"She's not at all naive," Prior says, both proud and abrupt. "Saw right through me, she did." More of the North slipping out. He doesn't care so much now, although he realizes he hasn't the right or enough pine-based battery acid in him yet to not regret that later.

Thinking back to their last meeting at the train station, he wishes he could go back and give Sarah a proper goodbye. At that moment they'd both been thinking the same thing: This might be the last time. And they'd been both right and altogether wrong, as all around them the same scenario played out in waving handkerchiefs and tipped hats hundreds of times over, in hundreds of other stations along the line.

"We're an unlikely pair." He snorts indelicately, giving Fitzjames a break and attempting to take over in this leading he's made feel so easy.

"I like to think so, at least, although our mothers aren't convinced: Somehow neither of us are good enough for the other." The distaste for classism is so thoroughly ingrained within Prior, he almost feels a fool for dancing around, like Fitzjames is representing all of the world with his one-two-three-four instruction.

"She's beautiful. In her own way. No—" He stalls any protests that might come up. "It's not meant to be awkward, I only mean that no one else is beautiful quite like her. No one could be. She has a... sadness, but she covers it well and with a confidence that I'd want for my daughters.

"And my sons, for that matter. There's no divide anymore, not with someone like Sarah in the world."