So I guess it's a good thing military courtesy's as iron bound as it is, she thought. It kept both of us from saying what we really felt long enough for us to stop feeling it. Which is a good thing, because even then, I knew he was a decent man. That he hadn't taken any more pleasure in killing Alistair and all those others than I'd taken in killing Javier Giscard or so many of Genevieve Chin's people .

"Thank you for coming, Admiral," she said out loud, and this time there was nothing halfway about his smile.

"I was honored by the invitation, of course, Admiral," he replied with exquisite courtesy, exactly as if there'd been any real question about a prisoner of war's accepting an "invitation" to dinner from his captor. Nor was it the first such invitation he'd accepted over the past four T-months. This would be the seventh time he'd dined with Honor and her husband and wife. Unlike him, however, Honor was aware it would be the last time they'd be dining together for at least the foreseeable future.

"I'm sure you were," she told him with a smile of her own. "And, of course, even if you weren't, you're far too polite to admit it."

"Oh, of course," he agreed affably, and Nimitz bleeked the treecat equivalent of a laugh from his perch.

"That's enough of that, Nimitz," Tourville told him, wagging a raised forefinger. "Just because you can see inside someone's head is no excuse for undermining these polite little social fictions!"

Nimitz's true-hands rose, and Honor glanced over her shoulder at him as they signed nimbly. She gazed at him for a moment, then chuckled and turned back to Tourville.