Jan said. "To think, I almost fell for it. Did you know what she was doing, Dellie?"

"Yes."

"Then why didn't you tell me?"

"Because, until you found out for yourself, you'd never know what you were doing.

"In our way of life, Jan, it's harder-harder because it's easier. What I mean to say is, it's harder to follow what you know is right because it's easier not to. That doesn't make sense yet? Well this then. . .the woman who makes her home with a man has rules to follow-rules long steeped in tradition. She can't be seen with another man without fear of being judged, and other dangers more intimate, perhaps." Dellie got up from the sofa, got a cigarette from the box on the mantle and came back to Jan without sitting down again.

"With us it's different," she said. "These dangers don't face us. By our own standards we face these problems. It's our own principles, our morals we must adhere to-but, and this is the test," she pointed the unlighted cigarette at Jan, "they must be tried and true; not just an expedient for convenience, not just a chance for momentary pleasures."

"Yah," Jan made the only disgusted sound she knew, struck a match on the box and held it up so that Dellie absently leaned forward to light her cigarette.

"In our union we must be stronger because we're weaker," Dellie watched Jan shake the match till it was out. "Another ambiguous statement? Maybe. But don't ever forget that we're not bound by certificates and licenses and ceremonies and what-have-yous.

We're really quite free, Jan. We've got to learn to harness this freedom so it won't carry us away, like too many of our kind. "

"Free? Easy?" There was a slight sway to the words as Jan spoke them as tho she were not quite sure she intended them as questions. "You think hiding to keep your love from the condemnation of the world is easy? You call it free?"

"Not

"Hiding?" Dellie repeated. flourishing is better put. Leave the hypocrite in his cave of selfrighteousness and the bookish to his tower, but only your conscience can keep you free, Jan; believe me, all else is subordinate."

"Dellie, you're simply too much. Jan surrounded the statement with little bubbles of chuckling. "I suppose one could take that and carry on an endless diatribe of the whys and where fores but to hell with words. Tell me something, Dellie,” Jan said teasingly, "why did you come home early?"

"I told you," Dellie picked up her coat from the sofa, "it's our anniversary, she smiled, breaking the statement, "and I want us to have another one. And stop peeking out at me from behind those eyes!"

"Oh, darling," Jan said, the words wavering on the tight rope of emotions, "let's not go out to eat. We'll have dinner right here. Please, Dellie, let me make the dinner for us tonight. Something special," she said, "for us."

Jan was aware suddenly of the comfortable purr of their refrigerator in the kitchen. A laughing couple were going by in the hall outside, their hollow footsteps marching by, but Jan didn't hear them.

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