“I think not, dear,” said the girl with the Roman nose, calmly, “Effie is not yet distinctly engaged to my cousin Clarence, so—” “She has to be on decent terms with his family! I might have thought of that,” said the girl with the eyeglasses. “If they had been married, now of course I shouldn’t have dared to do it, but—” “I should think not. Oh, girls, speaking of what happens after the door closes, makes me think of what happened to Effie herself once. It was just after the affair with Teddy Crœsus, you know.” “The time she thought to make people believe she was engaged to him, and took him to dine with her grandmother—” “And her grandmother failed to understand the situation and congratulated them! Indeed, I do,” cried the girl with the Roman nose, “although, on account of being her dearest friend, I failed to hear it until two days after everybody else had.” “Well, you know she went to a breakfast at Nell’s a few days after that,” went on the girl with the eyeglasses, “and left early. As she reached the corner, she remembered a message for Nell and went back to deliver it. She burst into the room unannounced and found all the girls talking at once.” “About her, of course! What did—” “Yes. Any other girl would have known that, but Effie said: ‘Oh, girls, do tell me all about it; what has happened?’” “Well?” “And it was so sudden that not one of them could think of a thing to say until she had flounced out in a rage!” “The moral is: Never go back after once saying good-by,” said the president. “True,” said the brown-eyed blonde, “by the way, Dorothy, why weren’t you at Effie’s to-day?” “I fancy my invitation was lost in the mail,” replied the blue-eyed girl. “I shall mention it to Effie as soon as I see her, so she will not feel that I’ve slighted her intentionally. Why, Frances, dear, did those mean things let you sit all through luncheon with the end of your, ah—detachable hair showing and a dab of powder on your nose? How mean and envious some people are!” “I—I think it is cooler over on the other side,” panted the brown-eyed blonde, “and besides I must see Emily a minute.” “Why, Dorothy, you must have just heard something awfully nice, you look so happy and smiling,” said the girl with the classic profile, “but really this delightful club is making us all amiable.” “Yes, isn’t it?” said the blue-eyed girl, “I couldn’t be really mean to anybody now, if I tried.” “Excuse me for interrupting you, girls,” said the president, “but I want to announce our topic for discussion, and if I don’t do it at once I may forget it. Suppose we choose “Woman as a Political Factor?” That is a broad enough field even for us, and—” “So it is,” said the girl with the eyeglasses. “Well, I know one thing—whenever a woman really knows what she wants in a political line, she gets it.” “She does—and has ever since Eve held that first caucus with the serpent in the garden,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin.