ys the same," he gallantly cut her off. "Always right, especially
when most wrong. Not in navigation, of course, nor in affairs such as
the multiplication table, where the brass tacks of reality stud the way
of one's ship among the rocks and shoals of the sea; but right, truth
beyond truth to truth higher than truth, namely, intuitional truth."

"Now you are laughing at me with your superior man-wisdom," she retorted.
"But I know--" she paused for the strength of words she needed, and words
forsook her, so that her quick sweeping gesture of hand-touch to heart
named authority that overrode all speech.

"We agree--I salute," he laughed gaily. "It was just precisely what I
was saying. Our hearts can talk our heads down almost any time, and,
best all, our hearts are always right despite the statistic that they are
mostly wrong."

Harley Kennan did not believe, and never did believe, his wife's report
of the tales Jerry told. And through all his days to the last one of
them, he considered the whole matter a pleasant fancy, all poesy of
sentiment, on Villa's part.

But Jerry, four-legged, smooth-coated, Irish terrier that he was, had the
gift of tongues. If he could not teach languages, at least he could
learn languages. Without effort, and quickly, practically with no
teaching, he began picking up the language of the _Ariel_. Unfortunately,
it was not a whiff-whuff, dog-possible language such as Nalasu had
invented. While Jerry came to understand much that was spoken on the
_Ariel_, he could speak none of it. Three names, at least, he had for
the lady-god: "Villa," "Wife-Woman," "Missis Kennan," for so he heard her
variously called. But he could not so call her. This was god-language
entire, which only gods could talk. It was unlike the language of
Nalasu's devising, which had been a compromise between god-talk and dog-
talk, so that a god and a dog could talk in the common medium.

In the same way he learned many names for the one-man god: "Mister
Kennan," "Harley," "Captain Kennan," and "Skipper." Only in the intimacy
of the three of them alone did Jerry hear him called: "Husband-Man," "My
Man," "Patient One," "Dear Man," "Lover," and "This Woman's Delight." But
in no way could Jerry utter these names in address of the one-man nor the
many names in address of the one-woman. Yet on a quiet night with no
wind among the trees, often and often had he whispered to Nalasu, by
whiff-whuff of name, from a hund