WELCOME

[ADRIEN JAMES CRANE]

He sat in the same place he always did, the far right corner, farthest away from the bar or the lights or the other people. A place where he could pretend he was alone, or at least ignore the world as he understood it. The guitar that sat at his side and the espresso in his hands meaning nothing to him, no more than the chatter of the other Parisians meant anything. He heard them speak, and when they spoke to him he would repeat their noises, but it was foreign to him. The music meant something, maybe, and for a moment he could play guitar not for the patrons but for himself and he could imagine he was back in Toulouse and his mother still smiled at him.

He could remember that, clearer than anything about Toulouse. He didn't remember the city as it had been eighteen years ago. He remembered that their house had been white and they had had a garden in the front where his mother grew purple flowers, and he remembered that she had smiled and laughed. He remembered that the older he got, the less she smiled, and the less she laughed, and the more she brooded about something that he did not understand.

He looked like his father, and that was his whole problem. His father's genes had won out over his mother's, and while in his mind it should have meant nothing, it meant something to her. Martine Belrose had watched him grow up and become this man that was so like the one who had taken all of her that she could cope with it less and less. Watching Adrien take up guitar and photography and Indonesian cigarettes, and all the little mannerisms that had made James Crane the man he was must have been a painful thing.

'James Crane. What a hell of a man. ' That was a quote from the article on his life that Adrien had discovered three years ago. There was no mention of a shotgun wedding or a auburn headed girl in Toulouse or a son. There was a girl named Mary-Ann, and a wife named Cecilia, and James Crane's first trip to France was not mentioned at all. The fact that he had had a child and married before Cecilia and Mary-Ann was not mentioned once. And the fact that he had so ruined Martine Belrose almost made Adrien sick. The bastard almost made him feel guilty.

But he wasn't. He never had been. He was a victim if he was anything. James Crane had made a mess and left a French girl with a son she didn't want, who carried an American's name. He had left Adrien to grow up under his shadow, his stain, and he had gone on to start a new life with a new girl and he had never even acknowledged him once.

James Crane. What a hell of a man.

It was his turn to play, and he did, and people clapped for him. He didn't hear it, and when they spoke to him he repeated their noises and did not understand what he was saying. He mimicked them in their gestures and their movements and he kept up the appearance of a normal, if quiet, Parisian guitarist. And that was that. He would sit in his corner table and drink coffee late into the night, then lay awake until morning, just like he did every Saturday. That was his life. That was his appearance.

[NATHALIE ISABELLE PIERPONT]

It always seemed to start the same way.

Work had been especially tiring that day, leaving Nathalie Pierpont feeling restless and unsatisfied. They had run out of chestnut tarts, prompting a man to shout obscenities, in several different languages that she all unfortunately knew, as if she had eaten all of the said tarts, rather than other customers. She did not even like chestnut tarts, she had firmly replied, although after that attempt of calming the man, she had promptly given up, and simply let him go at her, staring at him evenly and coldly from beneath her firm brows. Ah yes, people. She all too well remembered this night why she did not like them. They caused problems, they caused fuss.

And one of her coworkers, who happened to fall into the people category, had broken one of the coffee machines. By the time Nath's eight hour shift that day was over, she was more than ready to down some of that very brew, and had retreated quickly home in order to relax. Curling up in her favorite fleece blanket with her new book on the cultural implications of feminism, a cup of good, rich, creamy coffee her companion, sounded ideal. That idea too was squished, as she walked into her apartment, remembering with a sigh that she had forgotten to not only pick up more coffee at her favorite brewery, but she had also forgotten to do the dishes from the night before. That was typical of her apartment, her father joked that the place could not have been infested with rats until she moved in, as, if they were there, only she could have drawn them. It was foolish, there were no rats. All the same, her studio apartment was infamous for its stacks of books on every flat surface, its teacups and coffee mugs littering the books, and the overflowing collection of antiques that covered every other spare inch of room. As if resigning herself to actually cleaning was not horrific enough, the phone call that came in a moment later was the finishing touch on her chaotic day.

She did not like chaos. She hated it, detested it. Being in control was what she loved. She vowed she would always be in control of every aspect of her life, she had even once mentioned to her mother that no man was ever going to tell her to do anything. Much to her irritation, her mère had laughed. However, that was beside the point. There was much that she could not control, as much as she hated to admit it.

