Lancelot listens to all of this with an expression that goes from carefully controlled to frowning, then to flushed. At the last, he looks back into his glass.

He has the urge to argue, and perhaps the only thing that prevents it is that he has already heard something similar, from so many people he loves, that he can at last begin to believe that good things are something he might deserve. He takes another drink.

After a long pause to master his voice he says, "I have such loves, here, and I am grateful. Your Gertrude -- she was kind to me without any reason to be, in a way that I know means she is kind to her core, sincerely. She taught me to dance, that I might please Susan, and I will ever be grateful to her for that."