“Is this young Gy present?”

“Oh yes.  She sits yonder talking to my mother.”

I looked in the direction to which my eyes were thus guided, and saw a Gy dressed in robes of bright red, which among this people is a sign that a Gy as yet prefers a single state.  She wears gray, a neutral tint, to indicate that she is looking about for a spouse; dark purple if she wishes to intimate that she has made a choice; purple and orange when she is betrothed or married; light blue when she is divorced or a widow, and would marry again.  Light blue is of course seldom seen.

Among a people where all are of so high a type of beauty, it is difficult to single out one as peculiarly handsome.  My young friend’s choice seemed to me to possess the average of good looks; but there was an expression in her face that pleased me more than did the faces of the young Gy-ei generally, because it looked less bold—­less conscious of female rights.  I observed that, while she talked to Bra, she glanced, from time to time, sidelong at my young friend.

“Courage,” said I, “that young Gy loves you.”

“Ay, but if she shall not say so, how am I the better for her love?”

“Your mother is aware of your attachment?”

“Perhaps so.  I never owned it to her.  It would be un-Anly to confide such weakness to a mother.  I have told my father; he may have told it again to his wife.”

“Will you permit me to quit you for a moment and glide behind your mother and your beloved?  I am sure they are talking about you.  Do not hesitate.  I promise that I will not allow myself to be questioned till I rejoin you.”

The young An pressed his hand on his heart, touched me lightly on the head, and allowed me to quit his side.  I stole unobserved behind his mother and his beloved.  I overheard their talk.  Bra was speaking; said she, “There can be no doubt of this:  either my son, who is of marriageable age, will be decoyed into marriage with one of his many suitors, or he will join those who emigrate to a distance and we shall see him no more.  If you really care for him, my dear Lo, you should propose.”

“I do care for him, Bra; but I doubt if I could really ever win his affections.  He is fond of his inventions and timepieces; and I am not like Zee, but so dull that I fear I could not enter into his favourite pursuits, and then he would get tired of me, and at the end of three years divorce me, and I could never marry another—­never.”

“It is not necessary to know about timepieces to know how to be so necessary to the happiness of an An, who cares for timepieces, that he would rather give up the timepieces than divorce his Gy.  You see, my dear Lo,” continued Bra, “that precisely because we are the stronger sex, we rule the other provided we never show our strength.  If you were superior to my son in making timepieces and automata, you should, as his wife, always let him suppose you thought him superior in that art to yourself.  The An tacitly allows the pre-eminence of the Gy in all except his own special pursuit.  But if she either excels him in that, or affects not to admire him for his proficiency in it, he will not love her very long; perhaps he may even divorce her.  But where a Gy really loves, she soon learns to love all that the An does.”