Althea bit her lip for a moment. Then she shook her head. “False in every way. I feel trapped in these clothes; I must walk a certain way, sit a certain way. I can scarcely lift my hand over my head without the sleeves binding me. The pins in my hair give me a headache. I must speak to people according to proper protocol. Even to stand here, speaking intimately with you in your shop, is potentially scandalous. But worst of all, I must pretend to want things I don't really want.” She paused briefly. “Sometimes I almost convince myself I do want them,” she added confusedly. “If I could want them, life would be easier.”

The bead-maker made no immediate reply. Amber picked up the small baskets of beads. Althea followed her as she walked to an alcove at the back of the store. Amber let down a rattling curtain of hand-carved beads to shield them from casual eyes. She sat down on a tall stool by a worktable. Althea took a chair. The arms of it bore the marks of Amber's idle whittling.

“What don't you want?” Amber asked kindly as she began to set the beads out on the table before her.

“I don't want all the things a real woman would want. You made me realize that. I don't dream of babies and a pretty house. I don't want a settled home, and a growing family. I'm not even sure I want a husband. Today Malta accused me of being odd. It stung worse than anything else she flung at me. Because it's true. I suppose I am. I don't want any of the things a woman is supposed to want.” She rubbed her temples. “I should want Grag. I mean ... I do want Grag. I like him. I enjoy his company.” She stared at the front door as she added more honestly, “When he touches my hand, it warms me. But when I consider marrying him and all that would go with it . . .” She shook her head. “It's not what I want. It would cost too much. Even though it would, perhaps, be wise.”

Amber said nothing. She was setting out bits of metal and wooden spacers. She measured off several lengths of gleaming silken thread, and then began to knot them together into a woven rope. “You don't love him,” Amber suggested.

“I could. I don't allow myself to love him. It's like wanting something you can't possibly afford to buy. There is no reason not to love him, save that there is so much . . . attached to him. His family. His inheritance. His ship, his position in the community.” Althea sighed again, and looked miserable. “The man himself is wonderful. But I can't bring myself to give up everything I'd have to surrender to love him.”

“Ah,” Amber said. She fitted a bead to the woven strand and knotted it in place.

Althea traced an old carving on the chair's arm. “He has expectations. They don't include me captaining my own liveship. He'd want me to settle down and manage things for him. I'd make a home for him to come back to, and raise our children and keep our household in order.” Her brows knit over her dark eyes. “I'd do everything that needed to be done so that he could sail off without any worries save the ship.” Bitterness came into her voice. “I'd do all the things that made it possible for him to live the life he wanted.” She spoke the next words sadly. “If I decide to love Grag, to marry him, it would cost me everything else I've ever wanted to do with my life. I'd have to lay it all down for the sake of loving him.”

“And that's not what you want to do with your life?” Amber asked.

A sour smile twisted Althea's mouth. “No. I don't want to be the wind in his sails. That's what I want someone else to do for me.” She sat up straight suddenly. “That is ... that didn't come out right. I'm not explaining this very well.”

Amber looked up from her work to grin at her. “On the contrary, I think you are uncomfortable only because you have stated it so plainly. You want a mate who will follow your dream. You don't want to give up your own ambitions to make someone else's life possible.”

“I suppose that's true,” Althea admitted reluctantly. An instant later she demanded, “Why is that so wrong?”

“It isn't,” Amber assured her. A moment later she added wickedly, “As long as you're male.”

Althea leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms stubbornly. “I can't help it. That's what I want.” When Amber said nothing, Althea asked, almost angrily, “Don't try to tell me that that is what love is, giving it all up for someone else!”

“But for some people, it is,” Amber pointed out inexorably. She bound another bead into the necklace, then held it up to look at it critically. “Others are like two horses in harness, pulling together toward a goal.”