The phone call had instructed her that she had to go on duty for the stopwatch that night, which was supposed to be her night off. She took very few days off and she had been anticipating this one. Her book was calling her. However, one of the stopwatch was sick, and could she fill in? Oh yes, of course. After all, it would save her from the dishes.


Nath held her warm cup between her hands as she half watched and listened to the entertainment and signs of merriment taking place around her. At least she had been able to get her coffee. Her mind drifted to her day, recalling the circumstances that had brought her there. She had never frequented this establishment before, and while the coffee did not completely taste like she hoped, it was coffee. Her job was simply to watch, and to wait, that evening. Her book lay open before her, a spoon crossing the pages serving to hold them in place, although she was not reading at that moment. The music distracted her, as did the constant voices. Usually her mind was able to tune out the distractions, yet, this night, she found that impossible for whatever reason. She suspected it had to do with the fact that she was feeling restless and disinterested.

Her thoughts continued to be her focus, until the guitarist started to play. Still half in her own world, she had only slightly taken in his song, although her eyes studied him, simply for the lack of having anyone better to look at. For an odd reason, he looked familiar ... finding a new challenge, her mind snapped back to reality, and as he finished and made his way back to his table amid applause and conversation, she sifted through the mental files of her brain, trying to unlock where it was that she had seen him before ... Ah, yes, that was it.

Knowing nothing better to do, she turned her spoon so it was serving as a bookmark, not a page holder. Closing her book, she picked it up, holding it to her as she also gathered her coffee cup and her small shoulder bag. Making her way over to the dimly lit corner table that the man occupied, she moved to stand across from him. Hesitating a moment as she once again ran her eyes over his features, she made sure her suspicion was correct before speaking.

"Bonjour, excusez-moi. May I interrupt?"

Her tone, as well as her motions, did nothing to show discomfort, although she made sure her facial expressions remained open, as it seemed a habit to become impassive, which her mother had often spoken to her about. It made people uncomfortable, and she knew if she was going to get a favorable response, unless he recognized her as well, she needed to appear approachable and friendly.

[[I hope that gave you enough to work with ... I just assumed he would go back to his table. If anything needs changing, feel free to mention it. ]]

[ADRIEN JAMES CRANE]

Adrien looked up at her with his heavy-lidded stare, one that always made him look tired and somehow lost, which, perhaps, he was. His eyes flicked over her features and showed in them no recognition. He hesitated. He was sure he did not know this girl, but there was always the possibility. As good as he was at remembering faces and names, the cafés were dark and interaction was fleeting. Long coffee-fueled nights and longer sleepless days rarely cemented people into anyone's mind.

"Uh.. oui. Of course." he said, brow furrowed, gesturing at the seat across from him.

He tried to think. She seemed to know who he was, or thought she knew, but he found himself drawing a blank. The truth of it was, she looked a lot like any number of pretty, long lashed Paris girls that he saw every day. At some fundamental point, every person ran together into the same person, attractive qualities that stand out could be found in nearly the same mixture in any number of faces. Spend enough time listening, the voices all ran together into an indistinguishable buzz, spend enough time watching, all the faces became the same drama masks, and whether they were comedy or tragedy was immaterial. They were all the same face.

Half-heartedly he played with the pencil in his hand, shuffling his papers ever so slightly so his drawing would be obscured. He felt restless, uncomfortable, and wished he was on stage again so he could look just above their eyes and forget that anyone was there at all. He wasn't comfortable around people. Sometimes he tried to blame his mother for it, and sometimes his father, but the fact that he had never known his father made him disregard it, and his own guilt made him forgive his mother and blame himself instead. Of course, Martine could have let the resemblance and her damnable demons die and raised her son with love rather than remorse, but what was done was done. Adrien was unarguable an adult now. How he acted and how he felt was not up to his mother anymore, it was up to him and him alone.

He had lived in Paris long enough that he should have known better. Eighteen years is a long time, and even if he was not a ladies man, there was no excuse for being uncomfortable. That was his idea, anyway. The fact that he had spent his years learning to play guitar instead of how to flirt was something that he sometimes regretted. So much of Paris and its people were mysterious to him, he thought he was special or strange. It was too late for him to learn from experience and he thought he knew that it was too late for him to figure out how to finish first. He had resigned himself to mediocrity and assumed himself to be wrong on some fundamental level that he could not for the life of him understand.

