Floating in the air as I talked, I had swung around gradually, and now my eyes fell on the companionway to the centerdeck above us. Dori was clinging to it, and from her expression I could tell she had heard everything I said about her. Her eyes were enormous from the shock, and her face was as grief-stricken as though I had stabbed her callously through the heart without cause. She turned without a word and left the deck. In my drunken exaltation, it seemed funny to me. I laughed about it, and made jokes about it to Kei. I felt quite smart and heartless. Later, during the hangover, it didn't seem so funny, but, on the other hand, I was so miserable I didn't care one way or the other. Dori spoke of it to me only once, and that was just before we blasted down to Mars in the G-boat. She looked at me levelly and said, without a trace of emotion: "I hate you, Samlaan. Always remember that." * * * * * Mars was a wild frontier planet then, where violence was not out of the ordinary. The spirit of the adventurer and the pioneer pervaded it, as it does the outer moons today. But the frontier has its own code, which makes it safer sometimes than the steel and stone jungles of civilization. I had what I wanted now--riches--and I had no desire to be forced to leave Mars, too. There was no more gambling for me, no more living on the edge of the law. I bought into several respectable business ventures, content to add to my wealth slowly. Dori and I built a home in Syrtis Major near Mars City and lived a quiet life together. Mars at that time was a man's world; it lacked divorce laws and similar legal and social machinery for terminating unsuccessful marriages. I doubt that Dori, being what she was, would have taken advantage of such avenues, anyhow. She was a good wife to me; she lacked only that former breathless adoration which had meant so little to me. A few years after we arrived on Mars, we were invited to a week-long house party at the home of a business acquaintance, Leswill Odaan. Odaan's wealth was comparable to my own, and he lived here, in the lowland of Lacus Lucrinus. These house parties are not as common now as they were in the old days. At that time, they were the major social activity of the rural dwellers of Mars. One invited one's friends for a week at his private dome in the lowlands--maybe twenty or forty at once. Then for a year or two he could expect to be a guest at similar parties every month or so, scattered all over the inhabited area of Mars. That's why the old homes of the wealthy out in the lowlands are so big.