Re: the thin and red/the actress
Manners were very much a tool, and Waterhouse knew how to use them. He was pleasant and well-spoken, and he leaned into the forbidden without naming it bluntly. He implied the improprieties of life without stating them. Such was a gentleman's way.
"And where might I take you?" he asked. He crossed his legs at the knee. "Where the others have gone? I have sat in that window since the train stopped, and gone nowhere else. Ask the bartender." He grinned at last. "That aside, Ms. Atwood, what is life without the touch of risk's hand? What sort of artist might you be if you did not occasionally brush with chance? With the unknown?"