Cross with him. Don Juan wasn't sure that was the right word, cross, but he wasn't sure of a better one. He did feel queer — exposed and uncertain. He certainly wouldn't welcome an intrusion like that again. Was he angry at Griffith? Maybe — maybe not. He wasn't afraid of him, that was certain. He felt — melancholy was probably the best word for it, but he didn't know if that had anything to do with Griffith, or whether it was only a product of the memories Griffith had been trudging through. When he talked about it — he tried to avoid talking about it at all except in vague intimations, but given that everyone knew some version of the story it was sometimes inevitable that he would be asked direct questions about it — he tried to be glib and bombastic, but that was more a shield to prevent the conversation from turning too reflective. He had done enough reflecting on his sins on his own time; he didn't want to drag it through all his social interactions for the next decade as well. But now that Griffith had been in his mind, now that he had seen the way things really were, there seemed to be little reason to pretend.

"I didn't mean for Gil to get arrested," he offered, though he was sure it wasn't much of a consolation. It didn't really matter what Don Juan's intentions had been, but hearing I imagine he is of little concern to you Don Juan did feel he ought to offer some slight rebuttal. He and Gilbert had been friends before the duel, though obviously they had not been on particularly good terms since then. Gilbert Griffith had volunteered to stand with him in what might have been his final hour; Don Juan couldn't treat that lightly, however he talked about it. He hesitated, holding his cigarette and considering whether to say more. He could have explained that up until the very morning of the duel he had been meaning to go through with it, which was why he'd never told Gilbert not to go. He could have described the moment in which he'd decided to report it instead... but there was a chance Griffith already knew, so why bother?

Then the conversation turned, and Don Juan bristled. He kept his cigarette where it was, ember slowly advancing towards the edge of his fingers where he held it. Don Juan had assumed much the same, if he were being honest. He hadn't seen Elfie since he'd left the country after the duel — since he had summarily ruined her life. He hadn't expected to see her in society, at least not for a good long while, but he had expected to maybe run across her somewhere out and about in magical England. That their paths hadn't crossed meant either that she had been sent away, or she was intentionally avoiding him — and since the latter was well within her rights given everything that had happened, he had avoided looking into the issue any further than that.

"Whatever you've got in mind, you leave her out of it," he said in a low tone. "She's paid her dues." If she was concealing her identity in order to have a little more freedom in society, freedom from the stigma that he had saddled her with, he wished her the very best it — and he could not stomach the thought that perhaps she was about to lose even that, and it would once again be his fault. His memories that had given her away and ripped off the feeble shroud of anonymity she'd been able to weave over the past five years.

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