"Beg your pardon, Mrs. Cobb," said the ghostly Monroe. "The fact is I had no opportunity. Sure, madam, I would not slight you for the world, did you give me the opportunity." "Mr. Monroe," said Mrs. Cobb, in her best humor, "you must get rid of your rigidity of expression, or I will be compelled to get another man, younger than you, to take your place. I am now almost tempted to put my son in your place; Jasper, you know." "I will not hear to that, Mrs. Cobb," interrupted Edith. "Why, I shall attempt to enliven Mr. Monroe." Then to that sedate imbecile, she said: "Mr. Monroe, cheer up. See, every gentleman present but you is in the fullness of his grandiose verboseness tonight. Cheer up, and be alive for once!" Mr. Monroe turned a lethargic smile upon Edith, and whispered, loud enough for his near auditors to hear: "Miss Jarney will do me the pleasure, I am sure, of reaching me the salt." "Why, with pleasure--salt--salt," said Edith, with a gay and mischievous laugh. "This man--waiter, waiter--wants some salt to salt down his opinion of women's rights." "Good, good!" applauded Mrs. Cobb. "Now, what are your opinions of women's rights, Mr. Monroe?" "I am salting them down," he replied, sadly, as he began to spray most liberally his salad, which looked, before he ceased, as if it would be in a brine of thick salineness. "My opinion of women is--aside from my mother--that they are a lot of soap bubbles." "You bad man," said Mrs. Cobb, lowering her eyebrows; "that is no definition. Women's rights--what is your opinion?" "They haven't any rights, save what the men choose to give them," he whispered looking at Edith, with as much expression as a monkey. "You bleak old bachelor," retorted Mrs. Cobb. "Edith will never have you for saying that." Edith turned a wrathful glance upon Mrs. Cobb, and gave a scornful laugh at the jest. Then she turned to Mr. Monroe, who had ceased in his rapid-fire eating long enough to look at her like a plaster cast might look. "Miss Edith," said Jasper Cobb, who had been earnestly engaged with Miss Barton, paying her the closest attention with his palavering nonsense, "I am jealous of Mr. Monroe." "Indeed," returned Edith. "I am, indeed," he answered, and the impropriety of his remark struck Edith's ear discordantly. "What a great teaser you are, Jasper," said Mrs. Cobb. "A chip of the old block," said Mr. Cobb, smiling at his joke, as he took it to be. "Jasper does not mean a word of it," said Mrs. Cobb, at the same time hoping that he did. "With due consideration for my friend, Mr. Monroe," said Edith, "I will turn my attention to him."