“You are not of the hills, you know that. You told me you were no peasant. Do you suppose I can’t see that for myself?” I made no reply, and after a pause she added, “I know why it is you will not answer me. You think I must be a coward because I am a woman.”
“Is that another of the commonest instincts of courtesy—the average man’s courtesy, I mean?” I said this with the deliberate intention of irritating her to keep her away from the matter. But she saw my purpose instantly.
“Will you answer that question of mine?”
“Let me finish first with mine, and then you ask what you will.”
She paused to think, and then nodded as if in answer to her thoughts.
“I am not a coward to be frightened by bad news, and I have already guessed the answer to it.”
“Then there can be no need for me to tell it you,” I said.
She waited again, and then looking at me fixedly said, with an air of deliberate decision: “If you do not tell me, I will not remain here another minute.”
This was a challenge to a trial of wills; and I took it up at once.
“You are not a prisoner,” I said, and stepped aside ostentatiously as if to leave the way free for her.