I lit a cigarette for her and one for myself, and opened my mouth to say something. I stopped. Kathy said, “Go ahead, say it.” “Well, I was going to say that we always have fun together.” “I know you were. And I was going to say that I knew what you were leading up to and that the answer still was no.” “I know you were,” I said glumly. “Let’s get the hell out of here.” She paid the tab and we left, inserting our antisoot plugs as we hit the street. “Cab, sir?” asked the doorman. “Yes, please,” Kathy answered. “A tandem.” He whistled up a two-man pedicab, and Kathy gave the lead boy the hospital’s address. “You can come if you like, Mitch,” she said, and I climbed in beside her. The doorman gave us a starting push and the cabbies grunted getting up momentum. Unasked, I put down the top. For a moment it was like our courtship again: the friendly dark, the slight, musty smell of the canvas top, the squeak of the springs. But for a moment only. “Watch that, Mitch,” she said warningly. “Please, Kathy,” I said carefully. “Let me say it anyhow. It won’t take long.” She didn’t say no. “We were married eight months ago- all right,” I said quickly as she started to speak, “it wasn’t an absolute marriage. But we took the interlocutory vows. Do you remember why we did that?” She said patiently after a moment: “We were in love.” “That’s right,” I said. “I loved you and you loved me. And we both had our work to think about, and we knew that sometimes it made us a little hard to get along with. So we made it interim. It had a year to run before we had to decide whether to make it permanent.” I touched her hand and she didn’t move it away. “Kathy dear, don’t you think we knew what we were doing then? Can’t we-at least-give it the year’s trial? There are still four months to go. Let’s try it. If the year ends and you don’t want to file your certificate- well, at least I won’t be able to say you didn’t give me a chance. As for me, I don’t have to wait. My certificate’s on file now and I won’t change.” We passed a street light and I saw her lips twisted into an expression I couldn’t quite read. “Oh, damn it all, Mitch,” she said unhappily, “I know you won’t change. That’s what makes it all so terrible. Must I sit here and call you names to convince you that it’s hopeless?
Do I have to tell you that you’re an ill-tempered, contriving Machiavellian, selfish pig of a man to live with? I used to think you were a sweet guy, Mitch. An idealist who cared for principles and ethics instead of money. I had every reason to think so. You told me so yourself, very convincingly. You were very plausible about my work too. You boned up on medicine, you came to watch me operate three times a week, you told all our friends while I was sitting right in the room listening to you how proud you were to be married to a surgeon. It took me three months to find out what you meant by that. Anybody could marry a girl who’d be a housewife. But it took a Mitchell Courtenay to marry a first-class rated surgeon and make her a housewife.” Her voice was tremulous. “I couldn’t take it, Mitch. I never will be able to. Not the arguments, the sulkiness, and the ever-and-ever fighting. I’m a doctor. Sometimes a life depends on me. If I’m all torn up inside from battling with my husband, that life isn’t safe, Mitch. Can’t you see that?” Something that sounded like a sob. I asked quietly: “Kathy, don’t you still love me?” She was absolutely quiet for a long moment. Then she laughed ^vildly and very briefly. “Here’s the hospital, Mitch,” she said. “It’s midnight.” I threw back the top and we climbed out. “Wait,” I said to the lead boy, and walked with her to the door. She wouldn’t kiss me good night and she wouldn’t make a date to see me again. I stood in the lobby for twenty minutes to make sure she was really staying there that night, and then got into the cab to go to the nearest shuttle station. I was in a vile mood. It wasn’t helped any when the lead boy asked innocently after I had paid him off: “Say, mister, what does Mac-Machiavellian mean?” “Spanish for ‘mind your own God-damned business,'” I told him evenly. On the shuttle I wondered sourly how rich I’d have to be before I could buy privacy. My temper was no better when I arrived at the office next morning. It took all Hester’s tact to keep me from biting her head off in the first few minutes, and it was by the grace of God that there was not a Board meeting. After I’d got my mail and the overnight accumulation of interoffice memos, Hester intelligently disappeared for a while. When she came back she brought me a cup of coffee-authentic, plantation-grown coffee. “The matron in the ladies’ room