"You are a lewd wanton."
"No, I am a proud and honest woman who knows what it means now to love and be loved in return. Listen well. She is reclining on a couch, and the moonlight shines on her young breasts. He is approaching, you see, quietly so as not to startle her, and for a moment as long as forever his eyes linger on that which only a true lover is privileged to see. Then very gently and tenderly—"
"Stop! I will not listen. If you are not silent I will shout now, so loudly that you and your lover will never reach the edge of the strip. You will be caught and brought back before you have gone a hundred feet into the countryside."
"I told you what I would do if you shouted," Teleman said warningly.
"Her words are more hateful than anything you could do! Keep her quiet or I will take her by the throat and cut off her breath with my bare hands."
"Scarecrow hands, old woman. The bony hands of a witch. Listen well to the delights of young love in the dark. Oh, I'm forgetting. It isn't quite dark. The moonlight is slanting down and—"
The gaunt woman clapped her hands to her ears and shut her eyes, swaying back and forth in inner torment.
"Quick!" Teleman whispered, tapping Alicia lightly on the arm and gesturing toward the edge of the strip. "No pedestrians within fifty yards. We won't get a better chance!"
She nodded, darting a swift glance at the slumped security guard, who was still groaning and stirring a little, but had given up his attempt to rise.
"Three men went past without interfering," she breathed. "That was blind luck.... It shows what fear can do."