pert's _maniere noire_...the book is etched, not
painted, yet one feels the colour-values so intensely...."

"Who is he?" Mrs. Leveret whispered to her neighbour. "Some one she's
met abroad?"

"The wonderful part of the book," Mrs. Bellinger conceded, "is that it
may be looked at from so many points of view. I hear that as a study of
determinism Professor Lupton ranks it with 'The Data of Ethics.'"

"I'm told that Osric Dane spent ten years in preparatory studies
before beginning to write it," said Mrs. Plinth. "She looks up
everything--verifies everything. It has always been my principle, as
you know. Nothing would induce me, now, to put aside a book before I'd
finished it, just because I can buy as many more as I want."

"And what do _you_ think of 'The Wings of Death'?" Mrs. Roby abruptly
asked her.

It was the kind of question that might be termed out of order, and the
ladies glanced at each other as though disclaiming any share in such
a breach of discipline. They all knew there was nothing Mrs. Plinth so
much disliked as being asked her opinion of a book. Books were written
to read; if one read them what more could be expected? To be questioned
in detail regarding the contents of a volume seemed to her as great an
outrage as being searched for smuggled laces at the Custom House. The
club had always respected this idiosyncrasy of Mrs. Plinth's. Such
opinions as she had were imposing and substantial: her mind, like her
house, was furnished with monumental "pieces" that were not meant to
be disarranged; and it was one of the unwritten rules of the Lunch Club
that, within her own province, each member's habits of thought should be
respected. The meeting therefore closed with an increased sense, on the
part of the other ladies, of Mrs. Roby's hopeless unfitness to be one of
them.

II

Mrs. Leveret, on the eventful day, arrived early at Mrs. Ballinger's,
her volume of Appropriate Allusions in her pocket.

It always flustered Mrs. Leveret to be late at the Lunch Club: she liked
to collect her thoughts and gather a hint, as the others assembled, of
the turn the conversation was likely to take. To-day, however, she
felt herself completely at a loss; and even the familiar contact of
Appropriate Allusions, which stuck into her as she sat down, failed to
give her any reassurance. It was an admirable little volume, compiled
to meet all the social emergencies; so that, whether on the occasion
of Anniversaries, j