"Of course not," Eloise agreed. "Do you have an agenda, Evan? I'd be surprised to learn what mine is."
She was joking. An actual joke!
Or maybe not. Had that sounded like a joke? Her tone of voice had dipped playfully in her throat.
"Perhaps you've been conditioned to associate balloons with happiness. Or happiness with balloons." She paused, thumbing through the new book in her hands. French Philosophy. Art theory. Like being given an assignment in school -- she'd certainly read it, consider it carefully.
And she'd have to return the favor somehow.
"...Can anything be art?" Eloise asked, a moment later. "I might secretly be an artist. Or a rebel."
Eloise nodded politely. "Yes. Would you have really? Out of everything?" She wouldn't have changed a thing about her life -- even if she'd been in France, somehow, she was sure the same path would have shown itself. "You could have been my father's student."