Читать бесплатно онлайн книгу автора The Teacup Club
The Teacup Club
The Teacup Club
The
Teacup Club
BY
ELIZA ARMSTRONG
CHICAGO
WAY AND WILLIAMS
1897
COPYRIGHT
WAY AND WILLIAMS
1897
NOTE
A portion of the matter in this little book originally appeared in The New York Journal, and is used by the courtesy of W. R. Hearst, Esq.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGEI
THE TEACUP CLUB IS FORMED
9II
THE CLUB DISCUSSES WOMAN IN POLITICS
39III
MAN’S REAL ATTITUDE TOWARD THE PROGRESS OF WOMAN
65IV
CONCERNING THE HEROINE OF TO-DAY
89V
THE CLUB SETTLES SOME CURRENCY PROBLEMS
112VI
THE PIONEER NEW WOMAN
136VII
WOMAN IN LEGISLATION
159VIII
AN EXECUTIVE MEETING
185IX
ON THE USE AND ABUSE OF POLITICAL POWER
210X
WOMAN AS A PARLIAMENTARIAN
236XI
THE CLUB INVESTIGATES THEOSOPHY
261XII
A DISCUSSION AND A SURPRISE
285Chapter I
The Teacup Club is Formed
“You can never be sure of pleasing a man,” sighed the blue-eyed girl, who was calling on her dearest friend; “that is, if you try to please him,” she added reflectively.
“I suppose not,” replied the girl with the dimple in her chin, “unless you succeed in concealing from him the fact that you are trying to please him.”
“H’m; yes, I suppose there is something in that. However, we ought not to be hard on the poor things. The whole truth with the sterner sex is that they are never really practical. They—”
“How clever you are!” cried the girl with the dimple in her chin, admiringly. “Sometimes it does seem a pity that you are to marry Jack, instead of studying law, or—theosophy or something like that. Really, a very little study would fit you for the bar, but of course Jack—”
“I don’t intend to marry Jack,” said the blue-eyed girl, calmly.
“O, my goodness, does he know that?”
“I don’t know whether he knows that or not; but he does know that I’ve broken my engagement with him. I sent back his ring, and—”
“Dear, dear; that ring must have already cost its real value in messenger fees alone. Let me see, how many times have you sent—”
“And you may know that I am in earnest when I tell you that I am to pour tea for Nell to-morrow, and everybody will comment on its absence.”
“Do you want me to come over and stay with you to-night, dear?” queried the girl with the dimple in her chin.
“No, thank you, dear. I can just as well talk it over with you now. Of course it was Jack’s fault.”
The girl with the dimple in her chin was silent.
“Well, Emily Marshmallow, I did think that you, of all people, would sympathize with me, and—”
“Look here, Dorothy; of course I sympathize with you, but you remember when you quarreled with Jack the last time I—”
“I remember the last time that Jack quarreled with me,” replied the blue-eyed girl, with dignity.
“Well, I sympathized violently with you, and the consequence was that you wouldn’t speak to me for a month after you made up with him!”
“O, of course, if you really do sympathize with me, I—”
“You might know that. But tell me all about it. Is it that you want a new ring which is too expensive for anything save a peace offering? Or is Edwin coming home on a visit? Or has—”
“Nothing so frivolous, my dear; this is a serious matter. Jack—that is, Mr. Bittersweet, joined a new club without even letting me know that he meant to do it. I shouldn’t have minded if he had only told of it beforehand—”
“Of course not, dear; for then you could have made him give it up!”
“Exactly. Well, when I did find it out, I told him that I plainly saw he did not really love me, and that it was lucky I had discovered the fact before it was too late!”
“How very original you are!” murmured the girl with the dimple in her chin. “Go on, dear.”
“Yes, it is all over and I never was so hap—happy in my life! Where is my hand—handkerchief? I—I got s—something in my eye on the way here, and—”
“Here it is, dear, and let me draw down the window shade, so the light will not hurt your poor eye.”
“You needn’t, dear. I saw them coming up the street a minute or two ago and all I’ve got to say is, that if Jack Bittersweet thinks he can make me jealous by parading up and down with a made-up thing like Frances, he is very much mistaken!”
“I suppose you have coaxed Edwin’s sister to write and tell him that you have broken with Jack?” queried the girl with the dimple in her chin.
“No, I haven’t. I did that last time and he was so unpleasant after we made up!”
“Who was unpleasant? Jack?”
“Of course not, goosie. A man is always nicer than usual just after making up. No, it was Edwin; he—men are so awfully selfish, you know! Just because I was nice to him while I was angry with Jack, he imagined I had treated him badly—did you ever hear of such a thing? How did he ever expect me to bring Jack to his senses in time for the opera season, without a little jealousy as an incentive?”
“Well, you know, men are so awfully vain that he probably thought—”
“That I really liked him? Perhaps he did. I never thought of that. Still, badly as he has behaved, I can’t help a kindly feeling for him. You see, I had such a lovely new gown for the opera and everybody knew that I expected to go often, so—”
“You might even have had to give in and acknowledge that you were wrong, but for Edwin!”
“No, dear,” replied the blue-eyed girl, with great dignity. “Never that. I really expected to marry Jack, you know, and it would never have done to establish such a precedent. How could I ever expect a happy married life, if I began it by acknowledging that I could ever be in the wrong?”
“Very true, dear. By the way, do you think a peep at my lovely new waist would do you any good?”
“You seem to have misunderstood me entirely,” retorted the blue-eyed girl, severely, “I am feeling quite happy. Indeed, I don’t know that I ever felt happier in my life, unless it was the day upon which I was mistaken for my younger sister!”
“But what are you going to do in regard to Jack?”
“Why, Emily Marshmallow, how stupid you are to-day! You seem to imagine that I want to be flattered, like a man, by being asked to explain things. I told you, didn’t I? that Jack and I quarreled about his membership in a new club. Very well, I too, have decided to join a club!”
“Humph, that isn’t a bad idea. But what kind of a club? An Ibsen or a Browning one, I suppose. I notice that men dislike particularly to have us members of really intellectual clubs.”
“Well, I did think of either an Ibsen or a Symphony club, but neither of them just seemed to suit me, so—well, the fact is that I’ve decided to found a club of my own.”
“But even then you can’t always have it to suit you, because the other members—”
“Oh, yes, I shall dear. You see, I’ll make all the—the by-laws and resolutions just as I want them, before I invite any one to join the club. I think I shall ask Evelyn to be the president, because she is married and accustomed already to making somebody do as she wishes.”
“Dear, dear, I’m only afraid that you are too clever to—”
“Succeed? Not quite so bad as that, I hope. Now, you see, the chief objection to Jack’s new club was that he wouldn’t tell me anything about it. Said he didn’t know just what its purpose was. As if a man would join a club without knowing—”
“I begin to see now. You mean to keep the purpose of your own club a secret, too?”
“That’s just it, and when Jack hears how nice it is, he’ll find out that we are a great deal cleverer than he thinks. I shall make the membership for life too, so—”
“But you haven’t even told me the purpose of the club yet.”
“The Advancement of Woman, dear. Jack hates advanced women and when I make up with him—”
“But you said a moment ago that you would never—”
“Good gracious, Emily,” cried the blue-eyed girl, hastily, “do stop talking a moment and let me get in a word edgewise: I’ve been trying for half an hour to get a chance to ask you where the new waist you offered to show me, is, and I can’t—”
“Here it is in my wardrobe and isn’t it a dream? You may try it on, if you like.”
“Thank you, dear; but no. I care so little for such frivolities, now that I have come to enjoy the real intellectual life. Did you ever see such darling sleeves? It does seem that a girl who could not be happy in them must—”
“Have at least a boil on her chin! Yes, doesn’t it? But really, Dorothy, you make me ashamed of caring so much for such vanities. Why, those very sleeves cost me two whole nights’ rest!”
