as usual, and he reached New York one step ahead of the police. "She must be very impressionable," Simon said, "and very talkative. She must be eager to discuss the theories of multiple marriage--"

"Most newlyweds are," the Counselor pointed out.

"Well, particularly so. And, of course, she must not be carrying a torch for her honeymoon husband."

"That's rare these days, Mr. Grover."

"It happened to me once, in St. Louis. Had an awful time."

"Then she probably was a misfit. After all, the institution of multiple marriages is almost eighty years old, and the only form of marriage in the United States today. If we were still in the early pioneering days you might have cause to worry. Ideas of propinquity still seemed important then, and people were concerned with such things as lasting relationships, though for the life of me I can't see why."

"They thought it was more secure," suggested Simon.

"But it isn't. In the old days, statistics proved that if a man or woman was saddled with one mate too long, it often led to trouble. The old Et al report of 1979 shocked the world with its figures: ninety five percent of all married men had illicit relations with other women, and the figure was almost as high for women. Relations with unmarried people. It's rather horrible, isn't it, Mr. Grover?"

"I suppose so," said Simon, half-listening. All he needed now was the parting ritual. A nice, impressionable, talkative newlywed girl....

"As usual," the Counselor continued in a dedicated voice, "man had leaped ahead of his outmoded institutions without realizing it. The notion of marriage based largely on propinquity and permanent relationship just didn't fit the modern tempo of civilization, where transient workers dart across the continent constantly, always on the move, hardly staying in one place long enough to hang their hats, as the expression goes. Marital infidelity in the old days led to crimes of passion, to divorce, to unsettled families, to children reared in orphanages or by strangers--perfect strangers, mind you--to divorce and re-marriages and so much energy and time and money wasted on second and even third courtships.

"Fortunately, the social institution fits the tempo of the culture today. A Transient--man or woman--gets married and provides for one spouse, one 

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