After a little silence Mr. Fredericksohn said: "No chance at all. I've had follow-ups on a random selection of her cases--standard practice for a newcomer. Of course, she doesn't know about any of that." "Of course. And?" "No fakes," Mr. Fredericksohn said. "And don't tell me it's hard to believe. I know perfectly well it's hard to believe." "No returns," Mr. Gerne said. "Not a single return in over a month." "Except the old woman," Mr. Fredericksohn said. "Mrs. Wladek." Gloria turned a page in the report she was holding, without taking her attention from the conversation in the private room. It was always helpful to know the kind of thing people said about you, as well as what they thought. It gave you more facts to work with, and made you more efficient and better able to work at your chosen profession. Mr. Gerne was saying: "You can discount Mrs. Wladek. That one's a trouble-spot." "Always has been," Mr. Fredericksohn said. "All right, then discount her," Mr. Gerne said. "Forget about her. And--outside of that one case--there hasn't been a repeat." "Some of the clients have died," Mr. Fredericksohn said. Mr. Gerne waited a second. Then he said: "A little higher percentage than normal. So?" "I mean, that's a reason for some of the non-repeats." "And the others?" Mr. Gerne paused a minute and then went on. "You can't discount the girl's record like that." "I wasn't trying to," Mr. Fredericksohn said mildly. "I was only pointing out--" "Let those go," Mr. Gerne said. "Obviously she had no 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--