She was out of breath. George saw with some not unkind satisfaction that there were sweat beads above her lips. “I don’t think you believe that,” he said.

Her eyes flew open. They turned defiant. “I beg your pardon,” she said.

Seven had purposely remained silent. Now he said, “I think George means that you’re perceptive and knowledgeable enough to wonder yourself about John Window’s behavior. Uh, we aren’t here in any kind of official context,” Seven added, in a conspiratorial tone, “We understand that you have to be careful in your capacity as psychologist here.”

George shook his head. Careful about what? He wondered. What was Seven getting at? Whatever it was, Josephine Blithe certainly responded. She suddenly relaxed, and the strain went out of her shoulders. “Yes, I do have to be careful,” she replied. “Thank you for recognizing that fact.”

“I always put my foot in my mouth,” said George with that self-deprecating grin. “Seven, here, is more diplomatic, I guess. So anyhow I’ll put this question to you. Do you think that Window is capable of perpetrating a fraud, or taking part in a con game of any kind?”

She was honestly shocked; scandalized. “I definitely do not,” she said, her voice severe again. “Now maybe you’d better tell me what you really have in mind.” She half turned, glancing out the window. Then decisively she swung around again. “Well?” she demanded.

“Okay, what we have is this,” George replied, staring at his hands. “I have a patient whose gums were in a state of advanced deterioration. Two days later, those same gums were perfectly healthy and the teeth were tight. The patient said that John Window healed him, here, in this institution. Now I just don’t know what to do with this.”

Seven said softly, “At first George thought fraud might be involved, that the one patient was actually a set of identical twins, one with good gums and one with bad. But now we understand that there was no fraud.”

Again George shook his head. It must be the heat, he thought, because he was having trouble distinguishing Seven’s words, but their tone was instantly comforting. Moreover, this reassuring effect carried over to Dr. Blithe, too, because the muscles of her face relaxed again.

“We aren’t accusing Window of anything,” Seven said, in that same voice. “If Window does have any extraordinary abilities, we thought you’d be aware of it, and George thought that this would put you in a very uneasy position.”

The words were getting through to George, and he stared at Seven with abashed admiration. Seven was a natural psychologist!

So George said, “That’s why we decided to bring this thing to you, rather than to anyone else.”