" What may I do to get back into your good graces?”
“You’ve done nothing to offend me.”
“Then why did you acknowledge Robart before me?”
What?
“You addressed him before you addressed me.”
I cleared my throat. “Just to be clear, you’re upset because I spoke to Robart before I spoke to you? In the ballroom just before we went to check on the car?”
“I understand that the circumstances of the summit prevent frank exchanges,” Arland said. “An appearance of propriety must be maintained and any hint of favoritism is to be avoided at all costs. But when one travels so far, one looks for the small things. A chance glance. A brief kindness, freely offered and gone unnoticed by all except its intended recipient. Some hint, some indication that he has not been forgotten. One might take an acknowledgment of a bitter rival before him, in public, as an indication of certain things.”
It dawned on me. His feelings were actually hurt. "

― Ilona Andrews , Sweep in Peace (Innkeeper Chronicles, #2)