[While he refuses to give her the satisfaction, as he sees it, of his full agreement, the remark gives him pause and his gaze slides to one side, clouding in thought.]

Perhaps.

[But the beginnings of a sneer curls his upper lip, the glimmers of a fierce self-disgust glinting in his eyes. And then it comes.]

...Do you so desperately crave the affections of others that you cannot enjoy flesh without sentiment? Can you not simply take things as they are without wanting and expecting and hoping, desperate to attach and extract deeper meaning to and from it?

[Every vicious, low-voiced little word tears and twists into him.]

You, who speak of knowing loss... why not claim now what little the world is willing to give you? Pry it from its cold, greedy fingers lest it changes its mind and nothing shall be left for you!

[He doesn't realize the tension he's carrying in his body until his shoulders sag and a withheld breath slides out of him. And in an instant, he freezes over and is as he once was, hands draped high on his thighs and an air of cool and faint amusement about him.]

There is no sin in taking pleasures where they can be found.