"No." This time I said it.

"Oh, come, now!" the clerk said to me. "Think of the little lady. If she sticks by what she just swore to-and I'm not saying she won't-she'll never have another chance. Every girl is entitled to a formal wedding. Honest-I don't get much of a commission out of it."

I said, "See here, you can marry us, can't you? Go ahead. Get it over with!"

He looked surprised and said, "Didn't you know? In this state you marry yourself. You've been married, ever since you thumb-printed the license."

I said, "Oh-" Mary didn't say anything. We left.

I hired a duo at the landing flat north of town; the heap was ten years old and smelled of it but it had full-automatic and that was all that really mattered. I looped around the city, cut across Manhattan Crater, and set the controls. We didn't talk much; there didn't seem to be much to say just yet. I was happy but terribly nervous-and then Mary put her arms around me and after a bit I wasn't nervous any longer but happier than ever. After a long time that seemed short I heard the BEEEEP! beep-beep BEEEEP! of the beacon at my shack in the mountains, whereupon I unwound myself, took over manual, and landed. Mary said sleepily, "Where are we?"

"At my cabin in the mountains," I told her.

"I didn't know you had a cabin in the mountains. I thought you were headed for my apartment."

"What, and risk those bear traps? Anyhow, it's not mine; it's ours."

She kissed me again and I loused up the landing. She slid out ahead of me while I was securing the board, then I followed and found her staring at my shack. "Sweetheart, it's beautiful!"

"You can't beat the Adirondacks," I agreed. There was a slight haze with the sun low in the west, giving that wonderful, depth upon depth, stereo look that you never get anywhere else. "I picked this place for the view."

She glanced at it and said, "Yes, yes-but I didn't mean that. I meant your-our cabin. Let's go inside, right now."

"Suits," I agreed, "but it's really just a simple shack." Which it was-not even an indoor pool. I had kept it that way on purpose; when I came up here I didn't want to feel that I had brought the city with me. The shell was conventional steel-and-fiberglass construction but I had had it veneered in duroslabs which could not be told from real logs unless you took a knife to them. The inside was just as simple-a big living room with a real, wood-burning fireplace, deep plain-colored rugs, and plenty of low chairs. The services were all in a Kompacto special, the shell of which was buried under the foundation-air-conditioner, power pack, cleansing system, sound equipment, plumbing, radiation alarm, servos-everything but the deep-freeze and the other kitchen equipment, out of sight and out of mind. Even the stereo screens were covered up and would not be noticed unless in use. It was about as near as a man could get to a real log cabin and still have inside plumbing.

"I think it's just lovely," Mary said seriously. "I wouldn't want to have an ostentatious place."

"You and me both." I worked the combo and the front door dilated; Mary was inside at once. "Hey! Come back here!" I yelled.

She did so. "What's the matter, Sam? Did I do something wrong?"

"You sure did." I dragged her back to me, then swung her up in my arms and carried her across the threshold. I kissed her as I put her down. "There. Now you are in your own house, properly."

The lights had come on as we entered the house. She looked around her, then turned and threw her arms around my neck. "Oh, darling, darling! I can't see-my eyes are all blurry."

Mine were blurry, too, so we took time out for mutual treatment. Then she started wandering around, touching things. "Sam, if I had planned it all myself, it would have been just this way."

"It hasn't but one bathroom," I apologized. "We'll have to rough it a bit."

"I don't mind. In fact I'm glad; now I know you didn't bring any of those women of yours up here."

"What women?"

"You know darn well what women. If you had been planning this as a nest, you would have included a woman's bathroom."

"You know too much."

She did not answer but wandered on out into the kitchen. I heard her squeal. "What's the matter?" I asked, following her out.

"I never expected to find a real kitchen in a bachelor's lodge."

"I'm not a bad cook myself. I wanted a kitchen so I bought one."

"I'm so glad. Now I will cook you dinner."

"It's your kitchen; suit yourself. But don't you want to wash up? You can have first crack at the shower if you want it. And tomorrow we'll get a catalog and you can pick out a bathroom of your own. We'll have it flown in."

"No hurry," she said. "You take the first shower. I want to start dinner."

So I did. I guess she did not have any trouble figuring out the controls and filing system in the kitchen, for about fifteen minutes later while I was whistling away in the shower, letting the hot water soak in, I heard a tap on the shower door. I looked through the translucent panel and saw Mary silhouetted there.

"May I come in?" she called out.

"Sure, sure!" I said, "Plenty of room." I opened the door and looked at her. She looked good. For a moment she stood there, letting me look but with a sweet shyness on her face that I had never seen before.

I put on an expression of utter surprise and said, "Honey! What's the matter? Are you sick?"

She looked startled out of her wits and said, "Me? What do you mean?"

"There's not a gun on you anywhere."

She giggled and came at me. "Idiot!" she squealed and started to tickle me. I got her left arm in a bonebreaker but she countered with one of the nastiest judo tricks that ever came out of Japan. Fortunately I knew the answer to it and then we were both on the bottom of the shower and she was yelling, "Let me up! You're getting my hair all wet."

"Does it matter?" I asked, not moving. I liked it there.

"I guess not," she answered softly and kissed me. So I let her up and we rubbed each other's bruises and giggled. It was quite the nicest shower I have ever had.

Mary and I slipped into domesticity as if we had been married for twenty years. Oh, not that our honeymoon was humdrum, far from it, nor that there weren't a thousand things we still had to learn about each other-the point was that we already seemed to know the necessary things about each other that made us married. Especially Mary.

I don't remember those days too clearly, yet I remember every second of them. I went around feeling gay and a bit confused. My Uncle Egbert used to achieve much the same effect with a jug of corn liquor, but we did not even take tempus pills, not then. I was happy; I had forgotten what it was like to be happy, had not known that I was not happy. Interested, I used to be-yes. Diverted, entertained, amused-but not happy.

We did not turn on a stereo, we did not read a book-except that Mary read aloud some Oz books that I had. Priceless items, they were, left to me by my great-grandfather; she had never seen any. But that did not take us back into the world; it took us farther out.

The second day we did go down to the village; I wanted to show Mary off. Down there they think I am a writer and I encourage the notion, so I stopped to buy a couple of tubes and a condenser for my typer and a roll of copy tape, though I certainly had no intention of doing any writing, not this trip. I got to talking with the storekeeper about the slugs and Schedule Bare Back-sticking to my public persona of course. There had been a local false alarm and a native in the next town had been shot by a trigger-happy constable for absent-mindedly showing up in public in a shirt. The storekeeper was indignant. I suggested that it was his own fault; these were war conditions.