field have I skill. But since ye would not or could not have me, I
wonder not that ye be ill at ease here, and long to be gone, for as
plenteous and lovely as the isle is, and though ye live here without
present mishandling or pining. For, sooth to say, ye have over you a
tyrant and a fool.

Viridis answered: Yet is there something else, dear friend, that
whets our longing to depart. Tell her thereof, Atra.

Atra smiled and said: Simple it is: there are they who long for us
and for whom we long, and we would be together. Said Birdalone: Be
these kinsfolk of yours, as fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, or
the like?

Reddened Viridis again; but Atra spake, and she also blushed
somewhat, though she smiled: Those whom we love, and who love us, be
not queans, but carles; neither be they of our blood, but aliens,
till love overcometh them and causeth them to long to be of one flesh
with us; and their longing is beyond measure, and they desire our
bodies, which they deem far fairer than belike they be. And they
would bed us, and beget children on us. And all this we let them do
with a good will, because we love them for their might, and their
truth, and the hotness of their love toward us.

Looked up Viridis thereat, and her eyes gleamed amidst the flushing
of her cheeks, and she said: Sister, sister! even in such wise, and
no other, as they desire us do we desire them; it is no mere good
will toward them from us, but longing and hot love.

Now must Atra blush no less than Viridis; yet she but said: I have