Marathe & Steeply, Rivers of Reward — "His training was such that he…"
His training was such that he could emery without watching the procedure. For Steeply’s most effective interviewing tactic was this long looking down into the face without emotion of any kind. For Marathe felt more uncomfortable not knowing whether Steeply believed a thing than if Steeply’s emotion of face showed he did not believe.
Context
The emery-board is not idleness but a technical-interview instrument (035/038's "small physical chores… delaying"), and the raw finally names the actual weapon behind the fidgeting: the long, affectless downward look. Its power is precisely its unreadability — Marathe is more unsettled by not knowing whether Steeply believes him than he would be by open disbelief. Withheld affect is the interrogator's edge; the blank face gives the subject nothing to calibrate against, so the subject over-supplies. The whole apparatus of feminine preening exists to house this one motionless stare.