He went to one of her lectures in the spring. Slender woman at the top of the room talking about eighteenth-century prose forms. Every pair of eyes fixed on her. Voice very clear and low-toned. Contralto. Not another sound in the place. When she was finished, they all broke out in applause, what, two hundred of them, more, and she smiled and nodded, used to it, probably. Sheer charisma.
mercy.
