I

MRS. BALLINGER is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as
though it were dangerous to meet alone. To this end she had founded the
Lunch Club, an association composed of herself and several other indomitable
huntresses of erudition. The Lunch Club, after three or four winters of
lunching and debate, had acquired such local distinction that the
entertainment of distinguished strangers became one of its accepted
functions; in recognition of which it duly extended to the celebrated "Osric
Dane," on the day of her arrival in Hillbridge, an invitation to be present
at the next meeting.

The Club was to meet at Mrs. Ballinger's. The other members, behind her
back, were of one voice in deploring her unwillingness to cede her rights in
favor of Mrs. Plinth, whose house made a more impressive setting for the
entertainment of celebrities; while, as Mrs. Leveret observed, there was
always the picture-gallery to fall back on.

Mrs. Plinth made no secret of sharing this view. She had always
regarded it as one of her obligations to entertain the Lunch Club's
distinguished guests. Mrs. Plinth was almost as proud of her obligations as
she was of her picture-gallery; she was in fact fond of implying that the
one possession implied the other, and that only a woman of her wealth could
afford to live up to a standard as high as that which she had set herself.
An all-round sense of duty, roughly adaptable to various ends, was, in her
opinion, all that Providence exacted of the more humbly stationed; but the
power which had predestined Mrs. Plinth to keep footmen clearly intended her
to maintain an equally specialized staff of responsibilities. It was the
more to be regretted that Mrs. Ballinger, whose obligations to society were
bounded by the narrow scope of two parlour-maids, should have been so
tenacious of the right to entertain Osric Dane.

The question of that lady's reception had for a month past profoundly
moved the members of the Lunch Club. It was not that they felt themselves
unequal to the task, but that their sense of the opportunity plunged them
into the agreeable uncertainty of the lady who weighs the alternatives of a
well-stocked wardrobe. If such subsidiary members as Mrs. Leveret were
fluttered by the thought of exchanging ideas with the author of "The Wings
of Death," no forebodings of the kind disturbed the conscious adequacy of
Mrs. Plinth, Mrs. Ballinger and Miss Van Vluyck. "The Wings of Death" had,
in fact, at Miss Van Vluyck's suggestion, been chosen as the subject of
discussion at the last club meeting, and each member had thus been enabled
to express her own opinion or to appropriate whatever seemed most likely to
be of use in the comments of the others. Mrs. Roby alone had abstained from
profiting by the opportunity thus offered; but it was now openly recognised
that, as a member of the Lunch Club, Mrs. Roby was a failure. "It all
comes," as Miss Van Vluyck put it, "of accepting a woman on a man's
estimation." Mrs. Roby, returning to Hillbridge from a prolonged sojourn in
exotic regions -- the other ladies no longer took the trouble to remember
where -- had been emphatically commended by the distinguished biologist,
Professor Foreland, as the most agreeable woman he had ever met; and the
members of the Lunch Club, awed by an encomium that carried the weight of a
diploma, and rashly assuming that the Professor's social sympathies would
follow the line of his scientific bent, had seized the chance of annexing a
biological member. Their disillusionment was complete. At Miss Van Vluyck's
first off-hand mention of the pterodactyl Mrs. Roby had confusedly murmured:
"I know so little about metres -- " and after that painful betrayal of
incompetence she had prudently withdrawn from farther participation in the
mental gymnastics of the club.
 

"I suppose she flattered him," Miss Van Vluyck summed up -- "or else
it's the way she does her hair."

The dimensions of Miss Van Vluyck's dining-room having restricted the
membership of the club to six, the non-conductiveness of one member was a
serious obstacle to the exchange of ideas, and some wonder had already been
expressed that Mrs. Roby should care to live, as it were, on the
intellectual bounty of the others. This feeling was augmented by the
discovery that she had not yet read "The Wings of Death." She owned to
having heard the name of Osric Dane; but that -- incredible as it appeared
-- was the extent of her acquaintance with the celebrated novelist. The
ladies could not conceal their surprise, but Mrs. Ballinger, whose pride in
the club made her wish to put even Mrs. Roby in the best possible light,
gently insinuated that, though she had not had time to acquaint herself with
"The Wings of Death," she must at least be familiar with its equally
remarkable predecessor, "The Supreme Instant."

Mrs. Roby wrinkled her sunny brows in a conscientious effort of memory,
as a result of which she recalled that, oh, yes, she had seen the book at
her brother's, when she was staying with him in Brazil, and had even carried
it off to read one day on a boating party; but they had all got to shying
things at each other in the boat, and the book had gone overboard, so she
had never had the chance --

The picture evoked by this anecdote did not advance Mrs. Roby's credit
with the club, and there was a painful pause, which was broken by Mrs.
Plinth's remarking: "I can understand that, with all your other pursuits,
you should not find much time for reading; but I should have thought you
might at least have got up 'The Wings of Death' before Osric Dane's
arrival."

Mrs. Roby took this rebuke good-humouredly. She had meant, she owned to
glance through the book; but she had been so absorbed in a novel of
Trollope's that --

"No one reads Trollope now," Mrs. Ballinger interrupted impatiently.

Mrs. Roby looked pained. "I'm only just beginning," she confessed.

"And does he interest you?" Mrs. Plinth inquired.

"He amuses me."

"Amusement," said Mrs. Plinth sententiously, "is hardly what I look for
in my choice of books."

"Oh, certainly, 'The Wings of Death' is not amusing," ventured Mrs.
Leveret, whose manner of putting forth an opinion was like that of an
obliging salesman with a variety of other styles to submit if his first
selection does not suit.

"Was it meant to be?" enquired Mrs. Plinth, who was fond of asking
questions that she permitted no one but herself to answer. "Assuredly not."

"Assuredly not -- that is what I was going to say," assented Mrs.
Leveret, hastily rolling up her opinion and reaching for another. "It was
meant to -- to elevate."

