ice, the
mysteries of the dual existence, her new responsibilities,--they all
seemed non-existent. Paul said approvingly that Madeleine knew how to
get along with less fuss than any woman he ever saw. Her breezy high
spirits were much admired in Endbury, and her good humor and prodigious
satisfaction with life were considered very cheerfully infectious.

The two women had reached Madame Hollister's house while Madeleine was
expounding her theory of matrimony, and now took their places in the
throng of extremely well-dressed women sitting on camp chairs, the rows
of which filled the two parlors. The lecturer with the president of the
club, occupied a dais at the other end of the room. He was a tall, ugly
man, with prominent blue eyes, gray hair upstanding in close-cropped
military stiffness, and a two-pronged grizzled beard. He was looking
over his audience with a leisurely smiling scrutiny that roused in Lydia
a secret resentment.

"He's very distinguished looking, isn't he?" whispered Madeleine. "So
different! And _cool_! I'd like to see Pete Lowder sit up there to be
stared at by all this gang of women."

"Oh, he's probably used to it," said her neighbor on the other side.
"They say he's spoken before any number of women's clubs. He does two a
day sometimes. He's seen lots of American society women before now."

Madeleine stared at him curiously. "I wonder what he thinks of us! I
wonder! I'd give anything to know!" she said. She repeated this
sentiment in varying forms several times.

Lydia wondered why Madeleine should care so acutely about the opinion of
a stranger and a foreigner, and finally, in her naive, straightforward
way, she put this question to her. Madeleine was not one of the many who
evaded Lydia's questions, or answered them only with a laugh at their
oddity. She was very straightforward herself and generally had a very
clear idea of what underlay any action or feeling on her part. But this
time her usual rough-and-ready methods of analysis seemed at fault.

"Oh, because," she said indefinitely. "Don't you always want to know
what men are thinking of you?"

"Men that know something about me, maybe," Lydia amended.

Madeleine laughed. "_They're_ the ones that don't think at all, one way
or the other," she reminded her sister-in-law.

The president of the club rose. Her introduction of the speaker was
greeted with cordial, muted applause from gloved hands. There was a
scraping of chairs, a stir