[Safer, he says, and there's just the flicker-flash of a moment when Julian wonders whether that's what he really wants. Hopes, at any rate, that safety doesn't translate to inertia, lack of adventure, a dearth of excitement.

Perish the thought.

But there's no time to dwell on that really, nor a chance to adequately respond, because then the other man is asking his question and quite abruptly, Julian's one visible eye infinitesimally widens. The look that crosses his face in that moment, it's perfectly dramatic, though coloured by honest regret.]

Oh, my dear, I do apologise. Whatever happened to manners, eh? I may just have spent six months or more in the land of the debauched, but that's no excuse for rudeness. Doctor Julian Devorak, at your service.

[And he sketches an elaborate bow, coat flung out behind him in a flourish.]