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down her cheek.
    "I'm sorry, Maia fish! Oh, I didn't mean to hurt you! Here, let me kiss it better."
    He took her head, wrapped in the net, between his hands and kissed her eyelid through the mesh.
    "Want to come out, pretty fish? Ask nicely!"
    She pouted. "I'm not bothered. I'll come out when I please!"
    "Well, I'm in no hurry either, come to that." And with this he pulled aside the fold, lay down beside her and drew it back over both of them.
    "You've caught me too, you know, golden Maia. Look, here's something nice. I brought it specially for you."
    Fumbling a moment, he held out to her a lump of something brown and glistening, about half as big as his fist. At the smell, at once sweet and nutty-sharp, she began to salivate once more.
    "Go on; try it! You'll like it. Look!" He bit off a piece and lay nibbling, crackling the brittle stuff between his teeth.
    Maia copied him. The taste was delicious, filling her mouth and throat, suffusing her with the luxury of its sweetness. With closed eyes she bit, chewed, swallowed and bit again, her smarting eye quite forgotten.
    "M'mm! Oh, it's gorgeous, Tharrin! What is it?"
    "Nut
thrilsa.
Nuts baked in honey and butter."
    "But these aren't ordinary nuts. Where do they come from? Oh, do give me some more!"
    "No, these are
serrardoes.
The black traders bring them to Ikat from heaven knows where-far away to the south. Want some more?"
    "Yes! Yes!"
    "Come and get it, then!" Very deliberately, and holding her gaze, he put a piece lightly between his front teeth, then took each of her hands in one of his own, fingers interlocked, and held them back against the net.
    Slowly, realizing what he meant and why he had done it, Maia raised her head and placed her mouth against his. His arms came gently round her shoulders, clasping her to him, and as she drew the sweetmeat into her mouth his tongue followed it, licking and caressing. She offered no resistance, only breathing hard and trembling.
    Releasing her, he smiled into her eyes. "Was
that
nice, too?"
    "I don't-I don't know!"
    "And this?" He slid his hand beneath her torn dress, fondling one breast.
    "Oh, you shoudn't; don't!" But her hands made no move to pluck his away.
    Pressing himself against her from head to foot, lithe and strong, he once more took her hand and drew it downward between his legs.
    And now indeed she cried out in earnest, suddenly realizing what before she had only half understood. Feeling, with a kind of panic, what he had meant her to feel, she thought-like a young soldier for the first time face to face with the enemy-"This isn't a game any more-this is what really happens-and it's happening to me." For long moments she lay tense in his arms; yet she did not struggle.
    Suddenly her body felt full and smooth and sufficient- like a new boat pushed down into the water. It was as
    though she were standing back, regarding it with satisfaction. It was sound: it floated. Her body, her beautiful body, which could swim miles in the lake-her body would take care of everything. She had only to allow it to do what it had been created for. Sighing, she pressed herself against Tharrin and waited, shuddering as he caressed her.
    The moment he entered her, Maia was filled from head to foot with a complete, assenting knowledge that this was what she had been born for. All her previous, childish life seemed to fall away beneath her like broken fragments of shell from the kernel of a cracked nut. Tharrin's weight upon her, Tharrin's thrusting, his arms about her, were like the opening of a pair of great, bronze doors to disclose some awesome and marvelous treasure within. Only, she herself was at one and the same time the doors, the portress and the treasure. Catching her breath, moaning, struggling not against but with him, as though they had both been hauling on a sail, she clutched him about, crying incoher-ently,"Oh, don't-don't-"
    At this, he held back for a moment.
    "Don't what, my darling?"
    "Don't
stopl
Oh, Cran and Airtha,