"Well, perhaps not in so many words. But she told me herself that you were _going_ to be, and I know you are now." "Your esper sense of endovix, no doubt." Hilton laughed and Sandra went on, furiously: "She wouldn't keep on acting the way she does if there weren't something to it!" "What brilliant reasoning! Try again, Sandy." "That's sheer sophistry, and you know it!" "It isn't and I don't. And even if, some day, I should find myself in love with her--or with one or both of the twins or Stella or Beverly or you or Sylvia, for that matter--what would it prove? Just that I was wrong; and I admit freely that I _was_ wrong in scoffing at the propinquity. Wonderful stuff, that. You can see it working, all over the ship. On me, even, in spite of my bragging. Without it I'd never have known that you're a better, smarter operator than Eggy Eggleston ever was or ever can be." * * * * * Partially mollified despite herself, and highly resentful of the fact, Sandra tried again. "But don't you _see_, Jarve, that she's just simply playing you for a sucker? Pulling the strings and watching you dance?" Since he was sure, in his own mind, that she was speaking the exact truth, it took everything he had to keep from showing any sign of how much that truth had hurt. However, he made the grade. "If that thought does anything for you, Sandy," he said, steadily, "keep right on thinking it. Thank God, the field of thought is still free and open." "Oh, you...." Sandra gave up. She had shot her heaviest bolts--the last one, particularly, was so vicious that she had actually been afraid of what its consequences might be--and they had not even dented Hilton's armor. She hadn't even found out that he had any feeling whatever for Temple Bells except as a component of his smoothly-functioning scientific machine. Nor did she learn any more as time went on. Temple continued to play flawlessly the part of being--if not exactly hopefully, at least not entirely hopelessly--in love with Jarvis Hilton. Her conduct, which at first caused some surprise, many conversations--one of which has been reported verbatim--and no little speculation, became comparatively unimportant as soon as it became evident that nothing would come of it. She apparently expected nothing. He was evidently not going to play footsie with, or show any favoritism whatever toward, any woman aboard the ship. Thus, it was not surprising to anyone that, at an evening show, Temple sat beside Hilton, as close to him as she could get and as far away as possible from everyone else. "You can talk, can't you, Jarvis, without moving your lips and without anyone else hearing you?" "Of course," he replied, hiding his surprise. This was something completely new and completely unexpected, even from unpredictable Temple Bells.