"Why do you ask me?" she demanded, the gentleness of her voice chilling to curtness. "You have such a helpmate near you—or should have."
"I don't understand," pleaded the man, puzzled by her change of mood.
"Perhaps we'd better not go into that now," was her response. "It is beside the point."
"On the contrary it is the point."
"I don't see how. What happens after the penalty has been paid has nothing to do with the paying of it."
"In this case it has everything."
"I cannot stay," she whispered, frightened by his insistence. "I must go."
"Wait just a moment."
"I cannot. I must get dinner."