“Do ye don’t tell me no fibs,” she parodied.
“I mean, it’s going from ‘The King of Prussia.’ ”
“Really? Well I’ll take it over the bridge for you.”
“Thank you! I’m taking it there myself.”
“This don’t seem the shortest cut to Long Bradmarsh,” she observed blandly.
He glowered. “Shows how easily I can carry it. I’m having a good-bye look at all the old places.”
But below this surface conversation they were holding one of their old silent duologues. Jinny’s heart was beating fast with happiness and triumph as her eyes told him he would never get away now, and he, hypnotized by that dancing light in them, dumbly acknowledged he was self-trapped. Yet how they were going to get out of their impasse, and how his pride was to be reconciled with their reconciliation, neither had the ghost of an idea. “I see,” she replied, as if accepting his explanation of his visit. “But as to this old place, I’m afraid Ravens has rather changed the look of it with his new thatch.”
He snorted at the name.
“But you’ll find it unchanged inside,” she added affably, “if you come in.”
“Don’t begin that again! You know I can’t.”