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make when they're about to express something of a personal nature; but even though her fingers were cold and light on my skin, I could feel a sudden stirring in my loins. Some women do that to you; it's like static electricity. “I think I ought to apologize for the way he acted yesterday. He's such a jealous fool when he drinks.”
    “I'd already forgotten about it,” I lied.
    “Well, it was embarrassing.”
    “Does he usually drink so much?”
    “He used to be able to handle it in moderation,” she said. “But the past few months he's been going at it pretty heavily.”
    “How come?”
    “Overwork,” she said. “He's got himself wound up so tightly with his own ambition that liquor is the only way he can relax—or so he thinks. What it really does is wind him up even tighter. I mean, he never used to have these jealous rages and now he flies into one if another man even looks at me twice. It worries me sometimes.”
    “Well,” I said carefully, “maybe he ought to see a doctor.”
    “Not Ray; he hates doctors. And he won't touch tranquilizers or anything like that. According to him, no red-blooded American needs to take dope.” She smiled sardonically. “I thought this vacation would do him some good, but it hasn't seemed to so far. I honestly don't know what to do.”
    Yeah, I thought, and shifted position slightly so that her fingers slid away from my arm. I said, “Have you seen Harry this morning?”
    “No, I haven't seen anyone but you since I came down for my—Oh. Speak of someone and he appears.”
    She was looking past me, and I turned and saw Harry approaching from the direction of his cabin. He gave us a falsely cheerful smile as he came up. He looked a little puffy under the eyes; he had not slept much either during the night.
    We made small talk for half a minute. Then, because I knew Harry had come over to have his talk with Mrs. Jerrold and wanted to get it done with before anybody else came along, I said, “Well, I'd better get moving. I want to put a line out before sunrise.”
    “Try that clover-shaped patch of tules on the north shore,” he said. “Lots of bass in there.”
    “I'll do that.”
    “Talk to you a little later?”
    “Sure. I probably won't stay out long.”
    He nodded, and I said something by way of parting to Mrs. Jerrold, and then I left them and went out onto the pier. One of the skiffs was gone; I fired up a second one, swung it in a wide turn past the beach. They were standing in the same place, talking earnestly, Harry making fidgety gestures with one hand. Neither of them glanced out at me.
    Fifty yards from the rule patch Harry had mentioned, I shut the outboard down and let the skiff drift languidly on the still water. It took me ten minutes to get my rod unwrapped and screwed together, the reel fitted on and a fly hook tied in place—and the first cast I made was poor enough to get the line snarled in the reeds, so that it took me another fifteen minutes to free it and replace the lost fly. When I finally did get a line out, nothing happened: no bites, not even a nibble.
    I reeled in for another cast, but nothing came out of that one either. Hell with it; I tucked the rod between my knees and left it there. I was not enjoying myself much because I could not relax, could not get into the spirit of it. Too many things running around inside my head, and for the first time in my life, a vague distaste for fishing: what kind of pleasure was there in ripping up the mouth of a bass with a sharp hook, killing a living thing solely for sport? Everything had a right to live, didn't it, whether it was a fish or a man?
    The sun came up and seemed to climb rapidly, bringing more heat and glaring refractions of light, robbing the air of its early-morning moistness. It was going to be even hotter today than it had been yesterday. Once, after forty-five minutes or so, I heard the buzzing hum of another outboard, saw the second skiff gliding in distantly toward the pier;