he very first."

"Oh." This "oh" was a very caustic one. "_That's_ the way you're trying
to land him? By getting yourself pregnant?"

"Uh-uh." Temple stretched; lazily, luxuriously. "Not only it isn't, but
it wouldn't work. He's unusually decent and extremely idealistic, the
same as I am. So just one intimacy would blow everything higher than up.
He knows it. I know it. We each know that the other knows it. So I'll
still be a virgin when we're married."

"_Married!_ Does he know anything about _that_?"

"I suppose so. He must have thought of it. But what difference does it
make whether he has, yet, or not? But to get back to what makes him tick
the way he does. In his geometry--which is far from being simple Euclid,
my dear--a geodesic right line is not only the shortest distance between
any two given points, but is the only possible course. So that's the way
I'm playing it. What I hope he doesn't know ... but he probably does ...
is that he could take any other woman he might want, just as easily. And
that includes you, my pet."

"It certainly does _not_!" Sandra flared. "I wouldn't have him as a
gift!"

"No?" Temple's tone was more than slightly skeptical. "Fortunately,
however, he doesn't want you. Your technique is all wrong. Coyness and
mock-modesty and stop-or-I'll-scream and playing hard to get have no
appeal whatever to his psychology. What he needs--has to have--is full,
ungrudging cooperation."

"Aren't you taking a lot of risk in giving away such secrets?"

"Not a bit. Try it. You or the sex-flaunting twins or Bev Bell or Stella
the Henna. Any of you or all of you. I got there first with the most,
and I'm not worried about competition."

"But suppose somebody tells him just how you're playing him for a
sucker?"

"Tell him anything you please. He's the first man I ever loved,
or anywhere near. And I'm keeping him. You know--or do you, I
wonder?--what real, old-fashioned, honest-to-God love really is? The
willingness--eagerness--both to give and to take? I can accept more from
him, and give him more in return, than any other woman living. And I am
going to."

"But does _he_ love _you_?" Sandra demanded.

"If he doesn't now, he will. I'll see to it that he does. But what do
_you_ want him for? You don't love him. You never did and you never
will."

"I _don't_ want him!" Sandra stamped a foot.

"I see. You just don't want _me_ to have him. Okay, do your damnedest.
But I've got work to do. This