here."

"I see. Anne didn't tell you."

"She was in considerable distress when they brought her in. I—I didn't ask her."

In spite of the raven-black hair and youthful face, there was something about Clifford that Webb didn't like, a hardness, a lack-luster indifference verging on boorishness. The thought of losing Anne completely for more than eighteen years to this man was more painful even than Webb had anticipated.

Impulsively he said, "For old time's sake, Cliff, will you do me a big favor?"

The engineer stared at him and waited.

"Take a vacation. Disappear for a few months."

The dark eyebrows remained in a straight line. "And run out on Anne? You aren't serious."

"I am."

Clifford laughed without smiling. "You'd better head for hormone harbor and take yourself a vacation, old man. You're becoming senile."

"Then you won't withdraw?"

"Of course not. You're asking more than a favor. You're asking me to offend Anne. These things are important to females."

"It's important to me, too, Cliff."

"Well, I'll be—" The smaller man rolled to his feet and put his hands on his hips. "I never thought to see the day when honored Elder Webb Fellow would come muling around like a sub-century freshman. Of all the anachronistic drivel!"

"You see?" Webb said eagerly, "It isn't important to you at all. Why can't you do this for me, Cliff? I—I just can't stand the thought of being without Anne all those years."

"Relax, Webb. It's a long life. Anne will be back in circulation before you know it." He paced to a low desk and extracted a small address book from a drawer. "If you're short of female acquaintances at the moment you can have these. I won't be needing them for awhile."

He flipped the book at Webb. By chance the cover opened, caught the air and slanted the book up in its course so it struck the physician's cheek with a slap. The faint sting was the detonator that exploded all the careful restraint of seven 

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