"Just go!" Marc implored her. "Go!" "Stop, go, stop, go, stop go!" Julie shrilled. "I am not operated electrically. More's the pity!" Slowly she started to turn around to face her ever-changing spouse and--eventually--the nakedest redhead any wife ever had the sheer horror of discovering in her husband's bed chamber. * * * * * Marc felt fate bearing down on him in a way that made him understand the feelings of a deeply rooted daisy looking up at an approaching steam roller. He turned away and closed his eyes in the cowering aspect of one who expects to receive a load of brickbats on the nape of the neck. He stood, his nerves alerted against Julie's cry. There was a beat of silence--then it came. But it was not the cry that Marc had braced himself against. This cry was sharply out of character, not at all the triumphant cawe of a wronged wife laying hand to definite proof of her husband's perfidy. This was sheerly, unmistakably a cry of basic, physical pain. Marc opened his eyes and turned around, then started back with a gasp of surprise. Julie, the beauty who always walked in regal stateliness, whose every move and gesture was a masterpiece of living poetry, was suddenly squatting in the doorway, clutching at herself in a way which was not only ungainly but downright repellent. For a long moment surprise rendered Marc totally incapable of action. Then with a burst of logic and simultaneous realization, he whirled in Toffee's direction. Suddenly, this whole shuddering situation was all too clear to him. Toffee, now completely emerged from her place of hiding, turned and smiled at him in a conspiratorial and knowing way. Marc noticed that her left hand was raised significantly in Julie's direction, while the right was held over the face of the curious ring, as though shading it. He stared at her in horror; he couldn't imagine exactly what part the unearthly ring was playing in Julie's unlovely predicament, but he was absolutely certain that it was responsible to some degree or another. He was stunned beyond caution. "Stop that," he demanded angrily. "Stop that instantly!" Julie, still crouching in the doorway, her back to the room, trembled violently and turned her eyes to the ceiling. "Do you think I'm doing this because I like it?" she gritted between clenched teeth. "Do you actually imagine I wouldn't stop it if I could, you beast?" "Now, Julie...!" Marc turned about, held out an imploring hand to her arched back. "You shut up, you vindictive vermin!" Julie hissed, announcing her sentiments through the length of the outer hallway. "So you bear no grudge, huh? Hah! I'm only surprised you didn't break your back under the load!" "Julie...!" Marc pleaded. "You don't under...!" "No!" Julie broke in. "Oh, no! Don't you dare say I don't understand! And don't tell me I don't know when I've been brutally, wantonly and vengefully kicked from and in the rear!"