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Fifth Avenue was shining in the sun when they left the Brevoort andstarted walking toward Washington Square. The sun was warm, eventhough it was November, and everything looked like Sundaymorning--the buses, and the well-dressed people walking slowly incouples and the quiet buildings with the windows closed.
Michael held Frances' arm tightly as they walked downtown in thesunlight. They walked lightly, almost smiling, because they hadslept late and had a good breakfast and it was Sunday. Michaelunbuttoned his coat and let it flap around him in the mild wind.They walked, without saying anything, among the young andpleasant-looking people who somehow seem to make up most of thepopulation of that section of New York City.

"Look out," Frances said, as they crossed Eighth Street. "You'llbreak your neck."

Michael laughed and Frances laughed with him.

"She's not so pretty, anyway," Frances said. "Anyway, not prettyenough to take a chance breaking your neck looking at her."

Michael laughed again. He laughed louder this time, but not assolidly. "She wasn't a bad-looking girl. She had a nice complexion.Country-girl complexion. How did you know I was looking at her?" Frances cocked her head to one side and smiled at her husband underthe tip-tilted brim of her hat. "Mike, darling . . ." she said.

Michael laughed, just a little laugh this time. "Okay," he said."The evidence is in. Excuse me. It was the complexion. It's not thesort of complexion you see much in New York. Excuse me."

Frances patted his arm lightly and pulled him along a little fastertoward Washington Square.

"This is a nice morning," she said. "This is a wonderful morning.When I have breakfast with you it makes me feel good all day."

"Tonic," Michael said. "Morning pickup. Rolls and coffee with Mikeand you're on the alkali side, guaranteed."

"That's the story. Also, I slept all night, wound around you likea rope."

"Saturday night," he said. "I permit such liberties only when theweek's work is done."

"You're getting fat," she said.

"Isn't it the truth? The lean man from Ohio."

"I love it," she said, "an extra five pounds of husband."

"I love it, too," Michael said gravely.

"I have an idea," Frances said.

"My wife has an idea. That pretty girl."

"Let's not see anybody all day," Frances said. "Let's just hangaround with each other. You and me. We're always up to our neck inpeople, drinking their Scotch, or drinking our Scotch, we only seeeach other in bed . . ."

"The Great Meeting Place," Michael said. "Stay in bed long enoughand everybody you ever knew will show up there."

"Wise guy," Frances said. "I'm talking serious."

"Okay, I'm listening serious."

"I want to go out with my husband all day long. I want him to talkonly to me and listen only to me."

"What's to stop us?" Michael asked. "What party intends to preventme from seeing my wife alone on Sunday? What party?"

"The Stevensons. They want us to drop by around one o'clock andthey'll drive us into the country."

"The lousy Stevensons," Mike said. "Transparent. They can whistle.They can go driving in the country by themselves. My wife and Ihave to stay in New York and bore each other tˆte-…-tˆte."

"Is it a date?"

"It's a date."

Frances leaned over and kissed him on the tip of the ear.

"Darling," Michael said. "This is Fifth Avenue."

"Let me arrange a program," Frances said. "A planned Sunday in NewYork for a young couple with money to throw away."

"Go easy."

"First let's go see a football game. A professional football game,"Frances said, because she knew Michael loved to watch them. "TheGiants are playing. And it'll be nice to be outside all day todayand get hungry and later we'll go down to Cavanagh's and get asteak as big as a blacksmith's apron, with a bottle of wine, andafter that, there's a new French picture at the Filmarte thateverybody says... Say, are you listening to me?"

"Sure," he said. He took his eyes off the hatless girl with thedark hair, cut dancer-style, like a helmet, who was walking pasthim with the self-conscious strength and grace dancers have. Shewas walking without a coat and she looked very solid and strong andher belly was flat, like a boy's, under her skirt, and her hipsswung boldly because she was a dancer and also because she knewMichael was looking at her. She smiled a little to herself as shewent past and Michael noticed all these things before he lookedback at his wife. "Sure," he said, "we're going to watch the Giantsand we're going to eat steak and we're going to see a Frenchpicture. How do you like that?"

"That's it," Frances said flatly. "That's the program for the day.Or maybe you'd just rather walk up and down Fifth Avenue."

"No," Michael said carefully. "Not at all."

"You always look at other women," Frances said. "At every damnwoman in the city of New York."

"Oh, come now," Michael said, pretending to joke. "Only prettyones. And, after all, how many pretty women are there in New York?Seventeen?"

"More. At least you seem to think so. Wherever you go."

"Not the truth. Occasionally, maybe, I look at a woman as shepasses. In the street. I admit, perhaps in the street I look at awoman once in a while. . . ."

"Everywhere," Frances said. "Every damned place we go. Restaurants,subways, theaters, lectures, concerts."

