"Unfortunately, I don't." Kit's black frown of concentration reminded her forcibly of his father's characteristic scowl. "Guesses—suspicions—theories—not even good hunches. But I thought ... I wondered—" He paused, embarrassed as a schoolboy, then went on with a rush: "Would you mind it too much if I went into something pretty personal?"
"You know I wouldn't, son." In contrast to Kit's usual clarity and precision of thought, the question was highly ambiguous, but Clarrissa covered both angles. "I can conceive of no subject, event, action, or thing, in either my life or yours, too intimate or too personal to discuss with you in full. Can you?"
"No, I can't—but this is different. As a woman, you're tops—the finest and best that ever lived." This statement, made with all the matter-of-factness of stating that a triangle had three corners, thrilled Clarrissa through and through. "As a Gray Lensman you're over the rest of them like a cirrus cloud. But you should rate full Second Stage, and ... well, you may run up against something too hot to handle, some day, and I ... that is, you—"
"You mean that I don't measure up?" she asked, quietly. "I know very well that I don't, and admitting an evident fact should not hurt my feelings a bit. Don't interrupt, please," as Kit began to protest. "In fact, it is sheerest effrontery—it has always bothered me terribly, Kit—to be classed as a Lensman at all, considering what splendid men they all are and what each one of them had to go through to earn his Lens. You know as well as I do that I have never done a single thing to earn or to deserve it. It was handed to me on a silver platter. I'm not worthy of it, Kit, and all the real Lensmen know that I'm not. They must know it, Kit—they must feel that way!"
"Did you ever express yourself in exactly that way before, to anybody? You didn't, I know." Kit stopped sweating; this was going to be easier than he had feared.
"I couldn't, Kit, it was too deep; but as I said, I can talk anything over with you."
"QX. We can settle that fast enough if you will answer just one question. Do you honestly believe that you would have been given the Lens if you were not absolutely worthy of it? Perfectly—in every minute particular?"
"Why, I never thought of it that way ... probably not ... no, certainly not." Clarrissa's somber mien lightened markedly. "But I still don't see how or why—"
"Clear enough," Kit interrupted. "You were born with what the rest of them had to work so hard for—with stuff that no other woman, anywhere, ever had."
"Except the girls, of course," Clarrissa corrected, half-absently.