You are an author, no? Surely a man of some wealth or breeding?

[No, Sieglinde, it's no longer the 15th century, people don't have to be educated nobles or monks to write books... well, perhaps she should know better, she belatedly realizes, considering how terribly rude many of the Greek philosophers she's read could be, but.

She can't help self-consciously pressing her bony knees together, adjusting slightly misshapen feet to try and minimize the sight of them.]

If you shall not have me speak of it I shall ask no more of your story-

[Because unlike someone! she had good manners. (When it suited her.)]

You need only provide an arm.