"You ought to be grateful to me, Lillie," added Nelly, "for it was solely in the interest of the Old Maid's Club that I consented to marry your father. He was always a danger to the Club; at any moment he might have put forth autocratic authority and wound it up. So I thought that by marrying him I should be able to influence him in its favor."
"No doubt you will make him see the desirability of women remaining old maids," retorted Lillie unappeased.
"Come, come, Lillie, be sensible!" said the millionaire. "Nelly shall give Lillie a good dinner at the Junior Widows, one of those charming dinners you and I have had there, and Lillie please send out the cards for the inaugural soirée. I am not going to be done out of that and nothing can now be gained by delay."
"But, sir, how can we inaugurate a Club which has never had any members?" asked Silverdale.
"But what does that matter? Aren't there plenty of candidates without them? Besides, nobody'll know. Each of the candidates will think the others are the members. Tell you what, boy, they shall all dance at Lillie's wedding, and we'll make that the inaugural soirée."
"But that would be to publish my failure to the world," remonstrated Lillie.
"Nonsense, dear. It'll be published without that. Trust the Moon. Isn't it better to take the bull by the horns?"
"Well, yes, perhaps you're right," said Lillie hesitating. "But I hope the world will understand that it is only desperation at the collapse of the Old Maids' Club that has driven me to commit matrimony."
She went back to the Club to write out the cards.
"What do you think of my stepmother?" she inquired pathetically of the ex-Honorary Trier.