She hadn't gone to see the competition, but she was here at the ball — that struck him as interesting. He wasn't sure what to make of it. It could have been something innocuous; maybe her sister or friend had competed and she hadn't been able to go because it interefered with her work, but she had come to this as a show of support for them. Or maybe she was snapping up invitations to balls. If that was the case then it might indicate she had decided to move on — forcefully, if necessary — after their interaction in the modiste's. Why now? Maybe seeing him and talking to him while he had no memory of her had been off-putting enough for her to want to put the past firmly in the past; maybe it was something else. Or maybe he was reading too much into things.

Speaking of reading too much into things — her tone now convinced him even more that he had irritated her somehow, but he was quite confident he hadn't forgotten any recent conversations. He hadn't talked to her since the memory incident... so she was annoyed with him based on something that was happening right now, he determined. Maybe just irritated at him for having the misfortune to be present at all; they had managed to avoid each other so far this season, entirely by chance.

"I don't do the hiring," he said with a shrug; just something banal to say to prolong the conversation. He was more interested in her attitude than he was in anything they'd said to each other so far. "Actually, no one's replaced Urquart yet — I don't know who does the hiring, but certainly not me."

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