“Stop playing verbal games with me, madam, or I shall go out into that ballroom, find your mother, and bring her here”

“She'll never really let me go. She likes the game too much.""Then stop playing it.”

“Gregory,” she said, “you cannot leave me here. What if someone finds you and removes you from the house? Who will know I am here? And what if…and what if…and then what if…”He smiled, enjoying her officiousness too much to actually listen to her words. She was definitely herself again.“When this is all over,” he said, “I shall bring you a sandwich.”That stopped her short. “A sandwich? A sandwich?”

“The game doesn't always go your way. Forget fair. Feel forgotten.But damn it, Anna, You don't stop playing.”

“But her brown eyes made me stop breathing. They made me stop thinking. It was like a sick game and I wanted out of it because I knew I'd lose.”

“She waited for me to play out the string, to find the place where she had stopped and was waiting for me, to follow the breadcrumb tail until it dead-ended into her.”