married and to bring up a dozen clever rebel children. Denise said soberly, "They'd better be clever, because they'll have to learn to hide."

They made love in Denise's apartment when her roommate Pauline—Polly—was out, as awkwardly as if there had never been any group experimentation or happy affairs. Denise said wonderingly, "When you really love someone it's all new. Isn't that strange?" and Steven said, kissing her, "No, not strange at all."

He took her to meet his family—Denise's family lived three thousand miles away—and she behaved with such perfect decorum and charm that Richard and Harriet were delighted and as eager as Steven for the wedding. Steven had agreed reluctantly to put it off until Denise had a chance to introduce him to her parents; they were coming East at Christmas. She laughed over it and said, "I'm being terribly conventional, darling, but that's one convention I like."

While they waited, Steven's agent secured a really unprecedented opportunity for so young and relatively untried an actor. The current Happy Clown was unhappily retiring, by reason of age and infirmity, and Steven's agent arranged a tryout for the part. He said, "Give it all you got, kid; it's the chance of the century."

Steven said, "Sure, Joey," and allowed his sensitive face to register all the proper emotions. Actually his emotions were, in the vernacular of a previous century, mixed. He loathed the whole concept of the Happy Clown—but there was money in it, and Steven was not rebel enough to despise money. With money he could retire early, go away somewhere with Denise, to some country place where they could be relatively free of pressure.

Over staggering competition he got the part. He called Denise up at once from a booth at the studio to tell her. Polly answered the phone, looking pale and frightened over the viewer, and said rapidly, "Oh, Stevie, I've been trying to get you for an hour. Denny's sick. They took her to the hospital!"

Steven sat back against the hard wall of the booth, feeling cold, the receiver slack in his hand. He said, "What's the matter with her? Which hospital?"

"Ap-pendicitis. Happy Hour." Polly began to cry. "Oh, Stevie, I feel so—"

"I'll go right over." He cut her off abruptly and went.

The doctors caught Denise's appendix in time to avoid the necessary but rarely fatal complications ... but under the anesthetic she talked, 

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