A look of bewilderment came into the man's eyes for an instant. Then his right eyelid twitched, his jaw muscles tightened and the look changed to one of slowly dawning recognition.
In a moment the man's eyes were blazing with a fury that Teleman hardly knew how to contend with, for he could not bring himself to resort to violence again, but knew that calm reason, or anything he might say, would be worse than futile. The man had regained his strength and the full use of his limbs, and was struggling violently to free himself from the tight grip of Teleman's hands on his shoulders.
The woman had left the bed and crossed the room so silently that Teleman was not aware that she was at his side until he saw her white arm crossing his in a gesture of caressment and felt the weight of her slender young body pressing against his right shoulder. The woman was running her fingers through the man's hair and gently stroking his face in an effort to calm and reassure him. She seemed unaware of her nakedness. Teleman was unable to tear his eyes away from those magnificent breasts, grazing her husband's chest and nestling in the hollow of his neck as she bent over him.
"It's all right, darling," she whispered. "It's all right. This man is not a Monitor or an agent of the Monitors and he bears us no ill-will. He is not a criminal either, darling. He is not a housebreaker who came here to rob us or who came—and I know you feared this above all—to force his love upon me, to take me by brutal violence, to kill you and make me his woman. That is happening everywhere now, when men who are brutal and cruel and think only of themselves are turned into beasts by the strange, new stirring which has come upon so many.
"Darling, darling, you must try to understand. This man feels as we do. There is a woman with him, and they both feel as we do about love. They are both as desperately, as badly in love as we are, and they are fleeing because they have aroused the anger of a Monitor. That anger that is so implacable, so blind and unmerciful, so full of envy and malice and fear. Some of the Monitors have experienced the stirring. But they are all too greedy for power to allow their supremacy to be swept away, and those who have experienced it shut the glory of it away in a dark corner of their minds and there it continues to glow brightly. But they cannot endure the glow and warmth, because it shames and humiliates them, and makes them more tragically aware of how wretched they are.
"This man and the woman with him had every right to take refuge here. They were being pursued through the forest by para-guards as if they had committed some monstrous crime when all they did was make love as we have so often done with the tenderest of embraces in the night. They have walked in beauty and know the full splendor of love's fulfillment.
"They have more to fear than we. They have taken far greater risks, for they are not love-privileged and if they are caught they will pay for their rebellion with their lives. Will we have the courage to do what this man hesitated to ask of us—allow ourselves to be bound and when the Monitors question us say that we struggled to defend ourselves but were overpowered by this man's criminal strength? Will we have the courage to lie to save them, my darling? Will we have the strength? I do not know. I am myself all too human and when I think of the price that even we would have to pay—I do not know."
The man had ceased to struggle. He lay very still, a strange quietness in his gaze and Teleman rose slowly to his feet, aware of the risk he was taking, but somehow trusting the woman, knowing that, despite the human frailty that had been revealed in the complete baring of her thoughts, she was speaking in his defense, earnestly pleading with her lover to give her strength.
"To allow ourselves to be bound is only a part of what he wants us to do," she went on quickly. "He wants us to give him and the woman with him our garments and our insignia, so that they may take refuge in a mating center and for a short while remain there disguised as a love-privileged man and woman. It will give them the time they need to make new plans. The Monitors will not think of searching for them in a mating center."
The man spoke then, for the first time. "Yes," he said. "Yes ... I understand."