The silence stretched on for longer than he would have liked; he was not as patient as he pretended. But he managed to keep up the pretense of the book, and eventually she took up the conversation again. "Yes," he acknowledged; he had no intention of denying that he'd met her. Not since she'd forced his hand, anyway. "When I was in Spain. You do remember that I wrote you letters about all the exquisite Spanish architecture, too? Or did that slip through your decaying memory?" he asked, with dramatic emphasis on this supposed flaw. He was teasing, but she deserved it; she was the one who had just said her memory was failing, and he knew very well it wasn't.

He didn't launch into a description of Valencia. First, because he didn't think it was necessary; he was fairly certainly this was just his mother's way of baiting him, trying to pretend she didn't know who he meant. Second, because he didn't think he could stop himself from saying something excessively petty, like oh, not very pretty; altogether average which would have been detrimental to his cause. He didn't want to give any of that away — and she wasn't here to hear it and be hurt, anyway.

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