“Never mind about that, dear; we can’t all be intellectual. Look here, Emily Marshmallow, if you’ll promise never to breathe it as long as you live, I’ll tell you the last mean thing that Frances—”
“Oh, do! She has a new gown that would arouse the envy of Dr. Mary Walker. All chiffon, spangles, embroidery and—”
“I know. My story has reference to that very gown. You know how very mysterious she always is about her new things!”
“M’hm. As if anybody cared to know about them! Do tell me if her waist is made—”
“Well, I—you see, it was this way: I knew she was having her new gown made at Madame’s, and I accidentally discovered that she was to be fitted on Friday at two.”
“Oh, I see. Then, you called upon Frances at one o’clock, thinking that she’d take you along, rather than risk offending Madame by being late?”
“No; Frances isn’t afraid of Madame—she doesn’t owe her anything. I just happened in at Madame’s at half-past two. They told me she was busy, but I said I knew she wouldn’t mind if I stepped into the fitting-room for a minute, as I had a letter from Paris and wanted to tell her all about the new skirts.”
“Oh, you clever thing!”
“Yes. So in I bounced, and there stood Frances, all in billowy waves of turquoise blue and—”
“But I thought her new gown was green and white, with—”
“And you should have seen how sweetly she smiled. So sweetly that I knew she was wild with rage!”
“But did you make it right with the Madame? Did—”
“Pretended that I must have left the Paris letter at home, and told her I’d fetch it the next day. Then, after a good, long look at Frances, I came away and—”
“And ran in to tell all the other girls how her new gown was made?”
“M’hm. Annie first: you know, she hasn’t a bit of originality and she said, at once, that she’d have her new one just like it. Then, I dropped in at Evelyn’s tea and—”
“Told all the others, too. M’hm.”
“Yes. But what do you think that cat, Frances, had done? She’d been there before me and told them all that I had come into the fitting-room out of sheer curiosity—I curious, the idea! And the gown she was trying on was not her own, after all, she said, but one about which Madame had asked her opinion and—”
“Gracious, do you suppose that was the truth?”
“Alas, I know it;” groaned the blue-eyed girl, “it belonged to Jack’s sister, Effie! Now, Effie detests Annie and when she sees her in a gown which is an exact reproduction of her own, she will—”
“Won’t she, though? Well, my dear, Effie was an unknown quantity before, but now you may depend upon one thing—she will use any influence she may have with Jack against you.”
“True. And all because of such a silly thing, too! But, then, people are so frivolous. Well, you will join my new club, won’t you?”
“Mercy, yes. You had better invite Frances, too; she will tell Effie all about it, and the first time Effie is offended with Jack, she will tell him, thinking to annoy you both—”
“I shall, though it is hardly necessary, either, for, once started, everybody will talk of nothing else. But, whatever you do, don’t tell Dick a word about it. Evelyn’s husband is sure to tell him, anyhow, and then he can’t say that women never keep secrets.”
“What utter nonsense. Of course women can keep secrets! Why, I once knew a girl intimately for two whole years and in all that time she never told me that her curls were false. I wouldn’t have known it to this day, if I hadn’t walked into her room one day when she had washed them and hung them up to dry. I’ve told that story to a dozen men, and I’ve never yet found one of them magnanimous enough to acknowledge that it proved my point!”
“You can’t prove anything to a man, dear, unless he wants it proved. Well, I must go. You’ll not fail me at the first meeting of the Teacup club, then?”
“The Teacup club,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin, disappointedly, “Why I thought it was to be a really intellectual club, and—”
“So it is. But, you know, real merit is always modest. If a lot of men get up such a thing, they give it a six-syllabled name; but we wish to evade, rather than seek, notoriety and, besides, as I said before, once we get it started, the whole town will talk of nothing else!”
It fell upon a bright sunshiny day, and the meeting for the organization of the Teacup club was well attended.
“And all the girls are wearing their newest gowns, too,” whispered the blue-eyed girl to the girl with the dimple in her chin, “that shows that they appreciate the importance of the undertaking.”
“And what an awfully becoming hat you are wearing,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin. “If I owned such a milliner’s dream I should not mind anything that could happen to me.”
“Which means that you have something unpleasant to tell me,” said the blue-eyed girl. “You need not be uneasy,” she added, “I’ll not move a muscle, for Frances is looking this way.”
“Well, then, I heard her tell Nell that Jack comes to her almost every day for sympathy and—”
“Humph. When a man says ‘sympathy’ he means flattery! Is that all?”
“All? Why I thought—”
“Yes, dear. You see, I thought perhaps you had stronger proof than her own assertion. Why, Frances, dear, how well you are looking to-day! I have not seen you for such an age that I thought you must be out of town.”
“Has it seemed so long to you, dear?” returned the brown-eyed blonde. “Now, to me the days go so swiftly that, as I sometimes tell Ja—Mr. Bittersweet, I mean—I often forget whether it is Saturday or Monday!”
“So you have seen the poor fellow, have you?” returned the blue-eyed girl, with an angelic smile; “it is so good of you to console him. But, indeed, you are always good about such things and so modest about it, too, that but for the men themselves, we should never know how hard you work just to induce them to come and be comforted!”
“I—why,—I—” stammered the brown-eyed blonde.
“Yes, indeed, I was defending you only the other day. I was quite angry with Marion for saying that your house should be called ‘An Asylum for the Rejected.’ I was so indignant that I just told her that, for my part, I thought we all ought to be grateful to you for consoling the poor fellows and helping to keep them out of mischief when they are feeling so badly. I reminded her, too, that you must do it out of pure philanthropy—for you never seem to get anything out of it. Really, I never saw you looking quite so well; you have such a fine color and—oh, here is Evelyn, at last, and we can call the meeting to order!”
“Why, Evelyn is wearing her old gown,” cried the girl with the classic profile, “I call that downright mean! I had thought I could get such a good chance to study the draping of it while she was on the platform.”
“Perhaps, that is why she didn’t wear it,” returned the girl with the eyeglasses. “Mercy, is it me they are calling to order? Why, didn’t you tell me before; I—”
“Dear me, girls,” the little woman on the platform was saying, “I don’t know that I ought to be president. It seems to me that we should have an election or something.”
“That is not necessary,” said the blue-eyed girl, “don’t you remember? I asked you to be president, in the first place. But if you’d rather, I’ll move that you are to be the chief officer, and Emily, here, will second the motion, won’t you Emily?”
“Why, yes of course,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin.
“That does seem more regular,” said the little woman on the platform, in a relieved tone. “I wonder if I ought to make a speech of acceptance?”
“Not unless you choose;” said the blue-eyed girl, “harmony is the chief study of this club, and—”
“Oh, if it is to be a club for the study of harmony, I can’t join;” said the girl with the eyeglasses, “I don’t know a thing about music and—”
“I’m afraid you have not been paying attention,” said the blue-eyed girl, severely. “The club is organized for the advancement of woman and I don’t know a girl anywhere who would be more benefited by it than yourself. By the way, Evelyn, I suppose we ought to assess dues, or something. I know that Ja—I mean a man I know—is always talking about dues at his clubs.”
“Oh, but this is to be entirely different from a man’s club,” said the president, “and, then, what is the use of assessing dues, anyhow?”
“We might give the money to charity,” suggested the girl with the classic profile.
“Oh, well, if we did that, why not let each of us give what she wants to charity and be done with it?” said the girl with the eyeglasses.
“Yes, of course,” said the president; “dear me, I had no idea that it was so easy to organize a club, or I’d have done it long ago. It isn’t half as much trouble as giving a tea and you don’t run any risk of offending people by forgetting to invite them and then having to convince them that the card was lost in the mails.”
“Talking of teas,” said the girl with the Roman nose, “I—”
“Pardon me,” said the president, gently, “but if this is a club for the advancement of woman, ought we to talk about teas?”
“But you began it, yourself,” said the girl with the Roman nose, “I only—”
“I think I said merely that the club is ever so much nicer than a tea,” said the president.
