Gwen appeared. She was wearing her hair down, tonight, and a silk dress the color of a new penny. A matching dress. "'Lo, Phil." She walked gracefully to the phonograph, clicked records, turned dials, and filled the room with soft bongoses, maracas, the background thud of a conga drum. "I thought you were going downtown?" "Soon. Did you mind--about last night?" "Tonight--I never mind about last night. Rule of my life. Look, Gwen. How did you know--so quickly--exactly what that gal was like?" "I told you," she said. "I get feelings." "I don't. Just surprises." "You try to think," she said. "Figure. Then you go by the results of that. It's no good. You just--relax--and see what your sensations are." "We were never allowed to relax about it. From the cradle to the crematory--we have to be either tensely on guard or else proficiently on the job." "It's a wonder people like you ever have babies." "We don't have many." Gwen smiled. "On guard?" "And proficient." "Nature's way," she said, "of reducing the number of real dopes! Tell me something." "Sure." "If Yvonne hadn't busted in last night--?" "The answer is no." "That's what I thought." "It wasn't you." She stirred her red-brown hair. "I know that. If it had been me--if I'd thought so--I'd have repressed my own feelings about your blonde roommate." "What's going to happen to her?" Gwen curved one shoulder toward me and straightened it--a shrug that dismissed responsibility. "How do you think a girl like me feels--about one like her? She has everything. She's always had it. And thrown herself away." "Save the tough act for somebody you can fool!" Gwen came over and put her fingers in my hair and turned my head up and kissed me where it wouldn't show. "She wants to know--that's all. Why shouldn't she? She's been dying all her life from not knowing." "A hundred and fifty million people--" "Save out a few million, Phil. Not everybody has the sordid past or no past at all--or none to speak of. Some just grow up naturally." "I'd like to meet 'em." "Oh--" she sat down near me--"you'd never know, anyhow. Because if you found out--or anybody found out--they couldn't go on being natural any longer. It's against the law to be a person in this world. Naturalness--that relaxation I spoke of--has to stay in the bootleg department, to stay at all." "Pity." "You're telling me!" She thought awhile. "I'll give you some news. I don't know whether Hattie would, or not. Marcia's here." I waited till a small shock was absorbed. "Yeah?" "Came in this afternoon." "What doing?" "Working." "Why?" "Want to talk to her?" "Yeah." She kissed me again. "If the unfaithful mood ever comes over you--" "Don't count on it." She chuckled. "You're one of the lucky ones. Only--you don't know it. That's the way they are, mostly." "Some compliment." She nodded. Her metallic hair swung before my eyes. She got up from the arm of my chair. "So long! Don't worry about--you know who."