"All this is mannish," I went on. "There are other things for women to do. Why does she not give her time and attention to the softer graces, to feminine occupations?" "I see," he laughed; "you want her to drop these weighty matters and devote herself to amusing us! and you call that 'feminine.'" I joined in his laugh ruefully. "Perhaps I am narrow, and selfish, too," I admitted; "but she is so charming, she brings so much into our conversations whenever we can entice her to spend a moment with us." "Yes, that is true," he answered. "She gleans her ideas from a large and varied field." "I do not mean her ideas, so much as--well, as the delicious flavor of her presence and personality." "Her presence and her personality would not have much flavor, my friend, if she had no ideas, I am thinking." "O, yes, they would," I insisted. "They are the ether in which our own thoughts expand and take shape and color. They are the essence of her supreme beauty." He shook his head. "Beauty is nothing without intelligence. What is the camellia beside the rose? Elodia is the rose. She has several pleasing qualities that appeal to you at one and the same time." This was rather pretty, but a man's praises of his sister always sound tame to me. "She is adorable!" I cried with fervor. We were walking toward a depot connected with a great railway. For the first time I was to try the speed of a Marsian train. Severnius wanted me to visit the city of Frambesco, some two hundred miles from Thursia, in another state. After a short, ruminating silence I broke out again: "We don't even have her company evenings, to any extent. What does she do with her evenings?" "Who? O, Elodia! Why, she goes to her club. For recreation, you know." "That is complimentary to you and me," I said coolly. He brought his spectacles to bear upon me somewhat sharply. "Don't you think you are a little unreasonable?" he demanded. "You have curious ideas about individual liberty! Now, we hold that every soul shall be absolutely free,--that is, in its relations to other souls; it shall not be coerced by any other. It is as though souls were stars suspended in space, each moving in its appointed orbit. No one has the right to disturb the poise and equilibrium of another, not even the one nearest it. That is a Caskian idea, by the way; about the only one Elodia is enamored of. These souls, or spheres, are extremely sensitive; and they may, and do, exert a tremendous influence, one upon another,--but without violence." "Your meaning is clear," I said coldly. "My powers of attraction in this case are feeble. Is the club you speak of composed entirely of women?" "Certainly." "Do not the men here have clubs?" "O, yes; I belong to one, though I do not often attend. I will take you to visit it,--I wonder I had not thought of it before! But those things are disturbing; we scientists like to keep our minds clear, like the lenses of our telescopes."