“So,” he remarked, “all Summer you’ve been the Court’s rave under the impression that I was waiting to get you. Charming. You’re such an extraordinary child that you’re never pathetic. You were tremendously interesting to watch in your kitchen days—and your legs were always fascinatingly unselfconscious—but though it was obvious that at times you had decided you were suffering, one never felt it was time to step in. And I always put it off for another day, like a wine which is all the better for the leaving, but rarely for more than a day at a time, because you were so invariably amusing in your certainty about your anonymity. And then suddenly you were no longer there. And on that very hot day at the beginning of Summer, you overheard that formula—did you seriously think about it and still think we would have gone round mentioning the all-important formula, so casually? The formula you cherished was that month’s nickname for the real formula—a kind of doggerel for it, not even a key-word, nothing to do with the real signs of it. But I’m sorry it got you into trouble with your hosts the black-robes.”

He paused, smiled, busy with his lazy amusement and something else again.

“Have you ever had the sudden lift when you realize you can actually respect someone? Even though you were hoping for the sake of your plans that they’d succumb?”

I couldn’t understand him, he meant he’d respected me at least once (1 wasn’t being too optimistic), but considering I’d been matter-of-factly selfish, ever since he’d first noticed me

“No, I could never have cared less if you told the Southerners that formula. The chase was solely for your benefit, to get you.”

I lay, not moving, but the clearness of my eyes was beginning to sear me and was no longer serenity, and safety became heavier. Those amused powerful lies to stampede me into sleeping with him. Did he care quite a bit about actually possessing this personality of mine he’s been studying, or not at all?

There was no more to be said.

He had just saved me from what was literally far worse than death. I could not, by any stretch of the imagination, hear myself saying to him, “It wasn’t fair to get someone to sleep with you by pretending that the only alternative was immediate execution—and the only prospect execution anyway.”

He is cruel, lazily amused by analysis.

He sat watching me as I felt myself let go, drift back into drowsiness, still without moving.