"Your wife is very pretty," Dr. Quink said.

"Yes, she's probably the most beautiful woman I know," Fairfield said.

"That's probably why I took her along. There's something about a beautiful woman.... It was certainly a mistake."

"Feminine beauty is enjoyable even though you don't indulge in s.e.x?"

"Of course, it is," he replied, with a gesture of annoyance. "You're still bound by that Freed--Freud, is it?--of yours. d.a.m.n him. That's really the main reason I hesitated so long before I brought her case to you. I was afraid you were going to place too much emphasis on the s.e.xual aspects which, of course, by your standards are abnormal. It has really nothing to do with the problem, and I wish you'd forget about it, but I suppose you can't. To you, her s.e.xual instincts will be normal and it will be _mine_ which will appear abnormal, whereas in reality, of course, it's the other way around. You'll never cure her, I can see that now. But then, you don't have to really _cure_ her. If you can just get her to admit the truth for just a moment or two, just temporarily, I can get her back to some really competent men. No reflection on your ability meant, you know. I realize you're the best available in this age, naturally."

"Naturally."

"But you can't know that, can you? Well, take my word for it, you are.

So suppose you start acting like it and get to work on her, eh? Could it be Gilui? No."

Dr. Quink bent over and tied his shoelace once or twice before he replied. He would have to talk to Mrs. Fairfield in private, of course, Mr. Fairfield could understand that, of course, it was not that Dr.

Quink did not want Mr. Fairfield around when the discussion took place but simply that one could not achieve rapport without absolute confidence and, of course, privacy.

"Of course," Mr. Fairfield agreed. "I'll go up and shower now, perhaps I'll take a bit of a nap before dinner. I'd like to avoid that horrible liquid she was stirring up when we came in anyhow. Somewhere she's picked up the idea that one should offer those things to dinner guests, and I can't stand them. Will you want a pen and some notepaper?"

When he had left the room to tread up the stairs one at a time, leaning heavily on the cast-iron bannister but making no sound on the wall-to-wall carpeting, Dr. Quink leaned back and had barely time to pa.s.s his hand wearily over his eyes in a circular motion that he found soothing when Mrs. Fairfield entered from behind a swinging door bearing a small circular tray on which were balanced the aforementioned martini pitcher and two high-stemmed gla.s.ses, properly frosted and rounded with lemon.

"Has he left already?" she asked. "Well, shall we get right down to business? You call me Mimi and I'll call you Victor. What did you think of his story? Pretty wild, isn't it? But he's harmless, I'm sure. I'm not in the least bit afraid of him. Do you think I should be?"

Victor smiled and accepted the proffered martini. He cradled it in long fingers and, elbows on knees, contemplated his hostess, a.n.a.lyzing her physical attraction. He finally decided it emanated in the main from her almond-shaped eyes and in their somewhat mystical synchronization with her wide, sensual lips. There was definitely a disconcerting correlation between them when she smiled, and as he was studying this phenomenon he realized that of course she _was_ smiling.

"I'm sorry," he said. "It was rude of me to stare."

"Don't be silly," she said. "It was most complimentary. But I suppose in your position it's best to be extremely careful."

"My position?"

"Flirting with your patient's wife."

He put down the martini rather too quickly, sploshing a bit over the edges of the gla.s.s, leaving colorless stains that evaporated in a few moments. "I don't want you to think _that_, Mrs. Fairfield," he said.

"It's just that ... that ..."

But she didn't interrupt him to say, "Of course not," or "I was just teasing," or "Isn't it amazing how little rain we've had lately. Did you realize that this is the driest November in sixteen and a half years?"

She just stared and smiled at him, and let him flounder and make noises until he gave it up as a bad job and took a long drink from the frosted gla.s.s he had so recently and abruptly put down. She refilled his gla.s.s and leaned back in her chair.

"Could you tell me about him, Mrs. Fairfield?" he said then. "Start as far back as you can, please."

"All right, Victor," she said. "But it won't be much help, I'm afraid.

Did he tell you he came from the future?"

"He said that both of you did."

"Yes, that's right. Both of us. And I refuse to go back, is that it?"

"Because of some deep-seated neurosis which he wants me to cure. His story is plausible, logical, once you grant the basic premise that time travel is an actuality. You see, Mrs. Fairfield--"

"Mimi, please, Victor. After all, we're not in your office, and I'm not really your patient, am I? Or am I?"

"Of course not. Well, Mimi, then, the first step is to break down his story. Show him for once and all that it is _not_ plausible, that it is not even possible, that it is plainly and simply a lie which he himself has made up to hide something that he is afraid of. Once we can get him to see this, or at least to wonder about it, once we can break the granite a.s.surance of his that he comes from another time, then perhaps we can probe into his festering secret. But we can't do that, I'm afraid, until he begins to admit, at least to himself, that he _is_ sick and that he needs help. In this case it shouldn't be too hard."

"My, you _are_ brilliant. I wonder how you do it. Oh, you shouldn't gulp a martini so quickly. Here, let me pour you some more, but sip it this time. I know, I can't stand the taste either, but it's really the only way."

"Mrs. Fairfield--"

"Mimi," she insisted.

"Mimi," he said, then hesitated.

"Mimi," she prompted.

"I forgot what I was going to say," he admitted. "Cheers."

"Don't gulp," she said. "Here, I'll pour you another one, but sip it, now promise."

"G.o.d, it does taste awful, doesn't it?" he said, grimacing. "I don't think I ever _tasted_ one before. Do you think limes might help?"

"We have some in the kitchen, but it doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Why don't we just throw the mess away and whip up something else? I just wanted you to think I was chic this season to serve mar_tin_is."

"What season? Football?"

"Hunting," she said, and the eyes and lips smiled together again.

"Mimi," Victor said a bit pompously, standing up and leaning over her, "I hope you are not flirting with me. You are, remember, a married woman and are, in fact, married to a patient of mine."

"First of all," she said, "you're being pompous. Second of all, he's not your patient, he says I'm your patient. Third of all, I'm not married to him. And fourth, of all ... is it fourth or fifth ... well anyway, fourth or fifth of all, let's try the limes. We've nothing to lose, it couldn't taste worse."

"First of all," he said, following her to the kitchen, "I am never pompous. Second of all, he _is_ my patient because he came to my office obviously seeking psychiatric help but too sick to ask for it. I feel it only my duty to help him and besides, his case is fascinating."

"And his wife isn't, I suppose," she said over her shoulder.

"Third of all," he said, "and I ignore the interruption, what the h.e.l.l do you mean you're not married to him? And fourth of all, it is fourth, not fifth, I think the limes will help immeasurably."

"Well, I think it all comes back to your original question. You know, about telling you all about him, and how it started, and all that. You see, I can't, because I don't remember. Here, you cut the limes while I look for the squeezer."

While Dr. Quink was cutting the limes he didn't exactly talk to himself, but thoughts did present themselves to his mind with very nearly verbal exact.i.tude. The immediate progression towards a solution of this case did not seem to be so clearly cut out as he had a.s.sumed it would be.

There were, it now became more and more obvious, complications he had not foreseen. Mrs. Fairfield was not exactly acting toward him as a psychiatrist normally expects the wife of a patient to, so that, although he found her pleasant and indeed invigorating, if that is the word and he was not sure that it was but the only alternative that came to his mind, stimulating, had connotations that he was not yet ready to accept, although he did find her pleasant and et cetera yet he found her behavior also disturbing, in the clinical sense this time, and the revelation as to her distinctly limited memory should be described not as a disturbance but as a downright earthquake, to ring in a seismological metaphor that occurred to him as he nicked his finger during the slicing of the fourth lime.