"'Don't speak to him,' whispered the hostess. 'He doesn't see us. He has been like that all day. He came down to look to the decorations this morning, when the idea took him and he has been glued to the spot ever since. He has forgotten all about the reception--he doesn't know we're here and I thought it best not to disturb him till he is safely delivered of the sonnet.' "'You are quite right,' everybody said in sympathetic awestruck tones and left a magic circle round the poet in labor. But I felt a shudder run through my whole being. 'Goodness gracious, Silverplume,' I said, 'is this the way you poets go on?'" "'No, no, Diana,' he assured me. 'It is all tommyrot (I quote Silverplume's words). The beggar is just bringing out a new volume, and although his wife has always distributed the most lavish hospitality to the critics, he has never been able to get himself taken seriously as a poet. There will be lots of critics here to-night and he is playing his last card. If he is not a genius now, he never will be.' [Illustration: _The poet plays his last card._] "'Oh, of course,' I replied sceptically, 'two of a trade.' I made him take me away and that was the end of our engagement. Even as it was, Silverplume's neglect of his appearance had been a constant thorn in my side, and if this was so before marriage, what could I hope for after? It was all very well for him to say his friend was only shamming, but even so, how did I know he would not be reduced to that sort of thing himself when his popularity faded and younger rivals came along." Lillie, who seemed to have some _arrière-pensée_, entered into an animated defence of the poet, but Miss Wilkins stood her ground and refused to withdraw her candidature. "I don't want you to withdraw your candidature," said Lillie, frankly. "I shall be charmed to entertain it. I am only arguing upon the general question." And, indeed, Lillie was enraptured with Miss Wilkins. It was the attraction of opposites. A matter-of-fact woman who could reject a poet's love appealed to her with irresistible piquancy. Miss Wilkins stayed on to tea (by which time she had become Diana) and they gossiped on all sorts of subjects, and Lillie gave her the outlines of the queerest stories of past candidates and in the Old Maids' Club that afternoon all went merry as a marriage bell. "Well, good-bye, Lillie," said Diana at last. "Good-bye, Diana," returned Lillie. "Now _I_ understand you I hope you won't consider yourself a _femme incomprmise_ any longer." "It is only the men I complained of, dear." "But we must ever remain _incomprises_ by man," said Lillie. "_Femme incomprise_--why, it is the badge of all our sex." "Yes," answered Diana. "A woman letting down her back hair is tragic to a man; to us she only recalls bedroom gossip. Good-bye." And nodding brightly the brisk little creature sallied into the street and captured a passing 'bus. CHAPTER XX.