Her face was deathly, but out of it the pale eyes blazed in fierce questioning.
"What do you mean ?" she said.

"What strategy ?" He laid his hand upon hers and gripped it hard.

"Don't be hysterical!" he said.

"I am paying you the compliment of treating you like a woman of sense." She shrank away from him, but he continued to grip her hand with brutal force till the pain of it reached her consciousness and sent the blood upwards to her face.

Then he let her go.
"Yes," he said coolly, "I have been laying my mine for some time now.