[ He jerks away as though burned by her touch. As though the very idea of it is hateful. She withdraws her hand, holds it grasped against her sternum, her eyes unfocused and stinging.

Try as she might to soften the many injuries done him, awaiting him, ah, these insults and wreckages of his pride, perhaps she was right to avoid him. This is doing nothing to help, and only worsening...everything.

Perhaps she is a curse, after all. Ever the dismal misfortune of the male sex.

(I don't want to sit with me, he said. She doesn't want to entertain the meaning of that beyond its apparent self-deprecation.)

Quickly, she dashes at her eyes, sniffs, covers the movement by looking over her shoulder as though Wallace might be standing there behind her. (He isn't. If he were, perhaps he might have intervened. Stopped her from further wounding his master.) ]

I don't know. I -

[ Well. Well -

The desperation to repair, to somehow ameliorate, to make amends for this trespass (another in countless trespasses) rises inescapably in her. ]

Do you need something? I could fetch him. Or - He might be asleep.

[ Perhaps Treavor ought to be asleep. He's drunk, isn't he? He's drunk, and rankling, and likely tired. ]

Are you tired? I could help you to your room. [ Hastily: ] To sleep.

[ Another cautious reach of her hand, open, palm-up. An offer of aid. ]

Here?