Bellamy didn't really know what to make of her response, so he merely frowned lightly at her and said "Hm." He hadn't actually been trying to ask about her ambitions in life, really — he'd just been trying to preemptively defend his own, in case she was tempted to laugh or deride his comments about art, which she didn't seem interested in doing. And he didn't know what she meant by foreign service. He was inclined to support anything that the British deemed foreign just on principle, but service of what? The British government, probably, but what were they doing mucking about in foreign countries? They probably ought to just stay home — if their goal was to make the rest of the world more British, Bell really wished they wouldn't. Britain was the most boring place he'd ever lived in (probably mostly because it was the place he'd stayed the longest and he was shiftless by nature, but Bellamy wouldn't have recognized that).
"Mostly oils, some watercolor, and some sculpture," he answered instead — he was quite comfortable talking about himself, rather than digging into whatever it was the Ministry did (aside from being the workplace of the Minister and presumably locking up criminals, Bellamy didn't really know). "And it's not about any particular sort of person. It's about beauty," he practically gushed. "I'm working on one of this fellow I met in a park, Alistair Darrow, and if you could see the way the sunlight hits his hair — he's got curls the color of honey, when the light is just right. And the way his features are laid out — there's this curve to the bottom of his nose that looks just perfect in profile, and the way his jaw's cut — his lips have the same shade as cherry blossoms. He's — well, you can't describe him," Bellamy concluded, feeling the familiar frustration of not being able to find words for the image he had in his head. "You just have to see him."
"Mostly oils, some watercolor, and some sculpture," he answered instead — he was quite comfortable talking about himself, rather than digging into whatever it was the Ministry did (aside from being the workplace of the Minister and presumably locking up criminals, Bellamy didn't really know). "And it's not about any particular sort of person. It's about beauty," he practically gushed. "I'm working on one of this fellow I met in a park, Alistair Darrow, and if you could see the way the sunlight hits his hair — he's got curls the color of honey, when the light is just right. And the way his features are laid out — there's this curve to the bottom of his nose that looks just perfect in profile, and the way his jaw's cut — his lips have the same shade as cherry blossoms. He's — well, you can't describe him," Bellamy concluded, feeling the familiar frustration of not being able to find words for the image he had in his head. "You just have to see him."
