He turned again toward
the mirror, regarded himself critically, frowned.

"Dreary," he murmured. "Distinctly dreary. I wonder why I ever bought
this necktie?"

The softly bellowing telephone distracted him. He studied the instrument
briefly, then clapped his hands sharply together an inch from the
mouthpiece. There was a sharp, anguished cry from the other end of the
line.

"Very good," Martin murmured, turning away. "That robot has done me a
considerable favor. I should have realized the possibilities sooner.
After all, a super-machine, such as ENIAC, would be far cleverer than a
man, who is merely an ordinary machine. Yes," he added, stepping into
the hall and coming face to face with Toni LaMotta, who was currently
working for Summit on loan. "'_Man is a machine, and woman--_'" Here he
gave Miss LaMotta a look of such arrogant significance that she was
quite startled.

"'_And woman--a toy_,'" Martin amplified, as he turned toward Theater
One, where St. Cyr and destiny awaited him.

* * * * *

Summit Studios, outdoing even MGM, always shot ten times as much footage
as necessary on every scene. At the beginning of each shooting day, this
confusing mass of celluloid was shown in St. Cyr's private projection
theater, a small but luxurious domed room furnished with lie-back chairs
and every other convenience, though no screen was visible until you
looked up. Then you saw it on the ceiling.

When Martin entered, it was instantly evident that ecology took a sudden
shift toward the worse. Operating on the theory that the old Nicholas
Martin had come into it, the theater, which had breathed an expensive
air of luxurious confidence, chilled toward him. The nap of the Persian
rug shrank from his contaminating feet. The chair he stumbled against in
the half-light seemed to shrug contemptuously. And the three people in
the theater gave him such a look as might be turned upon one of the
larger apes who had, by sheer accident, got an invitation to Buckingham
Palace.

DeeDee Fleming (her real name was impossible to remember, besides having
not a vowel in it) lay placidly in her chair, her feet comfortably up,
her lovely hands folded, her large, liquid gaze fixed upon the screen
where DeeDee Fleming, in the silvery meshes of a technicolor mermaid,
swam phlegmatically through seas of pearl-colored mist.

Martin groped in the gloom for a chair. The strangest things were going
on inside his