"Oh, you understand, all right. You're very clever--_or think you are_." "I wasn't trying to be clever," I told her. "It looked pretty bad for us. They would have killed us both if I hadn't talked them out of it." "You could have told me!" she flung at me, her eyes abruptly accusing. "Why did you have to make a secret of it?" "A secret of what?" "You didn't think I'd guess straight off? You didn't give me credit for knowing even that much about the psychology of primitives?" "You're talking in riddles," I protested. "You're taking too much for granted." "Am I? The things _you_ take for granted are beyond belief. I know exactly how your mind worked. You told yourself they were angry enough to kill impulsively. You had to give them the strongest possible reason for _not_ wanting to kill us. Isn't that so?" "Well--" "There's a very old saying that has a universal application," she said, a stinging contempt in her voice. "All the world loves a lover. I thought of it instantly myself." "You did? If I had known--" "Keep quiet and let me finish. You told them that I was _your woman_. You probably added that the whole ridiculous insanity was recent enough to be celebrated right here in their own village. Naturally that did it. Whisper the words 'nuptial ceremony' to a primitive and you've transferred to him an inward glow that makes him your friend forever. "If he's old he remembers what it meant when it happened to him. If he's young there's the rapture of anticipation. Besides, primitives like display and drama, human giggling and embarrassment just as much as you do. You of Earth still throw rice, you know. We have passed beyond such foolishness, but there are times--" She looked at me and giggled. It was the cruelest thing she could have done because, despite the giggle, there was a cold mockery in her stare that castigated my Earthborn heritage and made me feel ridiculous. It was then that she _really_ threw the book at me. "Instead of discussing the whole matter as an anthropological problem that could only have been solved by analyzing it in a calmly scientific and detached way you acted as if you thought me capable of making an embarrassing situation out of it." She stood up abruptly, removing the binding circlet from her hair, and shaking her head until the freed tresses descended in a tumbled red-gold mass to her shoulders. "Prudishness is both barbaric and childish," she said. "It has nothing to do with modesty and reserve, which are admirable when a man and a woman do not know one another well enough to feel at ease in an atmosphere of mutual respect and admiration." There was a heavy silence for an instant. Then very calmly and deliberately she took off her weather jacket, folded it, and laid it on the floor at her feet. "It will do for a pillow," she said. "I hate sleeping without a support for my head."