Certainly not: the rules of the club forbid anything of
that sort. Every candidate for membership must be nominated by a man
and a woman, who both guarantee that the candidate, if female, is not
womanly, and if male, is not manly.
CRAVEN (chuckling cunningly and stooping to press his heated trousers
against his legs, which are chilly). Won't do, Charteris. Can't take
me in with so thin a story as that.
CUTHBERTSON (vehemently). It's true. It's monstrous, but it's true.
CRAVEN (with rising indignation, as he begins to draw the inevitable
inferences). Do you mean to say that somebody had the audacity to
guarantee that my Julia is not a womanly woman?
CHARTERIS (darkly). It sounds incredible; but a man was found ready to
take that inconceivable lie on his conscience.
JULIA (firing up). If he has nothing worse than that on his
conscience, he may sleep pretty well. In what way am I more womanly
than any of the rest of them, I should like to know? They are always
saying things like that behind my back--I hear of them from Sylvia.
Only the other day a member of the committee said I ought never to
have been elected--that you (to Charteris) had smuggled me in.
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