He was unsatisfied with his life, that was all there was to it. He was lonely and perhaps afraid or intimidated by a city that was too big and loud and fast for a person like him. He thought that other people had some method of coping that eluded him, and all too often blamed his unresolved daddy issues and strife between himself and his mother, rather than any fault on his part. It was easier than admitting that he would have to change himself.

There was a part of him that was real and confidant and unafraid of other people, and he showed that with his eyes, but always his voice tried to hide it. And, usually, it did a good job. It tried subconsciously to make him something that he wasn't, mediocre or weak. He was not, and some part of Adrien knew it. That part of him that was his father knew it, and it looked out not as Adrien but as James, an arrogant and powerful man, through those eyes that the child had taken, the face that was moulded in so many ways the same. The fact that he truly was his father's son was one that still eluded him, and he hid behind a sort of melancholy neurosis because of it.

What a life. What a way to live. He hated himself for it and he hated the sadness it made in his life and the darkness it brought to his home. He showed people that with his eyes, yet they so rarely listened. He looked at people and almost hope they would stop and help him, or the people he knew could become something more to him, more than puppets or shadows, but real people who could be part of his life in a more meaningful way. He wanted life, like he saw life all around him. This girl before him seemed perfectly approachable, friendly even. People in the cafe laughed and chatted and it looked easy. But for Adrien, he always felt like it came at a terribly high interest.

"I'm sorry, I don't believe I know you." his words were slow and measured, trying very hard to not come off as insulting and harder to sound natural.

[[Don't worry, your post was great. ]]

[NATHALIE ISABELLE PIERPONT]

[[I am so horribly sorry for the wait. I was sick, then we had company. I probably could have done it, I just couldn't find the ambition. I am sorry. ]]

She noticed his hesitation, which led the brunette to pause herself. Even as he offered her a seat, she somehow sensed that she was unnerving him. She was certain she knew him. His features were familiar, the full lips, framed by almost angular cheekbones and a somewhat fine nose were distinct. His blue eyes, coupled with his brown hair and fair skin was not all that unusual of a combination, although, on him, it proved in her eyes just as striking as the rest of his features. However, she had not come over to his table to idly sit and admire his physical characteristics, in fact, in their previous meetings, she had not admired them at all. As it was now, she found his face matured, more comely, and much more appealing than she had before. His more angular features no longer seemed quite as sharp and pinched, although, perhaps her memory was faulty. After all, she had not seen him since her second year at the University of Paris, when he had graduated. His voice also sounded different, however, she pushed that away as a sign of her faulty memory, caused by too much time spent in books.

All that however, was not so much the cause of her own slight discomfort as the fact that she was regretting disturbing him. Even though she had known him, and they had been quite good friends, friends to her held a different meaning than they did to most. She was not socially inept, just socially ignorant. It was not an area of her life that she saw the need to develop overly, and while she was comfortable in most situations, the one of running across an old friend, and then interrupting him over coffee, was one that she had never personally experienced before, leaving her rather uneasy. It was foolish, she knew. If it weren't for her somewhat odd need of company, the chances of her even thinking of approaching him were slim. What a day she had had ...

Taking the seat in a decidedly ungraceful move, she rather plopped into it more than she lowered herself slowly. Her leg had cramped from sitting, which, when forced to bend again, had made her movements less than that of a lady. Her mother would have reminded her that even if a feminist, the woman still had a duty to behave just as ladylike as if she was not. Nath could hear the words ringing in her head, gently chastising her, even through the din of the crowed coffee shop. Pushing it away, she mentally pinned her feelings of ill will on the chrono who had so foolishly caused the accident, which in turn had caused her somewhat maimed leg.

Without meaning to, her mind drifted to her physical therapy appointment earlier that day ... the physical therapist had warned her that she might always have a slight limp ... that she might never be able to dance again. Her leg had been broken severely, she herself did not even fully comprehend the extent of the damage that had been done. In a strange way, she did not even want to. Somehow, knowing the facts about her leg made the reality seem much worse, so almost as a self defense mechanism, the girl who could not get enough information on most things had actually pushed those details away.

