Almost nobody expects a truthful answer to "How are you?", and "Pretences" begins by taking that tiny ritual seriously. The speaker imagines being asked and sketches what would follow: a rehearsed "fine", a smile that doesn't reach the eyes, and a listener who accepts it and moves on. Only in the last line does the poem turn on its own scenario and ask what all this costs.
The grammar is the first clue to how the poem works. Almost every verb is conditional: "I'd only be delivering", "you'll be assured", "You would look no further", "I would be safe". The speaker never says "I lie". They describe what *would* happen, as though reporting a scene they have played through many times. That fits the poem's own phrase "well-practiced line", which suggests a performance that no longer needs thinking about. The speaker doesn't have to decide to lie, because the lie arrives on cue. "Fluidly spoken lies" reinforces this. The adverb makes the deception sound smooth and effortless, and that smoothness is what is troubling.
The imagery draws on two worlds, the theatre and the battlefield. A "line" is what an actor delivers, and a "disguise" is what they wear. "Armour" belongs to someone who expects to be attacked. Together they show a speaker who is both performing and defending. Yet the verb chosen for this protection is "tucked", a soft, almost childlike word that suggests hiding under a blanket more than going into combat. That small tonal shift hints at how fragile the speaker feels beneath the metal. The cliché of the smile that doesn't reach the eyes is worth noticing too. The poem is about stock phrases and automatic responses, and it expresses itself in familiar, worn-in language, so form and subject quietly match.
The listener matters as much as the speaker. "You" is not villainous, but is revealed as easily satisfied: "You would look no further / And happily believe." The word "happily" is pointed. The deception works because the listener is relieved to be deceived, and a polite question is allowed to get a polite answer. The speaker is not accusing anyone, but the poem does show how two people can cooperate in avoiding the truth without either one deciding to.
Formally, the poem is sixteen short lines, unbroken on the page, though they fall naturally into four quatrains. In each, the even-numbered lines rhyme: "fine/line", "eyes/lies", "believe/grieve", "disguise/price". The pairs are neat and plain, and the rhymes themselves almost feel rehearsed, like the speech they describe. The odd lines are left unrhymed, so a slightly loose rhythm runs underneath. The lines are short, mostly five to eight syllables, and conversational, which keeps the tone confiding rather than dramatic. Then the final rhyme slips. "Disguise" and "price" nearly chime but not quite, since the z of one doesn't meet the s of the other. After fifteen lines of tidy sound, that small mismatch leaves the ending unsettled, just as the content does.
The last line also changes the poem's behaviour. Until then it has been a run of statements, calm and almost reasonable, and the speaker even concludes they would be "vulnerable to none". The word "safe" sounds like a victory. Then "But come, at what price?" cuts in. The line is the shortest, and its "But come" has a slightly old-fashioned, urgent ring, as if the speaker is shaking themselves out of the argument they have just made. The question is never answered, and that is the poem's real point. The price is left for the reader to work out, perhaps loneliness, perhaps the chance that nobody will ever see the person behind the armour. Safety that nobody can get through is also isolation.
This is what makes "Pretences" worth reading. Its subject is ordinary, and many readers will recognise the moment of saying "I'm fine" when they aren't. The poem shows that this small habit has a logic: it protects, it saves effort, and it keeps conversations smooth. By ending on a question rather than a verdict, it also refuses to pretend that protection is free.