( benevenuta responds to that annoyance with patience; a hint of a smile, more wry than anything else: ) Yes, my lord, you have said so, and that you have said so and yet we can sit here and speak with one another without difficulty is a promising thing in a place where it is not something to be taken for granted.

I do not take it for granted. On the contrary; I think it something worth cultivating, to show that it can be done, and that that separation is the way things are but perhaps not the way things need to be.

You are a difficult man to dismiss as soft-hearted. ( there's a bit of a gentle tease in that, a bit of lightness as she makes her broader point-- ) So the example you set carries weight someone else's may not, for that. You are not being kind to me because your nature is a kind one; you meet with me respectfully as I meet you the same way.

I have no doubt you'd make your feelings quite plain if you felt I did not deserve it.