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afternoon sun. A liveried attendant leaped smartly from beside the driver and opened the door.
    Teresa Clark stepped out. She wore an afternoon dress of some dark, rich material. The ensemble did not make her appear less slim, but the dark coloring of the dress made her face seem a little fuller and, by contrast, not so heavily tanned. Teresa Clark! The name was meaningless in the face of this magnificence.
    “Who,” Gosseyn asked a man who had stopped beside him, “is that?”
    The stranger glanced at him in surprise and then he spoke the name Gosseyn had already guessed. “Why, that’s Patricia Hardie, daughter of President Hardie. Quite a neurotic, I understand. Look at that car, for instance. Like an oversize jewel, a sure sign of-“
    Gosseyn was turning away, turning his face from the car and its recent occupant. No sense in being recognized until he had thought this through. It seemed ridiculous that she would actually come again that very night to a dark lot to be alone with a strange man.
    But she was there.
    Gosseyn stood in the shadows staring thoughtfully at the shadow figure of the girl. He had come to the rendezvous very skillfully. Her back was to him and she seemed to be unaware of his presence. It was possible, in spite of his careful reconnoitering of the entire block, that he was already in a trap. But it was a risk he felt no hesitation in taking. Here, in this girl, was the only clue he had to the mystery of himself. He watched her curiously as well as he could in the developing darkness.
    She was sitting, in the beginning, with her left foot tucked under her right leg. In the course of ten minutes, she changed her position five times. Twice during the shifts, she half stood up. In between, she spent some time apparently tracing figures on the grass with her finger. She pulled out her cigarette case and put it away again without taking a cigarette. She jerked her head half a dozen times, as if in defiance of some thought. She shrugged her shoulders twice, folded her arms and shivered as if with a chill, sighed audibly three times, clicked her tongue impatiently, and for about one whole minute she sat intensely still.
    She hadn’t been so nervous the night before. She hadn’t, except for the little period when she was acting fearful of the men who were supposed to have been chasing her, seemed nervous at all. It was the waiting, Gosseyn decided. She was geared to meeting people, and to handling them. Alone, she had no resources of patience.
    What was it the man had said that afternoon? Neurotic. There was no doubt of it. As a child she must have been denied that early null-A training so necessary to the development of certain intelligences. Just how such training could have been neglected in the home of a superbly integrated man such as President Hardie was a puzzle. Whatever the reason, she was one human being whose thalamus was always in full control of her actions. He could imagine her having a nervous breakdown.
    He continued to watch her there in that almost darkness. After ten minutes, she stood up and stretched, then she sat down again. She took off her shoes, and, rolling over toward Gosseyn, lay down on the grass. She saw Gosseyn.
    “It’s all right,” Gosseyn assured her softly. “It’s only me. I guess you heard me coming.”
    He guessed nothing of the kind, but she had jerked to a sitting position, and it seemed the best way to soothe her.
    “You gave me a start,” she said. But her voice was calm and unstartled, properly subdued. She had suave thalamic reactions, this girl.
    He sank down on the grass near her and let the feel of the night creep upon him. The second policeless night! It seemed hard to believe. He could hear the noises of the city, faint, unexciting, quite unsuggestive. Where were the gangs and the thieves? They seemed unreal, examined from the safety of this dark hiding place. Perhaps the years and the great educational system had winnowed their numbers, leaving