are some birds who love each other so that they mope
and pine if separated, and never pair again if one dies, but they never
mate except in the mating season. Among your people do you find high and
lasting affection appearing in proportion to this indulgence?"

It is a very awkward thing, sometimes, to have a logical mind.

Of course I knew about those monogamous birds and beasts too, that mate
for life and show every sign of mutual affection, without ever having
stretched the sex relationship beyond its original range. But what of
it?

"Those are lower forms of life!" I protested. "They have no capacity
for faithful and affectionate, and apparently happy--but oh, my dear! my
dear!--what can they know of such a love as draws us together? Why, to
touch you--to be near you--to come closer and closer--to lose myself in
you--surely you feel it too, do you not?"

I came nearer. I seized her hands.

Her eyes were on mine, tender radiant, but steady and strong. There was
something so powerful, so large and changeless, in those eyes that
I could not sweep her off her feet by my own emotion as I had
unconsciously assumed would be the case.

It made me feel as, one might imagine, a man might feel who loved a
goddess--not a Venus, though! She did not resent my attitude, did not
repel it, did not in the least fear it, evidently. There was not a shade
of that timid withdrawal or pretty resistance which are so--provocative.

"You see, dearest," she said, "you have to be patient with us. We are
not like the women of your country. We are Mothers, and we are People,
but we have not specialized in this line."

"We" and "we" and "we"--it was so hard to get her to be personal. And,
as I thought that, I suddenly remembered how we were always criticizing
OUR women for BEING so personal.

Then I did my earnest best to picture to her the sweet intense joy of
married lovers, and the result in higher stimulus to all creative work.

"Do you mean," she asked quite calmly, as if I was not holding her cool
firm hands in my hot and rather quivering ones, "that with you, when
people marry, they go right on doing this in season and out of season,
with no thought of children at all?"

"They do," I said, with some bitterness. "They are not mere parents.
They are men and women, and they love each other."

"How long?" asked Ellador, rather unexpectedly.

"How long?" I repeated, a little dashed. "Why as long as they live."

"There is someth