[ What more can a man ask for, than to be played along with? He grins while he leans back against the door to close it. ]

I might have been graceful, but I was also jingling.

[ Bastien keeps talking into the crystal while he crosses the floor, and while he pauses midway to say hello to the dog and ask how her day has been, and then sits on the edge of Byerly’s desk. On his side of it, beside his chair.

He’s going to feel very stupid, after all this flirting, if Byerly’s changed his mind. ]

That was a good night, since we didn’t die.

—all right. Where was I.