Chapter 6

Mrs. Hanford opened the door and saw Scholar Ross. She smiled uncertainly at him as she invited him in. In the Hanford living room, in the presence of Mr. Hanford, the scholar of genetics looked around cautiously and questingly. Hanford said, “Gloria is not here. She’s out.”

“Then I may speak openly.”

“Of course. Is there some trouble—again?”

“Frankly, I’m not certain,” said the scholar of genetics slowly. “I’d like more information if you’d be so good as to help.”

“Of course we’ll help!” exclaimed Mrs. Hanford. “What’s bothering you?”

“How is your daughter getting on with Bertram Harrison?”

“Why, I’d guess they’re getting along about as well as any other young pre-marriage couple. That’s what the engagement period is for, isn’t it? I mean, it’s been that way historically.”

“Yes, you’re right,” nodded Scholar Ross. “Did they rent the usual pre-marriage apartment?”

“Oh yes. They were quite the conventional young lovers, Scholar Ross.”

The man from the Department of Domestic Tranquility smiled. “And you, of course, were the conventional parents of the affianced bride?”

“Of course. We were so pleased that we could hardly wait for Twelfth Night.”

“And during that visit, were the appointments of the apartment proper?”

“Why, Scholar Ross!”

“No, no, Mrs. Hanford, you misunderstand. I implied no moral question. I really meant to ask if you knew whether Gloria and Bertram each and separately were properly continuing their therapy.”

Mr. Hanford grunted. “As parents of the affianced bride,” he said, “we’re paying for it!”

Mrs. Hanford blushed. “I—er—snooped,” she said.

Scholar Ross looked at Mrs. Hanford with an expression that indicated that snooping was an entirely acceptable form of social behavior. “And what did you find?”

“Everything entirely right.” Then she looked doubtful and bit her lower lip. “Scholar Ross, I’m no authority in these matters. In Gloria’s bathroom were the same-looking kind of bottles and pills that we got when you prescribed, and when I turned on the speaker in her bedroom it sounded like the same kind of music as I’d heard in her bedroom when she was living at home. It—frankly—depressed me.”

“And Bertram’s?”

“I know less of his medication. But I did listen to his music outlet. It removed the feeling of depression I’d gotten from Gloria’s program material.”

“That’s quite right. It sounds reasonable.”

She blushed again and looked at her husband. “Only one thing,” she said very slowly.

“What’s that?”

“I—er, hardly know how to put it. You see, when Gerald and I were affianced, neither one of us were undergoing any kind of corrective therapy and so I don’t know how these things work out.”

“What are you driving at?”

“Why, Scholar Ross, with neither of us undergoing corrective therapy, it didn’t matter which one of the bedrooms we used.”

Scholar Ross considered for a moment and then nodded. “Of course,” he said with an air of complete finality. “That’s it!”

“What’s it?” asked Mr. Hanford.

“The situation becomes a simple matter of reduction to the law of most-active reaction. Look,” he said, “we have one personality that requires an environment of stimulation to bring him up to normal, and another personality that requires a tranquil atmosphere to normal. Place them both in the tranquilizing environment and he is driven deeper into his lethargy, probably to the point of complete physical and intellectual torpor. Place them both in the stimulating atmosphere and he becomes normal while she goes into transports of sensuous excitement. This explains it!”

“Explains what?” demanded Mr. Hanford.

“Her recent behavior. Or rather escapade.”

None of them heard the gentle snick of the lock in the front door.

“Escapade?” exclaimed Mrs. Hanford.

“We didn’t know that she was in any trouble,” said Mr. Hanford.

“That’s just the point,” said Scholar Ross. “Your daughter has the infuriating habit of indulging in outrageous behavior under the name of brilliant intellectual accomplishment.”

Gloria Hanford said, “Why, thank you, sir!”

She dropped the scholar a deep curtsey, displaying several inches of slender ankle.

“Gloria!” demanded her mother. “What have you been up to?”

Gloria Hanford smiled at her mother in an elfin, yet superior manner. “I am the affianced bride of Bertram Harrison,” she said softly. “Therefore my behavior, whether good, bad, or indifferent, is no longer the problem of my parents.”

Her father said, “Gloria, I happen to be big enough in both the physical and intellectual departments to overrule both you and your husband-to-be. So you’ll answer your mother.”

“Why,” said Gloria quietly, “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

Mr. Hanford said to Scholar Ross: “What’s your side of this?”

Scholar Ross said, “Last week the Westchester Young People’s Club gave a costume ball. The young ladies were to attend this affair adorned in the authentic fashion of some period in the past, and a prize was to be awarded to the most novel, yet completely authentic costume.”

“And,” said Gloria with a smile, “I won!”

“Your daughter won because she has a talent for performing the most shocking deeds under a cloak of intellectual achievement.”

“Do go on, Scholar Ross. What did Gloria do?”

The scholar smiled wryly. “Style and fashion ceased to be logical when clothing was designed for sly provocation rather than as a protection against a harsh environment,” he said. “We live in a mixed-up social world. We encourage communal swimming and sun bathing in the nude—and yet after five o’clock it is considered shocking to display more than the bare face and hands.

“So in order to combine the maximum shock-effect with the cloak of utter authenticity, Miss Hanford researched the styles and fashions until she located a brief period of a few scant months late in the Twentieth Century. Her costume consisted of a many-fold voluminous skirt of semi-transparent material that draped in graceful folds from waist to mid-calf. She was completely nude above the waist! To prove her point, she offered fashion stereos of the period from style magazines.”

Gloria chuckled. “I might have researched back to the Old Testament,” she said.

Scholar Ross shook his head. “As I say, her shocking behavior could not be criticized. She could justify it according to the rules.”

Mr. Hanford shook his head and asked, “Gloria, what did Bertram think of all this?”

“Bertram carried the style stereos,” said Gloria. “There wasn’t any pocket in my costume.”

Abruptly, Scholar Ross said, “Miss Hanford, how are you and Bertram getting along?”

“As well as could be expected.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that each of us lives our own life. Berty likes his sedentary, torpid existence. In fact, he’d like to be more of a vegetable than he is. It started with his taking my pills and that was all right, I guess. But when he started sleeping in my bedroom so that he could estivate under the tranquilizing music program you prescribed for me, that was too much!”