"Now, darling," Michael said. "I look at everything. God gave meeyes and I look at women and men and subway excavations and movingpictures and the little flowers of the field. I casually inspectthe universe."

"You ought to see the look in your eye," Frances said, "as youcasually inspect the universe on Fifth Avenue."

"I'm a happily married man." Michael pressed her elbow tenderly,knowing what he was doing. "Example for the whole twentiethcentury, Mr. and Mrs. Mike Loomis."

"You mean it?"

"Frances, baby . . ."

"Are you really happily married?"

"Sure," Michael said, feeling the whole Sunday morning sinking likelead inside him. "Now what the hell is the sense in talking likethat?"

"I would like to know." Frances walked faster now, looking straightahead, her face showing nothing, which was the way she alwaysmanaged it when she was arguing or feeling bad.

"I'm wonderfully happily married," Michael said patiently. "I amthe envy of all men between the ages of fifteen and sixty in thestate of New York."

"Stop kidding," Frances said.

"I have a fine home," Michael said. "I got nice books and aphonograph and nice friends. I live in a town I like the way I likeand I do the work I like and I live with the woman I like. Wheneversomething good happens, don't I run to you? When something badhappens, don't I cry on your shoulder?"

"Yes," Frances said. "You look at every woman that passes."

"That's an exaggeration."

"Every woman." Frances took her hand off Michael's arm. "If she'snot pretty you turn away fairly quickly. If she's halfway prettyyou watch her for about seven steps. . . ."

"My Lord, Frances!"

"If she's pretty you practically break your neck . . ."

"Hey, let's have a drink," Michael said, stopping.

"We just had breakfast."

"Now, listen, darling," Mike said, choosing his words with care,"it's a nice day and we both feel good and there's no reason why wehave to break it up. Let's have a nice Sunday."

"I could have a fine Sunday if you didn't look as though you weredying to run after every skirt on Fifth Avenue."

"Let's have a drink," Michael said.

"I don't want a drink."

"What do you want, a fight?"

"No," Frances said, so unhappily that Michael felt terribly sorryfor her. "I don't want a fight. I don't know why I started this.All right, let's drop it. Let's have a good time."

They joined hands consciously and walked without talking among thebaby carriages and the old Italian men in their Sunday clothes andthe young women with Scotties in Washington Square Park.

"I hope it's a good game today," Frances said after a while, hertone a good imitation of the tone she had used at breakfast and atthe beginning of their walk. "I like professional football games.They hit each other as though they're made out of concrete. Whenthey tackle each other," she said, trying to make Michael laugh,"they make divots. It's very exciting."

"I want to tell you something," Michael said very seriously. "Ihave not touched another woman. Not once. In all the five years."

"All right," Frances said.

"You believe that, don't you?"

"All right."

They walked between the crowded benches, under the scrubby cityparktrees.

"I try not to notice it," Frances said, as though she were talkingto herself. "I try to make believe it doesn't mean anything. Somemen're like that, I tell myself, they have to see what they'remissing."

"Some women're like that, too," Michael said. "In my time I've seena couple of ladies."

"I haven't even looked at another man," Frances said, walkingstraight ahead, "since the second time I went out with you."

"There's no law," Michael said.

"I feel rotten inside, in my stomach, when we pass a woman and youlook at her and I see that look in your eye and that's the way youlooked at me the first time, in Alice Maxwell's house. Standingthere in the living room, next to the radio, with a green hat onand all those people."

"I remember the hat," Michael said.

"The same look," Frances said. "And it makes me feel bad. It makesme feel terrible."

"Sssh, please, darling, sssh. . . ."

"I think I would like a drink now," Frances said.

They walked over to a bar on Eighth Street, not saying anything,Michael automatically helping her over curbstones and guiding herpast automobiles. He walked, buttoning his coat, lookingthoughtfully at his neatly shined heavy brown shoes as they madethe steps toward the bar. They sat near a window in the bar and thesun streamed in, and there was a small cheerful fire in thefireplace. A little Japanese waiter came over and put down somepretzels and smiled happily at them.

"What do you order after breakfast?" Michael asked.

"Brandy, I suppose," Frances said.

"Courvoisier," Michael told the waiter. "Two Courvoisier."

The waiter came with the glasses and they sat drinking the brandyin the sunlight. Michael finished half his and drank a littlewater.

"I look at women," he said. "Correct. I don't say it's wrong orright, I look at them. If I pass them on the street and I don'tlook at them, I'm fooling you, I'm fooling myself."

"You look at them as though you want them," Frances said, playingwith her brandy glass. "Every one of them."

"In a way," Michael said, speaking softly and not to his wife, "ina way that's true. I don't do anything about it, but it's true."

"I know it. That's why I feel bad."

"Another brandy," Michael called. "Waiter, two more brandies."

"Why do you hurt me?" Frances asked. "What're you doing?"

