Work Text:
”How many of these have you actually read, George?” Running his thumb over the dusty spines of a pile of large coffee table books, Peter Guillam glanced up at the other man from where he was stretched out on the sofa, his brown suede shoes carefully folded over each other.
George Smiley stood in the doorway to his own drawing-room, still damp from the rain, his expression somewhere between put-out and relieved at the sight of the younger man. ”I’ve read enough of them.”
Outside, the rain came down a little harder, and almost as if by a direct reaction, Guillam rose from the sofa to his feet in a single, fluid movement. ”On second thought, you’ll probably need a heavier coat then that one.”
Switching his overcoat out for a heavy brown travelling coat, Smiley glanced once more at the umbrella in the stand, commenting lightly, his tone conversational. ”You’ve been here for several hours.”
”Mmn.” Guillam neither confirmed nor denied the statement, knowing that the older man didn’t require a response and was probably getting at something else.
”How many of those books did you read?”