If the dialogue in "Sentimental Education" at times seems overly awkward, it serves to underline the couple's awareness of themselves:

"Elgin," Caroline said, "we've talked about a hundred things, a thousand things, I bet."

"Yes."

"But we've never talked about what we think of each other."

"No," he said, twisting his fingers together. "I guess we never have."

"I--I don't approve of it, actually," Caroline said. "Analyzing things and all. Some things are better left unsaid."

"I agree," Elgin said.

"Do you?" Caroline said. For her part, she was having difficulty hanging on to her poise.

"There isn't much people can say that hasn't been said before," Elgin said with finality. Then he added, "It's my reading, I've read so much I guess I'm a little jaded."

"I see," said Caroline. "Well it's a fascinating subject."

"Yes," said Elgin, "it is."

When finally Elgin summons the courage to invite Caroline out for dinner, and they link arms in walking together, they revert to the safety that a discussion Metaphysical Poetry offers:

"I think Vaughan is a little bit of a bore," Caroline said. "Really, the language has deteriorated so much since Donne."

Sallie Bingham capture much of the agony of physical self-conciousness in a single line in "Winter Term."

"They walked along, side by side, conscious of not holding hands."

There can be no comprehensive conclusion to a conglomerate romance; the possibilities are too various. In fact, none of the stories discussed ends happily: "Sentimental Education ends with resignation, and "Winter Term" ends with violence.

But in real life happy endings are more frequent than in modern fiction: 42 per cent of the women in the 1949 Radcliffe graduation class have married Harvard men