The
following evening, the two again walked together to their doors.

"I left my door open last night."

"I know you did."

"Well?"

"And have you scream to high heaven that I opened it? And put me on a
tape for willful inurbanity? For deliberate intersexual invasion of
privacy?"

* * *

"Blast and damn! You know perfectly well, Clee Garlock, I wouldn't pull
such a dirty, lousy trick as that."

"Maybe I should apologize, then, but as a matter of fact I have no idea
whatever as to what you wouldn't do." He stared at her, his face hard in
thought. "As you probably know, I have had very little to do with women.
That little has always been on a logical level. You are such a
completely new experience that I can't figure out what makes you tick."

"So you're afraid of me," she sneered. "Is that it?"

"Close enough."

"And I suppose it's you that cartoonist what's-his-name is using as a
model for 'Timorous Timmy'?"

"Since you've guessed it, yes."

"You ... you _weasel_!" She took three quick steps up the corridor, then
back. "You say my logic is cockeyed. What system are you using now?"

"I'm trying to develop one to match yours."

"Oh ... I invited that one, I guess, since I know you aren't afraid of
God, man, woman, or devil ... and you're big enough so you don't have to
be proving it all the time." She laughed suddenly, her face softening
markedly. "Listen, you big lug. Why don't you ever knock me into an
outside loop? If I were you and you were me, I'd've busted me loose from
my front teeth long ago."

"I'm not sure whether I know better or am afraid to. Anyway, I'm not
rocking any boat so far from shore."

"Says you. You're wonderful, Clee--simply priceless. Do you know you're
the only man I ever met that I couldn't make fall for me like a rock
falling down a cliff? And that the falling is altogether too apt to be
the other way?"

"The first, I have suspected. The second is chemically-pure rocket-oil."

"I _hope_ it is.... I wish I could be as certain of it as you are....
You see, Clee, I really expected you to come in, last night, and there
really _wasn't_ any bone in it. Surely, you don't think I'm going to
_invite_ you into my room, do you?"

"I can't see why not. However, since no valid system of logic seems to
apply, I accept your decision as a fact. By the same reasoning--however
invalid--if I ask you again you will again refuse. So all that's left, I
guess, is