[ Irving's frown only seems to deepen as he struggles to hide his growing dismay at Kate's situation being much worse than he'd imagined; a publicly accessible community building that boards women and men together within one large room (or so he's heard) is no place at all for a vulnerable young lady to be claiming residence in the first place, and particularly not a girl who's apparently also in danger of physical assault and violence by multiple different parties.

After all, even having just one enemy is still more than enough to put Irving off so much as considering communal housing, and he's a fully grown adult man— a Royal Navy lieutenant, for Heaven's sake! Surely this is just common sense for anyone, not least of all young women and girls. ]

Well, it doesn't seem remotely safe, given the circumstances... not only do I imagine you must experience little to no privacy while living here, nor much, if any, kind of organized security to speak of, but to be so altogether lacking in an appropriate residential division between the sexes is not exactly what I'd call decent, either. It—

[ He hesitates, aware that it's not really his place to intervene, but also: ]

I-it... must not be terribly comfortable for you, is all. [ Not that this conversation has been particularly comfortable, either, but there's not much to be done about that. ] And what's more, I'm quite sure Edward would agree.