Stephen briefly fantasises about just leaping out of the nearest window and barrel-rolling across the courtyard and escaping this conversation. He’s incorrigibly nigh-pathologically tight-lipped about his personal life, and doesn’t know what to do with that nudge when it’s all so brand-new and fragile, only a few days’ old and not ready to talk about it. A private development he’s still getting used to, not for the whole world to see.

So instead, as utterly bland and neutral as he could make it, “I’m friendly with our new Provost. She’s got a good head on her shoulders, too.”

And there’s a beat, before he can’t help but add: “But, also, I could do far worse than listening to Gwenaëlle Baudin.”

Perhaps some people might take issue with her opinions (she has a lot of them, and they’re loud), but she’s been his sense-check, his lodestone and compass needle, for far longer than they’ve been fucking. There’s an inevitable quiet fondness buried in his voice when he says her name.

Christ. He needs to jump out the window.