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ashamed of myself when I go into the doctor’s office and he puts me on the scales.” Kitty took another cookie. “I can tell from the way he looks at me, he thinks I’m a woman without any self-control.”
    “That’s exactly the kind of wife for me,” Archer said. “Without self-control.”
    “You’re perfect,” Kitty said complacently. “You’re the absolutely perfect husband.”
    “Did you have a good day?” Archer asked. He got up and began to undress.
    “I stayed in bed most of the time. I’m getting real lazy. I didn’t read. I didn’t sew. I didn’t answer the telephone. I didn’t tell Gloria what to order for dinner. I didn’t think a single thought. Are you ashamed of me because I’m so lazy?”
    “Uhuh.” Archer took off his shirt and held it indecisively in his hand for a moment.
    “In the closet,” Kitty said warningly. “Hang it up. I can tell you’re deciding to throw it on the chair.”
    Archer grinned as he went into the large closet, with his clothes hanging on one side and Kitty’s dresses a row of colors on the other. “Some day,” he said, as he hung up his clothes and put on his pajama bottoms in the closet, “you’re going to go too far with your mind-reading act.”
    “Isn’t it infuriating?” Kitty agreed complacently.
    Archer came out of the closet, putting on the pajama jacket.
    “What a nice thing,” Kitty said, watching him.
    “What a nice thing?”
    “You have no belly. The first sign I saw of a belly, I’d have to leave for Reno. And I’d hate that. And be careful of your neck, too.”
    “There’s nothing wrong with my neck,” Archer said, defensively, feeling it with his two hands.
    “All I said was, be careful. I hate the way some men’s necks jut out past their ears.”
    “My,” Archer said, buttoning his pajamas and looking down at her, smiling, “you’re a hard woman to live with.”
    “I want you to be beautiful,” Kitty said. “That’s not much to ask for, is it?” She put the empty glass on the table, sighing. “Oh, those cookies are sinful,” she said. “Was it nice out in the world today?”
    Archer hesitated. No, he thought, what’s the sense in telling her?
    “OK,” he said, sitting on the edge of his bed, a table’s distance away from Kitty’s. “Did you like the program?”
    “Oh, darling,” Kitty said guiltily. “I forgot to listen. I was just dozing here and I forgot. Will you forgive me?”
    Archer chuckled. “Just don’t tell the sponsor.”
    “I’m getting so rattlebrained,” Kitty apologized. “I never remember anything. I guess becoming a mother at such an advanced age is a drain on the brain. I just lie here thinking whether I want the child to have blue eyes and whether he’s going to be bald by the time he’s twenty-five.” She put out her hand and touched Archer. “Am I offending you, darling?” she asked.
    “I’m going to my club,” Archer said gravely. “Please have my mail forwarded.”
    “You’re perfect, Clement, you know that,” Kitty said. “But it isn’t really disloyal to hope the boy keeps his hair, is it?”
    “No,” Archer said. “How do you know it’s going to be a boy?”
    “The way he kicks. He marches up and down all day like a company of Marines. When I had Jane she just used to give me little ladylike nudges from time to time. Oh—Jane’s coming down from school for the week-end. A boy is taking her to the theatre, but we have to give them dinner tomorrow night because the boy is poor, Jane says. If I’m feeling tired, do you think you can manage it by yourself?”
    “If the boy doesn’t patronize me,” Archer said, “like the last one she had here. The organic-chemistry boy.”
    “Oh,” said Kitty, “she’s through with him. He did something boring at a dance. Isn’t it nice, Jane’s not being ashamed of having a mother who’s pregnant?”
    “Now, Kitty,” Archer said, “that’s preposterous.”
    “She’s so grownup and modern, Jane,” Kitty