Miss Van Vluyck adjusted her spectacles as though they were the black
cap of condemnation. "I hardly see," she interposed, "how a book steeped in
the bitterest pessimism can be said to elevate, however much it may
instruct."

"I meant, of course, to instruct," said Mrs. Leveret, flurried by the
unexpected distinction between two terms which she had supposed to be
synonymous. Mrs. Leveret's enjoyment of the Lunch Club was frequently marred
by such surprises; and not knowing her own value to the other ladies as a
mirror for their mental complacency she was sometimes troubled by a doubt of
her worthiness to join in their debates. It was only the fact of having a
dull sister who thought her clever that saved her from a sense of hopeless
inferiority.

"Do they get married in the end?" Mrs. Roby interposed.

"They -- who?" the Lunch Club collectively exclaimed.

"Why, the girl and man. It's a novel, isn't it? I always think that's
the one thing that matters. If they're parted it spoils my dinner."

Mrs. Plinth and Mrs. Ballinger exchanged scandalised glances, and the
latter said: "I should hardly advise you to read 'The Wings of Death,' in
that spirit. For my part, when there are so many books that one has to read,
I wonder how any one can find time for those that are merely amusing."

"The beautiful part of it," Laura Glyde murmured, "is surely just this
-- that no one can tell how 'The Wings of Death' ends.
 

Osric Dane, overcome by the dread significance of her own meaning, has
mercifully veiled it -- perhaps even from herself -- as Apelles, in
representing the sacrifice of Iphigenia, veiled the face of Agamemnon."

"What's that? Is it poetry?" whispered Mrs. Leveret nervously to Mrs.
Plinth, who, disdaining a definite reply, said coldly: "You should look it
up. I always make it a point to look things up." Her tone added -- "though I
might easily have it done for me by the footman."

"I was about to say," Miss Van Vluyck resumed, "that it must always be
a question whether a book can instruct unless it elevates."

"Oh -- " murmured Mrs. Leveret, now feeling herself hopelessly astray.

"I don't know," said Mrs. Ballinger, scenting in Miss Van Vluyck's tone
a tendency to depreciate the coveted distinction of entertaining Osric Dane;
"I don't know that such a question can seriously be raised as to a book
which has attracted more attention among thoughtful people than any novel
since 'Robert Elsmere.'"

"Oh, but don't you see," exclaimed Laura Glyde, "that it's just the
dark hopelessness of it all -- the wonderful tone-scheme of black on black
-- that makes it such an artistic achievement? It reminded me so when I read
it of Prince Rupert's maniere noire . . . the book is etched, not painted,
yet one feels the colour values so intensely . . ."

"Who is he?" Mrs. Leveret whispered to her neighbour. "Some one she's
met abroad?"

"The wonderful part of the book," Mrs. Ballinger conceded, "is that it
may be looked at from so many points of view. I hear that as a study of
determinism Professor Lupton ranks it with 'The Data of Ethics.'"

"I'm told that Osric Dane spent ten years in preparatory studies before
beginning to write it," said Mrs. Plinth. "She looks up everything --
verifies everything. It has always been my principle, as you know. Nothing
would induce me, now, to put aside a book before I'd finished it, just
because I can buy as many more as I want."

"And what do you think of 'The Wings of Death'?" Mrs. Roby abruptly
asked her.

It was the kind of question that might be termed out of order, and the
ladies glanced at each other as though disclaiming any share in such a
breach of discipline. They all knew that there was nothing Mrs. Plinth so
much disliked as being asked her opinion of a book. Books were written to
read; if one read them what more could be expected? To be questioned in
detail regarding the contents of a volume seemed to her as great an outrage
as being searched for smuggled laces at the Custom House. The club had
always respected this idiosyncrasy of Mrs. Plinth's. Such opinions as she
had were imposing and substantial: her mind, like her house, was furnished
with monumental "pieces" that were not meant to be suddenly disarranged; and
it was one of the unwritten rules of the Lunch Club that, within her own
province, each member's habits of thought should be respected. The meeting
therefore closed with an increased sense, on the part of the other ladies,
of Mrs. Roby's hopeless unfitness to be one of them.

--------------------------------------

II

MRS. LEVERET, on the eventful day, had arrived early at Mrs.
Ballinger's, her volume of Appropriate Allusions in her pocket.

It always flustered Mrs. Leveret to be late at the Lunch Club: she
liked to collect her thoughts and gather a hint, as the others assembled, of
the turn the conversation was likely to take. To-day, however, she felt
herself completely at a loss; and even the familiar contact of Appropriate
Allusions, which stuck into her as she sat down, failed to give her any
reassurance. It was an admirable little volume, compiled to meet all the
social emergencies; so that, whether on the occasion of Anniversaries,
joyful or melancholy (as the classification ran), of Banquets, social or
municipal, or of Baptisms, Church of England or sectarian, its student need
never be at a loss for a pertinent reference. Mrs. Leveret, though she had
for years devoutly conned its pages, valued it, however, rather for its
moral support than for its practical services; for though in the privacy of
her own room she commanded an army of quotations, these invariably deserted
her at the critical moment, and the only line she retained --

Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook? -- was one she had never yet
found the occasion to apply.

To-day she felt that even the complete mastery of the volume would
hardly have insured her self-possession; for she thought it probable, even
if she did, in some miraculous way, remember an Allusion, it would be only
to find that Osric Dane used a different volume (Mrs. Leveret was convinced
that literary people always carried them), and would consequently not
recognise her quotations.

