“Nay.”
“You speak as though you could have left at will.”
“The will was there, madam.”
“But the way—the way?” she demanded, impatiently.
“And the way, too.”
“Your brevity is badinage,” she declared, with an imperious toss of her head.
“Your badinage cruelty,” he returned.
“Oh, you are not all silence and swordsmanship,” she laughed, with a trace of the persistent raillery in her voice. “But I have asked you concerning your way of escape.”
“From the cruelty?”
“No.” The word came impatiently, as though she were wholly unaccustomed to resistance. “I see you parry in more ways than one.” And her fingers played about the hood-clasp beneath her chin.