* In those days it was still the custom to fill the living rooms with bric-a-brac.  They had not discovered simplicity of living.  Such rooms were museums, entailing endless labor to keep clean.  The dust-demon was the lord of the household.  There were a myriad devices for catching dust, and only a few devices for getting rid of it.

It was at this time that vanished my last doubt of the completeness of my love for him (a subconscious doubt, at most).  It was at the Philomath Club—­a wonderful night of battle, wherein Ernest bearded the masters in their lair.  Now the Philomath Club was the most select on the Pacific Coast.  It was the creation of Miss Brentwood, an enormously wealthy old maid; and it was her husband, and family, and toy.  Its members were the wealthiest in the community, and the strongest-minded of the wealthy, with, of course, a sprinkling of scholars to give it intellectual tone.

The Philomath had no club house.  It was not that kind of a club.  Once a month its members gathered at some one of their private houses to listen to a lecture.  The lecturers were usually, though not always, hired.  If a chemist in New York made a new discovery in say radium, all his expenses across the continent were paid, and as well he received a princely fee for his time.  The same with a returning explorer from the polar regions, or the latest literary or artistic success.  No visitors were allowed, while it was the Philomath’s policy to permit none of its discussions to get into the papers.  Thus great statesmen—­and there had been such occasions—­were able fully to speak their minds.

I spread before me a wrinkled letter, written to me by Ernest twenty years ago, and from it I copy the following: 

“Your father is a member of the Philomath, so you are able to come.  Therefore come next Tuesday night.  I promise you that you will have the time of your life.  In your recent encounters, you failed to shake the masters.  If you come, I’ll shake them for you.  I’ll make them snarl like wolves.  You merely questioned their morality.  When their morality is questioned, they grow only the more complacent and superior.  But I shall menace their money-bags.  That will shake them to the roots of their primitive natures.  If you can come, you will see the cave-man, in evening dress, snarling and snapping over a bone.  I promise you a great caterwauling and an illuminating insight into the nature of the beast.

“They’ve invited me in order to tear me to pieces.  This is the idea of Miss Brentwood.  She clumsily hinted as much when she invited me.  She’s given them that kind of fun before.  They delight in getting trustful-souled gentle reformers before them.  Miss Brentwood thinks I am as mild as a kitten and as good-natured and stolid as the family cow.  I’ll not deny that I helped to give her that impression.  She was very tentative at first, until she divined my harmlessness.  I am to receive a handsome fee—­two hundred and fifty dollars—­as befits the man who, though a radical, once ran for governor.  Also, I am to wear evening dress.  This is compulsory.  I never was so apparelled in my life.  I suppose I’ll have to hire one somewhere.  But I’d do more than that to get a chance at the Philomaths.”