“And so it is,” said the blue-eyed girl, “though, by the way, Nell’s last one was lovely—there were enough men present to amuse us, whereas—”
“There are usually so few that they have to be amused, lest they get lonesome,” broke in the brown-eyed blonde. “Oh, girls, have you heard that Clarissa—”
“Oughtn’t we to be attending to business,” said the girl with the Roman nose, “instead of talking about Clarissa? I saw her myself only an hour ago and if there was anything exciting to tell, she would have—”
“But this has a connection with the club,” insisted the brown-eyed blonde. “She wants to become a member!”
“She just can’t be anything of the kind,” said the blue-eyed girl, “the idea! A girl whose reputation for intellectuality rests upon the careless combing of her hair and a habit of wearing hats six months behind the mode.”
“But how can we get out of it, if she says she wants to join?” said the president, with an anxious air.
“Tell her that one of the rules of the club is that no person over the age of twenty-two years can become a member,” suggested the girl with the dimple in her chin; “she celebrated her twenty-third birthday about a week ago, you remember.”
“But it isn’t one of the rules,” objected the brown-eyed blonde.
“Then, we can make it a rule, right now,” said the blue-eyed girl, calmly. “I know just how it would be if we let Clarissa into the club—she’d insist upon having everything her own way right along. I hate such selfishness myself, and—”
“So do I,” said the president; “by the way, oughtn’t we to make a note of that rule, at once?”
“What would be the use of that?” said the girl with the dimple in her chin, “we have all heard it. Oh, girls, I already see the benefit we are to derive from the influence of this club! Not a single soul has said a word in regard to Clarissa’s pretentions to being only twenty-three!”
“Why, that’s true,” cried the president, “and very considerate of us it was, too, when we all know how ridiculous it is!”
“Oh, girls, I must tell you something,” cried the girl with the eyeglasses. “I went with Clarissa to a reception given by her literary club the other evening and it was simply awful!”
“Not a decent toilet in the room, of course,” said the brown-eyed blonde.
“Oh, I didn’t expect that—I knew it was a culture club. It seems that there had been an awful time over the programme. Some of the members wanted to have an Ibsen evening, while others declared for Browning. Finally, they decided upon a mixed programme, selections from them both, you know. I did not know that when I went.”
“I should think not,” said the girl with the Roman nose, “otherwise, you—”
“Would gladly have accepted the invitation—and been suddenly taken ill on the appointed day, of course. Well, when the papers and selections were being read, I studied my programme to keep my eyes from those appalling coiffures, and when I saw the word ‘Music’ on it, I felt like a person who has found an oasis in a desert!”
“And had you?” queried the president, who had left the platform and joined the group about the narrator.
“No. They played something from Wagner!”
“And you?” said the girl with the classic profile.
“Oh, I was in a comatose condition by that time. Nothing mattered. After the interminable programme they served refreshments.”
“You felt better then?” said the girl with the dimple in her chin.
“No, I didn’t. They had tea and wafers! Tea and wafers after Ibsen, Browning and Wagner! And then Clarissa vanished and I couldn’t get away. The people present were all very distinguished; one of the members had written an epic poem which would have appeared in Harper’s if it had not been lost in the mails; one of them had invented a rational dress for men and another had once been asked to deliver a lecture upon ‘Thought Transference’ before a mothers’ meeting at an orphan asylum!”
“My goodness, no wonder you wanted to go home!” cried the brown-eyed blonde.
“I did—badly. By and by, while I was wandering about the rooms in search of Clarissa, I found a woman who looked as unhappy as I felt. I was afraid to speak to her, lest she be somebody very remarkable, but she asked me, timidly, if I was the lady who had actually worn a rainy day dress, in public. I assured her that I was not, and after that we got on famously.”
“But who was she?” the president asked.
“I don’t know her name, but after we had discussed Ibsen and Browning a little, I asked what she had done. She replied, modestly: ‘Oh, I am the person who always read the Woman’s page in the daily papers!’ After that, we talked just like ordinary people, and I didn’t see Clarissa when she came to look for me!”
“My goodness, girls, we really ought not to laugh so,” said the girl with the Roman nose, “because this club is devoted to the advancement of woman, and—”
“That is entirely different,” said the president. “Did Ibsen, Browning or Wagner ever do anything for the advancement of woman, I’d like to know?”
“Of course not,” said the blue-eyed girl, promptly. “How very absurd!”
“Besides, our club is laid out on entirely new lines,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin.
“Yes, isn’t it?” returned the president; “Oh, girls, I quite forgot to tell you that we shall have to pay rent for this room if we hold our meetings here, and we haven’t made any provision for paying it.”
“But what is the use of making provision, when it isn’t due yet?” asked the blue-eyed girl.
“Why—er, that is very true,” said the president; “I only wish I was as good a business woman as you!”
“Oh, I often feel that I have a great deal to learn yet,” said the blue-eyed girl, modestly. “By the way, Evelyn, what did your husband say when you told him that you had decided to join a club?”
“He said—Oh, girls, I’m almost ashamed to tell you, but then Tom is only a man, after all. He said: ‘Then, may the Lord have mercy upon my wretched digestion!’”
“As if women had nothing to do but cook and keep house! when lots of us know nothing about either of them,” said the girl with the classic profile, indignantly. “Girls, I wonder why it is that if a woman studies law or anything like that, somebody is sure to say that she is going outside of her sphere, while nobody thinks anything of the kind if a man becomes a chef or invents a food for infants?”
“Oh, if you expect logic from a man!” said the president, shrugging her shoulders; “however, I expected it, too, before I was married. I know better now.”
“Dear, dear, isn’t the Advancement of Woman delightful?” cried the girl with the eyeglasses. “After this, when we want to know anything, we needn’t go to the trouble of looking it up in the dictionary or the encyclopædia; we can just discuss it at the club, and—”
“Why do you bother with those horrid books? I never do,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin. “They are so heavy and always dusty, too. Now, I just ask the nearest man what I want to know. If he happens to be wrong, I can always cite my authority and it gives the next man a double pleasure in setting me right.”
“What a clever thing you are,” said the girl with the eyeglasses; “you always make me think of what somebody said about er—Juliet, I think: ‘To know her is a liberal education.’”
“Oh, that is nothing. Why, I know a Vassar girl who has studied Greek and all that sort of thing and she invariably misspells several simple words whenever she writes to a man, so he may think himself so much cleverer than her and—”
“And I know a girl who asks every man, the first time she meets him, to explain the Australian ballot system. You see, it is a thing they all have to know, so they—”
“Goodness me, I should think she would get awfully tired of the answer,” said the president.
“She does. She told me not long ago that she really must invent a new stock question, for she could hardly keep from yawning now, while—”
“Speaking of yawning,” broke in the brown-eyed blonde, “Teddy Crœsus doesn’t send Molly flowers or bonbons any more!”
“I don’t see what that has to do with yawning,” said the girl with the Roman nose.
“More than you may think, dear. You know Molly always asks a man if a premonition of danger has ever been the means of saving his life. She doesn’t ask it the first time they meet, but saves it for some special occasion. Well, one evening at a reception, Teddy seemed disposed to talk to Florence too much, and Molly asked him the question then, because she knew—”
“That he would stay with her as long as she allowed him to talk about himself! Yes, of course,” said the blue-eyed girl.
“M’hm. Well, he was in the midst of a long story about how he once escaped from being in a railroad wreck by missing his train. Molly was listening with breathless interest when she saw Florence stop within two feet of her. She couldn’t resist one glance of triumph and that glance was her ruin.”
“It was? Did he look up just then and remember Flo—”
“No, dear. But just as Molly looked at her, she gave a mighty yawn. Well, you know, yawning is contagious and Molly had been at a ball the night before, so she yawned, too. Teddy’s eyes were on her and—”
“And now Florence gets his violets and bonbons! Well, isn’t that a story without a moral?” cried the girl with the eyeglasses.
“It certainly is,” groaned the president. “Well, girls, I fear we must adjourn, though it is hard to break up such an intellectual talk. For my part, I shall go back to the petty cares of life with renewed energy after a breath of air from a higher plane.”
