Part 2

"Go on, if it will make you happy." He could sense her presence near him.

"Well, it isn't that I don't trust you, but there's so much of it going on lately that I thought--"

"What did you think?"

"The--the parting ritual. You know what it's for, darling. A safeguard."

Simon plunged from zenith to nadir in seconds. He would never spend those three weeks with Jane-Marie. He would be running again, running until he could board the tubeways in anonymity from the basement of a Marriage Building in some other city. But it had never happened so quickly before.

"Can't it wait for three weeks?" he asked, knowing the request was futile.

"Then it's hardly a safeguard for me, just for--for the next one. It's just lately that all those misfits have started.... I guess some people will never be satisfied."

Her hand touched his hand in darkness. There were finger movements. She began to chant meaningless syllables.

This was it, Simon knew in despair. He could not respond. It was a simple thing, but people were sworn to absolute secrecy. It was changed every few months and he had never been able to learn it.

A sob escaped Jane-Marie's lips. "Simon," she gasped. "Simon, you aren't ... you're not doing...."

"No," he said wearily. He sat up quickly in the darkness, and dressed. He could hear her reaching for the phone. He stood up and went to her, but she turned away.

"Don't you touch me. Go away, leave me alone. Of all the despicable ... and I thought ... I almost.... Hello, police? This is Mrs. Jane-Marie Paige on Maple Lane. I want to report...."

"Goodbye," he whispered softly.

"I hate you!"

He left quickly, double-timing down Maple Lane between the rows of spherical houses. He didn't belong. He was an outlaw, a criminal, a maladjusted misfit--or worse. Some people are never satisfied. The police failed to understand. To them his type was lazy, shiftless. They were drones, parasites who could reap all the advantages of multiple life without working a day. They had no one to support.

But that isn't it at all, thought Simon as he ran. He could hear the approaching wail of police sirens. He must hurry. Perhaps in Boston he would get the one stroke of luck he needed, if the police didn't catch him first. It wasn't that he was lazy and lacked the sense of responsibility which would make him support a family. Everything was too patterned, too set-out-for-you, too prosaic. In his own way he courted danger and was hated for it. He sought the spice of an illicit relationship which he supposed some people always needed.

He could picture pretty Jane-Marie crying out the whole story to the police. "That man--he was a _bachelor_!"