[He's sorry for that, too, and has just enough sense of people and their pride not to say it. The ways they wound each other will never cease to appall him.

But then he's laughing, not derisively. He gives himself a rather pointed once over before looking back to her.]

I'll say this with the least amount of offensiveness intended that you can imagine, my dear. You're really not my type.

And I do rather dislike dust.