[Laedo passes a smaller plate he'd been balancing on the tray over, laden with food, enough to keep Sieglinde's mouth full for a minute or two if she were to get to scarfing. A thought crosses his mind about other significant organs that could have been used and, with equal horror, removed, but Sieglinde is but a child and such comments are not fit for any ears, let alone a girl's. So he cocks half a grin and nibbles on a wedge of cheese sliced with his alabaster dagger.

Instead he asks,] is this subject someone that I should stand at the ready not to peer at? Should I prepare myself to be surprised? I should imagine they are terribly embarrassed, but I'm not the sort to gossip about matters of the heart one way or another.