To think, he had been worried about walking in silence just a short while ago, and now their stroll was passing by so fast he almost felt it slipping out of his grasp, and somehow he still hadn’t shut up. Perhaps it was only credit to her questions. Maybe she was just a good listener. If she was taking his measure, she hadn’t found anything to laugh at yet. And if he hadn’t taken her measure yet as thoroughly as he had intended, he did feel as though her presence was becoming more comfortable, as though familiarity could somehow exist hand in hand with nerves - each increasing gradually, by complementary degrees.
“Certainly,” he said earnestly, confident enough on the topic of his work and whether it remained rewarding. (Only a fool would find it not so; one did not require a wealth of outside audulation to admit such a thing.) Of course, one could find reward in any work if they tried hard enough; and he was not the sort of tire of things. The more accustomed one was to something, the better one might understand it, might make the most of it. Detail was rewarding, and repetition the way to improvement. To live for novelty alone was a fool’s endeavour; it was to only skim surfaces, and to run away from reality.
But he had no intention of preaching about it, and simply offered her a smile as if that could possibly say enough. “I should not continue to pursue anything that I did not wholeheartedly believe was worth the effort,” Evander said, his mind still on his work but looking at her steadily.
Having said that, he cleared his throat now and caught himself having looked a little too long, and glanced upwards for a brief moment as if to look at the stars (one could see no stars in London; the sky was drowned out by clouds of smoke and city lights) before he thought it safe to look again. “And you, Miss Delaney?” He returned, reformulating the question for her purposes. She had no career, obviously, and presumably no surprising aspiration there: a debutante’s career aspirations were rather told already. But that did not mean she did not have hobbies to pursue - and even a young lady whose family were in Atlantic shipping could no doubt acquire any number of accomplishments. “What is it you find particularly rewarding?”
“Certainly,” he said earnestly, confident enough on the topic of his work and whether it remained rewarding. (Only a fool would find it not so; one did not require a wealth of outside audulation to admit such a thing.) Of course, one could find reward in any work if they tried hard enough; and he was not the sort of tire of things. The more accustomed one was to something, the better one might understand it, might make the most of it. Detail was rewarding, and repetition the way to improvement. To live for novelty alone was a fool’s endeavour; it was to only skim surfaces, and to run away from reality.
But he had no intention of preaching about it, and simply offered her a smile as if that could possibly say enough. “I should not continue to pursue anything that I did not wholeheartedly believe was worth the effort,” Evander said, his mind still on his work but looking at her steadily.
Having said that, he cleared his throat now and caught himself having looked a little too long, and glanced upwards for a brief moment as if to look at the stars (one could see no stars in London; the sky was drowned out by clouds of smoke and city lights) before he thought it safe to look again. “And you, Miss Delaney?” He returned, reformulating the question for her purposes. She had no career, obviously, and presumably no surprising aspiration there: a debutante’s career aspirations were rather told already. But that did not mean she did not have hobbies to pursue - and even a young lady whose family were in Atlantic shipping could no doubt acquire any number of accomplishments. “What is it you find particularly rewarding?”
