"I never tried it."
"It's time you did. I smoke cigars myself."
Mrs. Temple almost collapsed at this double shock: "Ci—cigars?"
"Yes; cigarettes are too strong for me; will you try one of my pets?"
Mrs. Temple was about to express her repugnance at the thought, but Mrs. Wellington thrust before her a portfolio in which nestled such dainty shapes of such a warm and winsome brown, that Mrs. Temple paused to stare, and, like Mother Eve, found the fruit of knowledge too interesting once seen to reject with scorn. She hung over the cigar case in hesitant excitement one moment too long. Then she said in a trembling voice: "I—I should like to try once—just to see what it's like. But there's no place."
Mrs. Wellington felt that she had already made a proselyte to her own beloved vice, and she rushed her victim to the precipice: "There's the observation platform, my dear. Come on out."
Mrs. Temple was shivering with dismay at the dreadful deed: "What would they say in Ypsilanti?"
"What do you care? Be a sport. Your husband smokes. If it's right for him, why not for you?"
Mrs. Temple set her teeth and crossed the Rubicon with a resolute "I will!"
Mrs. Wellington led the timid neophyte along the wavering floor of the car and flung back the door of the observation car. She found Ira Lathrop holding Anne Gattle's hand and evidently explaining something of great importance, for their heads were close together. They rose and with abashed faces and confused mumblings of half swallowed explanations, left the platform to Mrs. Wellington and her new pupil.