the greed Hal can hear in his own voice
‘Two or even three tablets, maybe?’ Hal says, knowing he sounds greedy but unable to help himself.
Context
The connoisseurship slips for one line and the appetite shows through: pricing the dose upward, Hal hears his own greed and can't stop it. The whole cool apparatus of inquiry and titration and forceps is cover for a want he can detect but not govern — the tell is not that he asks for more, but that he catches himself asking and asks anyway.