"Miss, do you speak my language?"
"Yes," hesitantly. She lingered too long on the hiss of the last consonant.
"Miss," he asked, watching her face intently, "what year is this?"
Startlingly, she laughed, a mellow peal of mirth that had nothing forced about it. She turned toward the door again and said over her shoulder, "You will have to ask Swarts about that. I cannot tell you."
"Wait! You mean you don't know?"
She shook her head. "I cannot tell you."
"All right; we'll let it go at that."
She grinned at him again as the door slid shut.
Swarts came half an hour later, and Maitland began his planned offensive.