here."

"It's you," she insisted. "You turn it off."

He shook his head. "I'm plain as an old shoe. Everybody knows. But you! One look at you and anybody'd know you've got this magnetism. That's why I had to be so brutal. It was the only way I could resist and keep my woman-hating integrity. I can feel your magnetism now. It's getting stronger."

"And I feel yours. It's pulling me right into your arms."

"Stay back. I can't stand much more. I'm a confirmed misogynist, and if you keep on I'll have to go against my principles, and that wouldn't be honest."

"I can't help it," she murmured from two feet away. "I can't resist you."

Kerran puzzled briefly. "Maybe that's it. I remember when I was overseas. But no! All they wanted was chewing gum and cigarets. Still, you never can tell. Maybe it came on me suddenly. Maybe looking at you sort of triggered my magnetism."

She smiled. "If you'll quit looking at me maybe we can stop it. Look the other way and I'll try to stop thinking about you because you do something to me."

Kerran nodded. "That's it. Beat it! I'll put my mind on something else."

Visualizing a horse race in which he had his money on the bang-tail just ready to break the tape, he didn't feel the tug for several seconds. He struggled mightily but futilely to resist. He wound up in the kitchen where the girl was holding onto the electric range.

"You didn't play fair," he said accusingly. "Treacherous. Just like all your sex. You thought about me."

She lowered her eyes. "I—I just couldn't help it."

Kerran felt his chest expand involuntarily. "One of us is irresistible," he said. "It isn't you because I positively was not thinking about you. So it must be me." His chest expanded another inch. "I guess a girl who can't resist me would be true. And since we can't beat this force, the only solution is to get married."

She nodded. "That's the only solution. But maybe I don't want to solve the problem. You'll have to persuade me."

The voice from the television in the living room was barely audible in the kitchen: "The new force was originally developed for the purpose of drawing troops into a compact group so 

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