"Oh, lucky woman! Don't let any heartless man delude you into taking the fatal step." Anne Gattle was nothing if not honest. She confessed frankly: "I must say that nobody has made any violent efforts to compel me to. That's why I'm going to China." "To China!" Mrs. Wellington gasped, hardly believing her ears. "My dear! You don't intend to marry a laundryman?" "The idea! I'm going as a missionary." "A missionary? Why leave Chicago?" Mrs. Wellington's eye softened more or less convincingly: "Oh, lovely! How I should dote upon being a missionary. I really think that after I get my divorce I might have a try at it. I had thought of a convent, but being a missionary must be much more exciting." She dismissed the dream with an abrupt shake of the head. "Excuse me, but do you happen to have any matches?" "Matches! I never carry them!" "They never have matches in the women's room, and I've used my last one." Miss Gattle took another reef in her tight lips. "Do you smoke cigarettes?" Mrs. Wellington's echoed disgust with disgust: "Oh, no, indeed. I loathe them. I have the most dainty little cigars. Did you ever try one?" Miss Gattle stiffened into one exclamation point: "Cigars! Me!" Mrs. Jimmie was so well used to being disapproved of that it never disturbed her. She went on as if the face opposite were not alive with horror: "I should think that cigars might be a great consolation to a lady missionary in the long lone hours of--what do missionaries do when they're not missionarying?" "That depends." There was something almost spiritual in Mrs. Jimmie's beatific look: "I can't tell you what consolation my cigars have given me in my troubles. Mr. Wellington objected--but then Mr. Wellington objected to nearly everything I did. That's why I am forced to this dreadful step." "Cigars?" "Divorces." "Divorces!" "Well, this will be only my second--my other was such a nuisance. I got that from Jimmie, too. But it didn't take. Then we made up and remarried. Rather odd, having a second honeymoon with one's first husband. But remarriage didn't succeed any better. Jimmie fell off the water-wagon with an awful splash, and he quite misunderstood my purely platonic interest in Sammy Whitcomb, a nice young fellow with a fool of a wife. Did you ever meet Mrs. Sammy Whitcomb--no? Oh, but you are a lucky woman! Indeed you are! Well, when Jimmie got jealous, I just gave him up entirely. I'm running away to Reno. I sent a note to my husband's club, saying that I had gone to Europe, and he needn't try to find me. Poor fellow, he will. He'll hunt the continent high and low for me, but all the while I'll be in Nevada. Rather good joke on little Jimmie, eh?" "Excruciating!" "But now I must go. Now I must go. I've really become quite addicted to them." "Divorces?" "Cigars. Do stay here till I come back. I have so much to say to you."