And more than all, I found this--a factor of enormous weight--these women were not provocative.
That made an immense difference.
The thing that Terry had so complained of when we first came--that they weren't "feminine," they lacked "charm," now became a great comfort.
Their vigorous beauty was an aesthetic pleasure, not an irritant.

Their dress and ornaments had not a touch of the "come-and-find-me" element.
Even with my own Ellador, my wife, who had for a time unveiled a woman's heart and faced the strange new hope and joy of dual parentage, she afterward withdrew again into the same good comrade she had been at first.

They were women, PLUS, and so much plus that when they did not choose to let the womanness appear, you could not find it anywhere.
I don't say it was easy for me; it wasn't.

But when I made appeal to her sympathies I came up against another immovable wall.

She was sorry, honestly sorry, for my distresses, and made all manner of thoughtful suggestions, often quite useful, as well as the wise foresight I have mentioned above, which often saved all difficulty before it arose; but her sympathy did not alter her convictions.
"If I thought it was really right and necessary, I could perhaps bring myself to it, for your sake, dear; but I do not want to--not at all.
You would not have a mere submission, would you?
That is not the kind of high romantic love you spoke of, surely?
It is a pity, of course, that you should have to adjust your highly specialized faculties to our unspecialized ones." Confound it! I hadn't married the nation, and I told her so.