y the dishes from his
meager breakfast. "What are you humming, Carol?"

"Was I humming?"

"I thought I recognized it--_All of Me, Why Not Take All of Me_? That's
it! Your subconscious gives you away. You really want to marry me!"

"A mistake," she said coolly. "My subconscious doesn't know what it's
talking about. All I want of you is the usual ten per cent."

"Can't you forget for a moment that you're an agent, and remember that
you're a woman, too?"

"No. Not unless you forget that you're a drunk, and remember that you're
a man. Not unless you make me forget that you drank your way through
Africa--"

"Because you weren't there with me!"

"--with hardly enough energy to let them dress you in that hunter's
outfit and photograph you as if you were shooting lions."

"You're so unforgiving, Carol. You don't have much use for me, do
you--consciously, that is?"

"Frankly, Curt, no. I don't have much use for useless people."

"I'm not entirely useless. I earn you that ten per cent--"

"I'd gladly forego that to see you sober."

"But it's your contempt for me that drives me to drink. And when I think
of having to face those dear little kiddies with nothing inside me--"

"There should be happiness inside you at the thought of your doing a
good deed. Not a drop, George, not a drop."

* * * * *

The two little girls drew apart from the others and began to whisper
into each other's ears. The whispers were punctuated by giggles which
made the entire childish conversation seem quite normal. But Palit was
in no laughing mood. He said, in his own language, "You're getting
careless, Manto. You had no business imitating her expression."

"I'm sorry, Palit, but it was so suggestive. And I'm a very suggestible
person."

"So am I. But I control myself."

"Still, if the temptation were great enough, I don't think you'd be able
to resist either."

"The issues are important enough to make me resist."

"Still, I thought I saw your own face taking on a bit of her expression
too."

"You are imagining things, Manto. Another thing, that mistake in
starting to say you were two hundred years old--"

"They would have thought it a joke. And I think I got out of that rather
neatly."

"You like to skate on thin ice, don't you, Manto? Just as you did when
you changed your height. You had no business shrinking right out in
public like that."

"I did it skillfully. Not a single pers