Beth brushed at her hair. "I thought if you were sitting out here and I showed up in the bedroom, you'd think I came in the back way. Or that I was already in there and just hadn't heard you." She bit her thumb. "Just another trick I wanted to try." "What are you talking about?" He bent and scooped up the bead necklace. "Go away. That's all." "Well, why?" He twisted the string of beads around his knuckles. "Somebody else?" "Yes. Alex." She smiled. "Alex? That fruiter who runs the Actors' Lab." The string broke and beads splattered away from him. Three landed in the fire. "Or maybe my Uncle Russ. Did you know we lived with him for three years when I was a kid and I was always having odd fevers and things? He had some kind of quack x-ray business." Pendleton took Beth's shoulders. "You're sick, is that it?" "No. Go away, Ben." "Well, what is it?" Beth sighed, annoyed. "You know about Method. You have to feel the parts, live them." "Sure." Beth shrugged her shoulders until Pendleton let go. "One weekend afternoon--oh, about two or three weeks after the agency sent you off--I was here trying to be an old lady. For an exercise at the Lab. And I was." Pendleton blinked at her still pale fact. "That's swell, Beth. A guy likes to know what his fiancee is up to while he's away." "I _was_ an old lady." She stood with her body thrust almost against him. "See? I changed." He backed a little. "How about a drink?" "Don't you get it, Ben? How the hell do you think I just came in?" "The back way." Pendleton decided to try a drink on her and then find out who her doctor was these days. "I was the cat. Now you know about it and can go away, Ben." She let herself fall to the floor and she huddled there, crying. "How long have you had this idea?" He knelt beside her, running one hand over her back. "You know who put that silly damn boat in your pocket?" she asked. "Sure. You were that little old man." Beth rolled and sat up, her legs tangled in the robe. She took a deep breath. "Listen, Ben. I got a kick out of changing into different kinds of people. It was a help in my work at the Actors' Lab. Then I got the idea it would be fun to try other things. Animals, chairs, tables. One rainy night I was a footstool until it was time to go to bed." "I was a tea kettle as a boy. Stop kidding." "I don't know, Ben. It gets sort of vacant all around when you're away somewhere. I had this feeling that I wanted to see if I could just step into a store or someplace and try to swipe something. Anything." * * * * * Pendleton found himself starting to shake. He put his arms around Beth. "That was you, then, taking junk from an old Chinese."