“What’s this?” She held up a scroll enclosed in a cardboard tube.

“Let’s have a look.” He got up, dusted his knees, and came over to her. “Oh”—he handed it back—“it’s a certificate for crossing the Arctic Circle.”

“Good God.”

“I went to Alaska one summer, when I had nothing better to do.”

“That would be the reason, naturally.”

“It was extremely interesting,” he said aloofly. “Overpowering natural phenomena. Vast areas quite untouched by Man.”

“Poor darling,” she said. She waved the scroll over her head. “All hail Caesar…” She put it back in the closet. She placed her hands on his shoulders. “You’ll never have to go to Alaska again,” she said.

“Unless,” he said solemnly, “we decide it’s all a bad idea.”

She smiled. “If that’s your attitude, you shouldn’t go round measuring people’s chests.”

“I never measured anyone’s chest but yours.” He reached up to take her in his arms. “Come down, O Maid, from yonder mountain height.”

“I’m too heavy for you.”

He lifted her down.

“I’ll put dust all over you.”

He kissed her.

“I’ll make some tea. In a minute.”

“I’ve made out a list of places we could go.” He put his cup and saucer on the coffee table and brought a folded paper out of his pocket.

“Let’s see.” She lay down on the sofa with her head in his lap and held the paper before her eyes.

He spread her hair over his knees. “In the Bahamas,” he said, “you have to be a resident for eighteen days.”

She studied the typed page. “Banns is spelled with two ‘n’s.”

“Is it?” He plaited the ends of her hair. “What are you smiling at?”

“At how nice it is.”

“What is?”

“That I got to be Pocahontas after all.” The list wavered, then collapsed. “What are banns, anyway?”

“I think that’s when people get an opportunity to hold their peace.”

“Sounds a bit like asking for trouble.” She reached out to put the list on the table. “We might change our minds at the last minute.”

“Might we? Why?”

She squinted up at him. “Oh—you might discover you didn’t like the color of my eyes, or something.”

“I don’t think that could be the reason. We’ll have to think up something else.”

She rinsed the cups under the tap. “This china,” she said.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It doesn’t look like you.”

“I think it’s rather pleasant—that pattern of bare branches.”

“It looks like a diagram of the central nervous system. You know—like those advertisements for headaches.”

“Advertisements for headaches?”

“For aspirin, then.” She held a saucer up to her forehead as an illustration.

He said seriously, “Nina helped me choose it.” He had been involved with Nina when they met.