“She shrugged another plump shoulder. “I never listened to Porter when he got going.”Ah. At last. The secret to a successful marriage.”

“He shrugged his shoulders to shift the pain of failure---the pain that is so much greater than the pleasure of success.”

“If we had fooled her last night, I would have considered my life at a satisfactory end, with all debts paid. I would have wound up on skid row, or maybe I would have been a suicide." He shrugged and smiled sadly. "Now," he said, "if I'm ever going to square things with her, I've got to believe in a Heaven, I've got to believe she can look down and see me, and I've got to be a big success for her to see”

“She pouted prettily, and he wondered if that was one of the things they taught wealthy young girls at schools like Miss Porter's. If not, it had been passed down from one generation to another as carefully as the secret of fire.”

“How are you?”Rosa shrugged her shoulders. “My sister turned into a giant snake last night. And your cousin Tano—”“Second cousin.”“He was there too. He was a tiger. I recognized him from his eyes. Then I fainted.” She looked at him. “How does that sound?”

“Her back to me, she said, “I know what Paul thinks. Everyone thinks I didn’t love Porter, that I just married him for the money, but Porter and I --” She shrugged.As avowals of lasting love go, I’ve sat through more professional presentations.But I said, “No outsider can understand a relationship between two people.” Hell, sometimes even the people in the relationship couldn’t understand it.”