"Moirta," he said soberly. "It's a lovely name, truly."
He leaned forward and kissed her. Her lips met his, not coldly, and not demandingly or fiercely, but gently and firmly, in the exact measure he desired. He put his arms about her, and she came into them, supple but not limp, as a beautifully trained dancer follows a lead. For a very long moment they remained thus, lip to lip and breast to breast, the yearning and response in each rising in swift even balance.
And then Brown opened the door, casting a shaft of light past them in the dusk.
"Oh, Moirta," he called. "Are you there? Could you come here a moment, please—"
The two male gun runners had stepped outside the cottage while Moirta served Dolan his dinner. They found the smells and sounds of summer night, the darkness itself—in their world there was no darkness except in closed rooms—disturbing, but preferable to watching and hearing Dolan eat.
"For primitive, natural," the senior gun runner said, "but—" he winced, "teeth!"
"Gnawing!" the other agreed. He clicked his own non-functional dentures experimentally, examined his fingers with fascinated revulsion. Tender flesh, white teeth—ugh!
"Moirta," he said thoughtfully, "seems not to mind."
The senior gun runner cringed as a bat fluttered by. "Her specialty," he said absently, "not to mind." He strained his eyes to see into the darkness. Was that a mouse rustling in the grass? Or worse yet, a snake?