“He has already struck the match, his hands cupped to protect the small flame against the currents of the air but also to smuggle more of his body into the exchange, under cover of courtesy. Frazer always cups his hands around the flame and leans near, even when indoors in a place with no drafts. Some men embrace all the retrograde aspects of gallantry because they’ve intuited that to be gallant is to take sexual hold of a woman, however obliquely. She thinks Frazer is one of these men.”