Michael sighed and closed his eyes and rubbed them gently with hisfingertips. "I love the way women look. One of the things I likebest about New York is the battalions of women. When I first cameto New York from Ohio that was the first thing I noticed, themillion wonderful women, all over the city. I walked around with myheart in my throat."

"A kid," Frances said. "That's a kid's feeling."

"Guess again," Michael said. "Guess again. I'm older now, I'm a mangetting near middle age, putting on a little fat and I still loveto walk along Fifth Avenue at three o'clock on the east side of thestreet between Fiftieth and Fifty-seventh streets, they're all outthen, making believe they're shopping, in their furs and theircrazy hats, everything all concentrated from all over the worldinto eight blocks, the best furs, the best clothes, the handsomestwomen, out to spend money and feeling good about it, looking coldlyat you, making believe they're not looking at you as you go past."

The Japanese waiter put the two drinks down, smiling with greathappiness.

"Everything is all right?" he asked.

"Everything is wonderful," Michael said.

"If it's just a couple of fur coats," Frances said, "andforty-five-dollar hats . . ."

"It's not the fur coats. Or the hats. That's just the scenery forthat particular kind of woman. Understand," he said, "you don'thave to listen to this."

"I want to listen."

"I like the girls in the offices. Neat, with their eyeglasses,smart, chipper, knowing what everything is about, taking care ofthemselves all the time." He kept his eye on the people goingslowly past outside the window. "I like the girls on Forty-fourthStreet at lunchtime, the actresses, all dressed up on nothing aweek, talking to the good-looking boys, wearing themselves outbeing young and vivacious outside Sardi's, waiting for producers tolook at them. I like the salesgirls in Macy's, paying attention toyou first because you're a man, leaving lady customers waiting,flirting with you over socks and books and phonograph needles. Igot all this stuff accumulated in me because I've been thinkingabout it for ten years and now you've asked for it and here it is."

"Go ahead," Frances said.

"When I think of New York City, I think of all the girls, theJewish girls, the Italian girls, the Irish, Polack, Chinese,German, Negro, Spanish, Russian girls, all on parade in the city.I don't know whether it's something special with me or whetherevery man in the city walks around with the same feeling insidehim, but I feel as though I'm at a picnic in this city. I like tosit near the women in the theaters, the famous beauties who'vetaken six hours to get ready and look it. And the young girls atthe football games, with the red cheeks, and when the warm weathercomes, the girls in their summer dresses . . ." He finished hisdrink. "That's the story. You asked for it, remember. I can't helpbut look at them. I can't help but want them."

"You want them," Frances repeated without expression. "You saidthat."

"Right," Michael said, being cruel now and not caring, because shehad made him expose himself. "You brought this subject up fordiscussion, we will discuss it fully."

Frances finished her drink and swallowed two or three times extra."You say you love me?"

"I love you, but I also want them. Okay."

"I'm pretty, too," Frances said. "As pretty as any of them."

"You're beautiful," Michael said, meaning it.

"I'm good for you," Frances said, pleading. "I've made a good wife,a good housekeeper, a good friend. I'd do any damn thing for you."

"I know," Michael said. He put his hand out and grasped hers.

"You'd like to be free to . . ." Frances said.

"Sssh."

"Tell the truth." She took her hand away from under his.

Michael flicked the edge of his glass with his finger. "Okay," hesaid gently. "Sometimes I feel I would like to be free."

"Well," Frances said defiantly, drumming on the table, "anytime yousay . . ."

"Don't be foolish." Michael swung his chair around to her side ofthe table and patted her thigh.

She began to cry, silently, into her handkerchief, bent over justenough so that nobody else in the bar would notice. "Someday," shesaid, crying, "you're going to make a move . . ."

Michael didn't say anything. He sat watching the bartender slowlypeel a lemon.

"Aren't you?" Frances asked harshly. "Come on, tell me. Talk.Aren't you?"

"Maybe," Michael said. He moved his chair back again. "How the helldo I know?"

"You know," Frances persisted. "Don't you know?"

"Yes," Michael said after a while. "I know."

Frances stopped crying then. Two or three snuffles into thehandkerchief and she put it away and her face didn't tell anythingto anybody. "At least do me one favor," she said.

"Sure."

"Stop talking about how pretty this woman is, or that one. Niceeyes, nice breasts, a pretty figure, good voice," she mimicked hisvoice. "Keep it to yourself. I'm not interested."

"Excuse me." Michael waved to the waiter. "I'll keep it to myself."

Frances flicked the corner of her eyes. "Another brandy," she toldthe waiter.

"Two," Michael said.

"Yes, ma'am, yes, sir," said the waiter, backing away.

Frances regarded him coolly across the table. "Do you want me tocall the Stevensons?" she asked. "It'll be nice in the country."

"Sure," Michael said. "Call them up."

She got up from the table and walked across the room toward thetelephone. Michael watched her walk, thinking, What a pretty girl,what nice legs.