It is as if Stone’s eyes have overloaded. Insight floods him with relief. Of course, the vain and powerful woman sees her life as the dominant theme of the modern era, a radiant thread passing through time, with critical nodes of action strung on it like beads. How much easier to understand a single human life than that of the whole world. (Or so he believes at the moment.) That much he thinks he can do. Chart Citrine’s personal history, the ramifications of her long career, the ripples spreading from her throne. Who knows? It might indeed prove archetypal.