Had glared unawed in the Gates of Death.
"(For these be matters a man would hide,
As a general thing, from an innocent bride.)
"That's what you, mean, isn't it?" she asked quietly.
"Mac, you know a lot of things that you've got no business knowing." Instead of answering her question, he stared at her speculatively. "My sprees and brawls, Dessa Desplaines and the Countess Avondrin, and now this. Would you mind telling me how you get the stuff?"
"I'm closer to you than you suspect, Kim, and have been for a long time. Worsel calls it being 'en rapport,' I believe. You don't need to think at me—in fact, you have to put up a conscious block to keep me out. So I know a lot that I shouldn't, but Lensmen aren't the only ones who don't talk. You have been thinking about that poem a lot—it worried you—so I went to the library and looked it up. I memorized most of it."
"Well, to get the true picture of me you'll have to multiply that by a thousand. Also, don't forget that loose heads might be rolling onto your breakfast table almost any morning instead of only once."
"So what?" she countered evenly. "Do you think that I could sit for Kipling's portrait of Mrs. O'Neil? Nobody ever called my mold delicate, and he would have said of me:
"With hair like a conflagration
And a heart of solid brass!