Marie flung the dress from bed to floor. "You can throw it out, for all I care. Or give it away."
"Thank you, I'll stay here."
"For crying out loud!" Marsden said in exasperation. "This is the biggest thing to hit Talbor in years. The Earth people are coming to visit us and you want to stay home."
"They probably will make fun of us."
"If we act like bumpkins they will. If we act—well, sophisticated, they won't."
"I'm not sophisticated." Marie sat down on the bed where her dress had been, drew her legs up, wrapped her arms around her knees. "Do I look sophisticated?"
"Put the dress on."
"I've never been off Talbor, never. We have one town, two hundred people on seventy or eighty farms. Is it my fault I wasn't born on Earth? Do you think I would have married you if I had much choice?"
"Oh," said Marsden. "I see."
Marie stared at him and shrugged her bare shoulders. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that, Harry. But you don't see. Talbor is all right for you because you're a man and you like to work like that. Don't you think I'd rather be small and attractive, instead of—"