"Certainly. And so do they here. I looked in all the houses on this street before I came to yours. I picked your house because you were alone."

"But those people are married!" said Homer. "I'm an unmarried man. A bachelor."

"Are you a social outcast? An exile?" Qalith asked.

"No. I have not chosen a mate—as yet," he didn't want her to think he was opposed to the idea. "On earth it's not customary for an unmarried couple—"

"Oh," said Qalith. "That old thing."

Homer felt a little indignant. "It isn't to be ignored."

"Far be it from me to upset the earth," she said. "I just dropped in for a brief time to complete our museum catalog of your system. We're not complete on the earth, you see, and your little village seemed to have a pretty fair representation of human society, except a lack of primitive tribes. Now I'm not so sure it is anything but primitive."

"We are civilized," said Homer. "Highly civilized. We have a certain moral code and your being with me jeopardizes my position in respect to that code." He paused. "If anyone saw you here, I'd be disgraced. I couldn't face my fellow citizens." He added mentally that he wouldn't get that job with Fader's Fadeless Formulae if he wanted it.

"Is that why you closed the blinds?"

Homer nodded.

"It would seem to me to be worse if people knew I was here and didn't see us," she said. "But I'm new to your planet and I still have a problem. Where will I stay?"

Homer thought quickly. "There's a rooming house where some of the lady teachers stay." He paused, looked at her spangled costume and shook his head. "But your clothes wouldn't be understood. They'd think you were a burlesque queen."

"A burlesque queen?"

"Another thing you'd never understand," said Homer. "If I could find the proper clothes, I could say you were a cousin from Des Moines—"

"What is a cousin from Des Moines?"

Homer shook his head. "You'd give away the show."

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