Bogert shrugged, “To see Herbie? Good! Damned good!”

It was also precisely at noon that Milton Ashe looked up from his clumsy sketch and said, “You get the idea? I’m not too good at getting this down, but that’s about how it looks. It’s a honey of a house, and I can get it for next to nothing.”

Susan Calvin gazed across at him with melting eyes. “It’s really beautiful,” she sighed. “I’ve often thought that I’d like to—” Her voice trailed away.

“Of course,” Ashe continued briskly, putting away his pencil, “I’ve got to wait for my vacation. It’s only two weeks off, but this Herbie business has everything up in the air.” His eyes dropped to his fingernails, “Besides, there’s another point—but it’s a secret.”

“Then don’t tell me.”

“Oh, I’d just as soon, I’m just busting to tell someone—and you’re just about the best—er—confidante I could find here.” He grinned sheepishly.

Susan Calvin’s heart bounded, but she did not trust herself to speak.

“Frankly,” Ashe scraped his chair closer and lowered his voice into a confidential whisper, “the house isn’t to be only for myself. I’m getting married!”

And then he jumped out of his seat, “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing!” The horrible spinning sensation had vanished, but it was hard to get words out. “Married? You mean—”

“Why, sure! About time, isn’t it? You remember that girl who was here last summer. That’s she! But you are sick. You—”

“Headache!” Susan Calvin motioned him away weakly. “I’ve… I’ve been subject to them lately. I want to… to congratulate you, of course. I’m very glad—” The inexpertly applied rouge made a pair of nasty red splotches upon her chalk-white face. Things had begun spinning again. “Pardon me—please—”

The words were a mumble, as she stumbled blindly out the door. It had happened with the sudden catastrophe of a dream—and with all the unreal horror of a dream.

But how could it be? Herbie had said—

And Herbie knew! He could see into minds!

She found herself leaning breathlessly against the door jamb, staring into Herbie’s metal face. She must have climbed the two flights of stairs, but she had no memory of it. The distance had been covered in an instant, as in a dream.

As in a dream!

And still Herbie’s unblinking eyes stared into hers and their dull red seemed to expand into dimly shining nightmarish globes.

He was speaking, and she felt the cold glass pressing against her lips. She swallowed and shuddered into a certain awareness of her surroundings.

Still Herbie spoke, and there was agitation in his voice—as if he were hurt and frightened and pleading.

The words were beginning to make sense. “This is a dream,” he was saying, “and you mustn’t believe in it. You’ll wake into the real world soon and laugh at yourself. He loves you, I tell you. He does, he does! But not here! Not now! This is an illusion.”

Susan Calvin nodded, her voice a whisper, “Yes! Yes!” She was clutching Herbie’s arm, clinging to it, repeating over and over, “It isn’t true, is it? It isn’t, is it?”