“I, too,” said the girl with the Roman nose, “I feel now as if petty gossip and scandal could never interest me again.”
The president and the blue-eyed girl had walked four blocks, when the former suddenly stopped.
“There, I knew I had forgotten something,” she cried; “at first, I thought it was only to order dinner, but now I remember that I did not suggest a topic for discussion at our next meeting!”
“Oh, pshaw, that makes no difference,” said the blue-eyed girl, “nobody would have had time to prepare anything for it, if you had; there is so much going on in our set this week, and—”
“Very true,” replied the president, “and all the members are so much interested in intellectual topics, anyhow, that they are quite prepared to discuss them extemporaneously as we did to-day.”
Chapter II
The Club Discusses Woman in Politics
The Teacup club was called to order fifteen minutes before the appointed time at its second meeting. “We are all here, you know, and there is no use in waiting,” observed the president, as she rapped for order with a jeweled hatpin.
“Hear, hear,” said the girl with the Roman nose, who had been reading up in parliamentary usage.
“I am so glad to see you all here,” said the president, “I was afraid that Effie’s luncheon might—”
“Keep some of us away? Not from this club,” said the girl with the classic profile. “I believe she chose the day just on purpose to break up the meeting, so I declined her invitation.”
“Did you?” said the girl with the Roman nose, “I didn’t. Effie is not popular enough to offer her guests badly cooked food, so I went and excused myself as soon as we rose from the table on the plea that I should be late for the club if I remained longer.”
“I wish I might have seen Effie when you said that,” remarked the girl with the eyeglasses. “However, your turn came when the door closed after you.”
“I think not, dear,” said the girl with the Roman nose, calmly, “Effie is not yet distinctly engaged to my cousin Clarence, so—”
“She has to be on decent terms with his family! I might have thought of that,” said the girl with the eyeglasses.
“If they had been married, now of course I shouldn’t have dared to do it, but—”
“I should think not. Oh, girls, speaking of what happens after the door closes, makes me think of what happened to Effie herself once. It was just after the affair with Teddy Crœsus, you know.”
“The time she thought to make people believe she was engaged to him, and took him to dine with her grandmother—”
“And her grandmother failed to understand the situation and congratulated them! Indeed, I do,” cried the girl with the Roman nose, “although, on account of being her dearest friend, I failed to hear it until two days after everybody else had.”
“Well, you know she went to a breakfast at Nell’s a few days after that,” went on the girl with the eyeglasses, “and left early. As she reached the corner, she remembered a message for Nell and went back to deliver it. She burst into the room unannounced and found all the girls talking at once.”
“About her, of course! What did—”
“Yes. Any other girl would have known that, but Effie said: ‘Oh, girls, do tell me all about it; what has happened?’”
“Well?”
“And it was so sudden that not one of them could think of a thing to say until she had flounced out in a rage!”
“The moral is: Never go back after once saying good-by,” said the president.
“True,” said the brown-eyed blonde, “by the way, Dorothy, why weren’t you at Effie’s to-day?”
“I fancy my invitation was lost in the mail,” replied the blue-eyed girl. “I shall mention it to Effie as soon as I see her, so she will not feel that I’ve slighted her intentionally. Why, Frances, dear, did those mean things let you sit all through luncheon with the end of your, ah—detachable hair showing and a dab of powder on your nose? How mean and envious some people are!”
“I—I think it is cooler over on the other side,” panted the brown-eyed blonde, “and besides I must see Emily a minute.”
“Why, Dorothy, you must have just heard something awfully nice, you look so happy and smiling,” said the girl with the classic profile, “but really this delightful club is making us all amiable.”
“Yes, isn’t it?” said the blue-eyed girl, “I couldn’t be really mean to anybody now, if I tried.”
“Excuse me for interrupting you, girls,” said the president, “but I want to announce our topic for discussion, and if I don’t do it at once I may forget it. Suppose we choose “Woman as a Political Factor?” That is a broad enough field even for us, and—”
“So it is,” said the girl with the eyeglasses. “Well, I know one thing—whenever a woman really knows what she wants in a political line, she gets it.”
“She does—and has ever since Eve held that first caucus with the serpent in the garden,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin.
“Hear, hear!” cried the girl with the Roman nose, who had been furtively consulting her book on parliamentary usage. “Oh, girls, have you heard that the man Nell expects to marry is a politician?”
“No; but it seems a very suitable match,” said the president, “for I don’t know a girl anywhere who can shake hands as gracefully as she does.”
“Dear me, Evelyn, how generous you are,” said the girl with the eyeglasses. “I believe you could find something nice to say about everybody.”
“I really believe I could,” said the president, modestly, “and, after all, it is easy enough, for if you don’t like the subject of your remarks, you can always say it in such a tone that it does more harm than good.”
“You are so just,” sighed the girl with the classic profile, “and yet, men always declare there is no real fellowship among women!”
“They confuse their own wish with the true state of affairs,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin. “They know that one woman is often more than a match for the whole male sex and when a number of women band together they—”
“Usually get more than they want,” said the president. “I often wonder, though, why it is always so much easier to convince other men that you are in the right than it is to persuade the men of your own family?”
“Perhaps we put it in a more flattering way to strangers,” suggested the girl with the dimple in her chin, “we just can’t help it, though, for we can’t always be—”
“Looking up?” said the girl with the Roman nose. “Of course not—if we were our necks would grow so stiff that—”
“We could never see our own boots; besides, we would be such frights that no man would look at us and so—”
“It would do no good in the end,” finished the blue-eyed girl. “Still, I sometimes fancy, after all, that it might be well to be as nice to papa and the boys as I am to the men I dance with!”
“My goodness,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin, “we must be getting into metaphysics now! I’m not quite sure as to what metaphysics may be, so I always conclude that everything I don’t understand must—”
“Be metaphysics? Do you? For my part, I always confuse metaphysics with hydraulics, though there is some difference between them I know,” said the brown-eyed blonde. “Let us ask Evelyn to explain them right now. She—”
“Some other time, dear;” said the president, hastily. “You know we are discussing Woman in Politics to-day and—”
“It would be unparliamentary to discuss anything else,” said the girl with the Roman nose.
The president looked at her gratefully.
“What a logical mind you have, dear,” she said. “I only wish you could be with me sometimes when Tom comes home late from his club. I know that there are all sorts of flaws in the stories he tells me, but somehow I never find them until after he has given me money and I’ve kissed him and made up.”
“What a pity,” sighed the girl with the Roman nose, “for if you found out the real flimsiness of his stories sooner, you could get more money.”
“Oh, dear, so I could,” wailed the president, “it is an awful thing to have a husband and not a logical mind!”
“So it is,” said the girl with the Roman nose, “but, Evelyn, don’t tell anybody your opinion of me, for if you do, it may end in my having a logical mind and no husband, which is worse!”
“Oh, isn’t this beautiful!” cried the girl with the eyeglasses, suddenly. “Really, girls, I am so stupid—that is not stupid as compared to a man, of course, but to the rest of you—that I wonder you allow me to belong to the club!” and there were tears in her eyes as she spoke.
The president came down from the platform and kissed her.
“Stupid! the idea of a girl with such a genius for hairdressing being stupid,” she cried.
“And that girl a chafing-dish cook whose Welsh rarebits are sometimes successful, too!” cried the brown-eyed blonde.
“Oh! speaking of chafing-dish cookery,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin. “You know that Annie used to be engaged to Eustace, don’t you?”
“Yes. But what has that to do with chafing-dish cookery?” said the girl with the Roman nose. “Girls, I have the loveliest recipe for making—”
“It has a great deal to do with it. When he married Claire, Annie just smiled and selected a chafing-dish as a wedding present. She knew that Eustace was a confirmed dyspeptic and that Claire’s hands are so pretty that she could not possibly resist an opportunity to display them, so she would cook all sorts of dishes and—”
“By the way, I hear that they have agreed to separate,” said the president. “I met Claire on the way to the manicure the other day. I wonder where Eustace is?”
