"Don't, Sam, don't say that even in fun.
Oh, you frightened me for a moment!
I really thought you— You know you do such wild and unpredictable things that—" She broke off.
She thrust her face forward and stared deep into his eyes.
Her cheeks and the flesh around her mouth shivered and fear came back into her eyes.
"What—?
Sam!"
She put her hands to her throat again and lost her erectness.
Spade laughed.
His yellow-white face was damp with sweat and though he held his smile he could not hold softness in his voice. He croaked:
"Don't be silly.
You're taking the fail.
One of us has got to take it, after the talking those birds will do.
They'd hang me sure.
You're likely to get a better break.
Well?"
"But—but, Sam, you can't!
Not after what we've been to each other.
You can't—"
"Like hell I can't."
She took a long trembling breath.
"You've been playing with me?
Only pretending you cared—to trap me like this?
You didn't—care at all?
You didn't—don't—I-love me?"
"I think I do," Spade said.
"What of it?" The muscles holding his smile in place stood out like wales.
"I'm not Thursby.
I'm not Jacobi.
I won't play the sap for you."
"That is not just," she cried.
Tears came to her eyes.
"It's unfair.
It's contemptible of you.
You know it was not that.
You can't say that."
"Like hell I can't," Spade said.
"You came into my bed to stop me asking questions.
You led me out yesterday for Gutman with that phoney call for help.
Last night you came here with them and waited outside for me and came in with me.
You were in my arms when the trap was sprung—I couldn't have gone for a gun if I'd had one on me and couldn't have made a fight of it if I had wanted to.
And if they didn't take you away with them it was only because Gutman's got too much sense to trust you except for short stretches when he has to and because he thought I'd play the sap for you and—not wanting to hurt you—wouldn't be able to hurt him."
Brigid O'Shaughnessy blinked her tears away.
She took a step towards him and stood looking him in the eyes, straight and proud.
"You called me a liar," she said.
"Now you are hying.
You're lying if you say you don't know down in your heart that, in spite of anything I've done, I love you."
Spade made a short abrupt bow.
His eyes were becoming bloodshot, but there was no other change in his damp and yellowish fixedly smiling face.
"Maybe I do," he said.