There are grounds on which he might brook some argument - consider, madame, that if you'd found him at some reasonable hour in some normal place, we could have saved ourselves all this trouble and cut straight to the bone on whatever you mean to discuss -, but those too go on the shelf.

At the very least, he keeps his thoughts to himself - a mercy, he thinks, for is own benefit more so than it is for her. He gets the feeling they might talk in circles if he opened the door to semantics.

So she's left with the company of the desk, the small stack of books there - (one must be a ledger and the other has no name on its spine and the third is called The Sermons of Divine Rosamund vol.III and matches at least one other on the shelf built into the nearby bulkhead) -, a series of papers made anonymous in the low light, the shifting shadows as the lamp swings from the overhead hook, the murmur of the harbor's black water at the Walrus' stern, and the low shuffling of clothing being traded.

Eventually, he comes back around the desk looking less human by far in a dark shirt and breeches. He sets the closed pen knife before her as he rounds to take his seat.