Seven tried to cut in on the conversation, or rather to put a temporary end to it so he could question Window, but Window promptly answered Gregory. “No, you just saw it the way it is,” he said, almost apologetically. “Things were complicated enough. I mean, they are. But sometimes I think I’m a future man named Monarch. When I think I’m him, people sometimes see things as they really are. Sometimes,” he said slowly, “I suspect I have to go beyond Christ to something else.”

“But you should have said something,” Josephine said. “I’d have, uh, understood. Honestly, John.” She reached over and touched his hand.

Window looked momentarily disconcerted. He lifted his other hand in the air, as if unsure what to do with it, then he gently placed it quickly and lightly on top of Josephine’s. Her face got so red that George thought she’d suddenly developed a fever. She gave a funny muffled gasp, pulled her hand back, and just stared at Window, who said, “I was just trying to help.”

“Well, I don’t need your help,” she whispered fiercely. “Now what the hell is going on?” George asked.

“Touch fire and you get burned,” Gregory Diggs replied, grinning, but good-naturedly.

“Now do you see?” Window said. “I’ve hurt her feelings. That’s another thing. Sometimes when I touch people, they touch themselves or get in touch with themselves, and it makes them angry. And I never know when that’s going to happen.”

Josephine grabbed her white-beaded pocketbook, sprang to her feet, and walked as quickly as she could to the door. It was obvious that she was holding back tears. George Brainbridge, looking bewildered, followed her. “Now what?” he said, as she opened the door.

She leaned against the outside of the building, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. “He just did it again,” she gasped. “Only this time, well, he … picked up a secret of mine, and told me not to worry about it….”

“But he didn’t say anything,” George protested. “Just touched your hand.”

“Yeah? Well, that was enough,” she said, in an almost harsh voice, abandoning her lady-like manner. George grinned. “And there’s more. What are we going to do with him? I’m humiliated. I’ve learned more about him tonight than I have in our three official appointments. And I can see now how I put him down … and programmed him to say what I wanted. George—he isn’t crazy! That’s what frightens me. And I could tell when he touched me—he was … sorry for me for not knowing how to handle it all; for being scared when he healed me of that damn headache.”

“Uh. I’d forgotten that part,” George admitted. “What the hell, though, that was super.”