Was there anything more fundamentally faithless than harboring such thoughts? He knew what lies felt like, to hold a thought or feeling in secret and pretend that all else was well. He was the master of that.

And really, after all she had said before, to him it sounded like a thin comfort for them both. But if that was what she wanted when it came to use of words, he could agree to that readily enough. "As you wish," he said.