"The burgess. Mr. Starkman." He shook his head. She said gently, "I've
been with him all morning. If they don't get help for him soon--"
He noticed that her eyes were unaccountably filled with tears. "I
thought I saw an army nurse--"
"Yes. But they didn't have oxygen, and that's what he needs. It's on
its way, I guess, or anyway they say it is." She looked at the coffee.
"Wait a minute. I want some of that."
Mickey Groff looked after her and sighed. Now, why was she mothering
the old man? And what was that "orphans to rob" remark? It had been
fairly obvious that she and her husband were not cut from the same
bolt, but was it possible for her to see her husband that clearly, and
keep on living with him?
He was beginning to wonder whether he shouldn't get up and start
somehow helping out when she came back and sat beside him. She was
humming to herself, he noticed, and glanced at her curiously; evidently
she wasn't so upset after all.
"I knew," she said, dreamily swirling the coffee around in the mug to
stir it, "that two of us would go. It is the difference between six and
eight."
"The what?"
She laughed as if a child had done something clever. "I knew you
weren't a student of the Great Science," she said cheerfully. "There
are perfect numbers, and imperfect numbers; the imperfect numbers
are--imperfect, and the worst of them are the deficient ones. Eight
is an imperfect number, you see." She grinned at him. "You think I've
flipped," she commented.
"Well, I wouldn't say--"
"But you'd think it. No matter, Mickey--do you mind if I call you
Mickey? I'm quite sane--I have the advantage of you, you see, because I
have my diploma to prove it." She sipped her coffee. "That's what makes
Artie so mad," she said pleasantly. "He got me committed to the Haven,
and they kept me there for nearly a year; and now when he threatens to
tell people I'm crazy I don't have to worry, because six perfectly fine
psychiatrists agree that I'm not."