Elaine fondled the little box. Her forefinger touched the button, felt its smoothness. In her mind was knowledge of the dire effects caused by tyros who push strange buttons. Certainly there was no curiosity deep enough to override her own good sense. But subconsciously the natural impulse to touch wet paint, to kick the package on the sidewalk, came to the fore and Elaine stood there, looking the box over with her forefinger set against the button.
"'Be an epicenter'," she repeated.
It registered. Like a swift montage, events past, present and future sped through Thomas Lionel's mind. He went from the basic idea to the foregone conclusion in three lightning-quick steps.
"NO!" he yelled.
But it was too late.
And through his mind there passed a vision that made him swallow. Elaine—dressed in a simple frock of printed silk, garnished from the top of her beautifully coiffed hair to the bottoms of her exquisitely shod feet in an awful mixture of used crankcase oil and a tar-asphaltum—
In vain he tried to cross the twenty feet that separated him from the girl. In vain he tried to get there, to snatch that devilish box from her hand, to grab it and hurl it far enough away so that the effect wouldn't even cause a bad splash.
The idea of seeing her all gooed up. That made him shout hoarsely.
It shouldn't happen to a dog—