Mrs. Tutts read laboriously and with unmitigated scorn:
Mrs. Andrew Phidias Symes
At Home
Thursday 2-4
She sank cautiously into the blue rocking-chair and removed a hatpin which skewered her yachting cap to a knob of hair.
"That beats me! 'Mrs. Andrew Phidias Symes!'" Mrs. Tutts saw no reason to slight the letter p and pronounced it distinctly. "At home Thursdays between two and four! What of it? Ain't we all generally home Thursdays between two and four?"
"Gussie has improved wonderful," replied Mrs. Jackson pacifically.
"Improved! If you call goin' around passin' of them up that she's knowed well 'improved' why then she has improved wonderful. Snip!"
"I don't think she really aimed to pass you up."
"I wasn't thinkin' of myself," replied Mrs. Tutts hotly, "I was thinking of Essie Tisdale. I hope Mis' Symes don't come around to call on me—I'm kind of perticular who I entertain."
Mrs. Jackson's hard blue eyes began to shine, but Mrs. Jackson had been something of a warrior herself in her day and knew a warrior when she saw one. She had no desire to engage in a hand to hand conflict with Mrs. Tutts, whose fierceness she was well aware was more than surface deep, and she read in that person's alert pose a disconcerting readiness for action. It was a critical moment, one which required tact, for a single injudicious word would precipitate a fray of which Mrs. Jackson could not be altogether sure of the result. Besides, poised as she was like a winged Mercury on the threshold of Society, she could not afford any low scene with Mrs. Tutts. Conquering her resentment, Mrs. Jackson said conciliatingly—