e didn't know
how he could explain it to her. No one who had never been friends with a
tree could appreciate the true beauty of the xylemic character. "Why, we
even offered to go over to the other side of the planet and fetch some
pollen for them, but they wouldn't hear of it. Unfortunately, they'd
rather die than be mated to anyone they had never met."

"What a perfectly disgusting idea!"

"I don't think so. Trees can be idealistic--"

"You fetching pollen for her, I mean. Naturally she wouldn't want pollen
from a tree on the other side of the planet. She wants _you_!"

"Don't be silly. Incompatibility usually exists between the pollen of
one species and the stigmata of another. Besides," he added patiently,
"I haven't got pollen."

"You'd better not, or it won't be her who'll have the stigmata."

"Phyllis--" he sat down on the arm of her chair and tried to embrace
her--"you know that you're the only life-form I love."

"Please, James." She pushed him away. "I guess I love you, too, in spite
of everything ... but I don't want to make a public spectacle of
myself."

"What do you mean now?"

"That tree would know everything that goes on. She's telepathic."

"Where did you get a ridiculous idea like that? What kind of rubbish
have you been reading?"

"All right, tell me: how else did she learn to speak such good English?"

"It's because she's of a very high order of intelligence. And I
suppose--" he laughed modestly--"because I'm such a good teacher."

"I don't care how good a teacher you are--a tree couldn't learn to speak
a language so well in five months. She must be telepathic. It's the only
explanation."

* * * * *

"Give her time," the tree advised later, as James came out on the lawn
to talk to his only friend on the planet.

He hadn't seen much of the other scouts since the house-building frenzy
had started, and visits among the men had decreased. The base camp,
where the bachelors and the older married couples lived, was located a
good distance away from his land, for he had raised his honeymoon
cottage far from the rest; he had wanted to have his Phyllis all to
himself. In the idyll he had visualized for the two of them, she would
need no company but his. Little had he imagined that, within twenty-four
hours of her arrival, he would be looking for company himself.

"I suppose so," he said, kicking at a root. "Oh, I'm sorry, Maggie; I
didn't think."

"That's a