So there we sat, at ease; all in similar dress; our hair, by now, as long as theirs, only our beards to distinguish us. We did not want those beards, but had so far been unable to induce them to give us any cutting instruments. “Ladies,” Terry began, out of a clear sky, as it were, “are there no men in this country?” “Men?” Somel answered. “Like you?” “Yes, men,” Terry indicated his beard, and threw back his broad shoulders. “Men, real men.” “No,” she answered quietly. “There are no men in this country. There has not been a man among us for two thousand years.” Her look was clear and truthful and she did not advance this astonishing statement as if it was astonishing, but quite as a matter of fact. “But--the people--the children,” he protested, not believing her in the least, but not wishing to say so. “Oh yes,” she smiled. “I do not wonder you are puzzled. We are mothers--all of us--but there are no fathers. We thought you would ask about that long ago--why have you not?” Her look was as frankly kind as always, her tone quite simple. Terry explained that we had not felt sufficiently used to the language, making rather a mess of it, I thought, but Jeff was franker. “Will you excuse us all,” he said, “if we admit that we find it hard to believe? There is no such--possibility--in the rest of the world.” “Have you no kind of life where it is possible?” asked Zava. “Why, yes--some low forms, of course.” “How low--or how high, rather?” “Well--there are some rather high forms of insect life in which it occurs. Parthenogenesis, we call it--that means virgin birth.” She could not follow him. “_Birth_, we know, of course; but what is _virgin?_” Terry looked uncomfortable, but Jeff met the question quite calmly. “Among mating animals, the term _virgin_ is applied to the female who has not mated,” he answered. “Oh, I see. And does it apply to the male also? Or is there a different term for him?” He passed this over rather hurriedly, saying that the same term would apply, but was seldom used. “No?” she said. “But one cannot mate without the other surely. Is not each then--virgin--before mating? And, tell me, have you any forms of life in which there is birth from a father only?” “I know of none,” he answered, and I inquired seriously. “You ask us to believe that for two thousand years there have been only women here, and only girl babies born?” “Exactly,” answered Somel, nodding gravely. “Of course we know that among other animals it is not so, that there are fathers as well as mothers; and we see that you are fathers, that you come from a people who are of both kinds. We have been waiting, you see, for you to be able to speak freely with us, and teach us about your country and the rest of the world. You know so much, you see, and we know only our own land.”