Mrs. Ballinger could not control her irritation. “Really, it is too bad that we should not be able to talk the matter over quietly among ourselves. Personally, I think that if one goes into Xingu at all—”
“Oh, so do I!” cried Miss Glyde.
“And I don’t see how one can avoid doing so, if one wishes to keep up with the Thought of the Day—”
Mrs. Leveret uttered an exclamation of relief. “There—that’s it!” she interposed.
“What’s it?” the President curtly took her up.
“Why—it’s a—a Thought: I mean a philosophy.”
This seemed to bring a certain relief to Mrs. Ballinger and Laura Glyde, but Miss Van Vluyck said dogmatically: “Excuse me if I tell you that you’re all mistaken. Xingu happens to be a language.”
“A language!” the Lunch Club cried.
“Certainly. Don’t you remember Fanny Roby’s saying that there were several branches, and that some were hard to trace? What could that apply to but dialects?”
Mrs. Ballinger could no longer restrain a contemptuous laugh. “Really, if the Lunch Club has reached such a pass that it has to go to Fanny Roby for instruction on a subject like Xingu, it had almost better cease to exist!”