"I shall endeavor to remain an exception."
She regarded him for a moment, considering whether that was worth challenging, then let it pass.
"You did not answer my question, by the way," he said.
"I was not aware that you had asked one."
"What are you doing here?"
There it was, plainly put, with no attempt to soften it. Eleanor tilted her head slightly, wondering whether or not he had asked her such a thing. If he had, she did not remember.
"I am attending a house party, I believe."
"You do not enjoy house parties."
"You seem very certain of my preferences."
"You have made them sufficiently clear in the past."
"People are permitted to change," she replied, her fingers tensing at him remembering such a thing. "You seem rather determined to find me inconsistent."
"I prefer it when people live honestly. That is all."
They remained there for a moment. His attention remained on her, assessing in a way that would have unsettled a less practiced speaker.
Eleanor met it without difficulty.
"If I wished to discuss my movements," she said, a touch more lightly, "I would have written to you in advance."
"I would have been very surprised to receive such a letter."
"As would I have been to have sent it," she said. "Which makes it fortunate that I did not."
Something shifted at the corner of his mouth, not quite a smile, though close enough to suggest the possibility of one.
"You are unsuited to the countryside," he said after a moment. "You require more activity than it offers."
She glanced around the room, where conversation flowed easily and music had begun to gather strength again at the far end.
"I see no lack of it."
"It is not the same. You will find it dull."
"And you will find it disorderly," she returned. "We must each endure our disappointments."
"I shall have you know that I am rarely disappointed."
"That is because you arrange your life so carefully that nothing has the opportunity to go wrong."
"It is an effective method."
"It sounds exhausting."
"Then it is fortunate that you are not required to adopt it."
She smiled at that, though there was something rather biting to it in a way that had not been there before. He had always been an orderly man, one that planned everything months in advance. It was the main way in which they differed, but he had never been unkind about it before.
"Yes," she said. "Fortunate."