Mrs. Leveret's sense of being adrift was intensified by the appearance
of Mrs. Ballinger's drawing-room. To a careless eye its aspect was
unchanged; but those acquainted with Mrs. Ballinger's way of arranging her
books would instantly have detected the marks of recent perturbation. Mrs.
Ballinger's province, as a member of the Lunch Club, was the Book of the
Day. On that, whatever it was, from a novel to a treatise on experimental
psychology, she was confidently, authoritatively "up." What became of last
year's books, or last week's even; what she did with the "subjects" she had
previously professed with equal authority; no one had ever yet discovered.
Her mind was an hotel where facts came and went like transient lodgers,
without leaving their address behind, and frequently without paying for
their board. It was Mrs. Ballinger's boast that she was "abreast with the
Thought of the Day," and her pride that this advanced position should be
expressed by the books on her drawing-room table. These volumes, frequently
renewed, and almost always damp from the press, bore names generally
unfamiliar to Mrs. Leveret, and giving her, as she furtively scanned them, a
disheartening glimpse of new fields of knowledge to be breathlessly
traversed in Mrs. Ballinger's wake. But to-day a number of maturer-looking
volumes were adroitly mingled with the primeurs of the press -- Karl Marx
jostled Professor Bergson, and the "Confessions of St. Augustine" lay beside
the last work on "Mendelism"; so that even to Mrs. Leveret's fluttered
perceptions it was clear that Mrs. Ballinger didn't in the least know what
Osric Dane was likely to talk about, and had taken measures to be prepared
for anything. Mrs. Leveret felt like a passenger on an ocean steamer who is
told that there is no immediate danger, but that she had better put on her
life-belt.

It was a relief to be roused from these forebodings by Miss Van
Vluyck's arrival.

"Well, my dear," the new-comer briskly asked her hostess, "what
subjects are we to discuss to-day?"

Mrs. Ballinger was furtively replacing a volume of Wordsworth by a copy
of Verlaine. "I hardly know," she said somewhat nervously. "Perhaps we had
better leave that to circumstances."

"Circumstances?" said Miss Van Vluyck drily. "That means, I suppose,
that Laura Glyde will take the floor as usual, and we shall be deluged with
literature."

Philanthropy and statistics were Miss Van Vluyck's province, and she
naturally resented any tendency to divert their guest's attention from these
topics.

Mrs. Plinth at this moment appeared.

"Literature?" she protested in a tone of remonstrance. "But this is
perfectly unexpected. I understood we were to talk of Osric Dane's novel."

Mrs. Ballinger winced at the discrimination, but let it pass. "We can
hardly make that our chief subject -- at least not too intentionally," she
suggested. "Of course we can let our talk drift in that direction; but we
ought to have some other topic as an introduction, and that is what I wanted
to consult you about. The fact is, we know so little of Osric Dane's tastes
and interests that it is difficult to make any special preparation."

"It may be difficult," said Mrs. Plinth with decision, "but it is
absolutely necessary. I know what that happy-go-lucky principle leads to. As
I told one of my nieces the other day, there are certain emergencies for
which a lady should always be prepared. It's in shocking taste to wear
colours when one pays a visit of condolence, or a last year's dress when
there are reports that one's husband is on the wrong side of the market; and
so it is with conversation. All I ask is that I should know beforehand what
is to be talked about; then I feel sure of being able to say the proper
thing."

"I quite agree with you," Mrs. Ballinger anxiously assented; "but -- "

And at that instant, heralded by the fluttered parlour-maid, Osric Dane
appeared upon the threshold.
 

Mrs. Leveret told her sister afterward that she had known at a glance
what was coming. She saw that Osric Dane was not going to meet them half
way. That distinguished personage had indeed entered with an air of
compulsion not calculated to promote the easy exercise of hospitality. She
looked as though she were about to be photographed for a new edition of her
books.

The desire to propitiate a divinity is generally in inverse ratio to
its responsiveness, and the sense of discouragement produced by Osric Dane's
entrance visibly increased the Lunch Club's eagerness to please her. Any
lingering idea that she might consider herself under an obligation to her
entertainers was at once dispelled by her manner: as Mrs. Leveret said
afterward to her sister, she had a way of looking at you that made you feel
as if there was something wrong with your hat. This evidence of greatness
produced such an immediate impression on the ladies that a shudder of awe
ran through them when Mrs. Roby, as their hostess led the great personage
into the dining-room, turned back to whisper to the others: "What a brute
she is!"

The hour about the table did not tend to correct this verdict. It was
passed by Osric Dane in the silent deglutition of Mrs. Ballinger's menu, and
by the members of the Club in the emission of tentative platitudes which
their guest seemed to swallow as perfunctorily as the successive courses of
the luncheon.

Mrs. Ballinger's deplorable delay in fixing a topic had thrown the Club
into a mental disarray which increased with the return to the drawing-room,
where the actual business of discussion was to open. Each lady waited for
the other to speak; and there was a general shock of disappointment when
their hostess opened the conversation by the painfully commonplace inquiry:
"Is this your first visit to Hillbridge?"

Even Mrs. Leveret was conscious that this was a bad beginning; and a
vague impulse of deprecation made Miss Glyde interject: "It is a very small
place indeed."

Mrs. Plinth bristled. "We have a great many representative people," she
said, in the tone of one who speaks for her order.

Osric Dane turned to her thoughtfully. "What do they represent?" she
asked.

Mrs. Plinth's constitutional dislike to being questioned was
intensified by her sense of unpreparedness; and her reproachful glance
passed the question on to Mrs. Ballinger.

"Why," said that lady, glancing in turn at the other members, "as a
community I hope it is not too much to say that we stand for culture."

"For art -- " Miss Glyde eagerly interjected.

"For art and literature," Mrs. Ballinger emended.

"And for sociology, I trust," snapped Miss Van Vluyck.

"We have a standard," said Mrs. Plinth, feeling herself suddenly secure
on the vast expanse of a generalisation: and Mrs. Leveret, thinking there
must be room for more than one on so broad a statement, took courage to
murmur: "Oh, certainly; we have a standard."

"The object of our little club," Mrs. Ballinger continued, "is to
concentrate the highest tendencies of Hillbridge -- to centralise and focus
its complex intellectual effort."

This was felt to be so happy that the ladies drew an almost audible
breath of relief.

