"After that?"

"In a week or so I shall be back where I started."

"Then?"

She laughed nervously.

"I can't think much ahead of that. Perhaps I shall raise chickens."

"Year after year?"

"Maybe."

"If you lived to be seventy you'd have a lot of chickens by then, would n't you?"

"I—I don't know."

It did sound ridiculous, the way he put it.