"Yes, it does," Roxy told him. "That thar gal would never have been bidden to Miz. Gentry's house. Callisty would never have been called on to even herself with sech, long as she staid [141] under her gran'pappy's roof. And when it comes to what it did out in 'tother room, it's more than Callisty that suffers." "Suffers!" echoed her brother with a contemptuous grin. "Well, if that don't beat my time! I reckon Ola Derf cain't eat any of you-all. She's just a little old gal, and you're a good-sized crowd of able-bodied folks--what harm can she do you?" "Well, Lance," began his mother-in-law, with studied moderation, though she was plainly incensed, "I do not think, hit's any way for you to do--evening Callista with such folks. She ain't used to it." Lance looked to where Callista yet held aloof near the door, pale and silent, avoiding his eye. "A man and his wife are one," he said, with less confidence than would have been his earlier in the day. "What's good enough for me is good enough for Callista." He got no sign of agreement from his bride--and he had expected it. "Son, I think you made a mistake to bid that Derf gal here," spoke old Kimbro mildly. "But don't you let her start up any foolishness, and we'll all get through without further trouble." "Yes," broke in the Widow Griever's most rasping tones. "She called the game I was a-showin' the boys and gals a Virginia Reel, an' 'lowed she'd call off for us. Call off!" Roxy snorted. [142] "A lot of perfessin' Christians to dance--dance to Ola Derf's callin' off!" Once more Lance's eye swept the circle of hostile, alien faces. His sense of fair play was touched. Also, he felt himself pushed outside and set to defending his solitary camp, with the whole front of respectability arrayed against him. This, so far as the others were concerned, was the usual thing; it daunted him not at all. But when he looked to Callista, and saw that at the first call she had left him--left him alone--arrayed herself with the enemy--a new, strange, stinging pain went through his spirit. He smiled, while odd lights began to bicker in his eyes. "O-oo-oh," he said in a soft, careless voice, "didn't you-all know that I aim to have dancin'? Why, of course I do." And he walked away with head aslant, leaving them dumb. It was but a retort, the usual quick defiance from the Lance Cleaverage who would not be catechized, reproved; yet when he entered the outer room and found Ola drawn over at one side, unfriended, while a knot of whispering girls, quite across the floor from her, cast glances athwart shoulders in her direction, the good will of old comradeship, the anger of the host who sees his guest mistreated, pushed forward his resolution. "I reckon I'd better be goin' home," Ola said to the pale Callista, who followed her husband [143] from the back room. "Looks like I'm in the way here; and mebbe Lance ort not to have bid me--hit's yo' house."