ALBACORA 77 



you rush off into primitive country? What good does it 

 do you and Lou?" 



My answer then was absolutely frank. "Just like you," 

 I said, "I'm really the product of some awfully soft 

 years. I find I actually welcome the chance for priva- 

 tion." 



The lady I was answering was attractive and used to 

 a comfortable and ordered life. "I don't admit to Lou 

 that I get a kick out of the hardship," I said, pointedly, 

 "but now that I've learned to take it, it's given me a 

 new lease on life." 



"Oh, Genie!" my friend said. "You can't be serious!" 



"Serious!" I exclaimed. "Why, of course I'm serious. 

 Just look what fishing has done for my trapezius mus- 

 cle!" I leaned forward so that the muscle, which runs 

 from a point high up on the spine to the tip of the 

 shoulder blade, bulged out of my evening gown. 



Shock crossed the woman's face. "Yes, certainly," 

 she said, hurriedly. "Your trapezius. I understand." 

 Then she was off with, I suppose, a new nugget of rea- 

 sonably humorous gossip. 



I would not be honest if I claimed that a social life 

 is something of no consequence to me. Nor do I like 

 to be the object of gossip. But on that balcony in 

 Iquique, as I thought over my career and Lou's, every- 

 thing seemed to hinge on an abrupt interruption in our 

 social lives in New Jersey almost thirty years ago. 



I had been a girl of varied interests, which ranged 



