"That's a good reason for our joining them, isn't it?"
Her tone was at once casual and pointed.
"But I don't want to join them!" he protested. "Why don't
you stay with me--and talk?" "But you bully me so,"
she offered in explanation.
The phrase caught his attention. Could it be that it
expressed her real feeling? She had said, he recalled,
that he had made her talk. Her complaint was like
an admission that he could overpower her will.
If that were true--then he had resources of masterfulness
still in reserve sufficient to win any victory.
"No--not bully you," he said slowly, as if objecting to the word
rather than the idea. "That wouldn't be possible to me.
But you don't know me well enough to understand me.
I am the kind of man who gets the things he wants.
Let me tell you something: When I was at Hadlow, I had
never shot a pheasant in my life. I used to do tolerably
well with a rifle, but I hardly knew anything about a
shot-gun, and I don't suppose I'd ever killed more than
two or three birds on the wing--and that was ages ago.
But I took the notion that I would shoot better than anybody
else there. I made up my mind to it--and I simply did it,
that's all. I don't know if you remember--but I killed
a good deal more than both the others put together.
I give you that as an example.
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