"They seem to be happy with each other. Edith comes up here regularly."
"I know," he said bitterly. "She's here more often than she's home. I can't see what fun she gets out of running around these hills stripped to the skin carrying your mate on her shoulders."
"I wouldn't know," I said. "Certainly you never seem to enjoy performing that service for me."
"I don't even like the thought of it. I'm not an animal, after all."
"But you are," I said. "So am I. The only difference is that I am a superior animal and you, being inferior, conform to my wishes. It is a law of nature that the superior type will inevitably rule. The inferior either conforms or dies. And you have no desire to die."
He shook his head. "But I can still object," he said.
"At that?" I asked pointing across the meadow with a primary digit.
Edith was running, her long yellow hair floating free behind her. Ven, high on her shoulders in a seat the two of them had contrived, waved gaily at us as they came up. Edith was flushed and laughing. Her eyes sparkled and her smooth bronze body gleamed in the sunlight. She lowered Ven to the ground, slipped the harness off her smooth shoulders and stood behind my mate, breathing deeply but not at all distressed.
"Oh, Donald!" she said. "We had a wonderful climb—clear up to the top of the ridge! And coming down was almost like flying! I'll tell you all about it in a minute, right after I take a dip in the pool. Ven doesn't like it when I sweat." She turned and ran down to the little pool in the meadow.