Here she saw that he had given her a bit of the real Jonathan wrongly applied.
‘Ah, yes,’ she commented, ‘you manage to pretend to yourself a good deal, don’t you? I wish I could!’
Her voice was gentle, regretful, full of compassion and understanding. ‘What would you like to pretend?’ it encouraged him to ask.
Then she smote him.
‘That I believed you,’ she said.
So the victory was won.
He lay back, exhausted of his attempt. He had not escaped her after all; and his final word was uttered without any hope of reversing the issue now decided.
‘Well, I’ve told you,’ he said, trying to appear indifferent; ‘and it’s true,—every word.’
‘Then we won’t talk about it,’ she replied; ‘you can think it’s true, if it amuses you. It would amuse me too, if I’d got the gift for it.’
She looked at him kindly, humorously; and then, speaking as one who tries to chaff foolish fancies out of a child, said: