"So what am I supposed to do, monkey? I hate to leave you this way."
"Go away."
"But can't I—"
"Go away, damn you!"
Joe stood up abruptly. He clenched his fists and looked at his wife's still form and gradually the anger dulled and left him. He had no right to be angry. Everybody got tempermental once in a while.
But this was the first time she had ever cursed him.
"O.K.," he said softly. "I'll see you tonight."
The regional offices of Mars Imports and Exports sat upon a hill at the end—or the beginning—of Ila Boulevard, depending upon which way you were going. It was twenty-five-hundred feet of silver and native marble, and covered four city blocks, and Joe Caradac was top man—literally—since his office and personal staff took up the whole two-hundred and fifty-first floor.
His morning mail—about twelve letters weeded out of the daily thousands—was gotten out of the way with skill and dispatch. Grinning, he propped his feet on the low, curving window sill and said: "Miss Kal—take an audiogram."