Quidley sighed. What, he asked himself, standing in the library aisle and staring at the indecipherable words, was a normal girl like Kay doing in such a childish secret society? From the way she and her correspondents carried on you'd almost think they were Martian girl scouts on an interplanetary camping trip, trying for their merit badges in communications!
You could hardly call Kay a girl scout, though.
Nevertheless, she was the key figure in the snoll-doper enigma. The fact annoyed him, especially when he considered that a snoll doper, for all he knew, could be anything from a Chinese fortune cooky to an H-bomb.
He remembered Kay's odd accent. Was that the way a person would speak English if her own language ran something like "ist ifedereret, hid jestig snoll doper adwo?"
He remembered the way she had looked at him in the coffee bar.
He remembered the material of her dress.
He remembered how she had come to his room.
"I didn't know you had a taste for Taine."
Her voice seemed to come from far away, but she was standing right beside him, tall and bewitching; Helenesque as ever. Her blue eyes became great wells into which he found himself falling. With an effort, he pulled himself back. "You're early tonight," he said lamely.