[Of course - he can read her mind as much as he likes. She’s a blabberer anyway: most of what is in her head comes out of her mouth. It’s why she’s usually in trouble]

“Me?” She’s caught off guard by the question. Nobody has ever actually asked her what she’d like to learn. History? But then, what good is learning about the dead? Latin, like the students? But nobody speaks it. Drawing and art? She’d be rubbish. Perhaps books? She thinks about Marius, always with a book under his arm. If she’d’ve had books, they might have talked about them together. They might have lay on his coat on the grass in the summer discussing classical tales and great thinkers of old. Yes, she decides, books.

“Me? I’d study books. Any of ‘em. All of ‘em. I like to read, you know? I can read. And if I’d books, I’d read ‘em all. But books are expensive. There are better things to spend money on.”

She laughs, but there’s no humour in it.
“Where are you from if you ain’t from La Belle Paris? Stinking hole what she is. Are you from a far away land, like the sailors? I bet you learned French at university, no?”