"Hardly," said Lindsay. "But at the same time I have no desire to be assassinated or to be the cause of an Earth-Mars war."
"Think it over, Zalen," said Anderson. "I need hardly tell you that I am not speaking for myself alone." He got up, put down his glass, bade Maria farewell and left the Martian alone with her.
When he had gone Lindsay looked at the girl, who returned his gaze quite openly for a long moment before her eyes fell away. He said, "Somehow the senator and you seem an odd combination."
She made no pretense of misunderstanding but said candidly, "Perhaps I am neurotic in my distrust of computers but I cannot help that. Those of us who have any true sensitivity unblunted by the psycho-mechanistics of the era all share this distrust. It is natural, since we are few and weak, that we should seek what allies we can find among the strong."
"I've always heard that politics makes strange bedfellows," said Lindsay casually.
It was obvious that he had committed a _faux pas_. Maria's blush returned and her expression froze. Lindsay cursed himself for a fool. With the development of all sorts of pneumatic resting devices the word _bed_ had become not only obsolete but definitely distasteful in well-bred Tellurian circles. Its use was as decried as was that of the word _bloody_ in Victorian England.
She said angrily, "I assure you, Mr. Lindsay, that Senator Anderson and I have never...." Voice and anger faded alike as she apparently realized that Lindsay had not intended insult.
He let her mix a second drink for both of them. Then, standing close to her and noting the smooth perfection of her creamy white skin, "I wonder if your father knows that he is nourishing a subversive in his family."
She said with a trace of impatience, "Oh, poor papa never sees the trees for the forest."
"You're a damned unhappy girl, aren't you?" he asked her. He didn't need an answer, but realized she wanted to talk about it.
She said, her eyes shining suspiciously, "You're right, of course, I'm very unhappy--constricted in behavior by my father's position, unable to say aloud what I really think, how I really feel. Sometimes I think I must be living in some Gothic poet's dream of loneliness."