the others, "You simply can't
imagine how remarkable this is, for me. I never, _never_ danced and I no
more thought I ever _would_ . . ."

Mr. Bayweather ran his handkerchief around and around his neck in an
endeavor to save his clerical collar from complete ruin, and said,
panting still, "Best thing in the world for you, Mr. Welles."

"Yes indeed," echoed Marise. "We'll have to prescribe a dance for you
every week. You look like a boy, and you've been looking rather tired
lately." She had an idea and added, accusingly, "I do believe you've
gone on tormenting yourself about the Negro problem!"

"Yes, he has!" Mr. Bayweather unexpectedly put in. "And he's not the
only person he torments about it. Only yesterday when he came down to
the rectory to see some old deeds, didn't he expatiate on that subject
and succeed in spoiling the afternoon. I had never been forced to think
so much about it in all my life. He made me very uncomfortable, very!
What's the use of going miles out of your way, I say, out of the station
to which it has pleased God to place us? I believe in leaving such
insoluble problems to a Divine Providence."

Marise was evidently highly amused by this exposition of one variety of
ministerial principle, and looked up at Vincent over her fan, her eyes
sparkling with mockery. He savored with an intimate pleasure her
certainty that he would follow the train of her thought; and he decided
to try to get another rise out of the round-eyed little clergyman. "Oh,
if it weren't the Negro problem, Mr. Bayweather, it would be free-will
or predestination, or capital and labor. Mr. Welles suffers from a
duty-complex, inflamed to a morbid degree by a life-long compliance to a
mediaeval conception of family responsibility."

Mr. Bayweather's eyes became rounder than ever at this, and Vincent went
on, much amused, "Mr. Welles has done his duty with discomfort to
himself so long that he has the habit. His life at Ashley seems too
unnaturally peaceful to him. I'd just as soon he took it out with
worrying about the Negroes. They are so safely far away. I had been on
the point of communicating to him my doubts as to the civic virtues of
the Martians, as a safety valve for him."

Marise laughed out, as round a peal as little Mark's, but she evidently
thought they had gone far enough with their fooling, for she now brought
the talk back to a safe, literal level by crying, "Well, there's one
thing sure, Mr. Welles can't worry