"I want to marry him anyway. Even if he goes, I want to marry him."
I stood up and walked across the room, my mind racing. "Are you here
for advice, or did you just come to tell me this?"
"Oh, Ben, I don't know! I can't think, I don't know what to do. Do you
think it could work, Ben? Somehow, could we _make_ it work?"
I looked at her for a moment. "I don't know. I haven't got the sort of
mind Bart has, or the sort of makeup. I actually don't know what makes
him go, Marny. But I know that there's a fundamental difference between
us. Me, I'm not anxious to go anyplace. Give me a quiet, middle-class
practice, and a home, and a wife, and a family, and I'll never want any
more. Give the same to Bart and he'd die. Ever since I've known him his
eyes have been on the stars. Can you understand that, Marny? That's
his life, everything that he wants. He's been aiming at the stars since
he was a kid, studying, working, getting into Rocket engineering,
meeting people, talking--all with one idea. To get into space, to go
places nobody has ever been. That's the kind of man Bart is. He's a
wanderer, a rover. Tie him down and he'd die." I looked at her closely.
"You'll kill him, Marny. No matter how much you try to give in, it'll
be a losing game. It'll always be a fight between you, and going out on
another trip. And you'll always lose. If you don't, you'll kill him.
That's all there is to it."