"We aspire," the President went on, "to stand for what is highest in
art, literature and ethics."

Osric Dane again turned to her. "What ethics?" she asked.

A tremor of apprehension encircled the room. None of the ladies
required any preparation to pronounce on a question of morals; but when they
were called ethics it was different. The club, when fresh from the
"Encyclopaedia Britannica," the "Reader's Handbook" or Smith's "Classical
Dictionary," could deal confidently with any subject; but when taken
unawares it had been known to define agnosticism as a heresy of the Early
Church and Professor Froude as a distinguished histologist; and such minor
members as Mrs. Leveret still secretly regarded ethics as something vaguely
pagan.

Even to Mrs. Ballinger, Osric Dane's question was unsettling, and there
was a general sense of gratitude when Laura Glyde leaned forward to say,
with her most sympathetic accent: "You must excuse us, Mrs. Dane, for not
being able, just at present, to talk of anything but 'The Wings of Death.'"

"Yes," said Miss Van Vluyck, with a sudden resolve to carry the war
into the enemy's camp. "We are so anxious to know the exact purpose you had
in mind in writing your wonderful book."

"You will find," Mrs. Plinth interposed, "that we are not superficial
readers."

"We are eager to hear from you," Miss Van Vluyck continued, "if the
pessimistic tendency of the book is an expression of your own convictions or
-- "

"Or merely," Miss Glyde hastily thrust in, "a sombre background brushed
in to throw your figures into more vivid relief. Are you not primarily
plastic?"

" I have always maintained," Mrs. Ballinger interposed, "that you
represent the purely objective method -- "

Osric Dane helped herself critically to coffee. "How do you define
objective?" she then inquired.

There was a flurried pause before Laura Glyde intensely murmured: "In
reading you we don't define, we feel."

Osric Dane smiled. "The cerebellum," she remarked, "is not infrequently
the seat of the literary emotions." And she took a second lump of sugar.

The sting that this remark was vaguely felt to conceal was almost
neutralised by the satisfaction of being addressed in such technical
language.

"Ah, the cerebellum," said Miss Van Vluyck complacently. "The Club took
a course in psychology last winter."

"Which psychology?" asked Osric Dane.

There was an agonising pause, during which each member of the Club
secretly deplored the distressing inefficiency of the others. Only Mrs. Roby
went on placidly sipping her chartreuse. At last Mrs. Ballinger said, with
an attempt at a high tone: "Well, really, you know, it was last year that we
took psychology, and this winter we have been so absorbed in -- "

She broke off, nervously trying to recall some of the Club's
discussions; but her faculties seemed to be paralysed by the petrifying
stare of Osric Dane. What had the club been absorbed in lately? Mrs.
Ballinger, with a vague purpose of gaining time, repeated slowly: "We've
been so intensely absorbed in -- "

Mrs. Roby put down her liqueur glass and drew near the group with a
smile.

"In Xingu?" she gently prompted.

A thrill ran through the other members. They exchanged confused
glances, and then, with one accord, turned a gaze of mingled relief and
interrogation on their unexpected rescuer. The expression of each denoted a
different phase of the same emotion. Mrs. Plinth was the first to compose
her features to an air of reassurance: after a moment's hasty adjustment her
look almost implied that it was she who had given the word to Mrs.
Ballinger.

"Xingu, of course!" exclaimed the latter with her accustomed
promptness, while Miss Van Vluyck and Laura Glyde seemed to be plumbing the
depths of memory, and Mrs. Leveret, feeling apprehensively for Appropriate
Allusions, was somehow reassured by the uncomfortable pressure of its bulk
against her person.

Osric Dane's change of countenance was no less striking than that of
her entertainers. She too put down her coffee-cup, but with a look of
distinct annoyance: she too wore, for a brief moment, what Mrs. Roby
afterward described as the look of feeling for something in the back of her
head; and before she could dissemble these momentary signs of weakness, Mrs.
Roby, turning to her with a deferential smile, had said: "And we've been so
hoping that to-day you would tell us just what you think of it."

Osric Dane received the homage of the smile as a matter of course; but
the accompanying question obviously embarrassed her, and it became clear to
her observers that she was not quick at shifting her facial scenery. It was
as though her countenance had so long been set in an expression of
unchallenged superiority that the muscles had stiffened, and refused to obey
her orders.

"Xingu -- " she murmured, as if seeking in her turn to gain time.

Mrs. Roby continued to press her. "Knowing how engrossing the subject
is, you will understand how it happens that the Club has let everything else
go to the wall for the moment. Since we took up Xingu I might almost say --
were it not for your books -- that nothing else seems to us worth
remembering."

Osric Dane's stern features were darkened rather than lit up by an
uneasy smile.

"I am glad to hear there is one exception," she gave out between narrowed
lips.

"Oh, of course," Mrs. Roby said prettily; "but as you have shown us
that -- so very naturally! -- you don't care to talk about your own things,
we really can't let you off from telling us exactly what you think about
Xingu; especially," she added, with a persuasive smile, "as some people say
that one of your last books was simply saturated with it."

It was an it, then -- the assurance sped like fire through the parched
minds of the other members. In their eagerness to gain the least little clue
to Xingu they almost forgot the joy of assisting at the discomfiture of Mrs.
Dane.

The latter reddened nervously under her antagonist's direct assault.
"May I ask," she faltered out in an embarrassed tone, "to which of my books
you refer?"

Mrs. Roby did not falter. "That's just what I want you to tell us;
because, though I was present, I didn't actually take part."

"Present at what?" Mrs. Dane took her up; and for an instant the
trembling members of the Lunch Club thought that the champion Providence had
raised up for them had lost a point. But Mrs. Roby explained herself gaily:
"At the discussion, of course. And so we're dreadfully anxious to know just
how it was that you went into the Xingu."

