were evanescent. Maybe many of his successful patients had relapsed and shielded that

information from him out of sheer charity.

He noted his failures, too—folks, he had always told himself, who were not ready

for his advanced brand of deliverance. Wait, he told himself, give yourself a break,

Julius. How do you know they werereally failures?permanent failures? You never saw

them again. We all know there are plenty of late bloomers out there.

His eye fell upon Philip Slate`s thick chart. You want failure? he said to

himself.There was failure. Old–time major–league failure. Philip Slate. More than twenty

years had passed, but his image of Philip Slate was crisp. His light brown hair combed

straight back, his thin graceful nose, those high cheekbones that suggested nobility, and

those crisp green eyes that reminded him of Caribbean waters. He remembered how

much he disliked everything about his sessions with Philip. Except for one thing: the

pleasure of looking at that face.

Philip Slate was so alienated from himself that he never thought to look within,

preferring to skate on the surface of life and devote all his vital energy to fornication.

Thanks to his pretty face, he had no end of volunteers. Julius shook his head as he rifled

through Philip`s chart—three years of sessions, all that relating and support and caring,

all those interpretations without a whisper of progress. Amazing! Perhaps he wasn`t the

therapist he thought he was.

Whoa, don`t jump to conclusions, he told himself. Why would Philip continue for

three years if he had gotten nothing? Why would he continue to spend all that money for

nothing? And God knows Philip hated to spend money. Maybe those sessions had

changed Philip. Maybe hewas a late bloomer—one of those patients who needed time to

digest the nourishment given by the therapist, one of those who stored up some of the