All he repented of was that he had not succeeded better in hiding it from his wife. But he felt all the difficulty of his position and was sorry for his wife, his children, and himself. Possibly he might have managed to conceal his sins better from his wife if he had anticipated that the knowledge of them would have had such an effect on her. He had vaguely conceived that his wife must long ago have suspected him of being unfaithful to her, and shut her eyes to the fact. He had even supposed that she, a worn-out woman no longer young or good-looking, and in no way remarkable or interesting, merely a good mother, ought from a sense of fairness to take an indulgent view. It had turned out quite the other way.

He idly activated the Galena Box, praying the gentle fluttering of the Class I device’s thinly hammered groznium panels would have their usual salutary effect on his disposition.

“Oh, it’s awful!” said Stepan Arkadyich to Small Stiva, who echoed him, chirping “Awful awful awful” from his Vox-Em, but neither could think of anything to be done. “And how well things were going up till now!”

“How well you got on,” noted the Class III, falling into his familiar role as comforter and confidant.

“She was contented and happy in her children!”

“You never interfered with her in anything!”

“I let her manage the children and the Is and IIs just as she liked. It’s true it’s bad her having been a mécanicienne in our own house.”

“Yes, bad. Very very very very bad!”

“There’s something common, vulgar, in flirting with one’s mécanicienne, in getting the grease-oil on one’s cuffs, as it is said. Oh-but what a mécanicienne!” Responding unhesitatingly to his master’s implied request, Small Stiva cued his monitor with a flattering Memory of Mile Roland: her roguish black eyes; her smile; her figure slyly making itself known within her silver jumpsuit.