"Perhaps," said Mrs. Blanderocks, gravely, "it will be better if the word men be stricken from the record. Do you object, Mrs. Warner?"
"It was a slip of the tongue," Sarah answered, "and I am grateful to the member who called attention to it; though I will say that I think there are some pure men."
"We are discussing Gorky now," said Mrs. Blanderocks with an indulgent smile.
"True," answered Sarah, beaming back at the chairwoman; "and I was saying that he had subjected the pure women of the hotel to the unspeakable indignity of having to sleep under the same roof with the woman he called his wife."
"I would like to ask," I interposed timidly, "if it is right for a woman to sleep under the same roof with an impure man, or is it only an impure woman who is injurious?"
"A woman has to sleep under some roof," came in the voice of the woman in the corner.
"I think Mrs. Grant would show better taste if she did not press such a question," said another voice. "Will Mrs. Warner be good enough to describe the exact status—I think status is right—of the woman he tried to pass as his wife?"
"She was his——" Sarah had a fit of coughing, "she was not his wife. I do not care to be more explicit."
"Perhaps," I said, groping for light, "it would be better if I made my motion read that she should be deported from the country, since it is her immorality that counts."