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 advantages of this country and people, that he took his medicine like a--I cannot say "like a man," but more as if he wasn't one.
Don't misunderstand me for a moment. Dear old Jeff was no milksop or molly-coddle either. He was a strong, brave, efficient man, and an excellent fighter when fighting was necessary. But there was always this angel streak in him. It was rather a wonder, Terry being so different, that he really loved Jeff as he did; but it happens so sometimes, in spite of the difference--perhaps because of it.
As for me, I stood between. I was no such gay Lothario as Terry, and no such Galahad as Jeff. But for all my limitations Ithink I had the habit of using my brains in regard to behavior rather more frequently than either of them. I had to use brain-power now, I can tell you.
The big point at issue between us and our wives was, as may easily be imagined, in the very nature of the relation.
"Wives! Don't talk to me about wives!" stormed Terry. "They don't know what the word means."Which is exactly the fact--they didn't. How could they? Back in their prehistoric records of polygamy and slavery there were no ideals of wifehood as we know it, and since then no possibility of forming such.
"The only thing they can think of about a man is FATHERHOOD!"said Terry in high scorn. "FATHERHOOD!" As if a man was always wanting to be a FATHER!"This also was correct. They had their long, wide, deep, rich experience of Motherhood, and their only perception of the value of a male creature as such was for Fatherhood.
Aside from that, of course, was the whole range of personal love, love which as Jeff earnestly phrased it "passeth the love of women!" It did, too. I can give no idea--either now, after long and happy experience of it, or as it seemed then, in the first measureless wonder--of the beauty and power of the love they gave us.
Even Alima--who had a more stormy temperament than either of the others, and who, heaven knows, had far more provocation--even Alima was patience and tenderness and wisdom personified to the man she loved, until he--but I haven't got to that yet.
These, as Terry put it, "alleged or so-called wives" of ours, went right on with their profession as foresters. We, having no special learnings, had long since qualified as assistants. We had to do something, if only to pass the time, and it had to be work --we couldn't be playing forever.
This kept us out of doors with those dear girls, and more or less together--too much together sometimes.
These people had, it now became clear to us, the highest, keenest, most delicate sense of personal privacy, but not the faintest idea of that SOLITUDE A DEUX we are so fond of. They had, every one of them, the "two rooms and a bath" theory realized.
From earliest childhood each had a separate bedroom with toilet conveniences, and one of the marks of coming of age was the addition of an outer room in which to receive friends.
Long since we had been given our own two rooms apiece, and as being of a different sex and race, these were in a separate house. It seemed to be recognized that we should breathe easier if able to free our minds in real seclusion.
For food we either went to any convenient eating-house, ordered a meal brought in, or took it with us to the woods, always and equally good. All this we had become used to and enjoyed--in our courting days.
After marriage there arose in us a somewhat unexpected urge of feeling that called for a separate house; but this feeling found no response in the hearts of those fair ladies.
"We ARE alone, dear," Ellador explained to me with gentle patience. "We are alone in these great forests; we may go and eat in any little summer-house--just we two, or have a separate table anywhere--or even have a separate meal in our own rooms.
How could we be aloner?"
This was all very true. We had our pleasant mutual solitude about our work, and our pleasant evening talks in their apartments or ours; we had, as it were, all the pleasures of courtship carried right on; but we had no sense of--perhaps it may be called possession.
"Might as well not be married at all," growled Terry. "They only got up that ceremony to please us--please Jeff, mostly.
They've no real idea of being married.
I tried my best to get Ellador's point of view, and naturally I tried to give her mine. Of course, what we, as men, wanted to make them see was that there were other, and as we proudly said "higher," uses in this relation than what Terry called "mere parentage."In the highest terms I knew I tried to explain this to Ellador.
"Anything higher than for mutual love to hope to give life, as we did?" she said. "How is it higher?""It develops love," I explained. "All the power of beautiful permanent mated love comes through this higher development.""Are you sure?" she asked gently. "How do you know that it was so developed? There 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?
