Westover’s agnosticism did not, somehow, extend to Mars.  “Yes, I’ve no doubt of it.”

Jackson seemed pleased.  “I’ve read everything I can lay my hands on about it.  I’ve got a notion that if there’s any choosin’, after we get through here, I should like to go to Mars for a while, or as long as I was a little homesick still, and wanted to keep as near the earth as I could,” he added, quaintly.

Westover laughed.  “You could study up the subject of irrigation, there; they say that’s what keeps the parallel markings green on Mars; and telegraph a few hints to your brother in Colorado, after the Martians perfect their signal code.”

Perhaps the invalid’s fancy flagged.  He drew a long, ragged breath.  “I don’t know as I care to leave home, much.  If it wa’n’t a kind of duty, I shouldn’t.”  He seemed impelled by a sudden need to say, “How do you think Jefferson and mother will make it out together?”

“I’ve no doubt they’ll manage,” said Westover.

“They’re a good deal alike,” Jackson suggested.

Westover preferred not to meet his overture.  You’ll be back, you know, almost as soon as the season commences, next summer.”

“Yes,” Jackson assented, more cheerfully.  “And now, Cynthy’s sure to be here.”

“Yes, she will be here,” said Westover, not so cheerfully.

Jackson seemed to find the opening he was seeking, in Westover’s tone.  “What do you think of gettin’ married, anyway, Mr. Westover?” he asked.

“We haven’t either of us thought so well of it as to try it, Jackson,” said the painter, jocosely.

“Think it’s a kind of chance?”

“It’s a chance.”

Jackson was silent.  Then, “I a’n’t one of them,” he said, abruptly, “that think a man’s goin’ to be made over by marryin’ this woman or that.  If he a’n’t goin’ to be the right kind of a man himself, he a’n’t because his wife’s a good woman.  Sometimes I think that a man’s wife is the last person in the world that can change his disposition.  She can influence him about this and about that, but she can’t change him.  It seems as if he couldn’t let her if he tried, and after the first start-off he don’t try.”

“That’s true,” Westover assented.  “We’re terribly inflexible.  Nothing but something like a change of heart, as they used to call it, can make us different, and even then we’re apt to go back to our old shape.  When you look at it in that light, marriage seems impossible.  Yet it takes place every day!”

“It’s a great risk for a woman,” said Jackson, putting on his hat and stirring for an onward movement.  “But I presume that if the man is honest with her it’s the best thing she can have.  The great trouble is for the man to be honest with her.”

“Honesty is difficult,” said Westover.

He made Jackson promise to spend a day with him in Boston, on his way to take the Mediterranean steamer at New York.  When they met he yielded to an impulse which the invalid’s forlornness inspired, and went on to see him off.  He was glad that he did that, for, though Jackson was not sad at parting, he was visibly touched by Westover’s kindness.