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saying over when I woke in the middle of the night, things I’d unconsciously avoid doing because they were unlucky, like sweeping the steps after dark or crossing knives and forks. And then when you got pneumonia, well, when the person you love is near death, you’ll try anything.”
    For a moment Norman’s voice was sympathetic. “Of course.” Then the Classroom tone came back. “But I gather that it wasn’t until I had that brush with Pollard over sex education and came off decently, and especially until my book came out in 1931 and got such, well, pretty favorable reviews, that you really began to believe that your magic was working?”
    “That’s right.”
    Norman sat back. “Oh Lord,” he said.
    “What’s the matter, dear? You don’t feel I’m trying to take any credit away from you for the book’s success?”
    Norman half laughed, half snorted. “Good Lord, no. But —” He stopped himself. “Well, that takes us to 1930. Go on from there.”
    8:58: Norman reached over and switched on the light, winced at its glare. Tansy ducked her head.
    He stood up, massaging the back of his neck.
    “The thing that gets me,” he said, “is the way it invaded every nook and corner of your life, bit by bit, so that finally you couldn’t take a step, or rather let me take one, without there having to be some protective charm. It’s almost like —” He was going to say, “some kinds of paranoia.”
    Tansy’s voice was hoarse and whispery. “I even wear hooks-and-eyes instead of zippers because the hooks are supposed to catch evil spirits. And the mirror-decorations on my hats and bags and dresses — you’ve guessed it, they’re Tibetan magic to reflect away misfortune.”
    He stood in front of her, “Look Tansy, whatever made you do it?”
    “I’ve just told you.”
    “I know, but what made you stick to it year after year, when as you’ve admitted, you always suspected you were just fooling yourself? I could understand it with another woman, but with you… .”
    Tansy hesitated. “I know you’ll think I’m being romantic and trite, but I’ve always felt that women were more primitive than men, closer to ancient feelings.” She hurried over that. “And then there were things I remembered from childhood. Queer mistaken ideas I got from my father’s sermons. Stories one of the old ladies there used to tell us. Hints.” (Norman thought: Country parsonage! Healthy mental atmosphere, not!) “And then — oh, there were a thousand other things. But I’ll try to tell them to you.”
    “Swell,” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. “But we’d better eat something along with it.”
    9:17: They were sitting facing each other in the jolly red-and-white kitchen. On the table were untasted sandwiches and halfsipped cups of black coffee. It was obvious that the situation between them had changed. Now it was Norman who looked away and Tansy who studied expressions anxiously.
    “Well, Norman,” she managed to say finally, “Do you think I’m crazy, or going crazy?”
    It was just the question he had needed. “No, I don’t,” he said levelly. “Though Lord only knows what an outsider would think if he found out what you’d been doing. But just as surely as you aren’t crazy, you are neurotic — like all of us — and your neurosis has taken a darned unusual form.”
    Suddenly aware of hunger, he picked up a sandwich and began to munch it as he talked, nibbling the edge all around and then beginning to work in.
    “Look, all of us have private rituals — our own little peculiar ways of eating and drinking and sleeping and going to the bathroom. Rituals we’re hardly conscious of, but that would look mighty strange if analyzed. You know, to step or not to step on cracks in the sidewalk. Things like that. Now I’d say that your private rituals, because of the special circumstances of your life, have gotten all tangled up with conjure magic, so you can hardly tell which is which.” He