“You certainly do look better,” he said happily.

“I am well, you old goose,” said Margaret, fastening her long blue gloves.  “You have simply been fussing over nothing as I told you.”

“Well, I hope I have.  You do look stunning to-night,” said Wilbur, gazing at her with a pride so intense that it was almost piteous in its self-abnegation.

“Is that your stunt there on the table?” he inquired, pointing to a long envelope.

Margaret laughed carefully, dimpling her cheeks.  “Yes,” she said, and Wilbur took the envelope and put it into his pocket.  “I will carry it for you,” he said.  “By the way, what is your stunt, honey?  Did you write something?”

“Wait, until you hear,” replied Margaret, and she laughed carefully again.  She gathered up the train of her blue gown and turned upon him, her blue eyes glowing with a strange fire, feverish roses on her cheeks.  “You are not to be surprised at anything to-night,” she said and laughed again.

She still had a laughing expression when they were seated in Mrs. Sturtevant’s flower-scented drawing-room, a handsome room, thanks to the decorator, who was young and enthusiastic.  Margaret had duly considered the colour scheme in her choice of a gown.  The furniture was upholstered with a wisteria pattern, except a few chairs which were cane-seated, with silvered wood.  Margaret had gone directly to one of these chairs.  She was not sure of her gown being exactly the right shade of blue to harmonise with the wisteria at close quarters.  The chair was tall and slender.  Margaret’s feet did not touch the floor, but the long blue trail of her gown concealed that, and she contrived to sit as if they did.  She gave the impression of a tall creature of extreme grace as she sat propping her back against her silvered chair.  Wilbur gazed at her with adoration.  He had almost forgotten the affair of Martha Wallingford.  He had excused his Margaret because she was a woman and he was profoundly ignorant of women’s strange ambitions.  Now, he regarded her with unqualified admiration.  He looked from her to the other women and back again and was entirely convinced that she outshone them all as a sun a star.  He looked at the envelope in her blue lap and was sure that she had written something which was infinitely superior to the work of any other woman there.  Down in the depths of his masculine soul, Wilbur Edes had a sense of amused toleration when women’s clubs were concerned, but he always took his Margaret seriously, and the Zenith Club on that account was that night an important and grave organisation.  He wished very much to smoke and he was wedged into an uncomfortable corner with a young girl who insisted upon talking to him and was all the time nervously rearranging her hair, but he had a good view of his Margaret in her wonderful blue gown, in her silver chair, and he was consoled.

“Have you read The Poor Lady?” asked spasmodically the girl, and drove in a slipping hair-pin at the same time.