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142 with pity. The Thing was responsible for it—the Thing! How she hated it! She clenched her fists until the knuckles stretched white. What had the Thing to do with Bunny Whipple and—yes—with Bunny Whipple's little blue-eyed, golden-haired wife—the bride who—

Diana cut off the thought in mid-air and tossed it aside as if it were a soiled glove.

She watched more carefully than ever, her breath coming in short staccato bursts, her body tense and strained, her mind rigid. She tried to close her mind; she did not want the Thing to peep in upon it.

For right then she knew—she did not feel nor guess—she knew that the Thing had the trick of expanding and decreasing at will.

It made her angry. She did not consider it fair.

For it gave to the Thing the advantage of suddenly shrinking to the size of a pin point and hiding in a knot of the Tabriz rug which covered the floor and, immediately afterwards, of bloating into monstrous size, like a balloon, and floating toward the stuccoed ceiling like an immense soap bubble—