"Fool you?" I said slowly. "I'm afraid I don't understand."
"Oh, you understand, all right. You're very clever—or think you are."
"I wasn't trying to be clever," I told her. "It looked pretty bad for us. They would have killed us both if I hadn't talked them out of it."
"You could have told me!" she flung at me, her eyes abruptly accusing. "Why did you have to make a secret of it?"
"A secret of what?"
"You didn't think I'd guess straight off? You didn't give me credit for knowing even that much about the psychology of primitives?"
"You're talking in riddles," I protested. "You're taking too much for granted."
"Am I? The things you take for granted are beyond belief. I know exactly how your mind worked. You told yourself they were angry enough to kill impulsively. You had to give them the strongest possible reason for not wanting to kill us. Isn't that so?"
"Well—"
"There's a very old saying that has a universal application," she said, a stinging contempt in her voice. "All the world loves a lover. I thought of it instantly myself."