the same general pattern and fit that she
preferred. In fact, Catherine looked as I'd always seen her, and as I'd
pictured her during the long hopeless weeks of our separation.

"You've got something to add?" I asked her coldly.

"I've got to make you understand, Steve," she pleaded.

"Understand what?" I snapped. "I know already. You deliberately set out
to marry, or else-how tie some emotional cable onto me. God knows that
you succeeded. If it hadn't been for that accident, I'd have been nailed
down tight."

"That part is true," she whispered.

"Naturally, you've got justification."

"Well, I have."

"So has any burglar."

She shook her head at me. "Steve, you don't really understand. If only
you could read my mind and know the truth--"

She let this trail off in a helpless awkwardness. It was one of those
statements that are meaningless because it can be said by either friend
or foe and cannot be checked.

I just looked at her and suddenly remembered something:

This was the first time in my life that I was in a position to do some
verbal fencing with a telepath on even terms. I could say 'Yes' and
think 'No' with absolute impunity. In fact, I might even have had an
edge, since as a poor non-telepath I did have some training in
subterfuge, falsehood, and diplomatic maneuver that the telepath
couldn't have. Catherine and I, at long last, were in the position of
the so-called good old days when boys and girls couldn't really know the
truth about one another's real thoughts.

"So what's this truth?" I demanded.

"Steve, answer me truly. Have you ever been put on an odious job, only
to find that the job is really pleasant?"

"Yes."

"Then hear me out. I--in fact, no woman--takes kindly to being directed
to do what I did. I was told to meet you, to marry--" Her face looked
flustered and it might have been a bit flushed for all I knew. I
couldn't see color enough in the dim light to be sure. "--And then I met
you, Steve, and I found out that you were really a very nice sort of
guy."

"Well, thanks."

"Don't be bitter. Hear the truth. If Otto Mekstrom had not existed, if
there were no such thing as Mekstrom's Disease, and I had met you freely
and openly as men and women meet, I'd have come to feel the same, Steve.
I must make you understand that my emotional attachment to you was not
increased nor decreased by the fact that my physical actions were
directed at you. If anything, my job was just rendere