re a lot of women sit around with their hats on, and drink tea, and
have somebody make speeches about things," she felt no innate tenderness.

It was really a trick on the part of Winifred that procured the promise
of attendance. For Eveley had been allowed to believe they were going to
play cards and that there would be regular refreshments of substance, and
perhaps a little dancing later on. All this had been submitted to by
inference, without a word of direct confirmation from Winifred, who had a
conscience.

So it was that Eveley Ainsworth, irreproachably attired in a new
georgette blouse and satin skirt, betook herself to her sister's home for
an evening meeting of the Current Club. And it was a decided shock to
find that neither a social game nor a soul-restoring midnight supper were
in store for her, but the proverbial tea and speeches. She resigned
herself, however, to the inevitable, and shrank back as obscurely as
possible into a dark corner where she might muse on the charms of Nolan,
the beauties of the new Buddy Gillian, the martial dignity of Captain
Hardin, and the appeals of all the rest, to her frivolous heart's
content.

In this manner, she passed through the first part of the evening very
comfortably, only dimly aware that she was floundering in the outskirts
of a perfect maze of big words dealing with Americanization, which Eveley
vaguely understood to be something on the order of standing up to _The
Star Spangled Banner_, and marching in parades with a flag and shouting
"Hurrah for the President," in the presence of foreigners.

The third speaker was a minister, and ministers are accustomed to
penetrating the blue mazes of mental abstraction. This minister did. He
began by telling three funny stories, and Eveley, who loved to exercise
her sense of humor, came back to the Current Club and joined their
laughter.

In the very same breath with which he ended the last funny story, he
began breezily discoursing on everybody's duty as a loyal American.
Eveley, to whom the word "duty" was the original red rag, sniffed
inaudibly but indignantly to herself. And while she was still sniffing
the speaker left "duty as American citizens" far behind, and was deep in
the intricacies of Americanization. Eveley found to her surprise that
this was something more than saluting the flag and shouting. She grew
quite interested. It seemed that ordinary, regular people were
definitely, determinedly working with little