Perhaps it would have proved uncomfortable, but her admission was met with silence. All Morreti seemed to do is carefully tend to her uniform. The sash seemed to have concealed clasps which fit to certain sections of the belt, this gave it the illusion of being tucked under the belt, but spared of all the creasing and compression that would cause. When he was finished, he took half a step back and made sure that when he needed to adjust the uniform that he was only pinching fabric and not touching her.
He'd obviously heard her, and used all this time to process it. Something was happening behind his perfectly calm and composed exterior, he couldn't have just thought nothing of that confession. But yet there he was, motionless except for breathing which betrayed him. It was clear he felt something in response to this, but he was totally restraining what the reaction was. Curiously, it wasn't anger or disgust.
"I understand." It was an answer, at long last. But it conveyed a mixture of things besides sincerity, pain and regret among them. "I wish I'd met you sooner." It was as if he considered this his fault, even if that were absurdly irrational. That somehow an arbitrary application of the fact that he'd met her too late to make a tangible difference was proof of abject failure. It was unclear if he was always like this when alone. But he might have taken things more personally than people realized, or expected him to. "You don't need to explain or say anything further." It was his way of indirectly telling her that if something were to happen, he'd take care of it. And it was also clear that the honesty was deeply appreciated.
Since it was also on his mind, he just went ahead and said it. "I'd hug you, if I could." Putting a joking spin on the fact that he obviously couldn't, since her inhibitions were quite obvious. But hopefully it would lighten the mood, if only slightly.
