She's brave. But she's got
to the cracking stage now. She's got to be taken care of. I didn't
believe it. It seemed incongruous."
"After what I'd just told you?"
"Yes. I've always, even as a kid, been such a liar that when anyone was
brutally honest I thought they were posing. Kraill said, 'You'll never
be fit to take care of her. You're just a parasite. She's coming away
with me now.' That squared with what I'd thought of your brutal honesty.
I thought it was a blind, and that you were just coming back to fetch
Andrew and then go. I wasn't cross with Kraill then. I simply crumpled
up."
There was a long silence. When he spoke again he spoke as though sharing
a secret with her.
"Do you know, I believe Kraill was playing with us both, Marcella? I
believe he'd gauged you right, and me too. I believe he made love to
you, knowing your cussed pride. He knew you'd turn to me, and that your
turning to me would save me. I believe he was bluffing when he said he
was going to take you. You never know, with men like that. Biology and
psychology--! He's got people's bodies and brains and souls dissected,
and nothing they can do is unaccountable to him! Men like that are
beyond the ordinary human weaknesses, you know."
She did know, very much better than he, and hugged dear thoughts as she
smiled faintly at him.
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