Hermes realized he had hurt his wife deeply, with his own avoidance and denial.
He would have had to bring his daughter back to Darkover in a couple of years,
for her own safety, but he had refused to think about it until a crisis forced
him to. And he had blundered badly.
He was shaken again, as the enormity of his folly finally blossomed in his mind.
It gave the lie to the great confidence Herm had always had in himself, in his
inate cunning and cleverness. These seemed worthless now, the wrong tools for
the task. "As well carve a roast with a spoon," as they said in the Hellers.
This was not dissembling before the interested eyes of some political foe, but a
different sort of problem, a human one, full of conflicting feelings. And, he
admitted to himself with great reluctance,
