tell us; because, though I was present, I didn't actually
take part." "Present at what?" Mrs. Dane took her up;
and for an instant the trembling members of the Lunch
Club thought that the champion Providence had raised
up for them had lost a point. But Mrs. Roby explained
herself gaily: "At the discussion, of course. And so we're
dreadfully anxious to know just how it was that you went
into the Xingu."
There was a portentous pause, a silence so big with in-
calculable dangers that the members with one accord
checked the words on their lips, like soldiers dropping
their arms to watch a single combat between their leaders.
Then Mrs. Dane gave expression to their inmost dread by
saying sharply: "Ah—you say the Xingu, do you?"
Mrs. Roby smiled undauntedly. "It is a shade pedantic,
isn't it? Personally, I always drop the article; but I don't
know how the other members feel about it."
The other members looked as though they would will-
ingly have dispensed with this appeal to their opinion,
and Mrs. Roby, after a bright glance about the group,
went on: "They probably think, as I do, that nothing really
matters except the thing itself—except Xingu."
No immediate reply seemed to occur to Mrs. Dane, and
Mrs. Ballinger gathered courage to say: "Surely every one
must feel that about Xingu."
Mrs. Plinth came to her support with a heavy murmur of
assent, and Laura Glyde sighed out emotionally: "I have
known cases where it has changed a whole life."
HYLAND