“He is in a sanitarium,” replied the girl with the dimple in her chin, “the doctor thinks he will have to be taken into court on a stretcher when the divorce proceedings come up!”
“And yet you told me the other day that Annie had no originality; I’ve learned this since then,” whispered the girl with the dimple in her chin to the blue-eyed girl.
“I only meant in the matter of gowns, dear,” was the apologetic reply. “By the way, Frances seems not quite herself, to-day.”
“I’ve noticed that. I fancied you might have said something to her which—”
“Oh, never; why, I consider Frances one of my dearest friends—”
“I know that, dear. But what is the use of a friend, if you can’t be disagreeable to her sometimes?”
“True. I sometimes think it is one reason that married women keep their friends longer. They have husbands to—”
“Act as lightning rods and carry off their displeasure! Yes; it must really be quite a convenience.”
“Very likely. Don’t you feel, after all, that Jack—”
“Jack? Oh, I suppose you mean Mr. Bittersweet! No, I don’t feel any such thing, Emily Marshmallow, and you are no friend of mine if you champion him after the way he has behaved to me!”
“I—I was only going to mention that he had resigned from that new club. He told me so himself.”
“Oh, he has, has he? Well, isn’t that just like a man? And after he had paid all his dues for a year in advance, too, and gotten nothing out of it!”
“Perhaps he—he did it hoping to please you, dear.”
“His actions are perfectly indifferent to me, I assure you. Besides, if I made up with him to-morrow, Frances would always think I was jealous. I jealous of her—the idea! And, oh, Emily, the way he—he flirts with that girl is enough to b—break my heart!”
“If you two girls have anything interesting to say, I wish you would say it aloud,” broke in the president. “Of course I am not curious, but some of the others may—”
“Nothing at all interesting,” said the blue-eyed girl, promptly; “I—I was just telling Emily that this club seems the one thing needed to fill my cup of happiness to overflowing!”
“And mine!” said the girl with the Roman nose. “By the way, isn’t it too provoking that curls are coming in again, just as veils are going out!”
“And just at the windiest season of the year, too,” wailed the brown-eyed blonde. “Really, I often think that the fashions are invented by men—they are so contrary!”
“Pardon me,” said the president, “I did not quite catch what you were saying, because Emily and Marion were both talking at the same time. It seems to me that since I have been married, I can’t follow even two conversations simultaneously, as I used.”
“Speaking of that,” said the girl with the eyeglasses, “who do you tell your secrets to now that you are married?”
“Why, I’ve hit on a splendid plan,” cried the president, “when I feel that I must just tell a secret or die—and I often feel that way—I wait until Tom is asleep and repeat the whole story in his ear. It relieves my mind and does no harm.”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin. “My sister Helen doesn’t agree with you at all. You mentioned it to her the other day and she thought it clever, and resolved to emulate your wisdom, so she tried it on her husband, and he wasn’t asleep, only pretending.”
“But I always test my husband with a question or two, first,” said the president.
“So did Helen. She asked him if he could fail to see how much she needed a new bonnet and wanted to know how much his share of the alumni banquet amounted to. He only snored in reply, and of course she thought she was safe and repeated the secret.”
“With the result?” queried the blue-eyed girl, who was listening, breathless.
“That it was all over his club the next day,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin. “It would not have made any difference,” she added, soberly, “only the secret was a rather clever trick I had played on Dick a few days before—and he belongs to the same club!”
“And yet they say a man can keep a secret!” said the girl with the Roman nose.
“Who says so?” queried the girl with the eyeglasses. “Other men? Oh! I didn’t know but that you had heard some woman say so.”
“Not unless a man was listening, dear, and that man a person whom—”
“She wished to flatter immensely!”
“Yes. Or who happened to know some of her own secrets! Girls, I’ve been wondering what on earth Annie sees in that horrid Fred Van Stupid? Now, I can understand the interest a girl takes in a brainless man who has a great deal of money, because then—”
“He is exposed to so many temptations and her influence is sure to do him good,” finished the girl with the dimple in her chin, “for my part, I always let Ned Goldie come to see me oftener than usual during Lent. I feel that I am really doing some good and—”
“Violets are an absolute necessity then and they are so dear that very few men can afford to present them in quantities.”
“Oh, of course I let him bring me flowers if he wants to—it is so much better for him to spend his money in that way than to lose it at poker, that I feel quite a missionary.”
“H’m; I don’t know about that, dear, though it’s very lovely of you to feel so,” sighed the president, “the fact is, that you are actually encroaching on what is really my violet money. Ned will play poker with my husband at the club at other seasons of the year, when he is not allowed to see much of you. He always loses and I make Tom divide his winnings with me, so—”
There was a look of high resolve upon the face of the girl with the dimple in her chin.
“After this, I shall make him bring me twice as many, so I can divide with you,” she said, sweetly. “Oh, no, don’t thank me; I do so love to feel that I am doing some good in the world and I do so disapprove of games of chance!”
“You haven’t made up your mind as to whether you will accept him or not, have you?” queried the brown-eyed blonde.
“Not yet, dear. His chances and Dick’s are about even, at present. Of course he doesn’t know that, though; I couldn’t exert such a good influence over him, if he was sure one way or the other.”
“True,” sighed the president. “Oh, girls, I don’t know why men are so much more willing to be influenced for good before they are married than after. You may be sure of one thing though, Emily; he will say horrid things about you, if you finally do refuse him.”
“No doubt,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin, “but when one tries to do good in this world, one can not begin to count the cost.”
“Oh, Emily Marshmallow, what an angel you are!” cried the blue-eyed girl, kissing her. “You are always so busy doing good to others, that you never seem to give yourself a thought!”
The brown-eyed blonde had by this time quite recovered her equanimity and was chatting, in low tones, with the girl who wore the eyeglasses.
“Poor, dear Dorothy is looking rather ill, isn’t she?” she remarked, after a while.
“Why, I hadn’t noticed it before, but now that you speak of it, she does. However, she can’t expect to look young always. By the way, I hear that she has quarreled with Jack Bittersweet again.”
“Has she seen him lately? I didn’t know that she had,” returned the brown-eyed blonde, smiling affectionately into the mirror.
“Your hair is looking lovely to-day,” returned the girl with the eyeglasses. “Look here, Frances, do, like a dear, tell me all about the quarrel. You know all about it, of course, and I’ll not tell a soul. You know how well I can keep a secret and, besides, you owe it to me, for you wouldn’t have known a thing about Fred and Clarissa but for me!”
“But I hadn’t a thing to do about the quarrel, oh, really now I hadn’t. Of course, people think it was all on my account but—why, I was in Omaha when I heard of it.”
“By the way you came back from Omaha earlier than you expected, didn’t you?”
“I—no; that is only a week earlier. How well Jack looks, doesn’t he? And what a flow of spirits he has.”
“Is it possible? Now, Effie says that he is as cross as a bear. But, then, Effie is his sister, so—”
“What she says is of no consequence. Well, since you know so much already, I may as well tell you the rest. I fear that it is Dorothy’s insane jealousy of me which made the trouble. Of course I have not a spark of vanity, but I can’t help seeing—”
“But I heard that the quarrel was over Jack’s membership in a new club.”
“That might have been, dear, but people that are engaged don’t always quarrel over the real bone of contention. Of course, I only hope I really had nothing to do with it; I have so many such things on my conscience already that I don’t want any more,” and she sighed softly.
“Yes, but tell me about the quarrel, do.”
“Well—er—the fact is that Jack hasn’t said a word to me about it, which makes me quite sure that I am the cause of it, unwilling as I am to think it.”