There was a portentous pause, a silence so big with incalculable
dangers that the members with one accord checked the words on their lips,
like soldiers dropping their arms to watch a single combat between their
leaders. Then Mrs. Dane gave expression to their inmost dread by saying
sharply: "Ah -- you say the Xingu, do you?"

Mrs. Roby smiled undauntedly. "It is a shade pedantic, isn't it?
Personally, I always drop the article; but I don't know how the other
members feel about it."

The other members looked as though they would willingly have dispensed
with this deferential appeal to their opinion, and Mrs. Roby, after a bright
glance about the group, went on: "They probably think, as I do, that nothing
really matters except the thing itself -- except Xingu."

No immediate reply seemed to occur to Mrs. Dane, and Mrs. Ballinger
gathered courage to say: "Surely every one must feel that about Xingu."

Mrs. Plinth came to her support with a heavy murmur of assent, and
Laura Glyde breathed emotionally: "I have known cases where it has changed a
whole life."

"It has done me worlds of good," Mrs. Leveret interjected, seeming to
herself to remember that she had either taken it or read it in the winter
before.

"Of course," Mrs. Roby admitted, "the difficulty is that one must give
up so much time to it. It's very long."

"I can't imagine," said Miss Van Vluyck tartly, "grudging the time
given to such a subject."

"And deep in places," Mrs. Roby pursued; (so then it was a book!) "And
it isn't easy to skip."

"I never skip," said Mrs. Plinth dogmatically.

"Ah, it's dangerous to, in Xingu. Even at the start there are places
where one can't. One must just wade through."

"I should hardly call it wading," said Mrs. Ballinger sarcastically.

Mrs. Roby sent her a look of interest. "Ah -- you always found it went
swimmingly?"

Mrs. Ballinger hesitated. "Of course there are difficult passages," she
conceded modestly.

"Yes; some are not at all clear -- even," Mrs. Roby added, "if one is
familiar with the original."

"As I suppose you are?" Osric Dane interposed, suddenly fixing her with
a look of challenge.

Mrs. Roby met it by a deprecating smile. "Oh, it's really not difficult
up to a certain point; though some of the branches are very little known,
and it's almost impossible to get at the source."

"Have you ever tried?" Mrs. Plinth enquired, still distrustful of Mrs.
Roby's thoroughness.

Mrs. Roby was silent for a moment; then she replied with lowered lids:
"No -- but a friend of mine did; a very brilliant man; and he told me it was
best for women -- not to . . ."

A shudder ran around the room. Mrs. Leveret coughed so that the
parlour-maid, who was handing the cigarettes, should not hear; Miss Van
Vluyck's face took on a nauseated expression, and Mrs. Plinth
looked as if she were passing some one she did not care to bow to. But the
most remarkable result of Mrs. Roby's words was the effect they produced on
the Lunch Club's distinguished guest. Osric Dane's impassive features
suddenly melted to an expression of the warmest human sympathy, and edging
her chair toward Mrs. Roby's she asked: "Did he really? And -- did you find
he was right?"

Mrs. Ballinger, in whom annoyance at Mrs. Roby's unwonted assumption of
prominence was beginning to displace gratitude for the aid she had rendered,
could not consent to her being allowed, by such dubious means, to monopolise
the attention of their guest. If Osric Dane had not enough self-respect to
resent Mrs. Roby's flippancy, at least the Lunch Club would do so in the
person of its President.

Mrs. Ballinger laid her hand on Mrs. Roby's arm. "We must not forget,"
she said with a frigid amiability, "that absorbing as Xingu is to us, it may
be less interesting to -- "

"Oh, no, on the contrary, I assure you," Osric Dane energetically
intervened.

" -- to others," Mrs. Ballinger finished firmly; "and we must not allow
our little meeting to end without persuading Mrs. Dane to say a few words to
us on a subject which, to-day, is much more present in all our thoughts. I
refer, of course, to 'The Wings of Death.'"

The other members, animated by various degrees of the same sentiment,
and encouraged by the humanised mien of their redoubtable guest, repeated
after Mrs. Ballinger: "Oh, yes, you really must talk to us a little about
your book."

Osric Dane's expression became as bored, though not as haughty, as when
her work had been previously mentioned. But before she could respond to Mrs.
Ballinger's request, Mrs. Roby had risen from her seat, and was pulling her
veil down over her frivolous nose.

"I'm so sorry," she said, advancing toward her hostess with
outstretched hand, "but before Mrs. Dane begins I think I'd better run away.
Unluckily, as you know, I haven't read her books, so I should be at a
terrible disadvantage among you all; and besides, I've an engagement to play
bridge."

If Mrs. Roby had simply pleaded her ignorance of Osric Dane's works as
a reason for withdrawing, the Lunch Club, in view of her recent prowess,
might have approved such evidence of discretion; but to couple this excuse
with the brazen announcement that she was foregoing the privilege for the
purpose of joining a bridge-party, was only one more instance of her
deplorable lack of discrimination.

The ladies were disposed, however, to feel that her departure -- now
that she had performed the sole service she was ever likely to render them
-- would probably make for greater order and dignity in the impending
discussion, besides relieving them of the sense of self-distrust which her
presence always mysteriously produced. Mrs. Ballinger therefore restricted
herself to a formal murmur of regret, and the other members were just
grouping themselves comfortably about Osric Dane when the latter, to their
dismay, started up from the sofa on which she had been deferentially
enthroned.

"Oh wait -- do wait, and I'll go with you!" she called out to Mrs.
Roby; and, seizing the hands of the disconcerted members, she administered a
series of farewell pressures with the mechanical haste of a
railway-conductor punching tickets.

"I'm so sorry -- I'd quite forgotten -- " she flung back at them from
the threshold; and as she joined Mrs. Roby, who had turned in surprise at
her appeal, the other ladies had the mortification of hearing her say, in a
voice which she did not take the pains to lower: "If you'll let me walk a
little way with you, I should so like to ask you a few more questions about
Xingu . . ."

