"No, no, no. You're imagining things, Ann." "Look at your hand. Look how it's trembling. Ted--what is the matter?" "Nothing. I had a dream. Ann, I don't want to talk about it." "Drinking," she said. "It's those drinks you had, yesterday, I'll bet. You're just not a drinking man, Theodore Truesdale, and you're too old to begin." "I'm _not_ old. You know I'm not old. You wish I were, but I'm not. Do we always have to quarrel?" She didn't answer. Her lips quavered, but she didn't cry. She rose and carried a few dishes to the sink. Ted went out to the porch with his coffee and cigarette. The view was unpopulated. Conscience, he told himself. My annoyance is an indication of it. Why should my conscience bother me because of a dream? Who can stop a dream? There was a scratching sound from the other side of the nutmeg tree and the inverted head of Hamilton appeared about ten feet above the tree's base. "You don't look happy." Ted didn't answer. Hamilton came down the remaining ten feet and went over to look at the geraniums. "Fine gardener, your wife." Ted ignored him. "Good looking, too. Maybe she could dye her hair." No words from Ted. Hamilton looked down at the house below, and back at Ted. "Don't blame me for that Venus trip, Truesdale. You wanted it, but bad." "I'm not blaming anybody for anything," Ted said. "Just because I had a dream." "Dream? Why don't you go down and ask her if she had the same dream? What a man won't say to clear his conscience! Let go, Truesdale, enjoy yourself." * * * * * Below, the blonde came out onto her patio. She was wearing white shorts and halter today. She looked Ted's way for seconds--and then waved. Ted waved back. "Beautiful morning," she called, and Ted answered, "It certainly is." She picked up a book from the low table near her chaise lounge and settled. Hamilton was sniffing the ice plant on the slope. "If the neighbors only knew--" "There's nothing to know. She'd be less than human if she didn't say 'hello' after seeing me day after day." "Not to mention one night." "Oh, cut it out, drop it." His wife appeared in the doorway. "Who in the world are you talking to?" "Myself." He looked at her bleakly. "More quarreling about a job?" "No." She came out onto the porch and settled in the chair beside him. "Ted, there's the squirrel. That's the one who's afflicted with--with voyeurism." "Oh, Ann, for goodness sake." "His nest is right up there, in the nutmeg tree. Ted, I want you to destroy it." "Don't be childish." "I'm not being childish. They eat young bark and buds and birds' eggs. They're evil things, Ted." "I think they're cute." "Cute. Without the tail, they're just another rat. How some people can eat them is beyond me." The pinkness and the sluice and the three-armed man with the enormous chest seemed to swim, for a moment, in Ted's memory. Hamilton went scurrying up the nutmeg tree. "The little devil," Ann said.