"i see you have disregarded my ruling, miss dulcimer!" said lord silverdale, pointing to the paragraph in the moon. "what is the use of my trying the candidates if you're going to admit the plucked?"
"i am surprised at you, lord silverdale. i thought you had more wisdom than to base a reproach on a moon paragraph. you might have known it was not true."
"that is not my experience, miss dulcimer. i do not think a statement is necessarily false because it appears in the newspapers. there is hardly a paper in which i have not, at some time or other, come across a true piece of news. even the moon is not all made of green cheese."
"but you surely do not think i would accept clorinda bell after your warning. not but that i am astonished. she assured me she was ice."
"precisely. and so i marked her 'dangerous.' are there any more candidates to-day?"
"heaps and heaps! from all parts of the kingdom letters have come from ladies anxious to become old maids. there is even one application from paris. ought i to entertain that?"
"certainly. candidates may hail from anywhere—excepting naturally the united states.
"but what, i wonder, has caused this tide of applications?"
"the moon, of course. the fiction that clorinda bell intended to take the secular veil has attracted all these imitators. she has given the club a good advertisement in endeavoring merely to give herself one."
"you suspect her, then, of being herself responsible for the statement that she was going to join the club?"
"no. i am sure of it. who but herself knew that she was not?"
"i can hardly imagine that she would employ such base arts."
"higher arts are out of employment nowadays."
"is there any way of finding out?"
"i am afraid not. she has no bosom friends. stay—there is her mother!"
"mothers do not tell their daughters' secrets. they do not know them."
"well, there's her brother. i was introduced to him the other day at mrs. leo hunter's. but he seems such a reticent chap. only opens his mouth twice an hour, and then merely to show his teeth. oh, i know! i'll get at the moon man. my aunt, the philanthropist, who is quite a journalist (sends so many paragraphs round about herself, you know), will tell me who invents that sort of news, and i'll interview the beggar."
"yes, won't it be fun to run her to earth?" said lillie gleefully.
silverdale took advantage of her good-humor.
"i hope the discovery of the baseness of your sex will turn you again to mine." there was a pleading tenderness in his eyes.
"what! to your baseness? i thought you were so good."
"i am no good without you," he said boldly.
"oh, that is too rich! suppose i had never been born?"
"i should have wished i hadn't."
"but you wouldn't have known i hadn't."
"you're getting too metaphysical for my limited understanding."
"nonsense, you understand metaphysics as well as i do."
"do not disparage yourself. you know i cannot endure metaphysics."
"why not?"
"because they are mostly made in germany. and all germans write as if their aim was to be misunderstood. listen to my simple english lay."
"another love-song to chloe?"
"no, a really great poem, suggested by the number of papers and poems i have already seen this moon paragraph in."
he took down the banjo, thrummed it, and sang:
the grand paragraphic tour.
i composed a little story
about a cockatoo,
with no desire of glory,
to see what would ensue.
it took the public liking
from china to peru.
the point of it was striking,
though perfectly untrue.
it began in a morning journal
when gooseberries were due,
the subject seemed eternal,
so many scribes it drew.
and in every evening column
it made a great to-do,
sub-editors so solemn
just adding thereunto.
in the london correspondence
'twas written up anew,
and then a fog came on dense
and hid me quite from view.
and some said they had heard it
from keepers in the zoo,
while others who averred it
had seen that cockatoo.
it lived, my little fable,
i chuckled and i crew
as at my very table
friends twisted it askew.
it leapt across the channel,
a bounding kangaroo.
it did not shrink like flannel
but gained in size and hue.
it appeared in french and spanish
with errors not a few,
in russian, greek and danish,
inaccurately, too.
and waxing more romantic
with every wind that blew,
it crossed the broad atlantic
and grew and grew and grew.
at last, like boomerang, it
sped back across the blue,
and tall and touched with twang, it
appeared whence first it flew.
an annual affliction,
it tours the wide world through,
and i who bred the fiction
have come to think it true.
life's burden it has doubled,
for peace of mind it slew,
my dreams by it are troubled,
my days are filled with rue.
its horrors yearly thicken,
it sticks to me like glue,
and sad and conscience-stricken
i curse that cockatoo.
"that is what will happen with clorinda bell's membership of our club," continued the poet. "she will remain a member long after it has ceased to exist. once a thing has appeared in print, you cannot destroy it. a published lie is immortal. age cannot wither it, nor custom stale its infinite variety. it thrives by contradiction. give me a cup of tea and i will go and interview the moon-man at once."
the millionaire, hearing tea was on the tray, came in to join them, and silverdale soon went off to his aunt, lady goody-goody twoshoes, and got the address of the man in the moon.
"lillie, what's this i see in the moon about clorinda bell joining your club?" asked the millionaire.
"an invention, father."
the millionaire looked disappointed.
"will all your old maids be young?"
"yes, papa. it is best to catch them young."
"i shall be dining at the club sometimes," he announced irrelevantly.
"oh, no, papa. you are not admissible during the sittings."
"why? you let lord silverdale in."
"yes, but he is not married."
"oh!" and the millionaire went away with brighter brow.
the rest of the afternoon lillie was busy conducting the preliminary examination of a surpassingly beautiful girl who answered to the name of "princess," and would give no other name for the present, not even to turple the magnificent.
"you got my letter, i suppose?" asked the princess.
"oh, yes," said the president. "i should have written to you."
"i thought it best to come and see you about it at once, as i have suddenly determined to go to brighton, and i don't know when i may be back. i had not heard of your club till the other day, when i saw in the moon that clorinda bell was going to join it, and anything she joins must of course be strictly proper, so i haven't troubled to ask the honorable miss primpole's advice—she lives with me, you know. an only orphan cannot be too careful!"
"you need not fear," said lillie. "miss bell is not to be a member. we have refused her."
"oh, indeed! well, perhaps it is as well not to bring the scent of the footlights over the club. it is hard upon miss bell, but if you were to admit her, i suppose other actresses would want to come in. there are so many of them that prefer to remain single."
"are you sure you do?"
"positive. my experience of lovers has been so harassing and peculiar that i shall never marry, and as my best friends cannot call me a wall-flower, i venture to think you will find me a valuable ally in your noble campaign against the degrading superstition that old maids are women who have not found husbands, just as widows are women who have lost them."
"i sincerely hope so," said lillie enthusiastically. "you express my views very neatly. may i ask what are the peculiar experiences you speak of?"
"certainly. some months ago i amused myself by recording the strange episodes of my first loves, and in anticipation of your request i have brought the manuscript."
"oh, please read it!" said lillie excitedly.
"of course i have not given the real names."
"no, i quite understand. won't you have a chocolate cream before you commence?"
"thank you. they look lovely. how awfully sweet!"
"too sweet for you?" inquired lillie anxiously.
"no, no. i mean they are just nice."
the princess untied the pretty pink ribbon that enfolded the dainty, scented manuscript, and pausing only to munch an occasional chocolate cream, she read on till the shades of evening fell over the old maids' club and the soft glow of the candles illuminated its dainty complexion.
