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his fears in his behavior. They say that a man such as I am, who appreciates women—”
    “Like a karate expert walking onto a mat,” she interrupted him, partly as Freda, from sheer impishness, and partly as Doctor Caron, to point out the inconsistencies of thought.
    “Touché,” he almost shouted in glee, waving his soup spoon in his right hand and reaching out impulsively to take her hand with his free one. “All joking aside, there’s two of you—Freda, warm and witty, and Doctor Caron, the authoritative perfectionist. Never desert Doctor Caron, Freda, for she will carry you to the heights of policymaking, and her advice is needed in the halls of the mighty, but never forget Freda, Doctor Caron, because she’s a lot more fun.”
    He withdrew his hand. Such a pretty, impulsive speech, she thought; and he was sincere. But, judiciously, she was not affected by his charm: the more attractive Hal was, the more subversive Polino was.
    “Anyway, the theory holds that a great lover is actually a latent homosexual, which is about as sensible as saying that you became a botanist cause you subconsciously wanted to practice animal husbandry.”
    A mere graduate student daring to attack an entire science, Doctor Caron thought; but, to Freda, he made sense. She listened closely, disapproving of the way he waved his spoon for emphasis. Bad table manners indicated a lack of restraint.
    “Back on the continent,” he continued, “I used to go up to a grove of maple trees once in a while to read. All those dancing daffodils can get distracting, and the grove gave me a quiet place. There’s nothing sexual about a tree. Even on Flora they’re hermaphroditic.”
    Ah, there was the source of Paul’s flowers in “estrus.”
    “… After a week in the sanctuary, I began to favor a particular tree. This is normal! You’ve had a favorite tree…”
    Indeed she had, Freda thought. There had been an elm grove she had fled to for comfort and solitude, as a girl, when her parents’ quarrels had risen to hysteria. She would always love elm trees.
    “In the beginning, I thought nothing of it. It was comfortable to sit between its roots and lean back against its bole. It was just a tree tree.” He paused for a moment; a dreaminess came into his eyes. “But it was beautiful, in a masculine way. Strong-limbed, sturdy. It was the sort of tree that a blue jay would trust.
    “One day I was sitting under my tree reading, when a naval rating wandered by. None of us wore clothes, but I could tell he was a navy man from the decal on his arm. He had come up to look for acorns… They are large and edible on Flora… and he was cracking one between the heels of his palms as he wandered over to see what I was reading. He started to sit down on one of the roots of my tree, and I ordered him away. In very specific terms I told him what I’d do if a certain part of his body touched the tree. He walked away, looking back at me and saying, ‘Okay, matey! Okay!’ as if he knew I was squirrely.”
    “How interesting,” Freda remarked as she forked into the lasagne the waiter placed before her. It was as light and as fluffy as a soufflé, without a hint of garlic, and the Chianti complemented it perfectly.
    Hal shifted from a soup spoon to a fork and into high gear. “When it struck me that I would have killed the sailor for fooling around with my tree, I got scared and fled the grove, figuring I was ready for Hollywood. Later, thinking about it, I figured the headshrinkers were still wrong, but the point is—they scared me.”
    His fork beat like a metronome. “I had let the Freudians of earth defile my mind. I had dishonored the grove with my fear!”
    “Mmmm, good!… I don’t follow you,” Freda said.
    “What I mean, all that clings to a tree is not necessarily fruit, and I had felt—”
    “You’re right, Hal,” she interjected, partly in agreement but mostly to break the rhythm of the fork, “nuts cling, also.”
    “What I felt