This praise Claudius all but basks in, leaning towards Laertes's touch like a cat, or like some other creature meant to be stroked and admired. When Laertes's hand leaves him, Claudius's lips are parted open, his eyes soft. It bares him to receive the stark fact of Laertes’s confession, and fold it to his heart. "Thou art a graceful flatterer," he says at last.