He smiled a trifle cynically.
“Do you really think I’m a brute?” he asked. “There are lots of others who would agree with you,” he added encouragingly.
“I certainly think you are,” she replied, determined to uphold her statement. “Wasn’t it brutal to say you wanted to get rid of me?”
“But it was true.”
“Was it?”
“Quite!”
“Really?”
“If you only knew—Look here: there are moments when, if I could have had you painlessly extracted, I would have done it. I would have strangled you with my own fingers if I had not kept control of them!”
“And so, as I couldn’t be painlessly extracted, you extracted yourself, eh?”
“Yes.”