Her attention was drawn to his papers as he slightly moved them, although she avoided her natural curiosity and did try to not look at them. Keeping her eyes firmly on his, only in her peripheral vision did she detect the strange fumbling with his pencil. Wondering at it in her mind, she was silent, wondering how to broach the subject of their past acquaintance. Surely one did not simply sit down at a table and announce that 'Hello, we were in university together! Lovely to see you!' Horribly crude, that idea was, yet it was all that came to her mind. It seemed like the situation was doomed to that of awkwardness, as she waited for him to hopefully ease the situation. He had always been more socially adept than her ... surely he would take the lead? Yet, it seemed he would not, as he sat there, merely staring at her with an almost befuddled look on his face, shown only by the slight drawing of his brows. An inhale brought her the faint whiff of some sort of smoke, a scent which she actually found appealing. Normally she did not, yet it held a different scent to it than any she had smelled before. Odd. She could not place whether it was pipe, cigar, or cigarette, though she was certain it was something of that nature, as her father smoked cigarettes and the occasional cigar himself, although only on occasions of a more special nature.

Shifting slightly in her chair, she decided she had to speak. She could not have been sitting there for more than a minute, perhaps two, but in her thinking, it seemed far longer.

It seemed then, an ironic mockery, when he did speak. He sounded perfectly calm and not at all annoyed, even though the message his words conveyed suggested he should have felt otherwise. Nath was stunned, although she did not really show it, except for a slight widening of her eyes. Smiling in a way that looked half forced, which was actually typical for her when she was not around someone she was close to, an half laugh escaped her lips. "Surely I have not changed so much? It has only been ... five years now?" Suddenly fixing him with a more studious gaze as his words continued to sink in, she observed him for a brief moment before continuing. "You did attend the University. Here in Paris? Oui?"

[ADRIEN JAMES CRANE]

[[Don't worry about it, it's no problem .]]

The girl sat and he looked back up at her, feeling uncomfortable for the eye contact. He saw she had a bit of a limp, and she decidedly flopped into her seat instead of sitting primly down. An injury, he assumed, something wrong with her leg. She seemed to him uncomfortable, perhaps embarrassed, although he couldn't see why.

She was pretty, he would be a fool not to realize that. Her eyes were blue, perhaps darker than his, rimmed with dark makeup that he was almost surprised to find tasteful. So many women plastered their eyes with makeup to the point of looking clownish. Hers accentuated her already drawing eyes. There was a certain nondescript-ness about her features, but it was strangely attractive to his eye. She was attractive, in a way unlike other girls, which possibly attracted him more than any other 'conventional' beauty.

His face gave away his confusion once again at her words, He had never gone to university, he'd skipped straight from high school into work, a string of menial jobs that didn't require a diploma. He sometimes thought it would be in his best interest to go back but he hadn't yet. He didn't know what he would go there for anyway.

"I'm afraid that that's impossible. I never went to university." he said. The longer she sat there, he became somehow more comfortable, by painful slow degrees. His voice was not condescending or annoyed, and there was a sort of inquiry in his eyes that was not searching or offended.

His eyes flicked away for a moment, the skeleton of a drawing quickly sketched out on a clean sheet of paper, then he made eye contact again, defining the drawing with his peripheral vision. Nervous habit perhaps. He always sketched when he was nervous, and when he spoke with people, especially strangers. Something in his mind always demanded his hands to be occupied. He felt much more at ease when he had something to do with them, whether it was sketching a picture or smoking a cigarette.

The thought of his habits drudged up a buried longing for a cigarette. He couldn't of course, not inside the coffee shop, thanks to Paris laws, but the longing was there, of course, as it usually was. Such a lovely damned addiction, although he smoked relatively little. He could stretch out a pack of Kreteks over a week or more, only chain smoking when under extreme stress (his last fight with his mother, for instance). He smoke less to fuel his addiction and more as a hobby of sorts. The smoke from his brand of cigarettes was a bit more pleasant than that of regular tobacco. He smoked them in public and got less remarks than people smoking mainstream brands, perhaps a big reason he kept on with them. But he tried to put those out of his mind and focus on the girl.

Speaking again, his voice was calm and low. Sometimes people accused him of being patronizing, but it was simple the way he spoke. 'Perhaps we have met somewhere else?"

[NATHALIE ISABELLE PIERPONT]

The confusion that flickered over his face for a moment was easily interpreted by her. It had been seven years, surely she had changed a bit. It seemed reasonable that he would not recognize her right away, after all, a lot of living could happen in that length of time. Also, she had never expected to run into him, he surely had not expected the same.

