“Would you actually have sought an excuse to leave? Or were you looking forward to your own ‘welcome home’ party that night?”

“Well . . .” Caxton mused. “I hadn’t made up my mind about that when this happened. I was curious, I admit—but I wasn’t quite sold.”

“Very well. You now have your motivation.”

“Do I?”

“You name it, Ben. Haul it out and look at it—and find out how you want to deal with it.”

Caxton chewed his lip and looked unhappy. “All right. I would have been startled if it had been Ruth—but I wouldn’t really have been shocked. Hell, in the newspaper racket you get over being shocked by anything but—well, you expressed it: something that cuts deep about right and wrong. Shucks, if it had been Ruth, I might even have sneaked a look—even though I still think I would have left the room; such things ought to be—or at least I feel that they ought to be—private.” He paused. “It was because it was Jill. I was hurt . . . and jealous.”

“Stout fellow, Ben.”

“Jubal, I would have sworn that I wasn’t jealous. I knew that I had lost out—I had acceptetd it. It was the circumstances, Jubal. Now don’t get me wrong. I would still love Jill if she were a two-peso whore. Which she is not. This hands-around harem deal upsets the hell out of me. But by her lights Jill is moral.”

Jubal nodded. “I know. I feel sure that Gillian is incapable of being corrupted. She has an invincible innocence which makes it impossible for her to be immoral.” He frowned. “Ben, we are close to the root of your trouble. I am afraid that you—and I, too, I admit—lack the angelic innocence to abide by the perfect morality those people live by.”

Ben looked surprised. “Jubal, you think what they are doing is moral? Monkeys-in-the-zoo stuff and all? All I meant was that Jill really didn’t know that what she was doing was wrong—Mike’s got her hornswoggled—and Mike doesn’t know he’s doing wrong either. He’s the Man from Mars; he didn’t get off to a fair start. Everything about us was strange to him—he’ll probably never get straightened out.”

Jubal looked troubled. “You’ve raised a hard question, Ben—but I’ll give you a straight answer. Yes, I think what those people—the entire Nest, not just our own kids—are doing is moral. As you described it to me—yes. I haven’t had a chance to examine details—but yes: all of it. Group orgies, and open and unashamed swapping off at other times . . . their communal living and their anarchistic code, everything. And most especially their selfless dedication to giving their perfect morality to others.”

“Jubal, you utterly astonish me.” Caxton scratched his head and frowned. “Since you feel that way, why don’t you join them? You’re welcome, they want you, they’re expecting you. They’ll hold a jubilee—and Dawn is waiting to kiss your feet and serve you in any way you will permit; I wasn’t exaggerating.”

Jubal shook his head. “No. Had I been approached fifty years ago—But now? Ben my brother, the potential for such innocence is no longer in me—and I am not referring to sexual potency, so wipe that cynical smile of your face. I mean that I have been too long wedded to my own brand of evil and hopelessness to be cleansed in their water of life and become innocent again. If I ever was.”

“Mike thinks you have this ‘innocence’—he doesn’t call it that—in full measure now. Dawn told me, speaking ex officio.”

“Then Mike does me great honor; I would not disillusion him. He sees his own reflection—I am, by profession, a mirror.”

“Jubal, you’re chicken.”

“Precisely, sir! The thing that troubles me most is whether those innocents can make their pattern fit into a naughty world. Oh, it’s been tried before!—and every time the world etched them away like acid. Some of the early Christians—anarchy, communism, group marriage—why, even that kiss of brotherhood has a strong primitive—Christian flavor to it. That might be where Mike picked it up, since all the forms he uses are openly syncretic, especially that Earth-Mother ritual.” Jubal frowned. “If he picked that up from primitive Christianity—and not just from kissing girls, which he enjoys, I know—then I would expect men to kiss men, too.”

Ben snorted. “I held out on you—they do. But it’s not a pansy gesture. I got caught once; after that I managed to duck.”

“So? It figures. The Oneida Colony was much like Mike’s ‘Nest’; it managed to last quite a while but in a low population density—not as an enclave in a resort city. There have been many others, all with the same sad story: a plan for perfect sharing and perfect love, glorious hopes and high ideals—followed by persecution and eventual failure.” Jubal sighed. “I was worried about Mike before—now I’m worried about all of them.”