"No; that's what it wouldn't have been," said Evelyn seriously. "If you and I believe that college education is good for women, we'd better suppress this notion that's abroad in the world that college makes a woman different. I hold that we're not necessarily unlike our sisters of the convent, or the Tyringham teach-you-how-to-enter-a-room variety." Evelyn drew herself up with an oratorical gesture and inflection. "I'm here to defend my rights as a human being—"
"You will be hit with a pillow in a minute," remarked Belle, rising and preparing to make her threat good. "Let's talk about what to wear to Lady Tyringham's party."
CHAPTER XV AT THE COUNTRY CLUB
To show that she was not limited to her own particular set in her choice of guests, Mabel had asked Raridan, whom she wished to know better, and Wheaton, who had danced with her at the carnival ball, to be of her party. Chaperons were tolerated but not required in Clarkson. For this reason Mabel had thought it wise to ask Mrs. Whipple, whom she wished to impress; and as she liked to surprise her fellow citizens, it was worth while in this instance to yield something to the convenances. The general was too old for such nonsense; but he was willing to sacrifice his wife, and she went, giving as her excuse for taking "that Margrave girl's bait," that she was doing it in Evelyn's interest.
The coach rolled with loud yodeling to the Porter door, where there was much laughing and bantering as the guests settled into their places. When the locked wheels ground the hillside and the horn was bravely blown by an admirer of Mabel's from Keokuk, it was clear to every one that Timothy Margrave's daughter was achieving another triumph. The young man from Keokuk was zealous with the horn; a four-in-hand was not often seen in the streets of Clarkson, albeit this same vehicle was always to be had from the leading liveryman, and town and country turned admiring eyes on the party as the coach rolled along in the golden haze of early October. The sun warmed the dry air; and far across the Missouri flats its light fell mildly upon yellow bluffs where the clay was exposed in broad surfaces which held the light. The foliage of the hills beyond the river was lit with color in many places; a shower in the morning had freshened the green things of earth, giving them a new, brief lease of life, and there was no dust in the highways. In such a day the dying year bends benignantly to earth and is fain to loiter in the ways of youth.
The paint was still fresh in the club house, which was a long bungalow, set in a clump of cottonwoods. There was an amplitude of veranda, and the rooms within were roughly furnished in Texas pine. The older people of the town looked upon the club with some suspicion as something new and untried. The younger element was just beginning to know the implements and vocabulary of golf. The first tee was only a few feet from the veranda, so that a degree of heroism and Christian resignation was essential in those who began their game under the eyes of a full gallery. There were the usual members of both sexes who talked a good deal about their swing without really having any worth mentioning; and there were others more given to reading the golf news in the golf papers at the club house, than to playing, to the end that they might discuss the game volubly without the discomfort of acquiring practical knowledge.
The walls of the dining-room had not been smoothed or whitened. They were hung with prints which ranged in subject from golf to Gibson girls. Mabel had supplemented the meager furnishings of the club pantry with embellishments from her own house, and had given her own touch to the table. As her touch carried a certain style, her crystal and silver shone to good advantage under the lamps which she had substituted for the bare incandescents of the room. The young man from Keokuk who was, just then, as the gossips said, "devoted" to Mabel, had supplied a prodigal array of flowers, ordered by telegraph from Chicago for the occasion. The table was served by colored men, who had been previously subsidized by Mabel, in violation of the club rules; and they accordingly made up in zeal what they lacked in skill.
Mabel talked a great deal about informality, and drove her guests into the dining-room without any attempt at order, and they found their name-cards with the surprises and exclamations which usually characterize that proceeding.