"I want to get to the bottom of this Dust business," she says, deciding she has nothing to lose at this point by being plain. "All that brought me here was a few neighbourhood misgivings about this place, so I thought it might be worth a look. If I'm well up the wrong tree, then that's that." She smiles, rather humourlessly. "Of course, now I have to wonder about a foreigner who goes about under cover of night in a hooded cape—" with bat ears, for god's sake "—and who clearly has no taste for trespassers. And who, despite that, hasn't tried to kill me or knock me unconscious or any of the usual sorts of things people up to no good do to intruders."

She's thinking out loud at this point, but it's also a way of attacking his absurdly taciturn manner, by saying exactly what's on her mind. Perhaps it's reckless to seek a reaction so directly, but her curiosity has gotten the better of her in a long way by now.