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you like my face as it is?" asked Jael wistfully. "I quite like it as a face," said Joab, as if that was very little to like it for. "But as a potential breeding ground of Envy (Joab went through the motions of spitting: he never used euphemisms or shirked the consequences of ritual words), I heartily dislike it. I heartily dislike it," he repeated, "and you know that, Jael. No wonder you feel nervy. By keeping your face you have transgressed the first law of our common life. What you take to be nerves is guilt. Don't you feel guilty?" "Not altogether," confessed Jael, still anxious to be to him a person in her own right, not a reach-me-down but made to her own measure. "It's my own face after all. I suppose I have a right to it," she said with some spirit. "You have a right to nothing that is liable to cause Envy in the heart of a fellow delinquent," said Joab, pursing his lips for the ritual spit, and using the word _delinquent__, which was still one of the official terms for an inhabitant of the Upper World, though _patient__ was more commonly used. "Our constitution and way of life are based on it." Jael looked at him, as kindly as she could. Joab's looks were definitely Gamma, and though standardization of looks among men had never been considered necessary, before Joab achieved his present eminence, some ill-natured men friends had sent him more or less facetious petitions begging him to have his face altered as it offended their aesthetic sense. His marked indifference, indeed harshness, toward good-looking women may have dated from that time. Jael felt she must defend herself. "I know that Envy is the worst thing possible," she said, moistening her lips for the gesture she knew that Joab would expect of her. "But--" She stopped, for to make an adverse criticism of the regime or its dogmas was almost impossible to her. "Don't you think," she went on, "that there is another side to it--in my case, I mean? Don't you think that when people see me looking pretty--if I do--it makes them feel more cheerful? There's no harm in feeling cheerful, is there?" "None," said Joab, grudgingly. "For reasons I won't go into, your face might make certain men feel cheerful. But supposing they are married men--and most delinquents are married, as you know, the State rightly imposes fines on bachelors--I might have been forced into marrying myself if--" "But you _are__ married to yourself!" Jael exclaimed. Joab looked at her repressively and went on: "The cheerfulness you might inspire in married men can only cause Envy"--his face worked--"in their wives. And that we simply cannot allow. Cheerfulness as you call it--I should give it a different name--is all right in its place, but if it excites a single twinge of what you would term Bad E, then it must be stamped out. Better a population of long-faced delinquents"--he attempted a smile--"than of smirking floosies (the word had a strange effect coming from his lips) out to break up homes." "I'm not out to break up homes," said Jael. "Anyhow, there aren't many homes to break up." "The home is still on trial," said Joab. It was characteristic of him that he did not hesitate to impart information which was perfectly well known to his interlocutor. "It may be discontinued at any moment. Homes are a hotbed of--well, of everything we want to eradicate. You will say (Joab often put a vulnerable argument into an opponent's mouth) that all delinquents' homes are uniform, and that uniformity is the outward expression of Equal--" Their eyes met. "The shortened form, I think," said Joab quickly. He made a creditable bow and Jael dropped a curtsy. "They are as uniform as human hands can make them," he proceeded. "But each has something particular to itself--plastic, an ornament, even the arrangement of the furniture--which makes it individual and therefore a standard of comparison. You will hear people say, in the words of the old song, 'ours is a nice house, ours is,' meaning that it is nicer than other