"One can't be rude to such creatures as Mrs. Sampson," returned Mrs. Staggchase, with unmoved decision. "She is one of those dreadful women who watch for a recognition as a cat watches for a mouse. I've seen her at the theatre. She'd pick out one person and run him down with her great bold eyes until he had to bow to her, and then she'd stalk another in the same way. Call or her, indeed! Why, Fred, she'd invite you to a dinner _tete-a-tete_ to-day, if she thought you'd go." Mr. Staggchase laughed rather significantly. "Gad! that might be amusing. She is of the kittle cattle, my dear, but you must own that she's a well-built craft." "Oh, certainly," replied his better half, who was too canny by far to show annoyance, if indeed she felt any, when her husband praised another woman. "If everybody isn't aware of her good points, it isn't that she is averse to advertising them. She has taken up with young Stanton, the sculptor, just because some of us have been interested in him." "Is he going to make the _America_ statue?" "That is still uncertain, but for my part I half hope he won't, if that Sampson woman is his kind." Mr. Staggchase dipped his long fingers into his finger bowl, wiped them with great deliberation and then pushed his chair back from the table. It was very seldom that his wife denied a request he made her, but when she did he knew better than to contend in the matter. "Very well," he said, "you may do whatever you please. Whether you women are so devilish hard on each other because you know your own sex is more than I should undertake to say." "Are you going out?" "Yes," he answered, "I have got to go to a meeting of the Executive Committee of the St. Filipe. There is some sort of a row; I don't know what. How are you going to amuse yourself." "By doing my duty." "Do you find duty amusing then; I shouldn't have suspected it." "Oh, duty's only another name for necessity. I'm going to the theatre with Fred Rangely. He wrote an article for the _Observer_ in favor of that great booby Stanton's having the statue. It was a very lukewarm plea, but I asked him to do it, and as a reward"-- "He is allowed the inestimable boon of taking you to the theatre," finished her husband, "I must say, Dian, that you are, on the whole, the shrewdest woman I know." "Thank you. I must be just, you know," she returned smiling as brilliantly as if her husband were to be won again.