"No," I insisted. "Six times the heart was on top. You turned them over yourself."
"That's just it," he whispered, leaning toward me. "I put that spade on top every time! I did! But when I turned it over, more than half the time it was a heart. What did you do?"
"You mean I'm a hallucinator?" I asked. "Look, this is getting ridiculous! I was kidding myself, too?"
"Nonsense. It was real." His face jerked in surprise. "You couldn't!" he gasped, as the idea hit him. "But you did!" he reminded himself. "Wait till Maragon hears this!"
And then he told me. It couldn't be, I knew. But it was. He proved it to me—or I proved it to us.
At some stage you have to get excited about it, if it's no more than a grisly fascination. At that, it was dawn before we could stop our intoxicated talk. Maragon had been yanked out of bed again, and when he heard the news, woke up a darned sight faster than the night before. Pheola of the race-horse legs joined us, and several other psis as well. Before it was over the Grand Master had put on a ridiculous piece of regalia and mumbled me into probationary membership in the Lodge. There was nothing creepy about the ritual—only about the way I felt.
I guess, if we hadn't gotten hungry, we'd be there yet. Wally had one last little wrinkle for me as I started down the corridor for the elevator.
"Pheola," he called.
"Yes, darlin' Billy," she said, coming to his side.
"How's Tex going to make out with that overeducated iceberg he's hot after?" he asked her. I flinched at the thought of Shari—I was getting used to considering her a memory.