Thursday: Gray cashmere. Six buttons down front. Pockets on left side. She dropped her pencil in the middle of Professor Putnam's lecture.

Tuesday: Looked at bosom again. Love her as much as last Tuesday.

Finally, five weeks after he first saw her Kozel meets the girl:

Thursday: "Don't you have long fingers!" she said. "Good-sized," I said. Her fingers are long too.

And eleven weeks after their first encounter, Kozel invites Wendy to a party:

Thursday: Party! Party! We are going to a party. I can't do it.

Tuesday: I did it. She will come. I think she is a great pink god. Do not know much about goddesses. Don't be afraid. Schnieder put his hand on my shoulder. Good of him."

In "Sentimental Education" the meeting takes even longer. Elgin Smith sees a girl on the steps of Widener Library in September. Only occasionally does he think of her in the days that follow, until he again sees her at a Radcliffe Jolly-Up in Cabot Hall in mid-October.

"It was in one of the dimly lit common rooms, where couples were indefatigably dancing in almost total darkness. Elgin was swaying in place (he was not a good dancer) with a girl who helped him on his German when he caught sight of his Widener Library vision. When the next dance began, he wound through the couples looking for her, to cut in on her, but when he drew near her, he turned and walked over to the wall, where he caught his breath and realized he was frightened." After that, "when he walked through the Yard on his way to classes; his eyes revolved on all the walks in the hope of seeing her."

In February, Elgin finds that she takes a course on Metaphysical Poets of the Seventeenth Century, and he transfers to that class where, at last, they meet.

FINALLY, comes the affair.

In each story of a Harvard-Radcliffe romance the couple has its own place for making love. In "Sentimental Education" it is Elgin's room. In The Fume of Poppies it is first an apartment in Cambridge, and later it is hotel rooms and beaches throughout Europe. In "Winter Term", a short story by Sallie Bingham, it is the back seats of cars. In each case the nature of the love nest reflects the tone of the romance: the first a college affair, the second an epic romance, the third a grasping routine.

The importance of sexual inter-course in an affair is clear to Dr. Binger--in many cases it serves to relieve almost unbearable pressure. But that affair may at once have the healthy effect of relaxation and the disconcerting effect of distraction, is evident in Sallie Bingham's description of Hal's thoughts while studying with Eleanor in "Winter Term".

"He gave up trying to ignore the point of her elbow. He wondered if she would move first, as she often did, slipping her hand into his.... He noticed how rigidly she was sitting; why did they both go on pretending to study? He looked at the clock; already half an hour wasted. God, I wish we'd had a chance to make love so I wouldn't feel like I'm going crazy. ...I bet she needs it, he thought, that's why she's so quivvery, close to tears, and maybe that's why I loused up that exam. But he knew it was an excuse; he had failed the exam because he had not known the material." And he had not known the material because, as he had told her, it was too distracting for him to study with her.

IN each case the participants are self-centered; in each case they are self-conscious. It is this self-consciousness which is most striking in the descriptions of Harvard romance.