Part Three - Mr. Welles Lights the Fuse

July 2.

That early morning talk with Mr. Welles had left Marise trembling with
helpless sorrow and exasperation. She sat on the bench where he had left
her, and felt the nervous tears stinging her eyes. When she looked up
and saw Vincent Marsh was standing there, extremely pale, as visibly
shaken as she, as visibly little in control of himself, she burst out,
"So you too know. He has just told me that he is really going. The very
date is set. His cousin has a room in her boarding house engaged for
him. He's going to work as a clerk to pay for the extra expenses of the
life there. Oh!" She struck her hand on the back of the bench.

Vincent Marsh sat down beside her, his eyes on hers. He said in a
curious, low voice, rough and husky, "I wish you would do something for
me. I wish you would think with all your might, deeply, just why you are
so opposed to his doing what evidently seems to him a very saintly and
heroic action; and then tell me why it is."

Marise felt this as a challenge. He was always challenging everything.
This time she was more than ready. "I don't need any time to think of
reasons!" she cried. "It's obvious to anyone with any sense for the
reality of human values, who isn't fooled by threadbare old words. It's
one of those wasteful, futile, exasperating tricks people play on
themselves in the name of 'duty.' He's throwing away something real and
true, something that could add to the richness of human life, he's
throwing away the happiness that comes of living as suits his nature,
and so creating a harmony that enriches everybody who touches him. And
what's he doing it for? To satisfy a morbid need for self-sacrifice.
He's going to do harm, in all probability, mix up a situation already
complicated beyond solution, and why is he? So that he can indulge
himself in the perverse pleasure of the rasp of a hair-shirt. He doesn't
really use his intelligence to think, to keep a true sense of
proportions; he takes an outworn and false old ideal of self-sacrifice,
and uses it not to do anybody any real good, but to put a martyr's crown
on his head."