parate couples, with our separate joys and sorrows, but our
positions as aliens drove us together constantly. The whole strange
experience had made our friendship more close and intimate than it would
ever have become in a free and easy lifetime among our own people.
Also, as men, with our masculine tradition of far more than two thousand
years, we were a unit, small but firm, against this far larger unit of
feminine tradition.

I think I can make clear the points of difference without a too painful
explicitness. The more external disagreement was in the matter of "the
home," and the housekeeping duties and pleasures we, by instinct and
long education, supposed to be inherently appropriate to women.

I will give two illustrations, one away up, and the other away down, to
show how completely disappointed we were in this regard.

For the lower one, try to imagine a male ant, coming from some state of
existence where ants live in pairs, endeavoring to set up housekeeping
with a female ant from a highly developed anthill. This female ant might
regard him with intense personal affection, but her ideas of parentage
and economic management would be on a very different scale from his.
Now, of course, if she was a stray female in a country of pairing ants,
he might have had his way with her; but if he was a stray male in an
anthill--!

For the higher one, try to imagine a devoted and impassioned man trying
to set up housekeeping with a lady angel, a real wings-and-harp-and-halo
angel, accustomed to fulfilling divine missions all over interstellar
space. This angel might love the man with an affection quite beyond his
power of return or even of appreciation, but her ideas of service and
duty would be on a very different scale from his. Of course, if she was
a stray angel in a country of men, he might have had his way with her;
but if he was a stray man among angels--!

Terry, at his worst, in a black fury for which, as a man, I must have
some sympathy, preferred the ant simile. More of Terry and his special
troubles later. It was hard on Terry.

Jeff--well, Jeff always had a streak that was too good for this world!
He's the kind that would have made a saintly priest in parentagearlier
times. He accepted the angel theory, swallowed it whole, tried to force
it on us--with varying effect. He so worshipped Celis, and not only
Celis, but what she represented; he had become so deeply convinced of
the almost supernatural advantage