Arnold isn't like this about her handful of male friends or close coworkers. It's a little concerning, not a side of him she's seen much before. It really is just as well that it seems to take Lisa a very long time to see anyone as attractive in more than a clinical sense, let alone want to act on it.

It is strange to imagine an elf with her husband's face marrying someone unknown. Uncomfortable. Arnold is constantly pleased with people, unstintingly liking them, and they are often apart, but she does not doubt his faithfulness.

"Try not to puff your chest too much, love," she says dryly. "Or refer to me in the third person. There isn't anything to fear. I don't love someone simply because some other lifetime did, even if he were here and not a voice on the radio." She had loved him, and she is concerned for him and what this other her had done. But she doesn't love him.