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seemed to indicate, then infinity was a unity encompassed by a master world line enclosing circles in circles.
    “By golly, Ester. Here I’ve been fooling around with the parts and never studied the whole.”
    “This is rather unusual,” she said, “but, if you insist, you may go into the study.”
    Ester was unaware of a breakdown in communication until Ward’s whiteness vanished in the darkness and his footsteps dwindled down the hall. Perplexed, she felt that her husband, rushing to his study in Priapean urgency, might be yielding to some strange compulsion, possibly academic, to make love to his desk. On tiptoe she followed him; she wanted to see how he pulled this off.
    Then she heard his voice, pitched high with excitement, speaking into his recorder: “In the mathematics of affinities, the universe is assumed to be a closed system. Thus, the symbol for infinity is considered the symbol for the master affinity, the universal world line, or the total environment. Thence, it is self-evident…”
    Quietly Ester returned to bed and turned out the light, knowing all was well with her husband.

CHAPTER THREE
    Ward’s Saturday night and Sunday, too, was not proof of rejuvenation, but the fact that he was out of bed by six, Monday morning, and at work in his laboratory before seven indicated youthful energy. Once at his desk he worked as a man possessed and by ten had established a formula to account for last night’s satyriasis:
    S (2) × P = C (2)
    With his new system of emotio-mathematics he could establish formulae rapidly because he was choosing the symbols. In the formula above, S represents an organic force field, male or female, generated by hormones in a state of dynamic balance with C, or centripetal force. Therefore P represents the proximity factor.
    His animalism had been the product of the rapidly collapsing force field, C (2) .
    On the first Monday, Ester slept till noon and arose to fire the maid. She prepared dinner Monday evening, and he got in four solid hours of work in his study before yielding to Ester’s P factor. Thereafter Ester couldn’t sleep because of the energy generated in her force field by his collapsing world lines, and she did housework between 1 and 5 a.m. On the other hand, Ward’s dissipated S induced languor and he slept.
    Tuesday morning, Ruth called him at work and invited him up for a noon snack of chocolate and macaroons. She wanted his opinion on her survey of the social problems of immortality.
    “Ruth, I haven’t time. At the moment, I’m converting Aristotle’s Poetics into the linear equations of esthetics.”
    “But I need your opinion. I’m so immersed in these problems I haven’t been out of my library since early Sunday morning. My Scarlet Churchill was supposed to bloom Monday, and I haven’t seen yesterday’s roses.”
    Ward thought he recalled a pop song called “Yesterday’s Roses,” and he said, “I’m no social thinker.”
    “Not all the problems are social. For instance, would there be a traumatic shock when one watches his generation grow old and die? And what would be your reaction to Ester, forty years from now, when she’s grown old and halt and you’ve still got rhythm?”
    Now Ward was positive her largesse would include more than chocolate and macaroons. If he came down from the hill, drowsy and incapable on Tuesday, of all days, Ester would know why and be devastated. Ester had faith in his fidelity as he had trust in her loyalty, and his first responsibility was to his wife. Ruth had entered upon a relationship knowing he was a married man, knowing that his contractual loyalty was to Ester, etc., etc. Firmly but gently Ward reaffirmed the married man’s priorities.
    “Ester’s a variation from the norm,” he said. “Age cannot wither nor usage stale her infinite variety.”
    In the sudden silence, Ward realized his implied comparison, deliberately invidious, had hurt a sensitive mind unschooled in the clichés of