When her face turned toward him, she radiated rage. She could not see anything. He swallowed his chuckle. If she discovered his amusement with her circumstances, she would be even more impossible to deal with. And she usually was incredibly difficult! Never had he met anyone who was so eager to disbelieve him when he was telling the truth and accept his lies as fact. He had no one to blame for that but himself. If he had gone to L’Enfant de la Patrie with a story of a wife or lover who desired the vase, Brienne’s generous heart would have been touched, and she would have sold the vase to him. Instead he had allowed her impoverished gentility to touch his heart, and he had made her suspicious with his ridiculous offer for the vase. He gazed down into her face which was nearly hidden by the two handkerchiefs and asked himself, yet again, what it was about Brienne that had made him forget his well-whetted instincts. Holding her with one arm, he untied the cloth gagging her. He tossed it into the underbrush edging the road.
