Guy shrugged. This was not going according to plan at all. But best have it out. If he could get the upper hand in this argument with Laura, he'd feel better. Always before he had come off second best in disagreements with Laura Greggor. But he felt that he was dead right in this affair, and he was not going to back down now that she had flung his actions into his teeth. "Well," he said with an expansive wave of the hand, "you told me not to annoy you with petty trifles, and that you'd be glad to accept the patrol marshal's nebulae when I became sector marshal. I merely followed your wishes. To the letter, in fact." "You didn't have to make a public show of yourself with that little waitress!" "You mean Senior Aide Forbes?" asked Maynard, feeling the back of his neck bristle. If he'd been possessed of any kind of mane, it would have stood up in anger. "Senior aide? How did she get that rank?" scorned Laura. "She worked for it. And hard." "Slinging hash?" "No, you little twirp. She went to a school for Patrol Nurse Corps and paid for her tuition by working nights." "She could have made a better night-living than working in a beanery," snapped Laura. _Slap!_ Maynard had been raised as a normal youngster. His mother had done her best to instill the instincts of a gentleman in her son Guy, and at an early age he discovered that little girls are not to be beaten over the skull with a toy truck, and that beebee guns make little round bruises when they hit little girls' legs, and that produced bad evidence. Little girls, he learned, had no such restriction upon their action, but could let him have a few quick blows without suffering the consequences. On the other hand, he soon discovered that at best their blows didn't count for much, and so he learned that hitting women was taking an unfair advantage. But hitting with the tongue had never been explained to Maynard's satisfaction. Laura Greggor was being just too open with her scorn. And so Maynard, who never had hit a lady before, slapped Laura Greggor across the face. "You hit me," she said in absolute surprise and equally absolute anger. "You talk too rotten about someone far above you," snapped Maynard. "Don't you call me rotten," snarled Laura. "Go on back to that little trollop you prefer." "Can't," said Guy shortly. "She died up there!" It made no impression on Laura. "And so now you come running back to me? Sorry, Guy. I don't play second fiddle--even to a corpse!" "You don't have to," he said evenly. He took the box from her hand. Then as she watched in amazement, Guy removed his own insignia and placed the starred nebulae on his own lapel. With that finished, he arose from the bench; flung the plain nebulae into the little lagoon, and left Laura sitting there. * * * * * Guy entered the room through the same door, and went immediately into the bar where he downed four drinks in rapid succession.