"He still is just a boy," said Pendleton, "despite his thirty years. He has always had his own way, with nothing to settle him until this came—and it completely unsettled him. So much so that very few of the men had much sympathy for him. It went to you, Stephanie, instead. In fact, the men had the matter right from the very first; they knew Lorraine, they knew Amherst, and they knew—other things, as well."
"And the women?" she asked.
"Oh, damn the women!" he replied.—"I beg your pardon, Stephanie—but it is Mrs. Postlewaite and Mrs. Porterfield and all their kind, I mean. A small number are discriminating and broad minded, like Gladys Chamberlain and Elaine Croyden and Sophia Westlake and a few more. They are friends—the rest are worthless bundles of dress goods—manikins, if you please, pulled this way and that by the fetish of the commonplace and the proper."
"Don't tell Mrs. Postlewaite!" laughed Stephanie. "She would have a fit."
"It might do her some good if she had. I despise those people who are so smug and self satisfied in their assumed superiority that they think their ipse dixit inflates the social balloon. It's a positive pleasure to have some one kick a hole in it just to show them they're wrong."
"As I did, you mean," said she. "However, it would have been quite as effective had I made another sort of kick. I punctured the balloon, all right, but its entangling folds may stifle me. At least they are pretty stifling at present. It would be a small matter if I were a man—a man can do things and be none the worse for them; but I'm a woman—and it is a powerful big undertaking, Montague, for a woman to kick the social balloon. Generally the balloon flies back and overwhelms her."
"It's not going to overwhelm you," he insisted.
"Not if you and the rest of my friends can prevent—and I think you can," she replied. "I am fortunate in my friends—that is where I'm very, very lucky."
He smiled sympathetically. He knew what she did not:—the Governors of the Country Club were meeting that night and her resignation as a member would likely be requested.
The Queen P's and their allies had accomplished so much of their plans for her punishment. The majority of the Board was made up of men who sought to be popular, and who kow-towed to Mrs. Postlewaite and her clique as the ultimate authority. The popular thing was to run with the sentiment, and so they were running. The few younger members were sure to vote against it, but they would be too weak in numbers to control. He would not tell her, however, for something might yet intervene to prevent—the want of a quorum; the want of a sufficient majority; the want of anything would cause the matter to be postponed.