Vega has, upon occasion, lifted her gaze to this strange man and watched him roll the pen around in his mouth with naked disgust on her face, but this has not stopped him from doing it at all. To refrain from telling him off out loud is to spare him an embarrassment.

Ten minutes later still, she doesn't know why she's bothering.

She has been trying to read and now eyes his pile of papers. ... They aren't the same, are they? Surely they aren't reading the same thing in here, together.

She sniffs, thumbing at pages.

"I read it better than I write—" another scrape; she bursts out, "Will you stop that."