ful to know that you care so much. I'm so glad you never
let me forget that you love me."

"I love you, every minute of every day. Just think--two more months and
one week and we will have been married ten years."

"It's so lovely," she said. "It seems like ten days. Like those first
thrilling ten days, darling, going over and over again."

"I'll always love you, darling."

"Always?"

"Always."

The man got up, lifted the woman in his arms, held her high. "Darling,
let's go for a night ride across the desert."

"Oh, you darling. You always think of these little adventures."

"All life with you is an adventure."

"But what about little Jimmie and Janice?"

"I've arranged a sitter for them."

"But darling--you mean you--Oh, you're so wonderful. You think of
everything. So practical, yet so romantic ... so--"

He kissed her and ran away, holding her high in the air, and her
laughter bubbled back to where Bowren crouched behind the bush. He kept
on crouching there, staring numbly at the vacancy the fleeing couple had
left in the shadows. "Good God," he whispered. "After ten years--"

He shook his head and slowly licked his lips. He'd been married five
years.

It hadn't been like this. He'd never heard of any marriage maintaining
such a crazy high romantic level of manic neuroticism as this for very
long. Of course the women had always expected it to. But the men--

And anyway--_where did the men come from?_

* * * * *

Bowren moved down a winding lane between exotic blossoms, through air
saturated with the damp scent of night-blooming flowers. He walked
cautiously enough, but in a kind of daze, his mind spinning. The
appearance of those men remained in his mind. When he closed his eyes
for a moment, he could see them.

Perfectly groomed, impeccably dressed, smiling, vital, bronze-skinned,
delicate, yet strong features; the kind of male who might be considered,
Bowren thought, to be able to assert just the right degree of
aggressiveness without being indelicate.

Why, he thought, they've found perfect men, their type of men.

He dodged behind a tree. Here it was again. Same play, same scene
practically, only the players were two other people. A couple standing
arm in arm beside a big pool full of weird darting fish and throwing
upward a subdued bluish light. Music drifted along the warm currents of
air. The couple were silhouetted by the indirect light. The pose is
per