[He sees the nod. This is a very quiet girl, but not, he thinks, a witless one. There must be hidden depths, which tend to require all sorts of patience to plumb out that Miles doesn't have.

He restrains himself, sufficiently appeased with the entertainment of conversing on two levels.] They're not all useful, [he concedes instantly, without reservation.] Some of them are... are parasites on the system, leeching off of it and not giving anything in return. Not a true symbiosis, as it should be.

I've been fortunate to have some incredible examples, to hold up as ideal. [Not him, obviously, but his father.] And some don't need an accident of birth to be noble. [That is his mother to a tee.]