Lao moped around the house, his nerves near the breaking point. Daily he dreaded notification that the damage suit had been formally instituted, a move which would cut off his only chance to see his income and his position in the psycho-art field restored.
Marriage? It was on his mind constantly. The idea disturbed him almost as much as the thought of Colorvue taking a big slice of his income for the next decade or so. He might have been inclined to marry one of his three mistresses in Nuyork—before they showed themselves for what they were—but he knew better than to trust his former Southgate mistress with control of his finances. She had abandoned him as soon as the money from the sale of his paintings had run out.
A mailman's visit was an unusual enough phenomenon to create interest, for it meant the delivery of a package. Letter mail was delivered from the post office to each home through a vacuum tube system. Since it was a letter Lao feared, he watched with considerable interest when the mailman approached the front door, and curiosity was upper-most in his mind when Grida called from downstairs to say the package was for him.
He knew no one who would be sending him a package.
Grida, her own curiosity apparent, made no move to leave the room when he took the large, oblong package from her and prepared to open it. A premonition smote him as he noted the return address: "The Nuyork Gallery of Traditional Art."
With trembling fingers he tore away the wrappings. His paintings—all three of them—tumbled to the floor.
He dropped into a chair, limp. The most important thing in his life was lying, broken, before him.
"What is this?" exclaimed Grida. She picked up one of the paintings and examined it. "This isn't psycho-art," she said. "This is real! I like this, Lao."
"It's what I've always wanted to do," he said in a tired voice. "Those three paintings have hung in the Gallery of Traditional Art for nearly ten years."