[To say that it checks her would be an overstatement. Indeed it isn't even what he says, really, but rather the tired line of Mister Dickerson's posture which engenders some hint of sympathy in her. It is exhausting, isn't it?

She frowns. And then is silent for a very short beat which in the language of Wysteria Poppell is a very long one. And then:]

I should apologize to you. I knew it would be this way, and confess that I thought I might employ you as a sort of shield against it. But I should have warned you that everyone is always stubborn and irrational and frightened, and that we were doing no one except the public record a favor by saying anything aloud. It's only that I didn't want everyone to forget, or for our work to become some dusty stack of papers in a cabinet in case we all—you all, I suppose—disappear or someone dies. Which is quite possible, you know. Just dying.

[She's heard there's a war around here somewhere.]