Laughter floating up from below her: a blue-jeaned young couple in a rented canoe. With a quick, nervous gesture, she flicked ash from her cigarette and glanced up the walkway of the bridge toward the District. Someone hurrying toward her: khaki pants and blue sweater; not a

priest; not him. She looked down at the river again, at her helplessness swirling in the wake of the bright-red canoe. She could make out the name on its side: Caprice.

Footsteps. The man in the sweater coming closer, slowing down as he reached her.

Peripherally, she saw him rest a forearm on the top of the parapet and quickly she averted her head toward Virginia.

"Keep movin', creep," she rumbled at him huskily, flipping her cigarette into the river, "or, I swear to Christ, I'll yell for a cop!"

"Miss MacNeil? I'm Father Karras."

She started, reddened, jerked swiftly around The chipped, rugged face. "Oh, my God! Oh, I'm-

-- Jesus!"

She was tugging at her sunglasses, flustered, and immediately pushing them back as the sad, dark eyes probed hers.

"I should have told you that I wouldn't be in uniform. Sorry."

His voice was cradling, stripping her of burden, as his powerful hands clasped gently together.

They were large and yet sensitive: veined Michelangelos. Chris felt her gaze somehow drawn to them instantly.

"I thought it would be much less conspicuous," he continued. "You seemed so concerned about keeping this quiet."

"Guess I should have been concerned about not making such an ass of myself," she retorted, quickly fumbling through her purse. "I just thought you were---"

"Human?" he interjected with a smile.

"I knew that when I saw you one day on the campus," she said, as she searched now in the pockets of her suit. "That's why I called. You seemed human." She looked up and saw him staring at her hands. "Got a cigarette, Father?"

He reached into the pocket of his shirt. "Can yon go a nonfilter?"

"Right now I'd smoke rope."

He tapped out a Camel from the packet. "On my allowance, I frequently do." "Vow of poverty," she murmured as she slipped out the cigarette, smiling tightly.

"A vow of poverty has uses," he commented, reaching in his pocket for matches.

"Like what?"

"Makes rope taste better." Again, a half smile as he watched her hand holding the cigarette. It trembled. He saw the cigarette wavering in quick, erratic jumps, and without pausing, he took it from her fingers and put it up to his mouth. He lit it, his hands cupped around the match.

He puffed. Gave the cigarette back to Chris, his eyes on the cars passing over the bridge.. "Lots easier. Breeze from the traffic," he told her.

"Thanks, Father."

Chris looked at him appraisingly, with gratitude, even with hope. She knew what he'd done.

She watched as he lit up a Camel for himself. He forgot to cup his hands. As he exhaled, they each leaned an elbow on the parapet.

"Where are you from, Father Karras? Originally."

"New York."

"Me too. Wouldn't ever go back, though. Would you?"

Karras fought down the rise in his throat. "No, I wouldn't." He forced a smile. "But I don't have to make those decisions."

"God, I'm dumb. You're a priest. You have to go where they send you."

"That's right."

"How'd a shrink ever get to be a priest?" she asked.

He was anxious to know what the urgent problem was that she'd mentioned when she telephoned. She was feeling her way, he sensed--- toward what? He must not prod. It would come... it would come.

"It's the other way around," he corrected her gently. "The Society---"

"Who?"

"The Society of Jesus. Jesuit is short for that."

"Oh, I see."

"The Society sent me through medical school and through psychiatric training."

"Where?"

"Oh, well, Harvard; Johns Hopkins; Bellevue."

He was suddenly aware that he wanted to impress her. Why? he wondered; and immediately saw the answer in the slums of his boyhood; in the balconies of theaters on the Lower East Side. Little Dimmy with a movie star.

"Not bad," she said appraisingly, nodding her head.

"We don't take vows of mental poverty."

She sensed an irritation; shrugged; turned front, facing out to the river. "Look, it's just that I don't know you, and..." She dragged on the cigarette, long and deep, and then exhaled, crushing out the butt on the parapet. "You're a friend of Father Dyer's, that right?"

"Yes, I am."

"Pretty close?"

"Pretty close."

"Did he talk about the party?"

"At your house?"