“Oh.” She swallowed, discomfited by his gentle compliment. And at the same time rather pleased. “Thank you.” She turned back to the map, which sat, safe and comforting, on the table before her. “Look how big Greenland is,” she said, mostly because the big blob at the top was the first thing she saw.

“It’s not really that big,” he said. “The map distorts area.”

“It does?”

“You did not know that?”

His tone was not insulting. It was not even condescending, but nonetheless, she felt foolish. It seemed like the sort of thing she ought to have known. And certainly it was the sort of thing she’d like to have known.

“It comes from having to spread a spherical object onto a flat plane,” he explained. “Try to envision wrapping this map around a sphere. You’d have a great deal of extra paper at the poles. Or conversely, try to imagine taking the surface of a sphere and laying it out flat. You would not get a rectangle.”

She nodded, cocking her head to the side as she considered this. “So the tops and bottoms are stretched. Or rather, the north and the south.”

“Exactly. Do you see how Greenland looks nearly equal in size to Africa? It’s actually less than one tenth the area.”

She looked up at him. “Nothing is as it seems, is it?”

He was silent for just long enough to make her wonder if they were still talking about maps. And then he said, his face devoid of emotion, “No.”

She shook her head, turning back to the map. “Strange.”

And she thought she heard him say, “You have no idea.” She glanced at him curiously, intending to ask what he meant, but he’d already returned his attention to the map.

“These projections do have their advantages,” he said, sounding somewhat brisk, as if it were his turn to wish to change the subject. “It is true that they do not preserve actual area, but the local angles remain true, which is why they are so useful in navigation.”

She was not sure that she fully understood what he was saying, but she enjoyed listening to him discuss something so academic. And she adored that he had not brushed it aside as a topic that would surely be of no interest to a lady. She looked over at him and smiled. “You certainly seem to know a great deal about this.”

He shrugged modestly. “It is an interest of mine.”

She sucked in her lips, a habit of hers that her mother detested. But she could not seem to help it. It was something she always did when she was deciding what to say. Or whether to say it.