, but lowered the crook. Mother made a baleful sound and whipped a knitting-needle from her bag, undoing all her purlings in one stroke; but she permitted me to disarm her. I patted her hand.
"Thank you, George." Bray stepped from the desk and came hubwards.
"Look at this, sir!" an old scholar cried, wetting with his tears a handful of vellum tatters. "It's destroyed!"
Everyone spoke at once then: it was my fault more than the CACAFILE's, they said, whose original breakdown I'd also caused with my spring-term program; rather, it was Lucky Rexford's fault, for they assumed that my freedom, and Mother's, was owing to the flunkèd general amnesty. The ex-Chancellor's former receptionist was especially