Mrs. Slade looked at her perplexedly.  “Why, yes, she could I suppose,” said she, “but why?”

“What has hindered her before now?”

“Oh, her mother was a helpless invalid, and Alice was the only child, and she had been in college just a year when her father died, then she came home and lived with her mother, but her mother has been dead two years now, and Alice has plenty of money.  Her father left a good deal, and her cousin and aunt live with her.  Oh, yes, she could, but why should she want to leave Fairbridge, and—­”

Then some new arrivals approached, and the discussion concerning Alice Mendon ceased.  The ladies came rapidly now.  Soon Mrs. Slade’s hall, reception-room, and dining-room, in which a gaily-decked table was set, were thronged with women whose very skirts seemed full of important anticipatory stirs and rustles.  Mrs. Snyder’s curved smile became set, her eyes absent.  She was revolving her lecture in her mind, making sure that she could repeat it without the assistance of the notes in her petticoat pocket.

Then a woman rang a little silver bell, and a woman who sat short but rose to unexpected heights stood up.  The phenomenon was amazing, but all the Fairbridge ladies had seen Miss Bessy Dicky, the secretary of the Zenith Club, rise before, and no one observed anything remarkable about it.  Only Mrs. Snyder’s mouth twitched a little, but she instantly recovered herself and fixed her absent eyes upon Miss Bessy Dicky’s long, pale face as she began to read the report of the club for the past year.

She had been reading several minutes, her glasses fixed firmly (one of her eyes had a cast) and her lean, veinous hands trembling with excitement, when the door bell rang with a sharp peremptory peal.  There was a little flutter among the ladies.  Such a thing had never happened before.  Fairbridge ladies were renowned for punctuality, especially at a meeting like this, and in any case, had one been late, she would never have rung the bell.  She would have tapped gently on the door, the white-capped maid would have admitted her, and she, knowing she was late and hearing the hollow recitative of Miss Bessy Dicky’s voice, would have tiptoed upstairs, then slipped delicately down again and into a place near the door.

But now it was different.  Lottie opened the door, and a masculine voice was heard.  Mrs. Slade had a storm-porch, so no one could look directly into the hall.

“Is Mrs. Slade at home?” inquired the voice distinctly.  The ladies looked at one another, and Miss Bessy Dicky’s reading was unheard.  They all knew who spoke.  Lottie appeared with a crimson face, bearing a little ostentatious silver plate with a card.  Mrs. Slade adjusted her lorgnette, looked at the card, and appeared to hesitate for a second.  Then a look of calm determination overspread her face.  She whispered to Lottie, and presently appeared a young man in clerical costume, moving between the seated groups of ladies with an air not so much of embarrassment as of weary patience, as if he had expected something like this to happen, and it had happened.