And though I had carefully maintained a facade of sympathetic interest, Victor's antennae had reached behind it. "You accept Freud in theory," he said, "but when I set about testing the theory in action you go emotionally Victorian." I could only protest that, whatever tricks my old emotional habits might play me, I was fully emancipated. Victor continued his story.

"My Number Two," he said, "was much older. She helped I me a lot. She had style, and she taught me style, too. Each of us was a musical instrument for the other to play on in the sex duet. It was exquisite for a time, and I'll never forget her. But presently we began to know one another better mentally. And like so many artists she had practically nothing in her mind but her art, namely, love-making. At first I didn't care. She did that so superlatively well, with touch and voice and looks, that for a whole week I was in a sort of ecstasy. What a thing touch can be, ranging from zephyrs to high-tension flashes! And tone of voice! Like fingers rippling over all the keys of one's emotions! And looks! The faint, faint changes of lips and eyelids! But I'm wandering. What I wanted to say was--well, I was beginning to slip back toward the somnambulist again. One night I actually fell asleep with her. Before that I had stayed wide awake when she slept, with my mind careering over the universe. Falling asleep warned me. Then I began to realize that I was not properly awake even by day. The cutting edge of my mind was not what it had been. And images of her kept interrupting my thought. Her voice sang in my ears all day. Remembering the feel of her body next mine made me gasp-like getting into a very hot bath. I longed for night. I realized I had got properly caught in my own experiment, but I didn't care. This was life, I said. But after a few days I began to be frightened. Somehow our duet was no longer the exquisite thing it had been, and yet I couldn't keep away from her. I felt I wanted something more of her, and it was more than she had in her to give. I told myself that though she was a superb executant she was not a creative artist. But one night, instead of falling asleep beside her, as I had recently done, I stayed fully awake, puzzling desperately over the whole business. She was asleep.