"But it is not war," said Lillie. "Our methods are peaceful, unaggressive. Our platform is merely metaphorical. Our lesson is the self-sufficiency of spinsterhood. We preach it by existing."
"Not exist by preaching it," added Silverdale. "This is not one of the cliques of the shrieking sisterhood?"
"What do you mean by the term shrieking sisterhood," said Nelly. "I use it to denote the mice-fearing classes."
"Hear, hear," said Lillie. "It is true, Miss Nimrod, that our members are required not to exhibit in public, but only because that is a part of the old unhappy signification of 'Old Maid.'"
"I quite understand. You would not call a book a public exhibition of oneself, I suppose."
"Certainly not—if it is an autobiography," said Silverdale.
"That's all right then. My book is autobiographical."
"I knew a celebrity once," said Silverdale, "a dreadfully shy person. All his life he lived retired from the world, and even after his death he concealed himself behind an autobiography."
Lillie frowned at these ironical insinuations, though Miss Nimrod appeared impervious to them.
"I have not concealed myself," she said simply. "All I thought and did is written in my book."