At Ned's comment, he looks back at the painting, frowning slightly. "So it's not an allegory for..." He gestures helplessly, trying to come up with what the portrait could possibly be an allegory for, but he's fresh out of good ideas. "Okay, maybe you're right," he concedes, studying the painting intently, as though by staring at it long enough it will impart some kind of meaning to him beyond the obvious. "It might just be a painting. But people always act like art is so..."

Another gesture, wider this time, expansive, as though he's gesturing to the whole room at once. "People act like art is so above all of us. Like artists see something we don't, And maybe they do, who knows? You're kind of an artist, right? I mean, cooking is art, in a way. Does that mean you're better at understanding human nature than the rest of us, or something?"

He likes to think someone out there understands human nature; the prospect that nobody knows why people do the things they do is a bleak one indeed.