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Show Acting Alone pa g e 43 of her hand directed his inflamed attention down to a.small brass plaque riveted to the vacuum case. The professor read the engraving on the plaque out loud. GIFT OF ELDER CICERONE. Strangely, he seemed to freeze up at that. He asked for and got no further explanation. In the motionless silence his nose seemed to grow even redder and bigger. "May I get you something for your face?" asked Polycarpana. "Bandaid'll do." He looked right into her eyes for the first time. "Hey," he said, getting nearly rational. "You're that one nun person, aren't you? Shanny's big sister?" "I am. And you're Doctor Edwine?" "Yeah. Doctor." He looked way down at his feet for a moment. She looked, too, and saw blood dried in bright egg shapes on the white rubber toes of his long basketball shoes. "You got a nice big bandaid on you?" he asked. "The infirmary's just downstairs and across the way. Would you care to wait here? I'll just -" "Nah. I want to come. I've never really hung out in a nunnery before. I mean, except for this library here. Can you take me on an official tour or something? I want to see some nun stuff. Do they let you go on a tour of a nunnery if you're a man?" Polycarpana suddenly started talking slightly too fast. She told herself that it was because she was excited by this reputedly godless layperson's interest in religious life; but she had a hunch otherwise. She said, "Sis- |