He had turned to commercial art and had done extremely well from the start. At thirty-nine, he'd retired.
Now, he said, "I've been thinking of going to work."
"Painting again? Ted, really?"
"Not painting. I loathe painting. That's one reason I retired. Maybe I'll buy a cheap ball club."
"Ted," she said despairingly, "what's wrong with work?" She came over to take the deck chair next to his.
"Nothing," he said. "Unless it gets to be a disease. From the time I was sixteen until I was thirty-eight, I worked like three men. That's twenty-two years a man, and I've forty-four years of rest due me. If I'm alive, at eighty-three, I'll go back to work."
"Nobody," she said wearily, "can ever get any sense out of you." She looked down at the patio below. "Do you really think she's pretty, Ted?"
The blonde was now on her back.
"She has a fair figure. I haven't seen much of her face."
"I suppose," Ann said hesitantly, "I've failed you, somewhere."