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with something myself.”
    “I’m holding my breath.”
    “You could name this thing after me.”
    “Well, of course; I love that idea.”
    “Then I could realize it would make me a pretty big frog in a puddle not too small—and that would be that.”
    “I would say that’s it; we’ve got it.”
    “Stop we-ing me.”
    “I wouldn’t mind, at that.”
    She stomped on the brake, brought the car to a sudden stop in the breakdown lane, and hauled off and gave me a slap that stung for ten minutes. Then she started again. “That may be it,” she said. “The question is not what it is, but whether he believes it.”
    We drove on, two people miles apart. At the river she stared straight ahead, paying it no attention. When we crossed the Delaware line she pulled over and stopped. “Now,” she began in a stilted, self-conscious voice; “we’re within twenty minutes of Wilmington, and I’ve stopped here to plead with you to give up this idea of yours, if you still have it, that I recommend to my husband that he accept your proposal that he endow some institute with you in charge. Dr. Palmer, I assure you that if you force me to do this, it can only lead to disaster. What do you say?”
    “Give me a minute to think.”
    “Take as long as you want.”
    So I thought, or I suppose I did, but as I remember, nothing much went through my head. At last I said: “The idea’s not mine; it’s yours.”
    “You’re wrong. The idea is yours.”
    “Have it your way. I won’t argue. But it’s you, don’t forget, who’s afraid. And it’s you who’s trying to cap that fear, stuff it back in the pipe by neutralizing me. Whatever I say to you now, whatever I promise to do, will leave you still afraid, except for this one thing you thought of first, that I be bought off with the institute. I want him to start. Well, so be it. Drive on.”
    “Rat is flattery.”
    “Self-deception is worse.”
    She was to take me to his office, so we drove to a building in downtown Wilmington, which had ARMALCO chiselled over the entrance. She had barely stopped when a doorman in a maroon uniform was opening the door for her. He bowed and smiled and called her by name. I got out, but by the time I’d walked around, he had handed her down and was saying “Yes’m” when she told him to lock up because her coats and bag were inside. I followed her into the lobby, into a big elevator, then into a reception room where the girl at the desk jumped up and said a bit breathlessly: “Mrs. Garrett, Mr. Garrett’s expecting you”—and with a glance at a card—“and Dr. Palmer.”
    Hortense answered her pleasantly. Then a secretary came out and spoke to her and ushered us into an office. It was an office such as I had never seen—large, with a handsome desk at one end and a fireplace at the other, cocktail table, an oriental rug, copper ashtrays, and gigantic, leather-upholstered sofas in between. But the main items in the room weren’t in it, strictly speaking; they were around it, on the walls. They were covered with shelves, of redwood, apparently with indirect lighting to illuminate scores of exhibits, scale models of the products ARMALCO made. There were motorbikes, trucks, tractors, trailers, mowers, radios, TVs—and boats. Boats and more boats. Most of the boats—the cruisers, sloops and skiffs—were no more than twelve inches long; but three of them, of regular ships, were six feet long and possibly more, exact to the smallest fitting. I went around peering at them, gasping in astonishment, while Hortense, stretched out on a sofa, listened.
    Presently she explained: “My husband has a passion for things, as he calls them. The Nutting stuff in the apartment is just the beginning. He says this is what’s made him rich. He imagines himself a psychic.”
    “Some of my best friends are.”
    “Do you know what psychic means?”
    “So? What?”
    “It means you know the truth without knowing how you know it. There’s still time,