Let it never be said he's unaware of his better qualities; they're so few, after all, like rare and precious jewels that need to be polished to best effect. Smiling suits him, but he deploys it as if it's a finite resource - the understated nature of the expression somehow making it more marked that he does it at all.

"Not at all," he assures her. "I train my lady Leblanc in the evenings, a taste of the sort of knowledge she can expect me to impart to her students. She had my full attention for the duration of her lesson, but it is yours now."

The woman he'd once intended to marry had wanted nothing more than the full force of his attention, but she'd have been the first to laugh, merry and a little sad, at the idea he really gives it to anyone.

(It happens. Occasionally.)