"Women," Peggy pointed out crisply, "Aren't all motivated by the same thing, any more than men are. You might be surprised." She wasn't flirting, she wasn't anywhere near ready for that. She was just pointing out the obvious.

"I think you're making yourself more lonely than you have to be," she added seriously. It was her impulse to solve every problem she came across that made her say it. And it did seem to her that Victor might have a problem. Isolation was hard to deal with, she'd experienced it often enough as a woman in a man's world.

"You're charming enough, you know," she added with a bit of an encouraging smile.