--------------------------------------

III

THE incident had been so rapid that the door closed on the departing
pair before the other members had had time to understand what was happening.
Then a sense of the indignity put upon them by Osric Dane's unceremonious
desertion began to contend with the confused feeling that they had been
cheated out of their due without exactly knowing how or why.

There was an awkward silence, during which Mrs. Ballinger, with a
perfunctory hand, rearranged the skilfully grouped literature at which her
distinguished guest had not so much as glanced; then Miss Van Vluyck tartly
pronounced: "Well, I can't say that I consider Osric Dane's departure a great loss."

This confession crystallised the fluid resentment of the other members,
and Mrs. Leveret exclaimed: "I do believe she came on purpose to be nasty!"

It was Mrs. Plinth's private opinion that Osric Dane's attitude toward
the Lunch Club might have been very different had it welcomed her in the
majestic setting of the Plinth drawing-rooms; but not liking to reflect on
the inadequacy of Mrs. Ballinger's establishment she sought a round-about
satisfaction in depreciating her savoir faire.

"I said from the first that we ought to have had a subject ready. It's
what always happens when you're unprepared. Now if we'd only got up Xingu --"

The slowness of Mrs. Plinth's mental processes was always allowed for
by the Club; but this instance of it was too much for Mrs. Ballinger's
equanimity.

"Xingu!" she scoffed. "Why, it was the fact of our knowing so much more
about it than she did -- unprepared though we were -- that made Osric Dane
so furious. I should have thought that was plain enough to everybody!"

This retort impressed even Mrs. Plinth, and Laura Glyde, moved by an
impulse of generosity, said: "Yes, we really ought to be grateful to Mrs.
Roby for introducing the topic. It may have made Osric Dane furious, but at
least it made her civil."

"I am glad we were able to show her," added Miss Van Vluyck, "that a
broad and up-to-date culture is not confined to the great intellectual
centres."

This increased the satisfaction of the other members, and they began to
forget their wrath against Osric Dane in the pleasure of having contributed
to her defeat.

Miss Van Vluyck thoughtfully rubbed her spectacles. "What surprised me
most," she continued, "was that Fanny Roby should be so up on Xingu."

This frank admission threw a slight chill on the company, but Mrs.
Ballinger said with an air of indulgent irony: "Mrs. Roby always has the
knack of making a little go a long way; still, we certainly owe her a debt
for happening to remember that she'd heard of Xingu." And this was felt by
the other members to be a graceful way of cancelling once for all the Club's
obligation to Mrs. Roby.

Even Mrs. Leveret took courage to speed a timid shaft of irony: "I
fancy Osric Dane hardly expected to take a lesson in Xingu at Hillbridge!"

Mrs. Ballinger smiled. "When she asked me what we represented -- do you
remember? -- I wish I'd simply said we represented Xingu!"

All the ladies laughed appreciatively at this sally, except Mrs.
Plinth, who said, after a moment's deliberation: "I'm not sure it would have
been wise to do so."

Mrs. Ballinger, who was already beginning to feel as if she had
launched at Osric Dane the retort which had just occurred to her, looked
ironically at Mrs. Plinth. "May I ask why?" she enquired.

Mrs. Plinth looked grave. "Surely," she said, "I understood from Mrs.
Roby herself that the subject was one it was as well not to go into too
deeply?"

Miss Van Vluyck rejoined with precision: "I think that applied only to
an investigation of the origin of the -- of the -- "; and suddenly she found
that her usually accurate memory had failed her. "It's a part of the subject
I never studied myself," she concluded lamely.

"Nor I," said Mrs. Ballinger.

Laura Glyde bent toward them with widened eyes. "And yet it seems --
doesn't it? -- the part that is fullest of an esoteric fascination?"

"I don't know on what you base that," said Miss Van Vluyck
argumentatively.

"Well, didn't you notice how intensely interested Osric Dane became as
soon as she heard what the brilliant foreigner -- he was a foreigner, wasn't
he? -- had told Mrs. Roby about the origin -- the origin of the rite -- or
whatever you call it?"

Mrs. Plinth looked disapproving, and Mrs. Ballinger visibly wavered.
Then she said in a decisive tone: "It may not be desirable to touch on the
-- on that part of the subject in general conversation; but, from the
importance it evidently has to a woman of Osric Dane's distinction, I feel
as if we ought not to be afraid to discuss it among ourselves -- without
gloves -- though with closed doors, if necessary."

"I'm quite of your opinion," Miss Van Vluyck came briskly to her
support; "on condition, that is, that all grossness of language is avoided."

"Oh, I'm sure we shall understand without that," Mrs. Leveret tittered;
and Laura Glyde added significantly: "I fancy we can read between the
lines," while Mrs. Ballinger rose to assure herself that the doors were
really closed.

Mrs. Plinth had not yet given her adhesion. "I hardly see," she began,
"what benefit is to be derived from investigating such peculiar customs -- "

But Mrs. Ballinger's patience had reached the extreme limit of tension.
"This at least," she returned; "that we shall not be placed again in the
humiliating position of finding ourselves less up on our own subjects than
Fanny Roby!"

Even to Mrs. Plinth this argument was conclusive. She peered furtively
about the room and lowered her commanding tones to ask: "Have you got a
copy?"

"A -- a copy?" stammered Mrs. Ballinger. She was aware that the other
members were looking at her expectantly, and that this answer was
inadequate, so she supported it by asking another question. "A copy of
what?"

Her companions bent their expectant gaze on Mrs. Plinth, who, in turn,
appeared less sure of herself than usual. "Why, of -- of -- the book," she
explained.

"What book?" snapped Miss Van Vluyck, almost as sharply as Osric Dane.

Mrs. Ballinger looked at Laura Glyde, whose eyes were interrogatively
fixed on Mrs. Leveret. The fact of being deferred to was so new to the
latter that it filled her with an insane temerity. "Why, Xingu, of course!"
she exclaimed.

