[Ortus pulls out two chairs to a modest distant from each other and imagines the net between them, speculatively. Is this a trap? He truly doesn't know. In the stories, traps are set, but their mechanisms are rarely described.

It is a welcome distraction from pursing his lips at Billie's comments about the Emperor.]

I should like him to be better. [For a myriad of reasons.] But affection for dogs does not, I think, compensate for all sins.

I believe that one must care for others, to be good. Perhaps it is old-fashioned of me. Do you think a net here might suffice?