“Then, you really don’t know any of the facts?” said the girl with the eyeglasses. “Excuse me now, dear, I see Emily beckoning me; she wants to ask me about a new seamstress I’ve discovered. Frances doesn’t know a bit more than we do,” she whispered to the girl with the dimple in her chin. “Jack hasn’t told her a thing, so he evidently still cares for Dorothy, and she—”
“That’s just it,” wailed the girl with the dimple in her chin. “I’d have succeeded in making it up long ago, if they didn’t care quite so much!”
“Oh, dear,” said the president, “I am afraid that I am awfully stupid to-day, but the fact is that—”
“By the way, I heard that you slept at a hotel last night, Evelyn,” said the girl with the Roman nose, “how on earth did that happen?”
“It was all Tom’s fault,” returned the president, in an aggrieved tone, “only he, being a man, will not admit the fact. You see, he didn’t want to go to the reception at all, so he—”
“But, Nell said she met him in the street and gave him a verbal invitation, which he accepted with effusion.”
“Pshaw, if Nell knew my husband as well as I do, she’d be aware that the more affably he accepts an invitation, the more determined he is to escape by some plausible excuse at the last moment. He says that people always accept your regrets as genuine under such circumstances.”
“Thank you for telling me that,” said the girl with the classic profile. “My great aunt gives whist parties sometimes and, as she has a lot of lovely old lace and china and nobody in particular to leave it to, I don’t like to hurt her feelings by refusing her invitations outright. On the other hand, if I accept and happen to be placed at the table with her, I know I shall not receive so much as a cracked saucer in her will!”
“But you and Tom did go to the reception, I know, for I saw you there,” said the girl with the Roman nose, “how did you manage it?”
“To make him go? Oh, that was easy enough. I merely said that he wasn’t very well and as I did not like to go out and leave him alone, I would ask mamma to come and stay with him.”
“Oh, then he agreed to go, did he?”
“Yes, dear—said he had meant to go all along. But after that everything went wrong: his razor refused to do its work and he actually pretended that it was all because I had sharpened a lead pencil with it the other day, as if that could have—”
“But why did you tell him that you had sharpened your pencil with it?” asked the blue-eyed girl.
“Because I cut my finger on the old thing and thoughtfully warned him that it was too sharp. Then, I—well my own wardrobe was full and I had hung up a few things in his, and the skirt of my new tailor-made gown was hanging over his dress coat. He pretended that it was all wrinkled and creased by that. Then, I had borrowed his box of neckties and neglected to return them, and he made such a fuss over my forgetfulness that I determined to give him a lesson. I saw him lay his latch key on the chiffonier ready to put in his other pocket and I didn’t say a word when he turned out the gas and went off without it.”
“But how did you expect to get into the house when you returned?”
“Oh! I slipped back into the room in the dark after he had gone down, and put it in my own pocket.”
“As an object lesson in remembering. Good, I’m glad you did it,” said the girl with the eyeglasses.
“M’hm. I told the maid not to sit up for us, and I saw for myself that every door and window was fastened tight—for once Tom climbed in at the pantry window when he had forgotten his key and didn’t want me to know how late he stayed at the club.”
“I suppose he complained next day because the window was open, too,” murmured the girl with the dimple in her chin, “men are so illogical!”
“Well, no, dear; but he would have done so, only the clock happened to strike three as he came upstairs, and I counted the strokes aloud. Well Tom was cross at being kept waiting, but my gown fits so well that I felt at peace with all mankind.”
“Even your own husband!” said the brown-eyed blonde. “It must indeed fit well.”
“Yes. And I enjoyed the evening immensely, for I knew I had such a good joke on Tom when we got home.”
“Yes, and what happened then?” asked the girl with the eyeglasses.
“Oh, it was great fun. He searched in all his pockets twice, rang the bell until he was tired, though the maids asleep in the third story might as well have been in Greenland for all the good that did. Then, he tried to force each door and window before he came back to the carriage to tell me that we were locked out!”
“And then you—”
“I said: ‘Why didn’t you tell me before, dear? Luckily, there is one of us who remembers things.’ If you could only have seen his face as he took the key I gave him!”
“Then why on earth did you sleep at the hotel?” queried the girl with the Roman nose, in a bewildered tone.
“I—well, the fact is that I—in the dark, I had mistaken the key to his desk for the latch-key! And, oh, girls, if you had seen me driving home from the hotel at ten o’clock in the morning, in the gown I had worn at the reception!”
“You poor, dear thing!” cried the blue-eyed girl, “no wonder you chose ‘Woman in Politics’ for to-day’s discussion! If men are such tyrants as that, our only refuge will be equality in suffrage and—”
“Latchkeys,” said the girl with the eyeglasses, “though to be sure, we’d need pockets to keep them in, if we carried them. Sometimes, I suspect that the dressmakers are in league with the men to keep us from gaining our rights,” she added.
“Perhaps they are,” said the blue-eyed girl, with a startled air, “the men pay the bills and so the dressmakers may be in league with them!”
“You forget one thing, dear,” said the president, with a superior air. “It is the women who make the bills. You never heard of a man who ordered a dress for his wife did you?”
“I hope not,” replied the girl with the Roman nose, “at least, if she was obliged to wear it.”
“Well, dears,” said the president, “we really must adjourn, it is awfully late, but of course such a serious discussion could not be hurried. I think I must go and have a cup of bouillon to refresh me after making such serious demands upon the gray matter of my brain.”
Chapter III
Man’s Real Attitude Toward the Progress of Woman
The Teacup club came to order with more than its usual reluctance at its next meeting and the president looked severe. “I wish you girls would stop talking about Helena and her affairs,” she said. “I detest gossip, and, besides, I want to hear all about her, too, and we can talk better after the meeting is over. The topic for to-day’s discussion will be, ‘Man’s Real Attitude Toward the Progress of Woman.’”
“I’m glad to hear it,” said the girl with the Roman nose. “Men are such queer creatures that by the time a girl gets to understand them really she is too old to attract their attention. Now, if we all put our heads together—”
“We may attain wisdom without its accompanying wrinkles,” broke in the girl with the dimple in her chin; “that is a good idea, for—”
“It is no real gain to know how to make them bring the proper kind of flowers and confectionery, if you have to spend the money thus saved on the beauty doctor; yes, that is true,” sighed the brown-eyed blonde.
“Widowers, or men who have been engaged several times, are often nice,” said the girl with the eyeglasses.
“Thank you,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin. “I like to do my own training, if it is troublesome. You can’t persuade a widower that his late wife was not a type of all womanhood, and that is horrid, especially if she happens to have had a taste for domestic magazines and molasses candy! That is why a widower is so much less attractive than a widow; she—”
“Has learned that men, save for a few leading traits, are all different,” said the girl with the classic profile. “Yes, matrimony always widens a woman’s views of the opposite sex, while it narrows those of a man.”
“Oh, dear,” said the girl with the Roman nose; “I do wish men would not do one thing and say another. Now, they are always praising domesticity in women, as well as shrinking modesty, and yet—”
“They always overlook the domestic kind of a girl when she does venture among people,” broke in the brown-eyed blonde. “I know it, and as for shyness and modesty, it is only the girl who is bold enough to call attention to those qualities in herself who receives a social reward for them.”
“Oh, well,” said the president, “a man with a couple of sisters learns a great deal about the sex.”
“Humph!” said the girl with the eyeglasses. “I don’t know why it is, but the more sisters a man has, the slower he is to enter into matrimony.”
“I’ve noticed that myself,” said the girl with the classic profile; “while girls who have plenty of brothers usually marry before they are twenty.”
“Pshaw! That is because the friends of their brothers get a chance to see them sew on buttons and make caramels,” said the girl with the Roman nose.
“No, it isn’t,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin, “it is because such a girl has more than one person to oppose the man who wants to marry her. But talk about masculine inconsistency! It sets me wild to hear men talk about domesticity and modesty and all that, and then hang about Kate, a girl who doesn’t know a frying pan from a—a camera, and who had as lief ask for a thing she wants as to hint for it—so unfeminine!”
