“But yes, sometimes, if there be no close male relatives. But I would not like it, since it often means they have to marry some one whom they would not, lest he whom they would marry be not acceptable to the clan. I am glad I have a brother.”
Strangely enough, so was I, though I did not say so.
“Do not women ever rule in your country, Harilek?” she went on.
“Yes, sometimes; and they sometimes do not like it for the same reason, that their husbands are chosen for them.”
“Which is quite wrong,” said Aryenis, with a defiant tilt of her well-shaped chin. “A woman should always choose her own man, although,” she added as a minor qualification, “of course, he is always allowed to think he has done the choosing.”
“I believe it is like that in my own country, though I do not know from experience,” said I. Aryenis looked at me thoughtfully but said nothing, so I dropped the subject and rigged up the telescope. “The others ought to be in sight on the hill now. It’s nearly an hour since they left.”
Within a minute or so I picked them up, three tiny figures making their way up the more gentle slope above the cliff part. They worked upward until they reached the foot of the arch, where they halted awhile.
Then slowly—slowly—they clambered up and up until at last all three stood erect and walked across the great bow till they stopped under the cliff face which towered above them. There they stayed for some time.
“Think you they can get up to the caves? Oh, they must be able to!” said Aryenis, who was using my glasses. She picked up things extraordinarily quickly, though, like all women, the “how it worked” interested her not at all. All she desired was a sufficiency of knowledge to get practical use out of things.
“Yes; they’re sure to get up, though perhaps not this afternoon. They may want more rope.”