Case and the Dreamer by Theodore Sturgeon

designed, but inspired, and her hair was such that it could not be believed at a single glance. She dressed with the studied spontaneity of the highest possible high fashion, of which Merrihew had once cynically remarked,
If the eardrum ever becomes taboo, high fashion will find a way to give you a glimpse of it
. All of which was quite secondary to Miss Kuhli’s voice. Correction. It wasn’t solely the voice. It was the instrument and the skill, the genius with which it was played. “Good morning,” she said as Merrihew entered, and he all but responded,
Thank you—oh, thank you
—just because she cared to give him all her attention, all her time while she was saying it.
    “Good morning.”
    “Is there anything I can do for you?” she asked with tastefully controlled eagerness.
    Offhand, Merrihew could think of twelve ways to answer that question and was strongly inclined to use all of them. But he said, “I’d like to see Mr. Handel.”
    Her eyes flicked swiftly to what could only have been an appointment list; but the way she did it could be translated by any wishful visitor as—just possibly—a wink. “I’ll see if he’s in yet. Your name is—”
    “Merrihew.”
    “Mr. Merrihew!” she said through a warm quick smile. One would think she had been waiting for months for this meeting. “Lois,” she said to the holoscreen on her console. “Is Mr. Handel there yet? Mr. Merrihew’s here.” The way she spoke it Merrihew’s name was in a slightly larger type than the rest of the sentence—but discreetly not italicized. The punctuation at the end was something more emphatic than a period but nothing as gross as an exclamation point.
    The screen asked if Mr. Merrihew could wait. Merrihew could. He squinted against the flashbulb radiance of Miss Kuhli’s smile and went to one of the benches (if it was a bench) against the wall (if it was a wall) where he might best watch the action.
    And action there was. Miss Kuhli’s console (on which was affixed a polite but monumentally expensive small bronze plate, in lowercase italics:
agnes kuhli
) was so placed that it was not a barrier between herself and the world. At the same time it was not exactly included in the waiting room. One might call it half-surround, a construct of such a nature that it was a convenience for her to occupy it, while clearly the lesser of comforts to anyone else. Seated, she was not concealed, and to a degree shared the space as one might share a living room. Yet her operating point was hers and no one else’s.
    People came. People went. People waited. Merrihew very soon observed, with a small cynical slap on his own wrist, that Miss Kuhli’s eager recognition of strangers and her warm willingness to helphad not been for him alone. She surely was among the best in the world at what she did, and this special thing she did better than anyone he had ever seen. But he did indulge himself in a childish moment of regret …
    She was never hurried and never at a loss. It took some time for the casual observer (which Merrihew certainly was not) to realize that reception was a very small part of what she did. Her console was constantly active—soft lights and whispers, little flashings and murmurings, to each of which she responded according to its demand. At times she seemed to sink into a species of meditation—hands clasped on her knee, eyes downcast—and during those times it would take a practiced eye as sharp as Merrihew’s to divine that she was speaking and that this was no mantric interval—any more than the occasional rhythmic manipulation of the simply designed, glittering little ornament at her throat was meditative.
    Therefore, while anyone might walk in and find an extremely restful, beautifully decorated room commanded by a startlingly pretty young woman at ease on a comfortable bench, a young woman who would put him at his ease unhurriedly, share his concerns for a moment, do what needed doing and then apparently retire