GALA TROPILE STARED miserably at her husband. “I want to get out of here,” he was saying urgently. “They mean to kill me. Gala, you know you can’t make yourself suffer by letting them kill me!”
She wailed: “I can’t!”
Tropile looked over his shoulder. Citizen Boyne was fingering the textured contrasts of a golden watch-case which had been his father’s—and soon would be his son’s. Boyne’s eyes were closed and he wasn’t listening.
Tropile leaned forward and deliberately put his hand on his wife’s arm. She started and flushed, of course.
“You can,” he said, “and what’s more, you will. You can help me get out of here. I insist on it, Gala, because I must save you that pain.”
He took his hand off her arm, content.
He said harshly: “Darling, don’t you think I know how much we’ve always mean