Really, in a way, it was strange. She had lived in Paris her whole life, admittedly in district seven as opposed to district one, but all the same, the city of light was her home. Yet, she went through her every day exactly the same, never looking for those she had once known, never expecting to find them, to catch their eyes, to in any way ever see them again. However, with a population of over two million, perhaps it was not all that odd that she never really expected to stumble across anyone. In some ways, it seemed she had never known them at all, their names and personalities blending, the memories all becoming a blur as more recent occurrences took precedence. The way the mind worked was altogether unique, how events that seemed so important at the time faded into obscurity under newfound pressures. In the same way, people also faded from view, beings who had once been the focus of another's world slowly dissipated, becoming insignificant. She recalled clearly how she had not thought her life would ever be the same after the man before her had graduated, how she had wondered who she would talk to, how she would ever manage without having him to bounce ideas off of. He could never have replaced her parents in that regard, but it had been fun to discover her classmates thought patterns, something she had greatly enjoyed throughout all her years at the university. Yet, just a matter of weeks after he was no longer in her life, she had fully adapted, and no longer missed him. It had been the initial separation that had been the most difficult. In some ways, she wondered if there wasn't something wrong with her, if she did not feel deeply enough, if she was just so wrapped up in her own little world that she was missing the real one.

As she looked at the man with whom she had made no attempts to keep contact with for the seven years, she wondered greatly what she had missed out on. What had happened in his life since that point? What was he doing now? Feeling almost a sense of wistfulness steal over her, yet one of anticipation as she awaited his affirmative reaction, the one of recognition that was sure to come, she was completely floored by his next words. Feeling at first stunned, she was quite certain that her sudden confusion showed on her face. This man before her had not attended the university? But surely ... that made no sense. None at all. What was he speaking about? His voice was perfectly calm and measured, he did not seem at all irritated by her being there, even though she did not know him. All the same, a faint blush stole over her cheeks, in response to her sudden embarrassment. When she made a mistake, it seemed it could never be one that was completely unhumiliating and easy to fix.

Stuck wondering if she should apologize for bothering him and then leave, or if she should apologize and then see what he wanted, she remained silent as he started to sketch. She was sure it was quite obvious that she did not know what to do next. Truthfully glad that he was engaging in such an activity as drawing, as it gave her something to focus on, she continued to look at him, although she would occasionally drop her gaze to watch what his obviously skilled fingers were doing. The mere fact that he was so gifted at drawing, let alone the fact that he had not attended the university wrote his words into stone. Her friend had had no desire to draw, and in fact had failed all the art courses that had been assigned. This was most definitely not the same person, perhaps either her memory was faulty, or she was simply delusional. Or, perhaps, they just had a freakish resemblance to each other. It seemed digging through her books to find her yearbook was going to be a soon tackled activity. As soon as she was off duty, that was.

Her musing over her mistake was interrupted as he again spoke. His words sounded again, calm, yet, there was a sense of almost a ... she couldn't place it. He seemed almost too calm, as if he were a parent, and her a disobedient child that the parent was humoring. It was somewhat conveyed in his tone, although not so much his actions, as he continued to do all that he had done since she had sat down. Hesitating a moment, she pushed away her slight irritation at the fact that he had addressed her in such a manner. Keeping her eyes on his, her fingers started playing with the cover of her book, idly picking at the binding.

"I do not believe we could have met anywhere else. You look like someone I knew from the university, as that was the only place I knew him ... it was not anywhere else. I apologize for bothering you."

She straightened slightly, getting ready to stand in order to leave the man again in peace, although she then hesitated. He had asked her to sit without knowing her. It seemed, therefore, a little rude to simply rush off. She would wait to see if the conversation naturally led to a dismissal in the next few lines. If not ... there was no harm in spending her evening at the coffee shop with him, rather than with her book, if he so seemed to desire her company.

[ADRIEN JAMES CRANE]

"Not at all, you aren't bothering me." he said, his eyes smiling without the rest of his face.

How fascinating people are. he mused. He rarely watched people closely, perhaps because he rarely spoke, and when you don't pay attention you tend to see people more as masks than real faces. The swirl of emotion that flew through her face was interesting - confusion, embarrassment, irritation, the sudden want to leave - all over the course of a few short sentences. So complex. Perhaps that was the reason he felt so detached.

He did not know this girl. She was a stranger just as everyone seemed strange to him. And yet... there was an attraction, a desire for companionship he so often scorned and disdained. It made him think of Toulouse, as it and he had been before things had gone so far south. It made him wistful for a past unrecoverable. And it made him wish he could rewrite his past so the present was more like it had once been. So this girl could be familiar to him and he wouldn't feel the need to hide. That maybe he could feel less like this city was a prison and more like it was a home.

