Tristan himself had never spent much time in a kitchen until Pippa and Nel had decided that this was the center of his home, rather than the dining room upstairs. He hadn't liked it.

His lack of kitchen experience did make him panic for a moment, but he found the remainder of Nel's soup. He knew how to heat something on a stove at least.

He put it on and then turned and listened. "I'm not easily scandalized, Pippa," he said, having just been scandalized by two Americans talking about excrement in a non-medical context. "Not personally anyway. I only worry about the social implications. Now that you have your family's money, enough to last your life according to Zimmermann, you have the privilege to care less about what people think. If you want to live without servants, people may frown but you can rise above it. My situation is different. A scandal may well end in the gutter or worse."

He had said more than he had wanted to say there. "I'm sorry. I should not trouble you with these things now."