Alain sees that tiredness and instability, and were it anyone else, he might feel sympathy. But because it is Compson, who most of all the Capitolites he's learnt to loathe, and because of that targeted jab, he's as coldly empty of it as Roland at his worst. Tapping ash off his cigarette, he turns a page and continues to look down at the words without reading them.

He's silent for a long moment, closed-off and still-faced, and when he does speak around his cigarette, it's without looking up at his Escort. "I am not proud of it. But nor will I cry your pardon for my failings." Raising his head a little, he huffs a smoke ring up towards the ceiling, and closes his eyes. The Capitol cigarette tastes dry and flavourless as dust, but it's something to steady him. "I fought as best I could, I fell as all men must, and I died as fate willed. It's your people who chose to lessen that by returning me. If you seek to dig barbs into me over it, you may go on seeking; I am at peace with it."

That's a lie. He's hardly felt less at peace since that first panic at his arrival passed. But it's a lie he feels no twinge of conscience over, honest though he usually is. He's embarrassed, yes, and thoroughly unsettled by the whole thing, but he isn't weak enough to give Jason such an obvious purchase on his emotions. Better to push down that germ of anger, let it grow into something hard and strong as steel, something he can use when the time comes.

If he was another man, he might comment on Jason's own unstable appearance, riposte against the Capitolite's attack with one of his own. But he isn't, and to do so seems petty. No sense making a fight here, not if he can help it. Instead, he taps his cigarette against the empty mug's edge again, catching the ash, and looks back down at his book.