* * * * * "I do trust Miss Friscoe's last chance will not prove a blank again," said Lord Silverdale, when Lillie had told him of the poor girl's disappointments. "Why?" asked the President. "Because I shrink from the _viva voce_ examination." "Why?" asked the President. "I am afraid I should be so dangerous." "Why?" asked the President. "Because _I have_ loved before. I shall be desperately in love with another woman all through the interview." "Oh, I am so sorry, but you are inadmissible," said Lillie, when Miss Friscoe came to announce her willingness to join the Club. "Why?" asked the candidate. "Because you belong to an art-class. It is forbidden by our by-laws. How stupid of me not to think of it yesterday!" "But I am ready to give it up." "Oh, I couldn't dream of allowing that on any account," said the President. "I hear you draw so well." So Mary never went before the Honorary Trier. CHAPTER XI. ADVENTURES IN SEARCH OF THE POLE. "Oh, by the way, Miss Friscoe will not trouble you, you will be glad to hear," said Lillie, lightly. "Indeed?" said Silverdale. "Then she has drawn a prize after all! I cannot say as much for the young man. I hardly think she is a credit to your sex. Somehow, she reminded me of a woman I used to know, and of some verses I wrote upon her." ("If he had given me a chance, and not gone on to read his poetry so quickly," wrote Lillie in her diary that night, "I might have told him that his inference about Miss Friscoe was incorrect. But it is such a trifle--it is not worth telling him now, especially as he practically intimated she would have been an undesirable member, and I only saved him the trouble of trying her.") Lord Silverdale read his verses without the accompaniment of the banjo, an instrument too frivolous for the tragic muse. LA FEMME QUE NE RIT PAS. It was fair with a loveliness mystic, Like the faces that Raphael drew, Enigmatic, intense, cabalistic, But surcharged with the light of the true: Such a face, such a hauntingly magic Incarnation of wistful regret, It was tenebrous, tender, and tragic, I dream of it yet. And there lives in my charmed recollection, The sweet mouth with its lips cruelly curled, As with bitter ironic rejection Of the gods of the frivolous world. Yet not even disdain on her features Was enthroned, for a heavenly peace Often linked her with bright seraph creatures Or statues of Greece. I met her at dinners and dances, Or on yachts that by moonlight went trips, And was thrilled by her marvellous glances, And the sneer or repose of her lips. Never smile o'er her features did play light, Never laughter illumined her eyes; She grew to seem sundered from daylight And sun-kindled skies.