Brannon couldn't really take issue with that. There were certainly worse places for Zelda to be running into men, as she had already demonstrated. Striking up conversations with eligible men was actually the entire point of sending girls to those sorts of events... though Brannon still had quite serious doubts about this fellow. He would have been referring to the Dippet party, but he didn't seem like the logical choice of guest for such an affair. Nothing about him suggested wealth or influence. Maybe someone in his family was an old friend of Armando Dippet?

In any case, how the pair had met and how long they had known each other was, at least superficially, sufficient. It did make him wonder again why Zelda had never mentioned him to anyone in the house, but most of the things Zelda did made him wonder.

"And exploring," Brannon continued, treating the word as though it were something distasteful he'd been forced to pick up off the floor. "Does that provide a steady income, Mr. Darrow? Do you have a proper house?"