After Sally Anderson, Mrs. Jack Evarts played a glittering thing called “Waves of the Sea.”  Then Sally Anderson recited again, then Mrs. Wilbur Edes spoke at length, and with an air which commanded attention, and Von Rosen suffered agonies.  He laughed with sickly spurts at Mrs. Snyder’s confidential sallies, when she had at last her chance to deliver herself of her ten dollar speech, but the worst ordeal was to follow.  Von Rosen was fluttered about by women bearing cups of tea, of frothy chocolate, plates of cake, dishes of bonbons, and saucers of ice-cream.  He loathed sweets and was forced into accepting a plate.  He stood in the midst of the feminine throng, the solitary male figure looking at his cup of chocolate, and a slice of sticky cake, and at an ice representing a chocolate lily, which somebody had placed for special delectation upon a little table at his right.  Then Alice Mendon came to his rescue.

She deftly took the plate with the sticky cake, and the cup of hot chocolate, and substituted a plate with a chicken mayonnaise sandwich, smiling pleasantly as she did so.

“Here,” she whispered.  “Why do you make a martyr of yourself for such a petty cause?  Do it for the faith if you want to, but not for thick chocolate and angel cake.”

She swept away the chocolate lily also.  Von Rosen looked at her gratefully.  “Thank you,” he murmured.

She laughed.  “Oh, you need not thank me,” she said.  “I have a natural instinct to rescue men from sweets.”  She laughed again maliciously.  “I am sure you have enjoyed the club very much,” she said.

Von Rosen coloured before her sarcastic, kindly eyes.  He began to speak, but she interrupted him.  “You have heard that silence is golden,” said she.  “It is always golden when speech would be a lie.”

Then she turned away and seized upon the chocolate lily and pressed it upon Mrs. Joy Snyder, who was enjoying adulation and good things.

“Do please have this lovely lily, Mrs. Snyder,” she said.  “It is the very prettiest ice of the lot, and meant especially for you.  I am sure you will enjoy it.”

And Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder, whose sense of humour deserted her when she was being praised and fed, and who had already eaten bonbons innumerable, and three ices with accompanying cake, took the chocolate lily gratefully.  Von Rosen ate his chicken sandwich and marvelled at the ways of women.

After Von Rosen had finished his sandwiches and tea, he made his way to Mrs. Snyder, and complimented her upon her lecture.  He had a constitutional dislike for falsehoods, which was perhaps not so much a virtue as an idiosyncrasy.  Now he told Mrs. Snyder that he had never heard a lecture which seemed to amuse an audience more than hers had done, and that he quite envied her because of her power of holding attention.  Mrs. Snyder, with the last petal of her chocolate lily sweet upon her tongue, listened with such a naivete