“It's easy to talk.” Connor's voice rose slightly; he noted the fact himself; paused and spoke with greater deliberation. “But I wouldn't tackle a gamelike that. It ain't practical. Anyhow, Dix, I wouldn't go it blind. I'd have to know where I was going every minute. If you wanted to talk real business, it might be different. I might see a way to start something. But even at that”—he got heavily to his feet...."No, thing for me's to stick to my own line.”
He was moving slowly away when her slow light voice brought him up short. “Tex,” she said, “I see you're just a cheap liar, after all.”
Then she watched the color sweep over his face. It was something to stir that wooden countenance with genuine emotion. She even found a perverse thrill in the experience.
He stood motionless for a long moment. Finally he said, none too steadily: “You know what would happen to a man that said that to me.”
“What would you do? Shoot?.... Where would that get you? No, Tex, listen! Sit down here.”
But he stood over her.
“I know everything you're doing.”
“Oh—you do?”
“You're crossing me. But you can't get away with it. You know where you are—in China! And you're tampering with the troops of the viceroy of Nanking. My God, Tex, haven't you any brains? Did you really think I'd show my hand?”
He chewed the cigar in silence, staring down.