"What new woman? Mrs. Greyson?"

"Yes. Mrs. Frostwinch told me all about it yesterday. Now there is a
young man that we are interested in"--

"Who is 'we'?" interrupted Rangely.

"Oh, Mrs. Frostwinch, and Mrs. Bodewin Ranger, and a number of us."

"But whom have you got on the committee?"

"Mr. Calvin; and don't you see that Mr. Calvin's name in a matter of
art is worth a dozen of the other two."

"Yes," Rangely assented, rather doubtfully, "in the matter of giving
commissions it certainly is."

Mrs. Staggchase smiled indulgently, playing with the ring in which
blazed a splendid ruby, and which she was putting on and off her
finger.

"If you think," she said, "that you are going to entrap me into a
discussion of the merits of art and Philistinism, you are mistaken. I
told you long ago that I was a Philistine of the Philistines,
deliberately and avowedly. The true artistic soul which you delight to
call Pagan is only the servant of Philistinism, and I own that I prefer
to stand with the ruling party. As, indeed," she added, with a
mischievous gleam in her eye, "do many who will not confess it."