I smiled. “The worldly reputation and the professional reputation of men occasionally differ very greatly, Miss Walton. We do not accept a man here because his name appears often in the newspapers, but because of what the men of his own calling know and think of him.”
“And of course they are always jealous of a man who has surpassed them,” contended Mr. Whitely.
“There must be something more against a man than envy of his confrères to exclude him,” I answered. “My loyalty to the Philomathean, Miss Walton, is due to the influence it exerts in this very matter. Errors are possible, but the intention is that no man shall be of our brotherhood who is not honestly doing something worth the doing, for other reasons than mere money-making. And for that very reason, we are supposed, within these walls, to be friends, whether or not there is acquaintance outside of them. We are the one club in New York which dares to trust its membership list implicitly to that extent. Charlatanry and dishonesty may succeed with the world, but here they fail. Money will buy much, but the poorest man stands on a par here with the wealthiest.”
“You make me envious of you both,” you sighed, just as Mrs. Blodgett and Agnes joined us.
“What are you envying them?” asked Agnes, as she shook hands with you,—“that they were monopolizing you? How selfish men are!”
“In monopolizing this club?”
“Was that what you envied them?” ejaculated Mrs. Blodgett. “I for one am glad there’s a place to which I can’t go, where I can send my husband when I want to be rid of him.” Then she turned to Mr. Whitely, and with her usual directness remarked, “So they’ve let you in? Mr. Blodgett told me you would surely be rejected.”
Mr. Whitely reddened and bit his lip, for which he is hardly to be blamed. But he only bowed slightly in reply, leaving the inference in your minds that he was a Philomath. How the man dares so often to—
The striking clock tells me it is later than I thought, and I must stop.
Good-night, dear heart.