[quote]"How -- Hello, Mr Hamilton -- I am sorry. You have caught me off guard. It is nice to see you."[/quote]

"Forgive me, Lillian," Vance said quickly with a soft tone.  He was conscious -- even [i]self-[/i] conscious -- of the fact that he'd used the young woman's given name.  But as he'd begun his apology, Vance had very quickly realized that not once during the dinner or the poker game afterward had any of Lillian's family used her married name.  He knew she would correct him if he was being to forward, and continued, "I didn't mean to startle you.  And ... it's nice to see you again, as well."

[quote]"Do you always rescue wayward books from the hands of their sleeping reader?"[/quote]

"I was [i]considering[/i] giving it a read, should your nap persist," he told her with a chuckle as he opened the book and looked to a page.  "Thankfully, you awoke, for I fear I might have bitten my tongue attempting to pronounce some of these names.  [i]Pho[/i]-uh-bus [i]App[/i]-oh-loh ... awl-loh...?  At-[i]tee[/i]-muss ... no, [i]Art[/i]-e-muss.  And what's this...?"

He turned the book to show a [url=https://gallery.mailchimp.com/e0f5618a41f76b17c22005aec/images/sphinx.jpg]hand penned drawing[/url] of a creature with body of a lion, the wings of an eagle, and the head and breasts of woman ... the very [i]ample[/i] breasts of a woman.  After a moment, he closed the book and leaned forward to return it.  They didn't exactly have the kind of close relationship that allowed for his showing off the bared breasts of a woman, fantasy or otherwise.

"I think we would both recognize a hero if we saw one before us," Vance continued.  "But ... how does one truly determine what is or is not a [i]monster[/i]?"

He leaned back into his chair as he studied Lillian.  "For instance, we would never call a puma ... what do you call them here, mountain lions...?  We would never call one a monster, even though they kill with claws and fangs and devour their prey's flesh even before it has cooled.  Mother Nature has designed them to do this ... to survive.  So ... at what point do we stop calling such an animal a predator and begin calling it a monster?"