She gripped her fork. If she didn’t look over at him now, it would be not only rude but telling. Proving she was deliberately ignoring him, and hence paying him attention through her inattention. She blinked and glanced his way. “As happy as could be expected this year. Thank you for asking.”

He smiled. Scientifically, she noted that his color was better this evening and the shadows under his eyes not so deep. According to Dot, he was making great strides of progress.

Good. The sooner he healed, the sooner he’d leave.

He picked up his own water glass but didn’t drink from it. “And how old are you now? My sister didn’t know.”

A question she’d grown tired of answering when she was six. “Two hundred sixty-three.”

“Really?” He drank now, chuckling as he did so, then set the glass down with a grin. “And here I wouldn’t have pegged you as a day over two hundred sixty-one.”

A bit of her irritation slipped off her shoulders, blast him. He was the sort of person she liked, if he’d just keep his interest relegated to the confines of friendship. “It is my skin-care regimen, you see. I’m militant about it. It’s all I can ever think about.”

He laughed, splaying a hand over his side as he did so. “Exactly the impression I had of you. Why, it’s certainly all you’ve ever talked about in our previous conversations.”

Her lips pulled up, and her shoulders relaxed a bit. Perhaps she could simply ignore his too-long glances. Pretend his interest was no different from any of the men in Room 40. She’d hate to deprive herself of a friend, after all. “May I ask you a question, since you’re so fond of them?”

His brows lifted. “Of course.”

She nodded in the general vicinity of his face. “How did you break your nose?”

“Ah.” Leaning back in his chair, he seemed to lift his hand experimentally from his injured side. Apparently it passed the test, as he reached for his fork again. He’d eaten only half his food, and everyone else was finishing off their last bites. Perhaps he wasn’t quite as well as he pretended. “Got in a bit of a tussle with some older boys when I was a lad, that’s all.”

“Over what?” Dot, possibly. He seemed the type of brother who wouldn’t mind a few fisticuffs if it meant defending his sister from bullies.

But he didn’t look at his sister. He looked upward, and to the right. “My mother. Or her faith, more precisely. The neighbor lads thought it their Christian duty to throw a few literal stones at her for being Catholic.”