"I say she'll come," said Madam Fulton.
"I say she won't," replied Billy with a hearty zest. "No woman of self-respect would."
"Maybe she hasn't self-respect."
"Oh, you go 'way, Florrie. Of course she has, any girl as pretty as that."
Madam Fulton looked at him smilingly. There were few left, nowadays, to call her Florrie.
"You see Electra never in the world would have invited her," she continued. "I simply did it, and she had to confirm it or appear like a brute. Electra won't do that. She's willing to appear like a long and symmetrical icicle, but not a brute."
That was it. She had boldly asked Rose to luncheon, and then told Electra she had done it. Now it was fifteen minutes to the time, and the hostess had not appeared. Madam Fulton looked up from her work. There was a laughing cherub in each eye. Her work, let it be said, was no work at all, only a shuttle plying in and out mysteriously, and lyingly doing the deed known as tatting. She usually tied knots and had to begin over; still, as she said, she liked the motion.
"There was a reporter here yesterday," she remarked, watching the effect on Billy.
"The mischief there was! What for?"
"To see me. To ask about the book."