Annette was visibly flurried. The Scarford Chapter was the one subject which she had carefully avoided that evening. But between it and the Woman's Club there was a bitter rivalry, and, although she had not been at all anxious to act as sponsor for her friend from the country, now that Mrs. Fenholtz had offered to do so and had placed the responsibility squarely on her shoulders, she could not dodge.
“Why—why, of course,” she said. “That was understood. We have had so many things to talk about this evening that I had really forgotten it, my dear Mrs. Dott. I had indeed! When,” she hesitated, “when could you make it convenient to attend one of our meetings? Of course I know how busy you are just now in your new home, and I shall not be unreasonable. I shouldn't, of course, expect you to attend the NEXT meeting.”
“Oh,” said the unconscious Serena, “I'm not so busy as all that. I could go to the next meeting just as well as not. I should love to.”
They entered the drawing-room, to find Captain Dan and the Honorable Oscar still deep in the engine discussion and Mr. Black sound asleep in his chair. Roused by his indignant wife, he drowsily inquired if it was time to get up, and then, becoming aware of the realities of the situation, hastily explained that he had been thinking about business affairs and had forgotten where he was.
“Going, Annette, are you?” he asked.
Annette tartly observed that she was going, and added that she judged it high time to do so. Mrs. Fenholtz said that she and her husband must be going, also.
“But we shall hope to see a great deal of you and Mr.—I should say Captain Dott,” she said. “You must dine with us very soon. I will set an evening and you mustn't say no.”
“That is right,” said Mr. Fenholtz heartily. “Captain, some of these days you and I will take a gouple of days and go down and look at that boat. If she does not go then, we will put an 'egspert' in her and sink them both. What?”
Altogether, it was a wonderful evening. The only fly in the ointment was Azuba, who appeared just as the visitors were at the door, to announce that “that foolhead of a grocer's boy” hadn't brought the things she ordered and what they was going to do for breakfast she didn't know.
“I could give you b'iled eggs,” she added, “but Captain Dan'l made such a fuss about them we had yesterday that I didn't dast to do it without askin' you. I wanted to have some picked-up fish, but they didn't keep none but the hashed-up kind that comes in pasteboard boxes, and I'd just as soon eat hay as that.”