She said, “Well, don’t suffer so. You’re hungry. You hardly ate last night. Get some calories inside you and you’ll feel more carnal.”

Baley looked doubtfully at the pancakes that weren’t.

Gladia said, “Oh! You’ve probably never seen these. They’re Solarian delicacies. Pachinkas! I had to reprogram my chef before he could make them properly. In the first place, you have to use imported Solatian grain. It won’t work with the Auroran varieties. And they’re stuffed. Actually, there are a thousand stuffings you can use, but this is my favorite and I know you’ll like it, too. I won’t tell you what’s in it, except for chestnut puree and a touch of honey, but try it and tell me what you think. You can eat it with your fingers, but be careful how you bite into It.”

She picked one up, holding it daintily between the thumb and middle finger of each hand, then took a small bite, slowly, and licked at the golden, semiliquid filling that flowed out.

Baley imitated her action. The pachinka was hard to the touch and not too hot to hold. He put one end cautiously in his mouth and found it resisted biting. He put more muscle into it and the pachinka cracked and he found the contents flowing over his hands.

“The bite was too large and too forceful,” said Gladia, rushing to him with a napkin. “Now lick at it. No one eats a pachinka neatly. There’s no such thing. You’re supposed to wallow in it. Ideally, you’re supposed to eat it in the nude, then take a shower.”

Baley tried a hesitant lick and his expression was clear enough.

“You like it, don’t you?” said Gladia.

“It’s delicious,” said Baley and he bit away at, it slowly and gently. It wasn’t too sweet and it seemed to soften and melt in the mouth. It scarcely required swallowing.

He ate three pachinkas and it was only shame that kept him from asking for more. He licked at his fingers without urging and eschewed the use of napkins, for he wanted none of it to be wasted on an inanimate object.

“Dip your fingers and hands in the cleanser, Elijah,” and she showed him. The “melted butter” was a finger bowl, obviously.

Baley did as he was shown and then dried his hands. He sniffed at them and there was no odor whatever.

She said, “Are you embarrassed about last night, Elijah? Is that all you feel?”

What did one say? Baley wondered.

Finally, he nodded. “I’m afraid I am, Gladia. It’s not all I feel, by twenty kilometers or more, but I am embarrassed. Stop and think. I’m an Earthman and you know that, but for the time being you’re repressing it and ‘Earthman’ is only a meaningless disyllabic sound to you. Last night you were sorry for me, concerned over my problem with the storm, feeling toward me as you would toward a child, and—sympathizing with me, perhaps, out of the vulnerability produced in you by your own loss—you came to me. But that feeling will pass—I’m surprised it hasn’t passed already—and then you will remember that I am an Earthman and you will feel ashamed, demeaned, and dirtied. You will hate me for what I have done for you and I don’t want to be hated.—I don’t want to be hated, Gladia.” (If he looked as unhappy as he felt, he looked unhappy indeed.)

She must have thought so, for she reached out to him and stroked his hand. “I won’t hate you, Elijah. Why should I? You did nothing to me that I can object to. I did it to you and I’ll be glad for the rest of my life that I did. You freed me by a touch two years ago, Elijah, and last night you freed me again. I needed to know, two years ago, that I could feel desire—and last night I needed to know that I could feel desire again after Jander. Elijah—stay with me. It would be—”

He cut her off earnestly. “How can that be, Gladia? I must go back to my own world. I have duties and goals there and you cannot come with me. You could not live the kind of life that is lived on Earth. You would die of Earthly diseases—if the crowds and enclosure did not kill you first. Surely you understand.”

“I understand about Earth,” said Gladia with a sigh, “but surely you needn’t leave immediately.”

“Before the morning is over, I may be ordered off the planet by the Chairman.”

“You won’t be,” said Gladia energetically. “You won’t let yourself be.—And if you are, we can go to another Spacer world. There are dozens we can choose from. Does Earth mean so much to you that you wouldn’t live on a Spacer world?”

Baley said, “I could be evasive, Gladia, and point out that no other Spacer world would let me make my home there permanently—and you know that’s so. The greater truth is, though, that even if some Spacer world would accept me, Earth means so much to me that I would have to return.—Even if it meant leaving you.”

“And never visiting Aurora again? Never seeing me again?”

“If I could see you again, I would,” Baley said, wishing. “Over and over again, believe me. But what’s the use of saying so? You know I’m not likely to be invited back. And you know I can’t return without an invitation.”

Gladia said in a low voice, “I don’t want to believe that, Elijah.”

Baley said, “Gladia, don’t make yourself unhappy. Something wonderful happened between us, but there are other wonderful things that will happen to you, too many of them, of all kinds, but not the same wonderful thing. Look forward to the others.”

She was silent.

“Gladia,” he said urgently, “need anyone know what has happened between us?”

She looked up at him, a pained expression on her face. “Are you that ashamed?”

“Of what happened, certainly not. But even though I am not ashamed, there could be consequences that would be discomforting. The matter would be talked about. Thanks to that hateful hyperwave drama, which included a distorted view of our relationship, we are news. The Earthman and the Solarian woman. If there is the slightest reason to suspect that there is—love between us, it will get back to Earth at the speed of hyperspatial drive.”

Gladia lifted her eyebrows with a touch of hauteur. “And Earth will consider you demeaned? You will have indulged in sex with someone beneath your station?”

“No, of course not,” said Baley uneasily, for he knew that that would certainly be the view of billions of Earthpeople. “Has it occurred to you that my wife would hear of it? I’m married.”

“And if she does? What of it?”

Baley took a deep breath. “You don’t understand. Earth ways are not Spacer ways. We have had times in our history when sexual mores were fairly loose, at least in some places and for some classes. This is not one of those times. Earthmen live crowded together and it takes a puritan ethic to keep the family system stable under such conditions.”

“Everyone has one partner, you mean, and no other?”

“No,” said Baley. “To be honest, that’s not so. But care is taken to keep irregularities sufficiently quiet, so that everyone can—can—”

“Pretend they don’t know?”

“Well, yes, but in this case—”

“It will all be so public that no one could pretend not to know—and your wife will be angry with you and will strike you.”

“No, she won’t strike me, but she will be shamed, which is worse. I will be shamed as well and so will my son. My social position will suffer and—Gladia, if you don’t understand, you don’t understand, but tell me that you will not speak freely of this thing as Aurorans do.” He was conscious of making a rather miserable show of himself.

Gladia said thoughtfully, “I do not mean to tease you, Elijah. You have been kind to me and I would not be unkind to you, but”—she threw her arms up hopelessly—“your Earth ways are so nonsensical.”

“Undoubtedly. Yet I must live with them—as you have lived with Solarian ways.”

“Yes.” Her expression darkened with memory. Then, “Forgive me, Elijah. Really and honestly, I apologize. I want what I can’t have and I take it out on you.”

“It’s all right.”