The touch of his hand made her feel better, and she tightened her fingers around his.

"That's good," she said, determined not to sound like she was babbling, because babbling was undignified. She tried to think of how to move into her topic smoothly, but her mind kept drawing a blank. Instead she kept thinking about her tactics lessons, the books and the lectures. If only she could have learned proper tactics for this situation, she was sure things would be going a lot better. There had to be, as there was for every situation, right and wrong ways of doing things. But what were they now?

"In my culture we like children a lot, too. Children are a blessing for us, whether a woman has a husband or not."