door hard enough to close it. He didn't think the cat should stay in there and anyway Beth would want to get in when she got home. He'd pick the lock. Crouching, he reached for the knob. Something clicked and the door swung in. He recognized Beth's terry robe and he looked up and saw her face, very pale. 
"Okay," she said. "I guess I was too cute with the key bits. Go away, Ben, and leave me alone. Please?" 
"What's the matter?" He was still squatting and her stepping forward sent him over. 
"Just go away, Ben. Please, now." She brushed by him and sat in a bucket chair, putting both bare feet down hard on the floor. 
Ben got himself up. "You drunk?" 

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 

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