“Females are certainly alike under their skins, whether they’re angels or Hottentots,” Ralph Addington commented. " That tableau appearance was all cooked up for us.  They must have practised it for hours.”

“It has the rose-carnival at Tetaluma, Cal., faded,” remarked Honey Smith.

“The ‘quiet one’ was giving the orders for that wing-movement,” said Billy Fairfax.  “She whispered them, but I heard her.  She engineered the whole thing.  She seems to be their leader.”

“I got their voices this time,” said Pete Murphy.  “Beautiful, all of them.  Soprano, high and clear.  They’ve got a language, all right, too.  What did you think of it, Frank?”

“Most interesting,” replied Frank Merrill, “most interesting.  A preponderance of consonants.  Never guttural in effect, and as you say, beautiful voices, very high and clear.”

“I don’t see why they don’t stop and play,” complained Honey.  His tone was the petulant one of a spoiled child.  It is likely that during the whole course of his woman-petted existence, he had never been so completely ignored.  “If I only knew their lingo, I could convince them in five minutes that we wouldn’t hurt them.”

“If we could only signal,” said Billy Fairfax, “that if they’d only come down to earth, we wouldn’t go any nearer than they wanted.  But the deuce of it is proving to them that we don’t bite.”

“It is probably that they have known only males of a more primitive type,” Frank Merrill explained.  “Possibly they are accustomed to marriage by capture.”

“That would be a very lucky thing,” Ralph explained in an aside to Honey.  “Marriage by capture isn’t such a foolish proposition, after all.  Look at the Sabine women.  I never heard tell that there was any kick coming from them.  It all depends on the men.”

“Oh, Lord, Ralph, marriage by capture isn’t a sporting proposition,” said Honey in a disgusted tone.  “I’m not for it.  A man doesn’t get a run for his money.  It’s too much like shooting trapped game.”

“Well, I will admit that there’s more fun in the chase,” Ralph answered.

“Oh, well, if the little darlings are not accustomed to chivalry from men,” Pete Murphy was in the meantime saying, “that explains why they stand us off.”

It was typical of Pete to refer to the flying-girls as “little darlings.”  The shortest among them was, of course, taller than he.  But to Pete any woman was “little one,” no matter what her stature, as any woman was “pure as the driven snow” until she proved the contrary.  This impregnable simplicity explained much of the disaster of his married life.

“I am convinced,” Frank Merrill said meditatively, “we must go about winning their confidence with the utmost care.  One false step might be fatal.  I know what your impatience is though — for I can hardly school myself to wait — that extraordinary phenomenon of the wings interests me so much.  The great question in my mind is their position biologically and sociologically.”