[Well, he'd set himself up for that question coming his way eventually, hadn't he?

He gives Amelia an impish look over the rim of his glass before taking a drink, then lowering it so that he can lean forward slightly, as though it's of great import that his answer is for her ears alone.]

Oh, almost immediately, I've no doubt. I was quite insufferable in my youth.

[An entirely different sort of unrecognizable than the broken shell he had been two years earlier.]

Ambitious beyond words and eager to prove my worth at any cost, in addition to being entirely unafraid to boast of my own virtues. I was, perhaps, somewhat more tolerable by the time I was working on my masters' degree, but I don't think you would have had the patience. Remarkably, I was quite popular at school, but I think that would have made you like me all the less.

[He doubts she has ever been the sort to think much of the opinion of the crowd.]

I'd like to believe I've been suitably humbled by now.