The Malcontents by C.P. Snow

The following morning, Tuesday, about half past nine, Tess arrived in the largest of the students' common-rooms. She had, before breakfast, telephoned Neil to make an appointment: this was her part of the division of labour, agreed on with Stephen and Mark not so many hours ago. At that time in the morning, the room was already half full of students, giving the illusory impression that they had been sitting there for days and were unlikely to move. It was a spacious room, broken up by columns, furnished with leather sofas and deep reclining armchairs, altogether more luxurious than students at that university would have known in a previous generation or than Stephen and Mark had ever found at Cambridge. It could have been a concourse in the VIP section of a peculiarly lavish airport. Although it might be luxurious, however, it didn't show a sign of old-maidish tidiness, or any other sort of tidiness. Someone was using a transistor radio in the middle of the room, and no one thought of objecting: on the floor were scattered loose pages of the morning's newspapers. From where Tess was sitting, she could see a copy of Le Monde. It might not have been that day's, she wasn't curious: they were all used to the European papers flowing into the room, and no one inquired if they were ever read, or by whom.

On time, Neil pushed through the translucent doors. Behind him came Emma, taller than he was, moving in her rangy athletic stride. Her Tess had not reckoned on: she had a moment's setback, she had been preparing to speak to the man alone. She made herself settle down. This wasn't the time to show impatience, there wouldn't be a worse time.