[ By's smile broadens. Accurately perceived, Bastien. ]

Politics is too complicated. When you start talking about politics, people start hating you or liking you for reasons out of your control.

[ And By's game has always been carefully controlling people's fondness for or hatred of him. Cultivating feeling with care. ]

Not that the knobby-kneed pervert was cognizant of why the subject made him uncomfortable. He thought of himself as simply ignorant.