The robot cowered at the outburst. He shook his head pleadingly. “Won’t you listen to me, please? I could help you if you would let me.”

“How?” Her lips curled. “By giving me good advice?”

“No, not that. It’s just that I know what other people think—Milton Ashe, for instance.”

There was a long silence, and Susan Calvin’s eyes dropped. “I don’t want to know what he thinks,” she gasped. “Keep quiet.”

“I think you would want to know what he thinks.”

Her head remained bent, but her breath came more quickly. “You are talking nonsense,” she whispered.

“Why should I? I am trying to help. Milton Ashe’s thoughts of you—” he paused.

And then the psychologist raised her head, “Well?”

The robot said quietly, “He loves you.”

For a full minute, Dr. Calvin did not speak. She merely stared. Then, “You are mistaken! You must be. Why should he?”

“But he does. A thing like that cannot be hidden, not from me.”

“But I am so… so—” she stammered to a halt.

“He looks deeper than the skin, and admires intellect in others. Milton Ashe is not the type to marry a head of hair and a pair of eyes.”

Susan Calvin found herself blinking rapidly and waited before speaking. Even then her voice trembled, “Yet he certainly never in any way indicated—”

“Have you ever given him a chance?”

“How could I? I never thought that—”

“Exactly!”

The psychologist paused in thought and then looked up suddenly. “A girl visited him here at the plant half a year ago. She was pretty, I suppose—blond and slim. And, of course, could scarcely add two and two. He spent all day puffing out his chest, trying to explain how a robot was put together.” The hardness had returned, “Not that she understood! Who was she?”

Herbie answered without hesitation, “I know the person you are referring to. She is his first cousin, and there is no romantic interest there, I assure you.”

Susan Calvin rose to her feet with a vivacity almost girlish. “Now isn’t that strange? That’s exactly what I used to pretend to myself sometimes, though I never really thought so. Then it all must be true.”

She ran to Herbie and seized his cold, heavy hand in both hers. “Thank you, Herbie.” Her voice was an urgent, husky whisper. “Don’t tell anyone about this. Let it be our secret—and thank you again.” With that, and a convulsive squeeze of Herbie’s unresponsive metal fingers, she left.

Herbie turned slowly to his neglected novel, but there was no one to read his thoughts.

Milton Ashe stretched slowly and magnificently, to the tune of cracking joints and a chorus of grunts, and then glared at Peter Bogert, Ph.D.

“Say,” he said, “I’ve been at this for a week now with just about no sleep. How long do I have to keep it up? I thought you said the positronic bombardment in Vac Chamber D was the solution.”

Bogert yawned delicately and regarded his white hands with interest. “It is. I’m on the track.”