"Sit down, sit down" he says. The heroine goes and sits down. " You didn't come!" he says. "Sir, you weren't here" she says. "Well I can't sit here and wait for you to come. I have various other things to do. Patients to see. You should have just looked in and seen if I was here while passing"
"How are your studies going?" Our gal feels highly uncomfortable and so inferior even stupid whenever he asks this question, whenever anyone asks this question. So she just mumbles "well I am studying"
"Did you understand this morning's lecture?"
"Well a little" this poor pathetic creature who is our heroine says feeling even more stupid and ridiculous.
"Did you come to the last Friday's lecture?"
"No I had a sore throat"
He smiles as though someone who misses a lecture of his because of a sore throat is an amusing phenomenon. At the same time there's something indulgent in that smile. He has a cute smile, which has a profound effect on our heroine. But as yet she feels nothing. She is on the defensive, just watching him wondering about his next move. At this moment our heroine is at her least vulnerable. She watches him with detachment and objectivity. It is now possible for her to feel this objectivity about him, because his cold remote manner towards her throughout the whole second term has successfully killed his attraction for her.
Now she looks at him and sees a teacher whom she will treat with cold, mechanical, impersonal politeness and respect. In dealing with him she has come out of herself; it's not herself that she watches, not her own reactions, moods and feelings that she is mindful of when talking to him but his. She is finally feeling cool and impersonal towards him. He is a teacher playing the teacher's role in which he is quite naturally concerned about the downhill progress of her studies. This is all very proper and appropriate, fine she will react with propriety and normalcy with politeness. No more in-depth, analytical, warm conversations with the bastard. He is essentially remote, not of her world.
"Do you have a boyfriend?"
"No"
She wonders why he feels the need to ask this question repeatedly. He must have forgotten the answer she gave last time he asked. Very natural. He is a busy person, an important person, a person with a definite place in the BIG PICTURE, in the GREAT SCHEME OF THINGS. So very natural for such a person to forget a matter as petty as whether our heroine has a boy friend or not.
"Nobody asked you either?"
This time our heroine is stung; for a gal had to have some self respect even a gal as pathetic as our heroine. As a matter of fact, quite a number of boys had asked our gal. She tells him that.
"And what did you say?"
Our gal is not about to....
To be continued
