[It's a fascinating, even beautiful thing, watching Dean sit up and take notice. Watching him realize that this is important, that it's crucial, watching him fish around for some reason why it might be given to him with no questions asked, no favors demanded. Why it was so spontaneous.]
[It would be highly inaccurate to claim that the marquis is never spontaneous. He often is. It's just that his spontaneity has been developed by centuries of growing instinct such that, in the end, it's not really all that spontaneous at all. His actions are based in evidence gathered over too many years, and so even the things he doesn't have an explicit reason for doing, he quickly discovers: they are the right thing to do to get to his goal.]
[Except on those rare occasions when they aren't - but he doesn't discuss those, afterwards.]
[In any case, this is right. He watches Dean, tilts his head as the cogs turn, and when Dean finally speaks - ]
[He's seen. And that, more than anything else, makes the marquis smile almost fondly, not at Dean but at the memory of crisp pages, slowly dampening in the humidity of the hours after rain, the first time he held Le Chatte Botte in his hands, the absorption of crucial knowledge, of philosophy, the metamorphosis . . .]
[He smiles.]
And?
[Which means Yes. You're right. So pleased. Well done. You see.]
[ Private : Video ]
[It would be highly inaccurate to claim that the marquis is never spontaneous. He often is. It's just that his spontaneity has been developed by centuries of growing instinct such that, in the end, it's not really all that spontaneous at all. His actions are based in evidence gathered over too many years, and so even the things he doesn't have an explicit reason for doing, he quickly discovers: they are the right thing to do to get to his goal.]
[Except on those rare occasions when they aren't - but he doesn't discuss those, afterwards.]
[In any case, this is right. He watches Dean, tilts his head as the cogs turn, and when Dean finally speaks - ]
[He's seen. And that, more than anything else, makes the marquis smile almost fondly, not at Dean but at the memory of crisp pages, slowly dampening in the humidity of the hours after rain, the first time he held Le Chatte Botte in his hands, the absorption of crucial knowledge, of philosophy, the metamorphosis . . .]
[He smiles.]
And?
[Which means Yes. You're right. So pleased. Well done. You see.]