"Considering 'terminally', you seem to act as though it might constitute your last meal," said Alvean drily, but they ordered tea; she appeared composed and normal as though this really was some polite outing with a gentleman acquaintance, but when the tea-maid was out of earshot she relaxed back in her chair a little to look at him again.
"Well, Mr. Steinberg," the woman opposite him said, "I have no rosy imagination that you are an official sympathiser, or you should have said so earlier! So let us talk, then, of honest critique."