“How hard you can be. I though you meant it,” she murmured.
“You shouldn’t try us both in this way,” I said. “I had to show you that my will is stronger than yours; and you made the lesson hard.”
“Would you have let me go?” she asked.
“No, certainly not.”
“Oh, I wish I had held out,” she exclaimed, vehemently.
I smiled.
“We call it bluff in the States; and I am an older hand at it than you. That’s all.”
“The States?” she asked quickly. “What States?”
“United States. I am an American, you see, naturalised, that is; I’m English by birth.”
“American? English? But I thought....”