Mrs. Carr spoke across to Norman in a half-whisper. "Oh, Professor
Saylor, _would_ you be so kind as to convey a message to Tansy? I want to invite her for bridge tomorrow night--that's Thursday--with
Hulda Gunnison and Evelyn Sawtelle. Linthicum has a _meeting_." "I'll be glad to," said Norman quickly. "But I'm afraid she might not
be up to it." And he explained about the food poisoning. "How too, too _terrible_!" observed Mrs. Carr. "Couldn't I come
over and help her?" "Thank you," Norman lied, "but we have someone staying with her." "How _wise_," said Mrs. Carr, and it sounded as if she really
meant it. Carr put down his pencil. "There," he said, "I'm done." With further expressions of thanks, Norman gathered up the sheets. "Really no trouble at all," Carr assured him. "You gave me a very
exciting afternoon." He added wistfully. "I must confess that you've
aroused my curiosity." "Linthicum dotes on anything mathematical, especially when it's like a
puzzle," Mrs. Carr told him. "Why, once," she continued, with a kind
of roguish indulgence, "he made all sorts of tabulations on _horse
races_." "Er ... yes ... but only as a concrete example of the calculus of
probabilities," Mr. Carr interposed quickly. But his smile was equally
indulgent. Her hand was on his shoulder, and he had reached up his own to cover
hers. Frail, yet somehow hearty, withered, yet somehow fresh, they
seemed like the perfect aged couple. "I promise you," Norman told Carr, "that if I revolutionize the science
of sociology, you'll be the first to hear of it." *       *       *       *       *

As soon as he was home, Norman got out the code. "_W_" was the
identifying letter at the top of the first sheet. He thought he
remembered what that meant, but he looked it up just to be sure. "_W_--To conjure out the soul." Yes, that was it. He turned to the supplementary sheet covered with
Carr's calculations, and carefully decoded the final equation. "_C_--Notched strip of copper." He nodded. "_T_--Twirl
sunwise." He frowned. He would have expected them to cancel out. Good
thing he'd gotten a mathematician's help in simplifying the seventeen
equations, each representing a different people's formula for conjuring
out the soul--Arabian, Zulu, Polynesian, American Negro, American
Indian, and so on; the most recent formulas available, and ones that
had known actual use. "_A_--Deadly amanita." Bother! He'd been certain that one would
cancel out. It would be a bit of time and trouble getting a deathcup
mushroom. And there was another even more difficult item. Well, he
could manage without that formula, if he had to. He took up two other
sheets--"_V_--To control the soul of another," "_Z_--To cause
the dwellers in a house to sleep"--and set to work on one of them. In
a few minutes he had assured himself that the ingredients presented no
special difficulties, save that _Z_ required a Hand of Glory to be
used as well as the graveyard dirt to be thrown onto the roof of the
house in which sleep was to be enforced. But he ought to have little
difficulty in filching a suitable severed hand from the anatomy lab. Now he was getting somewhere. With _Z_ he could place the charm in
the Gunnison house tomorrow night, and with _V_ activate it. Conscious of a sudden reaction of weariness, he pushed back his chair. For the first time since he had come into the house, he looked at her. She sat in the rocking chair, face turned toward the drawn curtains. When she had started rocking, he did not know. But the muscles of her
body automatically continued the rhythmical movement, once it had begun. With the suddenness of a blow, longing for Tansy struck him. Her
intonations, her gestures, her mannerisms, her funny fancies--all the
little things that go to make a person real, and human, and loved--he
wanted them all instantly; and the presence of this dead-alive
imitation, this poor husk of Tansy, only made the longing less
bearable. And what sort of a man was he, to be puttering around with
occult formulas, while all the while he--"There are things that can be
done to a soul," she had said. "Servant girls of the Gunnisons have
told stories--" He ought to go up there and take by force what was his! The reaction was immediate. How could you take by force what was
without form or material being? How could you use open force against
someone who had your dearest possession as a hostage? No, these repugnant occult formulas were his only hope, and he had
gotten his usual punishment for making the mistake of looking at her. Deliberately he moved to the other side of the table, so his back was
to the rocking chair. But he was restless, his muscles itching with fatigue poisons, and for
the moment, he could not get back to the work. All sorts of questions
were plaguing his mind. *       *       *       *       *

Suddenly Norman spoke. "Why do you suppose everything has become
violent and deadly so abruptly?" "What I believe they call the Balance was upset," was the answer. There
was no interruption in the steady rocking. "How was that?" He started to look over the back of his chair, but
checked himself in time. "It happened when I ceased to practice magic." The rocking was a
grating monotony. "But why should that lead to violence?" "It upset the Balance." "Yes, but how can that explain the abruptness of the shift from
relatively trivial attacks to a deadly maliciousness?" The rocking had stopped. There was no answer. But, as he told himself,
he knew the answer already. This women's warfare was very much like
trench warfare or a battle between fortified lines--a state of siege. Just as thick, reinforced concrete or armor plating nullified the
shells, so countercharms and protective procedures rendered relatively
futile the most violent onslaughts. But once the armor and concrete
were gone, and you were out in a kind of no man's land--

Then, too, fear of the savage counterattacks that could be launched
from such highly fortified positions, was a potent factor in
discouraging direct assaults. The natural thing would be to sit pat,
snipe away, and only attack if the enemy exposed himself recklessly. Besides, there were probably all sorts of unsuspected hostages and
secret agreements, all putting a damper on violence. This idea also seemed to explain why Tansy's apparently pacific action
had upset the Balance. What would any country think if in the midst
of a war, its enemy scuttled all his battleships and dismantled all
his aircraft, apparently laying himself wide open to attack? For the
realistic mind, there could only be one likely answer. Namely, that
the enemy had discovered a weapon far more potent than battleships or
aircraft, and was planning to ask for a peace that would turn out to be
a trap. The only thing would be to strike instantly and hard, before
the secret weapon could be brought into play. "I think--" he started to say.