“I know it,” said the girl with the eyeglasses. “Why, she never has to buy a flower, and as for candy, she has so much that she actually shares it with the other girls! I go to see her more frequently in Lent, because my conscience will not allow me to buy any then, and—”
“And Kate has been engaged six times; she told me so herself,” said the girl with the eyeglasses. “I declare, it is enough to make a girl—”
“H’m!” said the president. “Don’t forget, my dears, that while she has been engaged six times, she has not been married once!”
“Why—er—that is true,” cried the blue-eyed girl. “You dear, delightful, clever thing! I am so glad that I just made you be our president.”
“Oh, well, of course I like it dear; still, as somebody once said, I’d rather be right than president.”
“Hear, hear!” cried the girl with the Roman nose.
“Yes. But, oh, girls, Tom says that all the men in our set are talking about this club. He says that Jack Bittersweet asked him confidentially the other day if being intellectual made a woman less loveable. Luckily, I had just agreed to let him have a masculine dinner party and he assured Jack that it did not.”
The blue-eyed girl arose softly from her seat and going over to where the brown-eyed blonde was sitting, kissed her. “You dear thing,” she said. “Come over any day you like and you shall see the new sleeve design I got from Paris yesterday.”
The girl with the dimple in her chin exchanged glances with the girl with the eyeglasses.
“What time in the year do you prefer for a wedding?” asked the latter, apropos of nothing.
“Oh, speaking of weddings, that reminds me,” said the girl with the Roman nose. “I’d have prepared a paper on to-day’s topic, as you suggested, Evelyn, but Elizabeth asked me to help select her wedding dress and—well, you know, Elizabeth. It has taken her two days already and I don’t see any prospect yet of her making up her mind.”
“And yet she required only five minutes in which to decide to accept Fred, when he asked her to marry him,” said the president, thoughtfully.
“I know, dear, but then in this matter of selecting her dress, she had a choice,” said the brown-eyed blonde.
“And I’m sure that Elizabeth’s father is delighted to buy her a wedding dress,” said the girl with the eyeglasses. “Oh, Emily, pardon me—I quite forgot that Elizabeth is your cousin!”
“Never mind, dear, though I rather like her, in spite of the relationship. Oh, girls, you have no idea of what an effect this club is having upon me. Why, I’ve turned my den into a library, cut all the leaves of my Carlisle and coaxed papa to buy me a handsome writing desk and do up the walls in forest greens because pink and blue seemed so frivolous. Now, I can sit in that room and write papers for the club in real comfort.”
“You don’t know how pleased I am to hear it,” cried the president, warmly. “It is quite worth all the labor of selecting topics and leading the discussion, I assure you. Why, Marion, how late you are! Don’t you know that the really advanced woman is even ahead of the clock?”
“Yes, I do,” panted the girl with the classic profile, “but, really, I’ve had the most awful time getting here at all! You know I’m always in trouble, but really this is the worst that—I’ll never go anywhere with Nell again, unless it’s to my own funeral, and I can’t help myself, then.”
“What on earth has Nell done now?” queried the girl with the dimple in her chin, “don’t you know that you must not expect absolute sanity from an engaged girl? You said you were going with her to the south side to call upon some of the relatives of her affianced. Did she take you over there, and then discover that she didn’t know their exact address? Or did—”
“The address was not forgotten. We hadn’t meant to do any shopping to-day, but we stopped in to buy some thread, and really the new silks were so cheap that—”
“You arrived an hour late, and penniless! I know,” said the blue-eyed girl.
“N—ot quite. I had ten cents left when we started for home, and we had to take two lines of cars. Nell and I couldn’t get seats together—in fact, we were at opposite ends of the car. However, I paid her fare and signaled the fact to her, receiving a nod in reply.”
“Well?” said the president, “didn’t she want to pay your fare on the other line?”
“She—well, the fact is that she had misunderstood the signal, and paid our fare again with her own last dime. And there we were three miles from home, without a penny in our pockets—and the street car company had a dime it hadn’t earned. But then Nell never had a grain of sense—I should think by this time she knew that herself.”
“If she doesn’t, I’m sure you are not to blame, dear,” said the girl with the Roman nose. “However, for my part, I shall not blame you, even if you are as cross as a man who is wearing a frayed collar, for the rest of the afternoon.”
“But, don’t let us interrupt the proceedings,” said the girl with the classic profile, “just tell me what to-day’s topic is, and I—”
“Oh, it is a perfectly delightful one!” said the blue-eyed girl. “Man’s real attitude toward the Progress of Woman, and—”
“His real attitude is that of flight,” said the girl with the Roman nose, “he—”
“Don’t be flippant, dear, whatever you are,” said the president, gravely, “we have enough of that to endure from our masculine acquaintances. It seems to me that a man laughs at whatever he fails to understand, and then feels that he has replied to the argument.”
“Perhaps that is the reason that men laugh at so many jokes in which I can see nothing funny,” said the girl with the eyeglasses.
“No doubt of it,” said the brown-eyed blonde, “but, girls, never attempt to imitate them. I did once, and Annie—you know how obtuse she is—kept asking loudly what I was laughing at, and I couldn’t tell her. When a man had just made the remark that he was glad to find a girl with a keen sense of the ridiculous, too!”
“Just like Annie,” said the blue-eyed girl. “I sometimes wonder whether she is really obtuse or only malicious. You know how devoted Tommy Bonds is to music, don’t you? Well, Annie and I once accompanied him to a Thomas concert, and I wanted to make myself agreeable—”
“I hope you didn’t do it by conversing while the orchestra was playing,” said the president.
“Of course not, goosie. But I remembered that he always says a woman should be two things—sincere and fond of music. The soloist was a pianist, I can’t remember his name, but his hair was not at all remarkable. When he played an encore, Tommy leaned over to me, and said: ‘Isn’t it charming?’ and I replied, ‘Yes, I like it better every time I hear it; in fact, I often ask people to play it for me.’ I wish now that I hadn’t said that.”
“Why so?” asked the president, “it seems to me just the right thing to say.”
“But Annie leaned over asking, loudly, ‘What is the name of it?’ and, to my horror, Mr. Bonds said he didn’t know, and it was all so sudden that, to save my life, I couldn’t make up a name! In the silence which followed, some one in front of us was heard remarking that the encore was a composition by the pianist himself, and now played for the first time in public!”
“And it was all Annie’s fault, too,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin. “By the way, did I ever tell you how it happened that Mr. Bonds gave up calling me a delightful conversationalist? No? Well, you see, he lived almost opposite to us, and he practiced on the ’cello until papa, who is very fond of De Quincey, said he no longer dared to read “Murder considered as one of the Fine Arts.” Suddenly he stopped practicing, and—”
“Mercy on us, had anything happened to him?” gasped the president, turning pale.
“Nothing ever happens to people who deserve it. As it happened, however, we were no better off, for some one, a new resident of the street, we supposed, began to practice on the violin seven hours a day!”
“It may not have been a newcomer,” observed the girl with the eyeglasses. “It is a fact that one vigorous soprano is enough to demoralize a whole neighborhood, and I suppose—”
“The ’cello is quite as bad? Possibly so, at any rate rents went down in the neighborhood and placards went up. One day I happened to meet Mr. Bonds, and as long as my father was not within hearing distance, I said: ‘Oh, I’m sorry that you have given up your delightful ’cello.’ If you could have seen the rapture on his face.”
“I’d rather have seen his face than that of your guardian angel,” remarked the girl with the classic profile; “but go on; don’t stop.”
“I wish I had stopped then, but I didn’t. I said, ‘By the way, who is it that scrapes the violin all day long? I never heard anything so awful in my life!’ Oh, girls, I—”
“But I don’t see anything wrong in that,” said the president.
“He did. You see, he had given up the ’cello and taken to the violin with the idea of astonishing the world with his genius!”
“And you live to tell it,” said the girl with the Roman nose.
“M—yes—you see, everything has its compensation. When papa heard what I had done, he gave me a hundred dollars and his blessing.”
