"What has that to do with me—and you?"
"It applies. You are a damned attractive female, and as such you should not use this attraction unless you want the man you are luring. Follow?"
Carolyn nodded. "I'll behave," she said. "I like you, Charles. No other man has ever talked to me like that."
"Well, be careful or I'll prove to you that I am just like all the rest. Now, how about this other deal? Or should we talk about the weather—or chess, tiddly-winks, astronomy?"
"Astronomy. We see no stars on Mercury, you know."
"So it's up to the telescope. Come on."
Farradyne shook his head in amused concern. It was apparent that Carolyn liked to play with fire; either that or she wanted to show her own superiority to herself. She could hardly have known about the visit of Norma Hannon, so she would not be aware of the fact that Farradyne had been able to establish the validity of the hellflower. Mentally Farradyne kicked himself. All he had done was to put the woman on her guard. She knew it was a hellflower, she must know it. So this nice little game she was playing was known to be a game.
So that made it even—both of them knew it was the real thing, both of them knew she was immune.
This might be cricket, but it was not good management. This was not a contest for the Glory of Good Old Siwash or to win the Golden Fleece. This was a game where the loser never came to bat again, and once he was Out, started polishing the Golden Gates or riding gain on the servo-amplifiers for Mephisto's atomic hellfire. He had to pull a part of this play back out of danger.
He had pulled a fluff—the obvious way to remove it was to admit it.