"We-l-l," Gideon said slowly, because she wasn't exactly wrong, but she wasn't entirely right, either. There were dozens of metaphors he sometimes used when describing the relationship between a wand and a wizard (or witch), but none of them really encompassed the entirety of it. If one was thinking about a wand as an extension of their arm, as Gideon often did with his own wand, then yes; using a wand that was currently sitting in the shop waiting for its partner to arrive would have been unfathomable. If one considered a wand like a companion, something like an old friend or a horse or even the way some Quidditch players thought about their broomsticks, then lending someone a wand made much more sense. It wasn't something that he did regularly, by any stretch of the imagination, but that was less because he was concerned about having someone use a wand temporarily and more because he was never entirely certain of what sort of care the wand would receive once it left his workshop. He couldn't in good conscious have sold a wand as new if someone else had used it for a month and not taken good care of it, but — well, moving one of his nice new wands to the secondhand stock didn't seem like much of a sacrifice, for her. He could even pretend that it had less to do with how she looked and how much he wanted her to be pleased with him, a desire that had risen in him inexplicably throughout this interaction, and more to do with some logical reason. She was a healer by trade, so giving her a wand for a little while would help people. It wasn't as though she were just a debutante who wanted to do fancy hair charms with her wand and would have to rely on her maid for the next few weeks while it was repaired.

"Wands have personalities of their own, as I'm sure you know," he explained. "And for some of them that would matter a great deal. I wouldn't lend you an acacia wand; in your hands it wouldn't do any better than a stick, most likely. But some wands are... helpful. They might not mind having a chance to do a bit of healing work while they're waiting."