pride. Peter, I can bring to you a good deal more than the temporal finances you need to make this project a success; and in turn you can give me what I've been seeking."

"What—?"

"I want a man," she cried. "Not any man. Not a man who wines and dines me with one eye on my bankbook, or one of my social contemporaries whose family finances obviate his avarice but whose family finances also take all ambition away from him. I—you emotional adolescent—happen to want you. On any terms."

Peter put an arm around her waist and then took it away fast. The film of monatomic dust from his hand made a shadowy print on her dress. He started to brush it off.

"You and your distorted set of economic values," she laughed. She scooped up a handful of the dust and rubbed it in his hair, then started to run her fingers through it. She obviously got amusement out of this. Norma scooped up another film of dust and sprinkled it on the front of her dress. "Dust that off, Peter," she said. "Dare you!"

Peter blushed.

Norma wailed, "Peter, are you actually afraid to touch me?"

He couldn't reply.

Angrily, Norma stepped back and said, "How much will you take for a caress?"

"You—" he choked up, unable to compete with her swift change in emotions.

She changed again. She came forward into his arms and held him close. "Peter," she breathed, "once you told me that the job of any man involved in any of the sciences was at least ninety-eight percent frustration. So many things that never work. So the job of a scientist's wife must be to smooth over those frustrations. To keep him in action. To keep him getting up every morning with determination to go out and tackle the job that licked him yesterday. And the man's response must be that when he is happy, his wife can share his success. Now, can I help?"

He looked down at her. There were tears hanging on the brim of her large eyes, her body was soft and clinging, as though she were afraid to let go. He looked at her and he knew that he was a man who had lost his pride because he was at last willing to accept help from any source.

"Yes," he said in a strained voice.

Norma's body throbbed with new vitality, although the tears she 

 Prev. P 14/30 next