Below this region of morals or ethics lies the mal in facto behaviour. It is bad in fact and practice to murder, steal, and lie.
Hanson had opened the minds of his pair to the enjoyment of the middle region after a short life of the stilted upper bracket. Like the swing of the pendulum, both Ava and Clifford had dropped about as far as they could go without getting into the truly evil region.
But the doctor's error was in not realizing that the human mind, once released of its inhibitions, can make a shrewd calculation. In the case of Ava Longacre, whose mental blocks would have rendered her undesirable to Cliff Maculay; when once released, the woman's mind reversed its tactics. Where the conscious mind had the balanced life distorted into undesirability, now her mind distorted into undesirability—the more responsible way of living—because she was beginning to enjoy excitement.
All of her quiet life she had been suppressing the love of excitement; now released, Ava Longacre's mind refused to consider the task she had been sent to do; once it was finished, she would be returned to the quiet, unexciting life that she no longer wanted.
So instead of employing her woman's wiles to involve Maculay and bring him back to earth where Hanson could get him to go back to work on his negative space, Ava was helping Cliff cut a wide, rosy-hued swathe through the not-too-holy city of Melaxis.
They consumed a bit more alcohol than was necessary; they danced a bit more close together than would have been called proper at a Boston cotillion, and hazarded sums of money on the roll of a pair of dice or the turn of a card just for the thrill of high blood pressure.
It was near dawn when Ava lifted her head from Cliff's shoulder in the taxicab and wiped the lipstick from his cheek with a caressing forefinger. Cliff smiled down at her.
"Baby doll," he said, "let's get married or something."
Ava laughed lightly. "We'll get married—or nothing!"