Oz did have research credentials to his name, and a handful of successful patents, but listing them off at this venture would make it seem as though he felt he needed to prove himself to this young woman, which he absolutely did not. Perhaps she felt as though she was making a good show of herself here, but if so her social inexperience was showing. She had accosted someone without provocation and had said nothing so far of any substance, just repeated the same tired criticism she'd probably stolen from a third-rate thinker three weeks ago.

Come back when your disappointment means anything, he thought, but saying it would be stooping to her level — pettiness for its own sake. While typically he enjoyed any opportunity to be petty, he (unlike her) had the maturity to realize doing so wouldn't have served his interests at the moment.

"As we were saying," he said to the gentlemen next to him, turning his attention pointedly away from her. "The tariffs against Spain have really done more damage to our own economy than anything..."

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