"You don't understand! I've got to find her! Before she does anything desperate." "Look, Paul. If she's going to pull one, on the spur--it's pulled. If it's not done now--she won't hurry about it." I daubed myself with a towel; perspiration came immediately where the water had just been. It was muggier than Miami before a hurricane. "Don't get the idea that because it's your first, it's her primary emotional crisis, either! Marcia's been through a lot!" I opened the hot-water tap, let it run, and filled a tumbler. I went into the living room, took a jar of powdered coffee from the desk pigeonhole where I kept it, dumped in a couple of spoonfuls, went back, and stirred with my toothbrush handle. Then I took a couple of lumps of sugar from a horde I'd been accumulating at the Astolat's expense, plunked them in, and stirred more. I drank about half of the hot coffee and lit a cigarette. Paul had followed every step of this gambit. I felt a little less like a roused-up mummy with the coffee inside me, so I said, "I'm sorry as all hell, cooky. Tell me about it." "You did it!" His eyes despised me for a moment. Then tears came. "I guess I should have known enough not to bring her around to see you." "What did I do?" "Made her self-conscious. Made her think it wasn't ever going to work out for us. She said that when you looked at her it made her feel like a tart." It had gone the other way around: when she'd looked at me, she'd felt--not like a tart, necessarily--but not like a faithful wife, either. And I was being blamed for that. I skipped the point. "You two kids retired in good order." "That's what I thought. We got about a block away before she blew up." "I'm sorry." He tossed himself into a chair. He slipped down his tie and stared at me. "What in hell _did_ you do?" "Nothing." "It wasn't--a pleasant--lunch. If all those idiotic things hadn't got us laughing--then paralyzed--" "Go on. She blew up?" "Sure. She said about a thousand crazy things--things like never being able to go around with me where people knew--because she realized she'd always see them knowing--and thinking. I had to get back to the lab. We've got the pile set at--we've got stuff cooking. I managed to calm her down enough so she promised to go home and get dinner. But when I got there--" He held out a note: Paul, dear--For people like us, it should always be quick, clean, permanent, and no hard feelings. I love you--that's why. M. "Sounds like--going away. Nothing more drastic." "Drastic enough! And she can't get away with that! I won't let her! We'd have made it." "What did you do? Bloodhound around the city?" "Went to her old apartment, first. Then--to the people who'd been her friends. Routing them out. Bribing doormen to let me knock and wake them up. Finally--when I ran out of ideas--I went to Hattie Blaine's. Good God--what a hideous place!"