Yes, yes, fine. He had intended to stand around all day flipping idly through pages of books he apparently hadn't even cared about enough to read the title first. It seemed a massive bit of ego that he expected this activity took precedence over someone who actually wanted the book, who needed the book, but wasn't that just like men. Their whims over her very life. If she had done as she was expected to do, what she had always been trained and prompted to do, what she was supposed to do, she would have demurred so as not to cause him any stress or disturbance and she would have left without the book. But if Drusilla Rowle did what she was supposed to do she would die the same way her mother had, and she might never have lived in the meantime.

"Thank you," she said, brusque. "I'm sure you'll find something else to — peruse."

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