"What were you talking about?" Yay asked Chamlis.

"Gurgeh's disaffection."

"Do any good?"

"I don't know," the drone admitted.

Yay retrieved her clothes and dressed quickly. She sat in front of the fire for a while, watching it as the day's light faded and the room lights came up.

Gurgeh brought a tray in loaded with sweetmeats and drinks.

Once Yay and Gurgeh had eaten, the three of them played a complicated card-game of the type Gurgeh liked best; one that involved bluff and just a little luck. They were in the middle of the game when friends of Yay's and Gurgeh's arrived, their aircraft touching down on a house lawn Gurgeh would rather they hadn't used. They came in bright and noisy and laughing; Chamlis retreated to a corner by the window.

Gurgeh played the good host, keeping his guests supplied with refreshments. He brought a fresh glass to Yay where she stood, listening with a group of others, to a couple of people arguing about education.

"Are you leaving with this lot, Yay?" Gurgeh leant back against the tapestried wall behind, dropping his voice a little so that Yay had to turn away from the discussion, to face him.

"Maybe," she said slowly. Her face glowed in the light of the fire. "You're going to ask me to stay again, aren't you?" She swilled her drink around in her glass, watching it.

"Oh," Gurgeh said, shaking his head and looking up at the ceiling, "I doubt it. I get bored going through the same old moves and responses."

Yay smiled. "You never know," she said. "One day I might change my mind. You shouldn't let it bother you, Gurgeh. It's almost an honour."

"You mean to be such an exception?"

"Mmm." She drank.

"I don't understand you," he told her.

"Because I turn you down?"