She took a breath that quavered like a musical saw. "He's handsome. He has manners--buckets and barrels of manners. And money." She looked angrily at her rings. "I tried to make something out of him. To put ambition in him. I got him to work for dad--and he quit. He wanted to go to California because he likes flowers. My God, how he likes flowers! We had greenhouses full. He thought he could become a botanist--or hybridize something--and he dawdled away his time with paintbrushes and pollen. I persuaded him to go into real estate out there--and he made a lot more money--but he gave it up. He began collecting a library of old books on botany--and writing a history of botany--and I was bottled up in botany. It got so he would hardly even dress up. Or shave. Overalls all day. I'd want to go places and see people and do things--and we'd be home, instead, with some French professor, maybe, for dinner, complete with beard, accent, ribboned glasses, and knee-patting under the table. Half the time, these professors and Rol--for Roland--talked Latin. I flunked it, three straight semesters, myself. Well--I took to going out alone--and he didn't care. I even tried to make him jealous--and he positively seemed to approve. He told me I needed outside interests and that he was a dull fellow for me! I--" She bit her lip. "--love the guy." "Not now. I did. What finally happened was--" "Should I get that beer ready?" She shook her head. For a while she was silent. Then she touched the book. "I heard--I knew--I suppose I shouldn't even have been surprised--let alone driven out of my mind--but there's so much that's nice about him. Used to be, anyhow. Too nice--and that should have prepared me--" I got it, then. "Not--other women, Yvonne. Men, huh?" She shuddered. You don't see people shudder very often--in restaurants, anyway. She shuddered because that was how it made her feel. She couldn't help it. And when the spasm passed, her hands went on trembling--like glassware vibrating after a certain right note has been struck. "He hired an assistant--a young college graduate--that I liked, at first. Then--one day--I got so bored and lonely I went into the greenhouses, which I hated, looking for them. And I found them, all right." She began to cry again--and to talk through the tears. "It was only--two weeks ago. Rol was dreadfully upset. He promised--everything on earth he could think of. And I stayed a week more--but it was simply too awful. I finally bought tickets. I--I don't like living at home--mother's such a sobby mess all the time. I wanted to see dad--and of course he was about ready to go out and kill Rol. Somebody--somebody--" her voice sank--"told me that if I read the Kinsey Report I'd see that what happened to Rol happened to maybe a third of the men like Rol. I guess it does. What difference does that make?"