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Show 261 Malibu, she had said, "You cahn't be comfortable." He had been in a facetious mood, unluckily, and had replied, "Yes I cawn," and that had been the end of that for the afternoon. He suspected Alice had l i t t l e mannerisms of her own. Richard had the look of someone used to giving in. "About all I can think of to compare i t to is a clinical depression," Sorenson said, s t i l l treading softly. "Only worse, of course, because it was violent. Does that make any sense? I don't mean that's what i t was." "I guess so," she said. She continued to look down at the page in her lap, as i f hoping something better would turn up. "I don't mean i t was a depression," Sorenson said. "Just that the symptoms were sort of like that. We think i t was something outside of him, not just a state of mind. I guess I didn't make that clear." "We think i t was the devil," Lorin said. "That's what I thought he meant," she said as Richard snorted. "Shut up, Richard. Only he doesn't say so. And then he gets into this glorious personage bit and a l l the beholds and spake unto me's and everything. And when the angel comes in later i t ' s the same thing. He even starts quoting the Bible to him. I sort of skipped those parts, actually." "Well, maybe we should look at some of those parts more closely," said Sorenson, reaching into his attache case that lay open on the floor. "I mean I like the idea and everything," she said. "I really liked this angel standing in the air in his bedroom like that. But i f that had happened to me I wouldn't talk about i t the way he does." She ran her finger down the margin and read stray sentences. "His robe was exceedingly white. His whole person was glorious beyond description. The room was exceedingly l i g h t . I mean, what is that?" "You probably wouldn't use the same language," Sorenson suggested. |