need to throw much effort into that, nature having supplied her with the ground materials.) When, on their rare Sundays together, he suggested a long tramp up the Palisades she agreed enthusiastically, though she hated it. Not only that, she went, loathing it. The stones hurt her feet. Her slender ankles ached. The sun burned her delicate skin. The wind pierced her thin coat. Florian strode along with the exaggerated step of the short man who bitterly resents his lack of stature. Every now and then he stood still, and breathed deeply, and said, “Glorious!” And Myra looked at his straight back, and his clear-cut profile, and his well-dressed legs and said, “Isn’t it!” and wished he would kiss her. But he never did.

In between times he bemoaned his miserable two weeks’ vacation which