lanselos_du_lac

"I'm so glad you asked," Claudius says, whether or not that technically counts as a question. It's very close to a question, for Lancelot. "Listen. Let me tell you a secret. Eye contact is not a natural skill for me. I'm excellent at it, of course." He looks Lancelot directly in the eye, charming and approachable, if perhaps too approachable. "But that's all practice. The cut direct is rather advanced in that it requires denying eye contact when it would otherwise be expected. You go to greet the host of a dance you're attending -- for example -- and instead of meeting your eyes and acknowledging you, he looks away. It's not that he didn't hear you. It's that you're beneath acknowledgement. He may consider the sky instead, which is the cut sublime, or the ground beneath, which is the cut infernal." With some annoyance, he says, "Now, a host should never cut a guest, if he controls the guest list. But if you weren't at that dance ... I suppose Gertrude's dancing lessons would've gone to waste. And Laertes adores thee. Sagramore adores thee, but in an arch, confrontational sort of way, which I frankly envy."