control over that sort of thing. Unless you think she went out and killed them?"

"Of course not." Mr. Fredericksohn said.

"And outside of that, then—no repeats. The girl's a wonder."

"Certainly," Mr. Fredericksohn said. "Let's see how long it keeps up, that's all."

Mr. Gerne said: "Pessimist. All right, we'll drop the subject for now. Anyway, I did want to talk to you about the progress reports we've been getting from Frazier's office. It seems to me—"

Gloria broke the connection. Frazier, a supervisor for another office, didn't interest her; she only wanted to hear what the conversation about herself would be like. Well, now she knew.

And, thankfully, no one suspected a thing. Why, the subject had been brought up, right in the open, and dropped without a word or a thought.

"Unless you think she went out and killed them."

Gloria didn't smile. The idea was not funny. Sometimes you had to do something like that—but the necessity didn't make it pleasant.

The trouble was that you couldn't always cure something by a simple projection into the mind. Sometimes you ran into a compulsion that was really deeply buried.

If the compulsion was a big one, and went back far into childhood, Gloria couldn't do anything directly about it. Sometimes it was possible to work around, and, of course, you did that when you could. The important thing was society, but you salvaged the individual wherever possible.

Where it wasn't possible—

Well, here's a man who has a compulsion to get drunk. And, when drunk, he's got to pick fights. Maybe he hasn't killed anybody in a fight yet—but some day he will. He's got the strength and, under the influence of sufficient alcohol, he's got no inhibitions about using it.

None.

You can let the man live, and by doing that kill an unknown number of other people. At the least, keeping your hands and your mind off the compulsive drinker-fighter will serve to injure others—how many others, and how badly, you can't tell.

There are times when you've got to take an individual life in your hands.

And yet, because you can't always be sure—

Gloria's "talents" could kill out of hand, she was sure. But she didn't use them that way. Instead, she simply projected a new compulsion into the mind of her subject.

The next time he got drunk and wanted to start a fight, he wanted to do something else, too.

For instance: walk along the edges of roofs.

The original compulsion had been added to, and turned into a compulsion toward suicide; that was what it amounted to.

Gloria didn't like doing it, and she was always glad when it wasn't necessary. But there was a dark side to everything—even, she thought, helping people.

She told herself grimly that it had to be done.

And then she returned to her work.

Mrs. Wladek pounded on the door of the gypsy's store a few minutes before four. Her face was white and her lips set in a thin line; she breathed with difficulty and with every move she made she could feel her old bones creak.

It was a shame what was being done to an old woman.

But did they care? Did any of them care?

Mrs. Wladek gave a little snort that was half laughter and half self-pity. She pounded on the door again and dropped her arm, feeling old and tired and nearly helpless.

But she had to fight on.

There was a limit to what an old woman could be expected to stand. They would learn, all of them, what—

The door opened.

Marya Proderenska said: "Yes? You are early."

"I am in a hurry. Terrible things have occurred."

The gypsy woman sighed and stepped aside. "Come in, then," she said, and Mrs. Wladek entered slowly, peering round the front room.

"Come in the back," the gypsy woman said. "I have been preparing to help you. But more is required."

It was Mrs. Wladek's turn to sigh. She reached into her purse and found a fifty-cent piece, which she handed over very slowly.

"More is required," the gypsy woman said, looking at the coin in her hand as if, Mrs. Wladek thought, it was less than a penny. Did not the woman realize that fifty cents was a great deal of money for a poor old woman?