you've finally lost your man, Miss Kent. The way you dished out the orders, it's a wonder he stayed around as long as he did. And a pity: you're an attractive woman. You should make some man a good wife."

They all thought that. The whole camp had been watching her, laughing at her. Bertha felt helpless and alone. She needed—wanted—someone else; it surprised her when she faced that fact.

Then it dawned on her: the camper was right; the blonde was right. She had lost Walt through her own ridiculous bull-headedness. In order to assert herself. To be an individualist, she had always thought. And what did that matter, if it imposed this crushing loneliness?

For a moment a kind of madness seized her. It was the diabolical machine that was tormenting her, not the truth it told. She snatched a piece of her broken food box and struck at the plastic case blindly. There was a splash of fire; the gadget broke.

She saw Walt look up from his stove. She saw him move toward her. But she stood paralyzed by a shattering trauma of pain. The voice still came from the speaker, and this time it was her own. Her mind was stripped naked; she saw herself whole, unsheltered by the protective veneer of rationalization.

And she knew the pattern of the dream-man she had loved since her childhood; she knew why the dream had been self-defeating.

For the idealization was her own father. That impossible paragon created by the worship of a child.

The shock was its own cure. She was too well-balanced to accept the tempting escape of total disorientation. Grimly she fought back the tide of madness, and in that moment she found maturity. She ran toward Walt, tears of gratitude in her eyes. She felt his arms around her, and she clung to him desperately.

"I was terrified; I needed you, Walt; I never want to be alone again."

"Needed me?" he repeated doubtfully.

"I love you." After a split-second's hesitation, she felt his lips warm on hers.

From the corner of her eye she saw a chute dart out of nowhere and scoop up the broken plastic box from the camp table. They both vanished again. That was a miracle, too, she supposed; but not nearly as important as hers.

Then the reason of a logical mind asserted its own form of realism: of course, none of it had 

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