Book excerpt: THE STORY: A group of club-women try to entertain a high-hat woman novelist. Everything goes wrong, and the poor women are in despair trying to make conversation. One member, to show up the bluffs of the novelist and her own fellow-members, starts everyone talking about Xingu. No one knows what this is, but no one will admit it. During the squabble the novelist slips away with the woman who mentioned it-or him-and the others are forced to ask the maid, who knows of course that Xingu is a river!