Re: log: jude/louis
Perhaps not. Jude remembered the incident in question (and Oliver's abject, outright and distant fury at desecration of art worthy of idolatry) and reconsidered. "No better way to move the less worthy stock, however," and winsome grin to back up his business plan and neither would pass a bank's assessment of steadiness nor fitness for mortgage, but the man had no need for any financial acumen but frittering, so please it.
Louis walked his defined line, nary a wobble despite all best efforts exerted. "Perhaps company just needs to remind you of its comforts? Willing victim, yours truly, if you wish to test the theory and remind yourself of the vast abiding benefit of company. I'm practiced at keeping quiet and letting people look their fill, cross heart promise." Batted eyelashes, and the last of the coffee knocked back but despite the empty coffee cup? Jude wasn't prompted on exeunt-all; this was a prop rather than a line in the script.
Louis's wry interjection made him grin. Jude's smile was his very best of features (if he did make the assessment himself) and when it wasn't calculated, or balanced to achieve an end? It was creased from use and unstinting, and he laughed. "I'm a terrible saint, walking sinner forever and ever, amen, no matter what Oliver says. But if you're ever tired of your particular virtue," and he believed it, which was terrible and shouldn't be true at all, "Then I'm sure we can banish it back to the seventeenth century, where it belongs."
But he was caught on Hunter and mills. The town wasn't forthcoming exactly on rumors, it filled in the gaps with lavishments of gossip and the wild imaginings of the old ladies, but you couldn't parse those rumors and think of puppy mills. "More like wolves or coyotes, if fiction is to be made fact. He's a rescuer," Jude said as knowledgably as he could. "And I rather approve of rescuers, all things being considered. I was a rescue, rather than a mill."