Roberts nodded. He ran his hand over his head. “Colin was honest enough to acknowledge that there was physical gratification in any contact of the sex organs—this from a man whose childhood had been surrounded by a ponderous sexual mystique. He saw no reason to concern himself overmuch with why he came to believe that homosexuality was the lowest of man’s behavior. He knew that there were alternatives to our culture, that homosexuality had been practiced by the elite of other societies—just as, by the way, your wife told me this evening that she knew that there were women who thrived on the kind of life that had been destroying her. The thing that astonished and dismayed Colin was that additional, anticipatory sick thrill in what he found himself choosing to do. He said that he could have stood on a crowded trolley, played with himself, anything, and achieved the same physical pleasure—but it wouldn’t have been the same. It sickened Colin, not the capacity for self-destruction, but the absolute, undeniable appetite for it.”

Leland had been thinking of what he had said about not knowing if he understood the pleasure. Karen had said that she had been looking for romance. Was that in any way the same? Leland could remember returning from the war and realizing that his wife had been to bed with another man, and not being able to stop himself from making love to her again—he had wanted to stop. She had not loved him in the way he had loved her. It was all changed now, but tonight, at this moment, he could reach out and touch those days with his hand.

“I had to be afraid of marriage, where Colin was concerned,” Roberts was saying. “Not just because he had failed in one attempt. With Norma, he had to have a far better chance to succeed. The life he had lived before he had met her had been the best for him. A lonely life, but it had allowed him to grow. Marriage makes its own great demands—people are afraid to discuss them. What happened to Colin was precipitated by the pressure of marriage—the same with your wife. You know it. And both of them wanted so badly to do well—you know that, too. In spite of what he saw in his parents, or what he did himself, Colin believed in marriage. No work, no personal accomplishments compare, he thought. A little while ago you said about him that there was such a complexity to his financial affairs that it was easy to overlook the fact that he wanted to be rich. When he and I were talking about marriage, he said that we lived in such a welter of change and confusion that it was easy to miss the point that marriage is the most important fact of our life on earth—”