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Show 186 Coach and Seven or the university stood or sat in groups, or drifted, stepping carefully over his feet, trying to talk over the music that came out of the massive speakers on the wall across from the couch. It was louder than it needed to be, and he thought he might mention to Simon that it was rattling the windows just a little, to see what he would do. Besides the glance he had seen exchanged between Noel and Yvonne as she had stepped past him on her way to the bathroom, another canker had begun to glow on his heart. He had hoped to see Gloriana here. He sipped his wine in every direction, peering over the rim of his glass at the cluster of people standing by the bookcase, the small knot that had gathered in the doorway to the kitchen, the fawning couple nested buttock to buttock in the slippery black armchair across from him, the masculine girl with short hair combed back into folded wings and wearing horn-rim glasses who came out of the bedroom in knee-socks and heavy shoes and plaid bermudas and proved on second glance to be a boy, the thin girl in a short skirt who stood by the iron plant-stand near the door and picked dead leaves while waiting for someone to talk to her, the trio with their backs to him being entertained by Noel, and he had not found her. He had not known he was hoping to see her here, and he looked around for persons or objects to fasten his resentment to. Among the guests he didn't know were a middle-aged man wearing a brown beret who sat playing a recorder, which was rude when there was music on, a young man in a three-button suit with a button-down collar on his shirt and bare feet, someone who looked like a Norwegian fisherman in filthy levis and a striped turtleneck jersey, a girl with a dozen or so thin bracelets jangling on her wrists, another wearing jodhpurs and lace-up boots. A guitar had been stashed in a corner and Lorin noticed its owner glancing at it occasionally as though |