There was a moment of amazed silence, in which the members of the club stared at one another with widened eyes. It was broken very speedily, however, by Mrs. Carrington, who rose to her feet with more activity of movement than was customary to her dignified bearing.
"I have the honor," she stated, sharply.
Instantly, Mrs. Flynn, the militant suffragette, was up, her face belligerent.
"Pardon me, but the honor belongs to me," she snapped, regarding the first claimant with a fierce indignation that was returned in kind. Most of the others were too confounded for speech, but Mrs. Morton rose to support her candidate's claims.
"Pray pardon me," she began placatingly, "but probably Mrs. Flynn does not understand. The interpretation of parliamentary law in England may be quite different. Probably, it is. The customs of that country vary widely from ours in many respects. So, they probably do in the matter of elections in clubs. Now, I belong to ten clubs—American clubs—and I assure you that, according to the parliamentary law in every one of those ten clubs, Mrs. Carrington is certainly elected."
This advocacy was, naturally, a challenge to Miss Johnson, who promptly rose up to champion her own candidate.
"Mrs. Carrington, I am sure, has no desire to take advantage of a distinguished stranger within our gates—and one who has served as gloriously in the cause as Mrs. Flynn—but, even if someone—" she regarded Mrs. Morton with great significance—"I say, even if someone should wish to take unfair advantage of a technicality, it would be altogether impossible, for my amendment to the original motion was carried—unanimously! Mrs. Flynn is the president of the club, duly elected."
Some hazy notion of parliamentary procedure moved Mrs. Flynn to a suggestion.