"Yes," he said glumly. "James," said Martha brightly, "we should be somewhat better than a pair of kids who don't know what it's all about, shouldn't we?" "That's what bothers me," he admitted. "We're neither of us stupid. Lord knows we've plenty of education between us, but--" "James, how did we get that education?" "Through my father's machine." "No, you don't understand. What I mean is that no matter how we got our education, we had to learn, didn't we?" "Why, yes. In a--" "Now, let's not get involved in another philosophical argument. Let's run this one right on through to the end. Why are we sitting here fumbling? Because we haven't yet learned how to behave like adults." "I suppose so. But it strikes me that anything should be--" "James, for goodness' sake. Here we are, the two people in the whole world who have studied everything we know together, and when we hit something we can't study--you want to go home and kiss your old machine," she finished with a remarkable lack of serial logic. She laughed nervously. "What's so darned funny?" he demanded sourly. "Oh," she said, "you're afraid to kiss me because you don't know how, and I'm afraid to let you because I don't know how, and so we're talking away a golden opportunity to find out. James," she said seriously, "if you fumble a bit, I won't know the difference because I'm no smarter than you are." She leaned forward holding her face up, her lips puckered forward in a tight little rosebud. She closed her eyes and waited. Gingerly and hesitantly he leaned forward and met her lips with a pucker of his own. It was a light contact, warm, and ended quickly with a characteristic smack that seemed to echo through the silent house. It had all of the emotional charge of a mother-in-law's peck, but it served its purpose admirably. They both opened their eyes and looked at one another from four inches of distance. Then they tried it again and their second was a little longer and a little warmer and a little closer, and it ended with less of the noise of opening a fruit jar. Martha moved over close beside him and put her head on his shoulder; James responded by putting an arm around her, and together they tried to assemble themselves in the comfortably affectionate position seen in movies and on television. It didn't quite work that way. There seemed to be too many arms and legs and sharp corners for comfort, or when they found a contortion that did not create interferences with limb or corner, it was a strain on the spine or a twist in the neck. After a few minutes of this coeducational wrestling they decided almost without effort to return to the original routine of kissing. By more luck than good management they succeeded in an embrace that placed no strain and which met them almost face to face. They puckered again and made contact, then pressure came and spread out the pair of tightly pursed rosebuds. Martha moved once to get her nose free of his cheek for a breath of air.