Her eyes hadn't budged from mine, hadn't flickered. They might have been bright, moist marbles glued above her cheeks.
She said one word only: "Well?"
"Nothing," I answered. "Except that Martians are supposed to be tone-deaf, aren't they? It's something lacking in their sense of hearing. So when I heard this little boy, and saw he was a Martian, and when he told me his mother had taught him—" I shrugged and laughed a little. "Like I said before, I guess I got just plain nosy."
She nodded. "We agree on that last part."
Perhaps it was her eyes. Or perhaps it was the tone of her voice. Or perhaps, and more simply, it was her attitude in general. But whatever it was, I suddenly felt that, nosy or not, I was being treated shabbily.
"I would like to speak to the Martian lady," I said.
"There isn't any Martian lady."
"There has to be, doesn't there?" I said it with little sharp prickers on the words.
But she did, too: "Does there?"
I gawked at her and she stared back. And the stare she gave me was hard and at the same time curiously defiant—as though she would dare me to go on with it. As though she figured I hadn't the guts.