Perat swirled his glass silently, apparently watching only the tiny flashes of iridescence flowing from his jeweled right hand.
Evelyn thought: What made him suspicious? There's something in his left hand. If I only dared probe.... But he'd know I was afraid, and I'm not supposed to be afraid. Anyway, in a little while it won't matter. If the field crew has started pulling the columns, they should be through in half a metron. If they haven't started, they never will, and nothing will matter then, anyway.
The man's face was inscrutable when he finally spoke. "You couldn't have gone on much longer, anyway, on account of your rib."
"It was becoming a little painful."
"Twice you nearly fainted."
So he had noticed that.
He continued mercilessly. "Why were you so anxious to keep me shut up for a whole metron?"
"I wanted to amuse you. We have so little time left, now."
"So I thought, until your rib began to trouble you. The reaction of an ordinary woman would have been to stop."
"Am I an ordinary woman?"