ot touch the
floor, but the long blue trail of her gown concealed that, and she
contrived to sit as if they did. She gave the impression of a tall
creature of extreme grace as she sat propping her back against her
silvered chair. Wilbur gazed at her with adoration. He had almost
forgotten the affair of Martha Wallingford. He had excused his
Margaret because she was a woman and he was profoundly ignorant of
women's strange ambitions. Now, he regarded her with unqualified
admiration. He looked from her to the other women and back again and
was entirely convinced that she outshone them all as a sun a star. He
looked at the envelope in her blue lap and was sure that she had
written something which was infinitely superior to the work of any
other woman there. Down in the depths of his masculine soul, Wilbur
Edes had a sense of amused toleration when women's clubs were
concerned, but he always took his Margaret seriously, and the Zenith
Club on that account was that night an important and grave
organisation. He wished very much to smoke and he was wedged into an
uncomfortable corner with a young girl who insisted upon talking to
him and was all the time nervously rearranging her hair, but he had a
good view of his Margaret in her wonderful blue gown, in her silver
chair, and he was consoled.

"Have you read _The Poor Lady_?" asked spasmodically the girl, and
drove in a slipping hair-pin at the same time.

"I never read novels," replied Wilbur absently, "haven't much time
you know."

"Oh, I suppose not, but that is such a wonderful book and only think,
nobody has the least idea who wrote it, and it does make it so
interesting. I thought myself it was written by Wilbur Jack until I
came to a sentence which I could quite understand and that put him
out of the question. Of course, Wilbur Jack is such a great genius
that no young girl like myself pretends to understand him, but that
is why I worship him. I tell Mamma I think he is the ideal writer for
young girls, so elevating. And then I thought _The Poor Lady_ might
have been written by Mrs. Eudora Peasely because she is always so
lucid and I came to a sentence which I could not understand at all.
Oh, dear, I have thought of all the living writers as writing that
book and have had to give it up, and of course the dead ones are out
of the question."

"Of course," said Wilbur gravely, and then his Margaret stood up and
took some printed matter from an envelope and instantly