"You're as buff as a billiard ball!" he said indignantly, his face growing red.
"I don't think I look like a billiard ball," she said. "I've always been under the impression I was rather nice looking. Neither square, nor perfectly round. Just nicely curved...."
"Your sadism has gone too far this time!" he snapped. "I don't appreciate it at all. You can sit here and moon-bath if you want to, I'm going downstairs and work...."
He began to stride toward the roof entrance.
"What's the matter, can't you take it?" she called after him.
He whirled. "If it'll satisfy your sadistic little mind," he said, "I can't! Now, are you pleased with yourself?"
She looked hurt. "Who's being a sadist?" she said. She stood up and came toward him.
He grew giddy and for a moment the roof whirled around him. Then all at once he found himself lying on the roof, and his head cradled on her lap. He looked up at her.
"You aren't being a sadist?" he persisted.
"Of course not," she said. "After all, the Martians are thirty thousand years ahead of us, and if it's all right with them ... who am I to be backward?"