“Well, you did well,” Peachy said bitterly, for, at least, Billy loves you just as much as at first.  I don’t see him racing over to the Clubhouse the moment his dinner is eaten.  I don’t see him spending his Sundays in long exploring tramps.  I don’t see him making plans to go off into the interior for a week at a time.”

“But he would be just like all the others, Julia,” Clara exclaimed carefully, “if you’d married him.  Keep out of it as long as you can!”

“Don’t ever marry him, Julia,” Chiquita warned.  “Keep your life a perpetual wooing.”

“Marry him to-morrow, Julia,” Lulu advised.  “Oh, I cannot think what my life would have been without Honey-Boy and Honey-Bunch.”

“I shall marry Billy sometime,” Julia said.  “But I don’t know when.  When that little inner voice stops saying, ‘Wait!’”

“I wonder,” Peachy questioned again, “what would have happened if — "

“It would have come out just the same way.  Depend on that!” Chiquita said philosophically.  “It was our fate — the Great Doom that our people used to talk of.  And, after all, it’s our own fault.  Come to this island we would and come we did!  And this is the end of it — we — we sit moveless from sun-up to sun-down, we who have soared into the clouds.  But there is a humorous element in it.  And if I didn’t weep, I could laugh myself mad over it.  We sit here helpless and watch these creatures who walk desert us daily — desert us — creatures who flew — leave us here helpless and alone.”

“But in the beginning,” Lulu interposed anxiously, “they did try to take us with them.  But it tired them so to carry us — for or that’s — what in effect they do.”

“And there was one time just after we were married when it was all wonderful,” said Peachy.  “I did not even miss the flying, for it seemed to me that Ralph made up for the loss of my wings by his love and service.  Then, they began to build the New Camp and gradually everything changed.  You see, they love their work more than they do us.  Or at least it seems to interest them more.”

“Why not?” Julia interpolated quietly.  “We’re the same all the time.  We don’t change and grow.  Their work does change and grow.  It presents new aspects every day, new questions and problems and difficulties, new answers and solutions and adjustments.  It makes them think all the time.  They love to think.”  She added this as one who announces a discovery, long pondered over.  “They enjoy thinking.”

“Yes,” Lulu agreed wonderingly, “that’s true, isn’t it?  That never occurred to me.  They really do like thinking.  How curious!  I hate to think.”

“I never think,” Chiquita announced.

“I won’t think,” Peachy exclaimed passionately.  “I feel.  That’s the way to live.”

“I don’t have to think,” Clara declared proudly.  “I’ve something better than thought-instinct and intuition.”

Julia was silent.