"Don't laugh at me, Gerd," pleaded Andrew.
"Laugh at you?" asked Gerd in genuine dismay. "Never. You are a good friend, Andrew. I will never laugh at you." He shook his head. "Tell me, what makes you think I'm laughing?"
"I can not but think, sometimes, that you are playing with all of us."
"Please ... please. Is there nothing I can do to dispel this idea, this fixation of yours?" he turned to Lenore. "Do you, too, think I'm toying?"
"No," she said quickly. "You're too fine a person to toy with another. I know."
Gerd flustered at that. "The trouble with this job of mine," he said, "is that no one ever tells me that I'm a meddling fool or to mind my own business."
"That's your fault," said Andrew. "Honestly, I doubt that there is a man on this confounded planet that wouldn't hasten to carry your banner. You are a well-liked man, Gerd, and as such no one wants to tell you off. Furthermore, you always seem to know when to let a man alone—and that in itself precludes any possibility of telling you to stay away. How do you know that sort of thing?"
"Accident of birth," said Gerd wryly.
"Spacewash."
"You think I studied to learn it?"