A profound silence followed this direct challenge to the resources of
Mrs. Ballinger's library, and the latter, after glancing nervously toward
the Books of the Day, returned in a deprecating voice: "It's not a thing one
cares to leave about."

"I should think not!" exclaimed Mrs. Plinth.

"It is a book, then?" said Miss Van Vluyck.

This again threw the company into disarray, and Mrs. Ballinger, with an
impatient sigh, rejoined: "Why -- there is a book -- naturally . . ."

"Then why did Miss Glyde call it a religion?"

Laura Glyde started up. "A religion? I never -- "

"Yes, you did," Miss Van Vluyck insisted; "you spoke of rites; and Mrs.
Plinth said it was a custom."

Miss Glyde was evidently making a desperate effort to reinforce her
statement; but accuracy of detail was not her strongest point. At length she
began in a deep murmur: "Surely they used to do something of the kind at the
Eleusinian mysteries -- "

"Oh -- " said Miss Van Vluyck, on the verge of disapproval; and Mrs.
Plinth protested: "I understood there was to be no indelicacy!"

Mrs. Ballinger could not control her irritation. "Really, it is too bad
that we should not be able to talk the matter over quietly among ourselves.
Personally, I think that if one goes into Xingu at all -- "

"Oh, so do I!" cried Miss Glyde.

"And I don't see how one can avoid doing so, if one wishes to keep up
with the Thought of the Day -- "

Mrs. Leveret uttered an exclamation of relief. "There -- that's it!"
she interposed.

"What's it?" the President curtly took her up.

"Why -- it's a -- a Thought: I mean a philosophy."

This seemed to bring a certain relief to Mrs. Ballinger and Laura
Glyde, but Miss Van Vluyck said dogmatically: "Excuse me if I tell you that
you're all mistaken. Xingu happens to be a language."

"A language!" the Lunch Club cried.

"Certainly. Don't you remember Fanny Roby's saying that there were
several branches, and that some were hard to trace? What could that apply to
but dialects?"

Mrs. Ballinger could no longer restrain a contemptuous laugh. "Really,
if the Lunch Club has reached such a pass that it has to go to Fanny Roby
for instruction on a subject like Xingu, it had almost better cease to
exist!"

"It's really her fault for not being clearer," Laura Glyde put in.

"Oh, clearness and Fanny Roby!" Mrs. Ballinger shrugged. "I daresay we
shall find she was mistaken on almost every point."

"Why not look it up?" said Mrs. Plinth.

As a rule this recurrent suggestion of Mrs. Plinth's was ignored in the
heat of discussion, and only resorted to afterward in the privacy of each
member's home. But on the present occasion the desire to ascribe their own
confusion of thought to the vague and contradictory nature of Mrs. Roby's
statements caused the members of the Lunch Club to utter a collective demand
for a book of reference.

At this point the production of her treasured volume gave Mrs. Leveret,
for a moment, the unusual experience of occupying the centre front; but she
was not able to hold it long, for Appropriate Allusions contained no mention
of Xingu.

"Oh, that's not the kind of thing we want!" exclaimed Miss Van Vluyck.
She cast a disparaging glance over Mrs. Ballinger's assortment of
literature, and added impatiently: "Haven't you any useful books?"

"Of course I have," replied Mrs. Ballinger indignantly; "but I keep
them in my husband's dressing-room."

From this region, after some difficulty and delay, the parlour-maid
produced the W-Z volume of an Encyclopaedia and, in deference to the fact
that the demand for it had come from Miss Van Vluyck, laid the ponderous
tome before her.

There was a moment of painful suspense while Miss Van Vluyck rubbed her
spectacles, adjusted them, and turned to Z; and a murmur of surprise when
she said: "It isn't here."

"I suppose," said Mrs. Plinth, "it's not fit to be put in a book of
reference."

"Oh, nonsense!" exclaimed Mrs. Ballinger. "Try X."

Miss Van Vluyck turned back through the volume, peering short-sightedly
up and down the pages, till she came to a stop and remained motionless, like
a dog on a point.

"Well, have you found it?" Mrs. Ballinger enquired, after a
considerable delay.

"Yes. I've found it," said Miss Van Vluyck in a queer voice.

Mrs. Plinth hastily interposed: "I beg you won't read it aloud if
there's anything offensive."

Miss Van Vluyck, without answering, continued her silent scrutiny.

"Well, what is it?" exclaimed Laura Glyde excitedly.

" Do tell us!" urged Mrs. Leveret, feeling that she would have
something awful to tell her sister.

Miss Van Vluyck pushed the volume aside and turned slowly toward the
expectant group.

"It's a river."

"A river?"

"Yes: in Brazil. Isn't that where she's been living?"

"Who? Fanny Roby? Oh, but you must be mistaken. You've been reading the
wrong thing," Mrs. Ballinger exclaimed, leaning over her to seize the
volume.

"It's the only Xingu in the Encyclopaedia; and she has been living in
Brazil," Miss Van Vluyck persisted.

"Yes: her brother has a consulship there," Mrs. Leveret eagerly
interposed.

"But it's too ridiculous! I -- we -- why we all remember studying Xingu
last year -- or the year before last," Mrs. Ballinger stammered.

"I thought I did when you said so," Laura Glyde avowed.

" I said so?" cried Mrs. Ballinger.

"Yes. You said it had crowded everything else out of your mind."

"Well, you said it had changed your whole life!"

"For that matter, Miss Van Vluyck said she had never grudged the time
she'd given it."

Mrs. Plinth interposed: "I made it clear that I knew nothing whatever
of the original."

Mrs. Ballinger broke off the dispute with a groan. "Oh, what does it
all matter if she's been making fools of us? I believe Miss Van Vluyck's
right -- she was talking of the river all the while!"

"How could she? It's too preposterous," Miss Glyde exclaimed.

