Jude entirely missed the flush on her face, and would have put it down to lingering embarrassment about the sneezing anyway. Instead, he offered the other woman - the brunette's chaperone, companion or maid - a smile to say that really, it had been nothing; he wasn't put out.

He hadn't faced the last of the sneezing, however, and after he'd laughed at her remark and said: "Not to worry, I'm sure I have my own," he burst into another round whilst searching his pockets. In trying to suppress them in the crook of his elbow in the meantime, they started to sound rather more like kitten sneezes - and by the time Jude had recovered, handkerchief in hand, he felt remarkably less dignified.

The girl had collected his scattered papers for him in the meantime, though. "I'd argue that was already more than the least you could do, but thank you all the same," Jude returned gratefully. He added her pile to the few he'd gathered and set his other books and satchel on the edge of the nearest table to fit them back inside. "Is the library more dusty than usual?" he wondered, glancing at the nearest set of shelves curiously. Perhaps this section was a particularly antiquated collection?

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