"The heart is a vacillating thing, dear Sonia," he answers with a sigh. Damn, he'd hoped for a bit of shocked denial of the captive thing, which he could parlay into perhaps a bit more information...Ah, well. Such is the nature of banter.

"And the mind must always reevaluate the situation when given new information. After all, the old information I had to work with was that you gave me groats. The new information? That you didn't sweeten them up like you could have."