branches."

The word seemed to snap the last thread of their incredulity. "And of
its great length," gasped Mrs. Ballinger.

"She said it was awfully deep, and you couldn't skip--you just had to
wade through," Miss Glyde subjoined.

The idea worked its way more slowly through Mrs. Plinth's compact
resistances. "How could there be anything improper about a river?" she
inquired.

"Improper?"

"Why, what she said about the source--that it was corrupt?"

"Not corrupt, but hard to get at," Laura Glyde corrected. "Some
one who'd been there had told her so. I daresay it was the explorer
himself--doesn't it say the expedition was dangerous?"

"'Difficult and dangerous,'" read Miss Van Vluyck.

Mrs. Ballinger pressed her hands to her throbbing temples. "There's
nothing she said that wouldn't apply to a river--to this river!" She
swung about excitedly to the other members. "Why, do you remember her
telling us that she hadn't read 'The Supreme Instant' because she'd
taken it on a boating party while she was staying with her brother,
and some one had 'shied' it overboard--'shied' of course was her own
expression?"

The ladies breathlessly signified that the expression had not escaped
them.

"Well--and then didn't she tell Osric Dane that one of her books was
simply saturated with Xingu? Of course it was, if some of Mrs. Roby's
rowdy friends had thrown it into the river!"

This surprising reconstruction of the scene in which they had just
participated left the members of the Lunch Club inarticulate. At length
Mrs. Plinth, after visibly labouring with the problem, said in a heavy
tone: "Osric Dane was taken in too."

Mrs. Leveret took courage at this. "Perhaps that's what Mrs. Roby did
it for. She said Osric Dane was a brute, and she may have wanted to give
her a lesson."

Miss Van Vluyck frowned. "It was hardly worth while to do it at our
expense."

"At least," said Miss Glyde with a touch of bitterness, "she succeeded
in interesting her, which was more than we did."

"What chance had we?" rejoined Mrs. Ballinger. "Mrs. Roby monopolised
her from the first. And THAT, I've no doubt, was her purpose--to give
Osric Dane a false impression of her own standing in the Club. She would
hesitate at nothing to attract attention: we all know how she took in
poor Professor Foreland."

"She actually makes him give bridge-teas every Thursday," Mrs. Leveret
piped up.

Laura Glyde struck her hands together. "Why, this is Thu