"I don't want you to withdraw your candidature," said Lillie, frankly. "I shall be charmed to entertain it. I am only arguing upon the general question."
And, indeed, Lillie was enraptured with Miss Wilkins. It was the attraction of opposites. A matter-of-fact woman who could reject a poet's love appealed to her with irresistible piquancy. Miss Wilkins stayed on to tea (by which time she had become Diana) and they gossiped on all sorts of subjects, and Lillie gave her the outlines of the queerest stories of past candidates and in the Old Maids' Club that afternoon all went merry as a marriage bell.
"Well, good-bye, Lillie," said Diana at last.
"Good-bye, Diana," returned Lillie. "Now I understand you I hope you won't consider yourself a femme incomprmise any longer."
"It is only the men I complained of, dear."
"But we must ever remain incomprises by man," said Lillie. "Femme incomprise—why, it is the badge of all our sex."
"Yes," answered Diana. "A woman letting down her back hair is tragic to a man; to us she only recalls bedroom gossip. Good-bye."
And nodding brightly the brisk little creature sallied into the street and captured a passing 'bus.