The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

formally. “Miss Temple.”
    “Will you sit?”
    It seemed to her that Roger hesitated, perhaps because she had been found so evidently in the midst of opening the window, but equally perhaps because so much between them lay unresolved. She returned to her seat, tucking her dirty feet as far as possible beneath her hanging dress, and waited for him to stir from the still-open door. When he did not, she spoke to him with a politeness only barely edged with impatience.
    “What can a man fear from taking a seat? Nothing—except the display of his own ill-breeding if he remains standing like a tradesman…or a marionette Macklenburg soldier.”
    Chastened and, she could tell from the purse of his lips, pricked to annoyance, Roger took a seat on the opposite side of the compartment. He took a preparatory breath.
    “Miss Temple—Celeste—”
    “I see your scars have healed,” she said encouragingly. “Mrs. Marchmoor’s have not, and I confess to finding them quite unpleasant. As for poor Mr. Flaüss—or I suppose it should be
Herr
Flaüss—for
his
appearance he might as well be a tattooed aboriginal from the polar ice!”
    With satisfaction, she saw that Roger looked as if a lemon wedge had become lodged beneath his tongue.
    “Are you finished?” he asked.
    “I don’t believe I am, but I will let you speak, if that is what you—”
    Roger barked at her sharply. “It is not a surprise to see you so relentlessly fixed on the trivial—it has always been your way—but even
you
should apprehend the gravity of your situation!”
    Miss Temple had never seen him so dismissive and forceful, and her voice dropped to a sudden icy whisper.
    “I apprehend it very fully…I assure you…Mr. Bascombe.”
    He did not reply—he was, she realized with a sizzling annoyance, allowing what he took to be his acknowledged rebuke to fully sink in. Determined not to first break the silence, Miss Temple found herself studying the changes in his face and manner—quite in spite of herself, for she still hoped to meet his every attention with scorn. She understood that Roger Bascombe offered the truest window into the effects of the Process she was likely to find. She had met Mrs. Marchmoor and the Prince—her pragmatic manner and his dispassionate distance—but she had known neither of them intimately beforehand. What she saw on the face of Roger Bascombe pained her, more than anything at the knowledge that such a transformation spoke—and she was sure, in her unhappy heart, that it did—to his honest desire. Roger had always been one for what was ordered and proper, paying scrupulous attention to social niceties while maintaining a fixed notion of who bore what title and which estates—but she had known, and it had been part of her fondness for him, that such painstaking alertness arose from his own lack of a title and his occupation of yet a middling position in government—which is to say from his naturally cautious character. Now, she saw that this was changed, that Roger’s ability to juggle in his mind the different interests and ranks of many people was no longer in service to his own defense but, on the contrary, to his own explicit, manipulative advantage. She had no doubt that he watched the other members of the Cabal like an unfailingly deferential hawk, waiting for the slightest misstep (as she was suddenly sure Francis Xonck’s bandaged arm had been a secret delight to him). Before when Roger had grimaced at her outbursts or expressions of opinion, it had been at her lack of tact or care for the delicate social fabric of a conversation he had been at effort to maintain—and his reaction had filled her with a mischievous pleasure. Now, despite her attempts to bait or provoke him, all she saw was a pinched, unwillingly burdened
tolerance,
rooted in the disappointment of wasting time with one who could offer him no advantage whatsoever. The difference made Miss Temple sad in a way she had not foreseen.

    “I have presumed to briefly join you,” he began, “at the suggestion of the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza—”
    “I am sure the Contessa gives you all manner of suggestions,” interrupted Miss Temple, “and have no doubt that you follow them eagerly!”
    Did she even believe this? The accusation had been too readily at hand not to fling…not that it seemed to find any purchase on its target.
    “Since,” he continued after a brief pause, “it is intended that you undergo the Process upon our arrival