"Nothing to say, sawbones. You did a grand job, and you've got nothing to blow a jet about."
"No? How would you like to have a red-headed spitfire who's scarcely dry behind the ears yet tell you to your teeth that you've got softening of the brain? That you had the mental capacity of a gnat, the intellect of a Zabriskan fontema? And to have to take it, without even heaving the insubordinate young jade into the can for about twenty-five well-earned black spots?"
"Oh, come, now, you're just blasting. It wasn't that bad."
"Perhaps not quite—but it was bad enough."
"She'll grow up, some day, and realize that you were foxing her six ways from the origin."
"Probably. In the meantime, it's all part of the bigger job. Thank God I'm not young any more. They suffer so."
"Check. How they suffer!"
"But you saw the ending and I didn't. How did it turn out?" Lacy asked.
"Partly good, partly bad." Haynes slowly poured two more drinks and thoughtfully swirled the crimson, pungently aromatic liquid around and around in his glass before he spoke again. "Hooked—but she knows it, and I'm afraid she'll do something about it."
"She's a smart girl—I told you she was. She doesn't fox herself about anything. Hm-m-m. And separation is indicated, it would seem."