“Repressively, Lymond himself answered. “I dislike being discussed as if I were a disease. Nobody ‘got’ me,” he said.”

“If you can repress for a moment your spinster-like longing to meddle in my affairs,’ said Lymond cuttingly, from the door, ‘I am waiting to go.”

“Women don’t buy with me,” he said quietly. “I get it, women’s lib and all, got no problem with that. But you’re with me, I pay. No discussion, definitely no stupid-ass fight. That’s just the way it is with me.”

“Being noticed can be a burden. Jesus got himself crucified because he got himself noticed. So I disappear a lot.”

“He scooped up my arm, swung me round. “Let go, Cecil,” I said. “I’ve a strange dislike of being forced.” “But Briony,” he said, “I’m so full of good spirits. I could walk to London, I think!” Why didn’t he?”

“Well,” Tessa said, sighting along the line of the knife, “you behave as if you dislike me. In fact, you behave as if you dislike us all.”“I don’t,” Gabriel said. “I just dislike him.” He pointed at Will.“Dear me,” said Will, and he took another bite of his apple. “Is it because I’m better-looking than you?”