Mrs. Temple looked shocked, but another peal of laughter came through the partition between the male and female sections of the car, and she beamed again. Then Mrs. Wellington finished her letter, glanced it over, addressed an envelope, sealed and stamped it with a deliberation that maddened Mrs. Whitcomb. When at last she rose, Mrs. Whitcomb was in the seat almost before Mrs. Wellington was out of it. Mrs. Wellington paused at another wave of laughter from the men's room. She commented petulantly: "What good times men have. They've formed a club in there already. We women can only sit around and hate each other." "Why, I don't hate anybody, do you?" Mrs. Temple exclaimed, looking up from the novel she had found on the book shelves. Mrs. Wellington dropped into the next chair: "On a long railroad journey I hate everybody. Don't you hate long journeys?" "It's the first I ever took," Mrs. Temple apologized, radiantly, "And I'm having the--what my oldest boy would call the time of my life. And dear Walter--such goings on for him! A few minutes ago I strolled by the door and I saw him playing cards with a stranger, and smoking and drinking, too, all at once." "Boys will be boys," said Mrs. Wellington. "But for Dr. Temple of all people----" "Why shouldn't a doctor? It's a shame the way men have everything. Think of it, a special smoking room. And women have no place to take a puff except on the sly." Mrs. Temple stared at her in awe: "The woman in this book smokes!--perfumed things!" "All women smoke nowadays," said Mrs. Wellington, carelessly. "Don't you?" The politest thing Mrs. Temple could think of in answer was: "Not yet." "Really!" said Mrs. Wellington, "Don't you like tobacco?" "I never tried it." "It's time you did. I smoke cigars myself." Mrs. Temple almost collapsed at this double shock: "Ci--cigars?" "Yes; cigarettes are too strong for me; will you try one of my pets?" Mrs. Temple was about to express her repugnance at the thought, but Mrs. Wellington thrust before her a portfolio in which nestled such dainty shapes of such a warm and winsome brown, that Mrs. Temple paused to stare, and, like Mother Eve, found the fruit of knowledge too interesting once seen to reject with scorn. She hung over the cigar case in hesitant excitement one moment too long. Then she said in a trembling voice: "I--I should like to try once--just to see what it's like. But there's no place." Mrs. Wellington felt that she had already made a proselyte to her own beloved vice, and she rushed her victim to the precipice: "There's the observation platform, my dear. Come on out." Mrs. Temple was shivering with dismay at the dreadful deed: "What would they say in Ypsilanti?" "What do you care? Be a sport. Your husband smokes. If it's right for him, why not for you?" Mrs. Temple set her teeth and crossed the Rubicon with a resolute "I will!"