There were so many things he missed from the time before. He missed his aunt in Toulouse and he missed the garden and the house and the smiles that had lit up his mother's face. He missed James Crane being a secret to him and the days when he didn't have to worry about much of anything,. Normal nostalgia, of course. Nostalgia for the childhood friends who had slipped away and the dreams that had lost their color and been discarded as one grew up and realized truth about the way the world worked.

People. Faces. The echoes melted together in his mind like an ice sculpture, features falling away, less sharp, less defined, until all that was left was a pool of water and a photograph. And when he went to look back on them they played more like television snow. All the plans and the brilliant ideas and the hopes, dreams all gone upon waking, slipping away like water held in cupped hands. Crystallized remains, fragments of a life that was slipping away without him really noticing, gypsum sand caught in rain. People you imagined could never be replaced being replaced.

What a world.

What a strange thing it was. How different it could be for two people, even people alike in many ways. Importance was not universal, nor was any definition of value. And yet, in other ways, it was so the same. People laughed and talked and loved and became embarrassed by blunders real or imagined. People flirted in the same way and laughed when they were tickled, and death was almost always a sad affair. To sit and think about it opened up doors to questions quite possible innumerable.

Adrien wondered about the girl. Something in her eyes drew him and made him want to know more about her and her world His eyes searched her face and, and saw in it still a certain irritation. The smile in his eyes faded slightly at that.

"Have I offended you?"

[NATHALIE ISABELLE PIERPONT]

[[I stink at being prompt. I am sorry.]]

"Not at all, you aren't bothering me."

Having been preparing to stand in order to let the man go back to his world of privacy, his words made her pause. Although his expression remained almost devoid of any emotion as he spoke, it was evident from some aspect of his manner that he was telling the truth, that she had not bothered him. If their roles had been reversed, she held little doubt over the fact that her irritation would have existed. She disliked being interrupted if she did not know the person, and sometimes even when she did. It depended upon the situation, almost entirely, as well as on how engaging her book was at the moment. Yet his entire demeanor remained pleasant, although not obviously so. It was not noticeable in his face, rather in a way she could not quite determine. Jamais la matière.

Merely nodding in response to his words of what should have been perceived as a sort of comfort or condolence, Nathalie instead viewed them as odd and unnatural. What person would not be at least slightly uncomfortable with the idea of someone, that they did not know, practically forcing themselves into their private world at a certain moment? For that was what she had done. She had forced herself in, made an imbécile of herself, all in the matter of moments. It was actually quite against her normal character to feel such regret over an embarrassing action. Usually she simply brushed them off and moved onward, people were not important enough to her for her to act otherwise. They were much more interesting when they were dead or had created some work of art that people admired. It was quite likely that her concern over her mistake was born of the fact of who she had thought he was. She had not merely addressed a stranger, she had acted for all the world as if they were long lost friends. Her embarrassment however, was not persuaded to abandon her with just that interpretation.

Art, psychology, anthropology ... those were all easy for her to understand. It took no effort for her mind to determine something, to find an answer, a clue. It was not difficult for her to lose herself into those sort of worlds, worlds where people and their emotions were portrayed in a manner that conveyed them as being simple on the surface, complex once one had delved deeper. There was little doubt that she recognized the complexities of emotion. She also recognized the way the mind and the emotion was supposed to work. They were both supposed to be embarrassed, flustered. Emotions that were difficult and oppressive. The study of emotion itself made it much easier to understand. It divided the complexity almost into a formula, an approach that made predictability and in-depth understanding possible. They all reacted differently, and yet all the same. It was human nature. Therefore, she was stunned at her unpredictability, as well as his.

"Have I offended you?"

His tone was much less ... cheerful, she supposed. It was not that his words were any less pleasant, any more placating than his previous statement. Yet something had changed, not necessarily in his tone, merely in how he seemed to regard her. Frustrated at her own lack of ability to deal with the situation, Nathalie was silent for a moment, trying to determine how to proceed. No, she had not been offended, although she was afraid that she had done so to him. It was not that she cared for him, or held some sort of emotion for him that caused her to wish to have not offended him. It was simply brought out of the fact that the situation still seemed so delicate to her.

"Non, you have not offended me. I fear it would be the other way around, if someone were to be offended. Truly, I do not normally interrupt strangers on such frivolous wishful thinking or whims. I again apologize, and I will leave you alone now, so that you might return to your coffee in peace."

Smiling politely at him, she moved to go.