Facing him, Mrs. Wordling encountered a perfectly unembarrassed young man, and a calm depth of eye that seemed to have come and gone from her world, and taken away nothing to remember that was wildly exciting....  At least three women of her acquaintance were raving about Andrew Bedient, two artists with a madness for sub-surface matters having to do with men.  Mrs. Wordling believed herself a more finished artist in these affairs.  She wanted to prove this, while Bedient was the dominant man-interest of the Club.

And now he surprised her.  He was different from the man she had pictured.  Equally well, she could have located him—­had he kissed her, or appeared confused with embarrassment.  Most men of her acquaintance would have kissed her; others would have proved clumsy and abashed, but none could have passed through the test she offered with both denial and calm....  She wanted the interest of Bedient, because the other women fancied him; she wanted to show them and “that hag, Kate Wilkes,” what a man desires in a woman; and now a third reason evolved.  Bedient had proved to her something of a challenging sensation.  He was altogether too calm to be inexperienced.  Every instinct had unerringly informed her of his bounteous ardor, yet he had refrained.  That which she had seen first and last about him—­the excellence of his masculine attractions—­had suddenly become important because no longer impersonal.  Mrs. Wordling was fully equipped to carry out her ideas.

“You did that very well,” she said, dropping her eyes before his steady gaze, “for one experienced only with men-matters.  And now, I suppose you want to know why I took the pains to ask you here; oh, no, not to hook me up....  I didn’t know you would get back so soon; I had just left word a few moments before you came....  Wasn’t it great the way a dreadful disaster was averted at the Hedda Gabler performance last night?...  Did you see the morning paper?”

“No,” said Bedient.  “I was out early.”

“Why, it appears that after the explosion, when everyone was crushing toward the doors, some man in the audience took the words of Hedda and steadied the crowd with them, as men and women struggled in the darkness....  ‘Now’s the time for vine-leaves!’ he called out.  An unknown—­wasn’t he lovely?”

She placed the paper before him, and he read a really remarkable account of “the vine-leaf man” magnetizing the mob and carrying out a fainting girl.  It was absurd to him, though Ibsen’s subtlety, queerly enough, gave the story force....  No face of the audience had impressed him; none had appeared to notice him in the dark.  He wondered how the newspaper had obtained the account....  There was a light, quick knock at the door.

“It isn’t very often that a newspaper story is gotten up so effectively,” Mrs. Wordling was saying.  Apparently she had not heard the knock.  Her voice, however, had fallen in a half-whisper, more penetrating than her usual low tones.  “Do you suppose the hero will permit his name to be known?”