"You nod, but you don't get it," Sean said. "What you do and say reflects on Stephen. He's the one apologising, because you can't be respectful. He's the one who won't be invited a second time. You don't know us, so maybe you don't understand, but we are a closed circle, a sort of strange family as far as the rest of the world is concerned, and we put great energy in teaching Stephen what to do, and you come, playing some game, making fun of what we do. You don't like us, then stay the hell away."
Stephen tensed at Sean's comment. Sean was a lot more forward than Midori, although she had made the same point her own. "He didn't meant it like that, Sean. He's trying to understand and things don't come out the way he means. If I thought that he'd ridicule all of this, we wouldn't be here." He stopped when he saw the waiter arrive. After Stephen paid, the waiter put the trolley with the food to his right and left.
"Which goes back to the fact that you have to teach him," Midori said. "He should be doing anything you say."
Stephen could imagine what Midori would suggest, but he knew that Adrian would lose it. "Again, I agree that I need to be better at teaching what he should or shouldn't do in public, but no, he shouldn't be doing anything I say." He uncovered the first plate with cheeses and cold cuts. Everything was cut into finger food, since so many people were fed here. He popped a piece of cheese in his mouth, before feeding one to Adrian. "So you want to blame someone," he went on, "then blame me." It was true after all, because he didn't want to press Adrian.