You could put any construction on those toneless words. The girl twisted, hands tightly clutching her overlapping arms. He wanted to go out and stop it, but curiosity held him rigid. The girl's resistance broke. "Please, mum. We're not supposed to tell." "You may tell me. What Procedures do you use?" The girl's perplexity at the new word looked real. "I don't know anything about that, mum. I don't do much. Just spells. Like now my boy friend's gone in the army, I do things to keep him from getting shot or hurt, and I've spelled him so that he'll keep away from other women. Honest, I don't do much, mum. And it don't always work. And lots of things I can't get that way." Her words had begun to run away with her. "Very well. Where did you learn to do this?" "Some I learned from ma when I was a kid. And some from Mrs. Neidel--she gets spells against bullets from her grandmother who had a family in some European war before the last one. But most women won't tell you anything. And some spells I kind of figure out myself, and try different ways until they work. You won't tell on me, mum?" "No. Look at me now. What has happened to me?" "Honest, mum, I don't know. Please, mum, don't make me say it." The girl's terror and reluctance were so obviously genuine that Norman felt a surge of anger at Tansy. Then he remembered that the thing beyond the door was incapable of either cruelty or kindness. "I want you to tell me." "I don't know how to say it, mum. But you're ... you're _dead_." Suddenly she threw herself at Tansy's feet. "Oh, please, please don't take mine! Please!" "I would not take your soul. You would get much the best of that bargain. You may go away now." "Oh, thank you, thank you." She hastily gathered up the scattered clothes. "I'll have them all ready for you at nine o'clock. Really I will." And she hurried out. * * * * * Only when he moved, did Norman realize that his muscles were stiff and aching from those few taut minutes of peering. The robed and toweled figure was sitting in exactly the same position as when he had last seen it, hands loosely folded, eyes still directed toward where the girl had been standing. "If you knew all this," he asked simply, "why were you willing to stop last week when I asked you?" "There are two sides to every woman." It might have been a mummy dispensing elder wisdom. "One is rational, like a man. The other knows. Men are artificially isolated creatures, like islands in a sea of magic, protected by their rationality and by the devices of their women. Their isolation gives them greater forcefulness in thought and action, but the women know. Women might be able to rule the world openly, but they do not want the work or the responsibility. And men might learn to excel them in the Art. Even now there may be male sorcerers, but very few.