"Just so," he says, spreading his hands at her to indicate that by that very comment of hers, he's won the match. "Democracy seems a lovely notion to me. Honestly. The Betans seem to do all right, and I honestly can't see how even the least-educated prole could do worse than most of my cousins and uncles and great-uncles and second cousins who have held Countships. But bring this notion to those sorts of people and, whoops, suddenly you find yourself having misplaced your head. So unless you want to be the one donating that little skull of yours to the Vorhartung Castle Museum of Oddities, better to accept that Countships are how it's going to go for the foreseeable future."