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Himalayas.”
    “Doing what?”
    “Studying cosmic rays. Ever hear of a fellow called Tesla?”
    “Of course. He wanted to electrify the globe, didn’t he, and provide an eternal source of electric power?”
    “God, you’re knowledgeable!”
    “I’m my father’s daughter. He believed that Nikola Tesla was infinitely greater as a scientist than Edison was. In fact, he wrote articles about Tesla—and introduced him to millionaire benefactors sometimes.”
    “We’ll have to talk about Tesla tonight, before the fire. Now the mountain waits.”
    He hustled her ruthlessly, he was impatient and unrelenting, and in half an hour they were in the ski shop, he ordering expertly and refusing argument against the latest in ski clothes, garments of which she had not heard in the years that had passed since she taught the children to ski.
    “Skin tight,” he ordered. “That’s for fair weather like today. You feel as though you had nothing on. Fits you like your own skin.”
    He studied her critically when she came out of the dressing room in the tight suit that covered her from neck to ankles. He gathered an inch of slack at her waist.
    “You can take a smaller size,” he said. “You’ve the waist of a girl.”
    He sent her back, and she slid into another suit, and came out again for inspection.
    “Perfect,” he declared. “Now for warm-up clothes. No more long underwear these days! You slip on a sort of space suit overtop…And the skis—they’re new, too—plastic core and fiberglass—fine for any kind of snow, ice, crud, moguls, powder. Boots, please, young woman”—this to the bewildered clerk. “Leather on the outside, foam inside, and single buckles, though in my opinion the perfect boot is still to be made. Maybe I’ll think of something someday.”
    She was ready at last and they climbed into their seats in the lift. The snow had ceased but the sky was leaden gray again and ready to let fall, but perhaps not until evening. All through the day they skied and she was childishly proud that her old skills were with her still. He praised her but he was critical.
    “Your timing is not quite—look, you have to do three things at once, see? Pole plant, upweighting, switch your leading ski, like this! But keep your skis on the snow—very slight upweighting!”
    He illustrated in a series of skillful turns and she saw that he was superb on skis, even as he was at the piano. He continued to teach her throughout the day, and she strove to perfect herself, her good body responding to new demands.
    “Your traverse,” he was saying, “it’s a little awkward. Don’t pay heed to your shoulders. It’s your hip you must watch—hold the downhill hip back and everything else—body, shoulders, everything—will be ready for the traverse.”
    She practiced again and again and not until sunset did she realize her exhaustion and even then it was he who recognized it first.
    “I’ve worn you out and damn me for a perfectionist! You ski beautifully and what I’ve been insisting on are just the final touches.”
    She protested. “But I’m a perfectionist, too, and I love it!”
    He flung his arm about her shoulders. “Good companion! Let’s go home and dine in front of a roaring fire.”
    Which they did, he grilling the steaks before the fire while she tossed salad in the great salad bowl of Burmese teak.
    They ate in silence, and afterward he turned on stereophonic music and they listened in silence but sleep overcame them.
    “I must go to bed,” she murmured, her eyes half closed.
    “So must I,” he confessed.
    They rose, they stood hesitating, and for a drowsy moment she thought, she imagined, he was about to kiss her. Instead he straightened and stepped back.
    “Good night, sweet friend,” he said.
    To which she answered nothing and indeed could not, for all her strength was needed for her own control. She would not, she would not invite the kiss, for to what end it might lead she could not foretell and