"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 all right," Magnolia said bravely. "It didn't really hurt. That female has got you all upset, you poor boy." James muttered a feeble defense of his wife. "Jim, forgive me if I speak frankly," the tree went on in a low rustle, "but do you think she's really worthy of you?" "Of course she is!" "Surely on your planet you could have found a mate more admirable, high-minded, exemplary--more, in short, like yourself. Or are all the human females inferior specimens like Phyllis?" "They're--she suits me," James said doggedly. "Of course, of course. It's very noble of you to defend her; you would have disappointed me if you had said anything else, and I honor you for it, James." He kicked at one of the pebbles. The tree meant well, he knew, yet, like so many well-meaning friends, she succeeded only in dispiriting him. It was almost like being back at the faculty club. "I don't suppose a clod like her would have brought any more books along," the tree changed the subject. James's own library had been insufficient to slake the tree's intellectual thirst, so he had gone all over the planet to borrow books for Magnolia. Dr. Lakin, at Base, who had formerly taught English literature, possessed a fine collection which he had been reluctant to lend until he had learned that they were not for James but for a tree. At that, he had fetched the books himself, since he was anxious to meet her.