She turned to the day's reports, which the computer was waiting, with the infinite patience of its tribe, to give her.

Yet before she could ask, her receptionist signaled and a soft voice came from the small button-speaker pinned to the left shoulder of her garment, ‘Aurinel Pampas wishes to see you. He has no appointment.’

Insigna grimaced, then remembered that she had sent him after Marlene. She said, ‘Let him come in.’

She cast a quick look at the mirror. She could see that her appearance was reasonable. To herself, she seemed to look younger than her forty-two years. She hoped she looked the same way to others.

It seemed silly to worry about her appearance because a seventeen-year-old boy was about to enter, but Eugenia Insigna had seen poor Marlene looking at that boy and she knew what that look portended. It didn't seem to Insigna that Aurinel, who was so fond of his own appearance, would ever think of Marlene, who had never been able to rid herself of her childhood pudginess, in any way other than as an amusing child. Still, if Marlene had to face failure in this, let her not feel that her mother had contributed to that failure in any way and had been anything but charming to the boy.

She'll blame me anyway, thought Insigna with a sigh, as the boy walked in with a smile that had not yet outgrown its adolescent shyness.

‘Well, Aurinel,’ she said. ‘Did you find Marlene?’

‘Yes, ma'am. Right where you said she'd be, and I told her you wanted her out of there.’

‘And how is she feeling?’

‘If you want to know, Dr Insigna - I can't tell if it's depression or something else, but she has a rather funny idea in her head. I don't know that she'd like my telling you about it.’

‘Well, I don't like setting spies on her either, but she frequently has strange ideas and she worries me. Please tell me what she said.’