Gately-Joelle veil interview (pp. 537–538)

Joelle turns the analysis onto the interviewer, and finds him wearing cover too. Gately's counselor-role is itself a concealment — "your own protective mask of House Staff" — a professional persona he drops behind to probe others while staying unprobed, "the best defense is a good offense." The interview thus has two masks facing each other: her veil and his House-Staff role, each a screen the wearer works from. It's the same double-blind structure as the professionals' interviews (130), relocated to a halfway-house living room: even the man asking the questions is operating from behind an operational face.