"Listen." Miss Van Vluyck had repossessed herself of the Encyclopaedia,
and restored her spectacles to a nose reddened by excitement. "'The Xingu,
one of the principal rivers of Brazil, rises on the plateau of Mato Grosso,
and flows in a northerly direction for a length of no less than one thousand
one hundred and eighteen miles, entering the Amazon near the mouth of the
latter river. The upper course of the Xingu is auriferous and fed by
numerous branches. Its source was first discovered in 1884 by the German
explorer von den Steinen, after a difficult and dangerous expedition through
a region inhabited by tribes still in the Stone Age of culture.'"

The ladies received this communication in a state of stupefied silence
from which Mrs. Leveret was the first to rally. "She certainly did speak of
its having branches."

The word seemed to snap the last thread of their incredulity. "And of
its great length," gasped Mrs. Ballinger.

"She said it was awfully deep, and you couldn't skip -- you just had to
wade through," Miss Glyde subjoined.

The idea worked its way more slowly through Mrs. Plinth's compact
resistances. "How could there be anything improper about a river?" she
inquired.

"Improper?"

"Why, what she said about the source -- that it was corrupt?"

"Not corrupt, but hard to get at," Laura Glyde corrected. "Some one
who'd been there had told her so. I daresay it was the explorer himself --
doesn't it say the expedition was dangerous?"

"'Difficult and dangerous,'" read Miss Van Vluyck.

Mrs. Ballinger pressed her hands to her throbbing temples. "There's
nothing she said that wouldn't apply to a river -- to this river!" She swung
about excitedly to the other members. "Why, do you remember her telling us
that she hadn't read 'The Supreme Instant' because she'd taken it on a
boating party while she was staying with her brother, and some one had
'shied' it overboard -- 'shied' of course was her own expression?"

The ladies breathlessly signified that the expression had not escaped
them.

"Well -- and then didn't she tell Osric Dane that one of her books was
simply saturated with Xingu? Of course it was, if some of Mrs. Roby's rowdy
friends had thrown it into the river!"

This surprising reconstruction of the scene in which they had just
participated left the members of the Lunch Club inarticulate. At length Mrs.
Plinth, after visibly labouring with the problem, said in a heavy tone:
"Osric Dane was taken in too."

Mrs. Leveret took courage at this. "Perhaps that's what Mrs. Roby did
it for. She said Osric Dane was a brute, and she may have wanted to give her
a lesson."

Miss Van Vluyck frowned. "It was hardly worth while to do it at our
expense."

"At least," said Miss Glyde with a touch of bitterness, "she succeeded
in interesting her, which was more than we did."

"What chance had we?" rejoined Mrs. Ballinger. "Mrs. Roby monopolised
her from the first. And that, I've no doubt, was her purpose -- to give
Osric Dane a false impression of her own standing in the Club. She would
hesitate at nothing to attract attention: we all know how she took in poor
Professor Foreland."

"She actually makes him give bridge-teas every Thursday," Mrs. Leveret
piped up.

Laura Glyde struck her hands together. "Why, this is Thursday, and it's
there she's gone, of course; and taken Osric with her!"

"And they're shrieking over us at this moment," said Mrs. Ballinger
between her teeth.

This possibility seemed too preposterous to be admitted. "She would
hardly dare," said Miss Van Vluyck, "confess the imposture to Osric Dane."

"I'm not so sure: I thought I saw her make a sign as she left. If she
hadn't made a sign, why should Osric Dane have rushed out after her?"

"Well, you know, we'd all been telling her how wonderful Xingu was, and
she said she wanted to find out more about it," Mrs. Leveret said, with a
tardy impulse of justice to the absent.

This reminder, far from mitigating the wrath of the other members, gave
it a stronger impetus.

"Yes -- and that's exactly what they're both laughing over now," said
Laura Glyde ironically.

Mrs. Plinth stood up and gathered her expensive furs about her
monumental form. "I have no wish to criticise," she said; "but unless the
Lunch Club can protect its members against the recurrence of such -- such
unbecoming scenes, I for one -- "

"Oh, so do I!" agreed Miss Glyde, rising also.

Miss Van Vluyck closed the Encyclopaedia and proceeded to button
herself into her jacket. "My time is really too valuable -- " she began.

"I fancy we are all of one mind," said Mrs. Ballinger, looking
searchingly at Mrs. Leveret, who looked at the others.

"I always deprecate anything like a scandal -- " Mrs. Plinth continued.

"She has been the cause of one to-day!" exclaimed Miss Glyde.

Mrs. Leveret moaned: "I don't see how she could!" and Miss Van Vluyck
said, picking up her note-book: "Some women stop at nothing."

" -- but if," Mrs. Plinth took up her argument impressively, "anything
of the kind had happened in my house" (it never would have, her tone
implied), "I should have felt that I owed it to myself either to ask for
Mrs. Roby's resignation -- or to offer mine."

"Oh, Mrs. Plinth -- " gasped the Lunch Club.

"Fortunately for me," Mrs. Plinth continued with an awful magnanimity,
"the matter was taken out of my hands by our President's decision that the
right to entertain distinguished guests was a privilege vested in her
office; and I think the other members will agree that, as she was alone in
this opinion, she ought to be alone in deciding on the best way of effacing
its -- its really deplorable consequences."

A deep silence followed this unexpected outbreak of Mrs. Plinth's
long-stored resentment.

"I don't see why I should be expected to ask her to resign -- " Mrs.
Ballinger at length began; but Laura Glyde turned back to remind her: "You
know she made you say that you'd got on swimmingly in Xingu."

An ill-timed giggle escaped from Mrs. Leveret, and Mrs. Ballinger
energetically continued " -- but you needn't think for a moment that I'm
afraid to!"

The door of the drawing-room closed on the retreating backs of the
Lunch Club, and the President of that distinguished association, seating
herself at her writing-table, and pushing away a copy of "The Wings of
Death" to make room for her elbow, drew forth a sheet of the club's
note-paper, on which she began to write: "My dear Mrs. Roby -- "