And it was getting later.
"—if you keep my eyes closed all the time."
Billy took a deep breath. "The better to keep you from finding out all about me, my dear."
She held his face back between her hands. "Do you realize?" she asked. The head between her hands shook. "You have really known me for less than ... than six hours. And you're making protestations—"
"You forget," he reminded her carefully, "that I'd been contemplating Patricia Kennebec for a long time. There are some things that are worth waiting for; things that require planning. I didn't know what the score would be at the end of this evening, Patricia, but I wanted so to find out. I've known you for a long time, Patricia. And, remember, little lady, that one need not fight bitterly for what he wants—sometimes it comes better if one bides his time and lets the fighters run themselves out of wind. From here, Patricia, let no man get in my way, lest he get his legs clipped out from under him."
"Supposing that I like him?" said Patricia.
"I'll only be fluffed off once," warned Billy. "There's one thing that I have that few other people have, Patricia. I can't really read minds, but I've discovered, ever since that little battle out there near Sscantoo, that I feel, and deeply, the truth of any man's feelings. But enough of that. We'll have time to quarrel later. Right now, Patricia—"
That night, the old adage died. The head that wore the crown of the Solar Combine slept like a kitten. And the only thing that bothered Co-ordinator Kennebec was that usual irrelevant wonder that crops up in the most trying of circumstances, though this was not trying, as circumstances go. Yet, Kennebec thought, it was like an hysteria almost; the unfunny joke that sends chief mourners off into gales of laughter. Incongruous and irrelevant, immaterial and inconsequential.
But why in the name of Sol didn't they go into the living room, and do their necking on the love seat where it belonged instead of sitting on the cook's tall stool in the kitchen?