“What luck some people have,” said the brown-eyed blonde, “while others—oh, girls, I know something perfectly lovely, but I don’t know whether I ought to tell it to you or not. My conscience—”
“Why, Frances,” said the president, “I shall be awfully hurt if you don’t tell us now. When a girl speaks of her conscience in that way, it simply means that she distrusts her audience. You might know by this time, that we never tell anything which transpires at a meeting of this club.”
“Of course not,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin. “Why, Dick teased me vainly a whole evening to find out the line of argument advanced in favor of equal suffrage when we discussed ‘Woman in Politics’ the other day. The janitor must have told him the topic under discussion,” she added hastily.
“Very likely,” said the president. “What was that you wished to tell us, Frances, dear?”
“It was something that happened to Nell,” said the brown-eyed blonde. “Her fiancé had told her a great deal of his friend, Mr. Thynker, of Boston, who is to be his best man, and whom she had never seen. He appeared suddenly at Mr. Dickenharry’s office the other day, just as the latter was starting for Milwaukee, and there was barely time for him to make arrangements with Mr. Thynker to call on Nell the following afternoon. As it happened, he knew the Vansmiths, and was asked to the luncheon they gave that day, and seated immediately opposite to Nell. Of course he didn’t catch her name when they were introduced, and there was no chance for explanations. Oh, girls, I wonder if I really ought to finish this?”
“If you don’t, I shall ask Nell why you didn’t,” said the president.
“Well, during a lull in the conversation, he leaned forward and, in loud, clear tones, asked Nell what kind of a girl his friend Tom Dickenharry had got himself engaged to this time!”
“M’hm,” said the president, after the laughter had subsided a little, “that settles one matter in advance, anyhow. It is easy to know upon whose side the victory will rest when they have their first quarrel after marriage.”
“There is one question I would like to ask the members of this club,” said the girl with the eyeglasses, “and it is one which nearly disrupted our little Shakespeare club: If you really want to please a man—any man—what is the best way to go about it?”
“That is really such a simple question that there is only one answer possible,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin.
“And that is—”
“Be born rich.”
“But, suppose you have neglected that qualification,” persisted the girl with the eyeglasses.
“Learn to cook; but never let him taste the result of your cookery,” said the blue-eyed girl.
“Yes—or wear his college colors,” said the girl with the classic profile.
“Let him do all the talking,” said the brown-eyed blonde.
“Praise the shape of his head—no matter what it may be,” said the president. “I wouldn’t tell anybody that,” she added, reflectively, “only that two fortune tellers and a palmist have assured me that my husband will outlive me.”
“Mr. Bonds has a very well-shaped head,” observed the girl with the eyeglasses, “a little long perhaps, but—”
“The rotundity of his pocketbook over-balances that,” broke in the girl with the dimple in her chin.
“Clarissa says he is generous, too—a rare quality in a really wealthy man,” said the blue-eyed girl.
“M—I don’t know about his generosity,” said the president. “A marriage license is about as inexpensive a thing as a man can buy, and yet he has displayed no desire to invest in one.”
“Oh, pshaw, that makes no difference,” said the girl with the Roman nose, “lots of girls nowadays don’t intend to marry, anyhow, so—”
“I wonder why they never think to mention the fact publicly until after they are thirty,” mused the girl with the dimple in her chin; “oh, girls, shouldn’t you like really to do something wonderful?”
“I once wore a pair of common-sense shoes a whole month,” said the blue-eyed girl, modestly.
“H’m; who was the Englishman?” asked the brown-eyed blonde, “the one with whom you used to walk at that time, I mean,” she added, pleasantly.
“It was the spring that Mr. Penny-Lesse was here, but I don’t see what that had to do with it,” said the blue-eyed girl, with great dignity.
“Nothing at all of course,” said the brown-eyed blonde, “I only—”
“You did not meet him, I believe; he was very particular about the people to whom he was introduced,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin, sweetly. “I did rather an unusual thing myself once—I had five dollars in my pocketbook when my allowance came due!”
“Yes, but you had left the pocketbook at my house ten days before, and thought it was lost,” said the girl with the classic profile, “don’t you remember, I only brought it over after the shops were closed the evening before?”
“Oh, girls,” said the president, “I’ve recently met a woman who has traveled all through Asia, and—”
“I suppose she did it in bloomers and one of those horrid, unbecoming, stiff caps, too,” broke in the brown-eyed blonde. “Well, all I’ve got to say is that a woman who has the courage to make such a guy of herself, is brave enough to face all the tigers and mountain lions, and—er—boa constrictors in Asia.”
“I don’t believe there are any boa constrictors and mountain lions in Asia,” said the girl with the Roman nose. “As for tigers—”
“Mercy, how literal you are!” pettishly replied the brown-eyed blonde. “Well, buffalos then; how will that suit you? I’m equally afraid of all of them, myself.”
“Oh, girls,” cried the girl with the dimple in her chin, “Marion and I have just had such fun. We have been telling each other the most awful things that ever happened to us in our lives.”
“Perhaps that is what made you late, too,” remarked the president, in a severe tone.
“N-not exactly. You see, I knew there was something wrong about my watch, and I could not remember whether it was thirteen minutes fast or thirteen minutes slow, so—”
“But do tell us what was the most awful thing that ever happened to you, Evelyn,” cried the girl with the classic profile. “The very worst thing that ever befell me was connected with a timepiece. It was last summer, and a man who—who had been very nice to me was going away early the next morning. Men were scarce at the seashore, as you know, and when a lot of the girls saw us sitting on the porch they came over and spent the evening with us. We just could not get a chance for a word alone.”
“I know—I know,” groaned the girl with the dimple in her chin.
“Yes. Well, his train was to go at 5:16 A.M., and he asked me in the most meaning tone if I cared sufficiently to hear something he had to say to get up early enough to see him off. I—I said I did.”
“Well?” said the girl with the Roman nose.
“I set my watch by the hall clock in order to be sure of getting up in time; then I lay awake nearly all night so I would not oversleep myself. When I reached the station it was five minutes past six.”
“Watch stopped?” asked the girl with the eyeglasses.
“No; Harry had run down to spend that evening with Kate, and she had set the clock back. The man was married in October to one of the girls who had risen in time to see him off.”
“Of course,” said the president. “Speaking of awful things—you all know how afraid I am of fire.”
“We do,” said the girl with the Roman nose. “I believe you could smell a burning match a block away.”
“Well, the other day our fire insurance ran out, and Tom handed me the money and asked me to go down and renew it, as he was very busy. I forgot all about it until night; then I lay awake sniffing smoke until Tom thought I had influenza again. Next morning I got ready to go and attend to it at once. I wanted to look nice, too, because one of the men in that office once told Tom that he had an awfully pretty wife.”
“How much money did he borrow from Tom that time?” asked the girl with the dimple in her chin.
“I was curling my hair,” went on the president, unheeding, “when I smelled fire. I ran wildly all through the house, with a curl still wrapped about the iron, trying to locate it!”
“And did you find any?” asked the brown-eyed blonde.
“Yes; my own hair was burning,” said the president, with a groan.
“How awful!” said the girl with the eyeglasses. “That reminds me of what once happened to me. It was when I was wearing a single curl in the middle of my forehead. One day Frank was there, and he—he would twist it over his finger and quote poetry about it until he took all the curl out of it. Of course I discovered that I had no handkerchief and went up to get one.”
“I don’t see anything so awful in that,” said the girl with the classic profile.
“No, dear; but while I was curling it I dropped the hot iron down my back, and dared not even scream lest he find out what I was doing.”
“The worst thing that ever happened to me,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin, “was in connection with Lewis. As soon as it was settled, I went to tell Emmeline, so she would give up trying to get him. I said I was his first love, and she couldn’t imagine how jealous he was. ‘Oh, yes, dear, I can,’ said she; ‘he was always so when he was engaged to me!’”
“I wondered why you broke with him,” said the president. “Well, we must adjourn now, and I must say that I have never heard a subject more logically discussed than the one to-day!”