"Definitely. Regular homebody. Never been out of the solar system. She's the kind that likes a quiet picnic on Mars and will settle for the moon when Mars is crowded. Besides, she's interested largely in warts and mice. Studies them all the time. Knows how to grow warts on anybody."
"You're a lucky man, Art. Planned the honeymoon yet?"
"Sure. She's going to Venus while I go in the opposite direction. Haven't decided yet where I'll spend that happy time. On one of the planets of the nearer stars, I suppose."
"That's perfect," the bald man said approvingly. "My wife made me stay on earth while she went to the moon. That's too close for comfort. After all, you don't have but one real honeymoon, and in my opinion every man and woman should strive to make it as nearly perfect as possible. I think the government ought to subsidize that sort of thing. Then the happy couple could put more distance between them. Think what bliss could be achieved if the man could afford to go the maximum distance in one direction and send his wife twice that far in the other direction. I mean to say, happiness is next to the ultimate, and if they could be separated so far that no trace of one ever got back to the other—well, just think of it! We would never hear of divorce again."
Fillmore's thin angular features darkened. "It is sad to think of the divorces. There's been a dozen in the past half a century. But isn't it because the couples were immature? Some of them married at under eighty years of age, and they insisted on living on the same side of the earth with each other."
"You're pretty young yourself," the bald man put in.
"I'm ninety-six," Fillmore said defensively. "That's plenty old for a man. All of my people matured early."
"And probably died early."
"Yes." Fillmore nodded. "A few of them lived to be nearly five hundred, but they were mostly females. The males usually check out between two and three hundred. Their fourteen power intelligence burns them up."