The Teacup Club

“You can never be sure of pleasing a man,” sighed the blue-eyed girl, who was calling on her dearest friend; “that is, if you try to please him,” she added reflectively.

“I suppose not,” replied the girl with the dimple in her chin, “unless you succeed in concealing from him the fact that you are trying to please him.”

“H’m; yes, I suppose there is something in that. However, we ought not to be hard on the poor things. The whole truth with the sterner sex is that they are never really practical. They—”

“How clever you are!” cried the girl with the dimple in her chin, admiringly. “Sometimes it does seem a pity that you are to marry Jack, instead of studying law, or—theosophy or something like that. Really, a very little study would fit you for the bar, but of course Jack—”

“I don’t intend to marry Jack,” said the blue-eyed girl, calmly.

“O, my goodness, does he know that?”

“I don’t know whether he knows that or not; but he does know that I’ve broken my engagement with him. I sent back his ring, and—”

“Dear, dear; that ring must have already cost its real value in messenger fees alone. Let me see, how many times have you sent—”

“And you may know that I am in earnest when I tell you that I am to pour tea for Nell to-morrow, and everybody will comment on its absence.”

“Do you want me to come over and stay with you to-night, dear?” queried the girl with the dimple in her chin.

“No, thank you, dear. I can just as well talk it over with you now. Of course it was Jack’s fault.”

The girl with the dimple in her chin was silent.

“Well, Emily Marshmallow, I did think that you, of all people, would sympathize with me, and—”

“Look here, Dorothy; of course I sympathize with you, but you remember when you quarreled with Jack the last time I—”

“I remember the last time that Jack quarreled with me,” replied the blue-eyed girl, with dignity.

“Well, I sympathized violently with you, and the consequence was that you wouldn’t speak to me for a month after you made up with him!”

“O, of course, if you really do sympathize with me, I—”

“You might know that. But tell me all about it. Is it that you want a new ring which is too expensive for anything save a peace offering? Or is Edwin coming home on a visit? Or has—”

“Nothing so frivolous, my dear; this is a serious matter. Jack—that is, Mr. Bittersweet, joined a new club without even letting me know that he meant to do it. I shouldn’t have minded if he had only told of it beforehand—”

“Of course not, dear; for then you could have made him give it up!”

“Exactly. Well, when I did find it out, I told him that I plainly saw he did not really love me, and that it was lucky I had discovered the fact before it was too late!”

“How very original you are!” murmured the girl with the dimple in her chin. “Go on, dear.”

“Yes, it is all over and I never was so hap—happy in my life! Where is my hand—handkerchief? I—I got s—something in my eye on the way here, and—”

“Here it is, dear, and let me draw down the window shade, so the light will not hurt your poor eye.”

“You needn’t, dear. I saw them coming up the street a minute or two ago and all I’ve got to say is, that if Jack Bittersweet thinks he can make me jealous by parading up and down with a made-up thing like Frances, he is very much mistaken!”

“I suppose you have coaxed Edwin’s sister to write and tell him that you have broken with Jack?” queried the girl with the dimple in her chin.

“No, I haven’t. I did that last time and he was so unpleasant after we made up!”

“Who was unpleasant? Jack?”

“Of course not, goosie. A man is always nicer than usual just after making up. No, it was Edwin; he—men are so awfully selfish, you know! Just because I was nice to him while I was angry with Jack, he imagined I had treated him badly—did you ever hear of such a thing? How did he ever expect me to bring Jack to his senses in time for the opera season, without a little jealousy as an incentive?”

“Well, you know, men are so awfully vain that he probably thought—”

“That I really liked him? Perhaps he did. I never thought of that. Still, badly as he has behaved, I can’t help a kindly feeling for him. You see, I had such a lovely new gown for the opera and everybody knew that I expected to go often, so—”

“You might even have had to give in and acknowledge that you were wrong, but for Edwin!”

“No, dear,” replied the blue-eyed girl, with great dignity. “Never that. I really expected to marry Jack, you know, and it would never have done to establish such a precedent. How could I ever expect a happy married life, if I began it by acknowledging that I could ever be in the wrong?”

“Very true, dear. By the way, do you think a peep at my lovely new waist would do you any good?”

“You seem to have misunderstood me entirely,” retorted the blue-eyed girl, severely, “I am feeling quite happy. Indeed, I don’t know that I ever felt happier in my life, unless it was the day upon which I was mistaken for my younger sister!”

“But what are you going to do in regard to Jack?”

“Why, Emily Marshmallow, how stupid you are to-day! You seem to imagine that I want to be flattered, like a man, by being asked to explain things. I told you, didn’t I? that Jack and I quarreled about his membership in a new club. Very well, I too, have decided to join a club!”

“Humph, that isn’t a bad idea. But what kind of a club? An Ibsen or a Browning one, I suppose. I notice that men dislike particularly to have us members of really intellectual clubs.”

“Well, I did think of either an Ibsen or a Symphony club, but neither of them just seemed to suit me, so—well, the fact is that I’ve decided to found a club of my own.”

“But even then you can’t always have it to suit you, because the other members—”