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“It doesn’t bother me driving.”

“It doesn’t bother me to hold it either. Doesn’t it make you feel good?”

“Better than anything.”

“Not than anything. But awfully good.”

Ahead now were the lights of a village where the trees were cleared away and Roger turned onto a road that ran to the left and drove past a drugstore, a general store, a restaurant and along a deserted paved street that ran to the sea. He turned right and drove on another paved street past vacant lots and scattered houses until they saw the lights of a filling station and a neon sign advertising cabins. The main highway ran past there joining the sea road and the cabins were toward the sea. They stopped the car at the filling station and Roger asked the middle-aged man who came out looking blue-skinned in the light of the sign to check the oil and water and fill the tank.

“How are the cabins?” Roger asked.

“O.K., Cap,” the man said. “Nice cabins. Clean cabins.”

“Got clean sheets?” Roger asked.

“Just as clean as you want them. You folks fixing to stay all night?”

“If we stay.”

“All night’s three dollars.”

“How’s for the lady to have a look at one?”

“Fine and dandy. She won’t ever see no finer mattresses. Sheets plumb clean. Shower. Perfect cross ventilation. Modern plumbing.”

“I’ll go in,” the girl said.

“Here take a key. You folks from Miami?”

“That’s right.”

“Prefer the West Coast myself,” the man said. “Your oil’s O.K. and so’s your water.”

The girl came back to the car.

“The one I saw is a splendid cabin. It’s cool too.”

“Breeze right off the Gulf of Mexico,” the man said. “Going to blow all night. All tomorrow. Probably part of Thursday. Did you try that mattress?”

“Everything looked marvelous.”

“My old woman keeps them so goddam clean it’s a crime. She wears herself to death on them. I sent her up to the show tonight. Laundry’s the biggest item. But she does it. There it is. I just got nine into her.” He went to hang up the hose.

“He’s a little confusing,” Helena whispered. “But it’s quite nice and clean.”

“Well you going to take her?” the man asked.

“Sure,” Roger said. “We’ll take her.”

“Write in the book then.”

Roger wrote Mr. and Mrs. Robert Hutchins 9072 Surfside Drive Miami Beach and handed the book back.

“Any kin to the educator?” the man asked, making a note of the license number in the book.

“No. I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” the man said. “I never thought much of him. Just read about him in the papers. Like me to help you with anything?”

“No. I’ll just run her in and we’ll put our things in.”

“That’s three and nine gallons makes five-fifty with the state tax.”

“Where can we get something to eat?” Roger asked.

“Two different places in town. Just about the same.”

“You prefer either one?”

“People speak pretty highly of the Green Lantern.”

“I think I’ve heard of it,” the girl said. “Somewhere.”

“You might. Widow woman runs it.”

“I believe that’s the place,” the girl said.

“Sure you don’t want me to help you?”

“No. We’re fine,” Roger said.

“Just one thing I’d like to say,” the man said. “Mrs. Hutchins certainly is a fine looking woman.”

“Thank you,” Helena said. “I think that’s lovely of you. But I’m afraid it’s just that beautiful light.”

“No,” he said. “I mean it true. From the heart.”

“I think we’d better go in,” Helena said to Roger. “I don’t want you to lose me so early in the trip.”

Inside the cabin there was a double bed, a table covered with oilcloth, two chairs and a light bulb that hung down from the ceiling. There was a shower, a toilet and a washbowl with a mirror. Clean towels hung on a rack by the washbowl and there was a pole at one end of the room with some hangers.

Roger brought in the bags and Helena put the ice jug, the two cups, and the cardboard canon with the Scotch in it on the table with the paper bag full of White Rock bottles.

“Don’t look gloomy,” she said. “The bed is clean. The sheets anyway.”

Roger put his arm around her and kissed her.

“Put the light out please.”

Roger reached up to the