and her husband were beginning to receive.  It had not been easy to bear with equanimity during the last year the ingenuous, light-hearted warblings in which Flossy had indulged as an outlet to her triumphant spirits, and to listen to naive recitals of new progress, as though she herself were a companion or ladies’ maid, to whom such developments could never happen.  She was weary of being merely a recipient of confidences and a sympathetic listener, and more weary still of being regarded as such by her self-absorbed and successful neighbor.  Why should Flossy be so dense?  Why should she play second fiddle to Flossy?  Why should Flossy take for granted that she did not intend to keep pace with her?  Keep pace, indeed, when, if circumstances would only shape themselves a little differently, she would be able speedily to outstrip her volatile friend in the struggle for social preferment.

Not unnaturally their friendship had been somewhat strained by the simmering of these thoughts in Selma’s bosom.  If a recipient of confidences becomes tart or cold, ingenuous prattle is apt to flow less spontaneously.  Though Flossy was completely self-absorbed, and consequently glad to pour out her satisfaction into a sympathetic ear, she began to realize that there was something amiss with her friend which mere conscientious disapproval of her own frivolities did not adequately explain.  It troubled her somewhat, for she liked the Littletons and was proud of her acquaintance with them.  However, she was conscious of having acquitted herself toward them with liberality, and, especially now that her social vista was widening, she was not disposed at first to analyze too deeply the cause of the lack of sympathy between them.  That is, she was struck by Selma’s offish manner and frigid silences, but forgot them until they were forced upon her attention the next time they met.  But as her friend continued to receive her bubbling announcements with stiff indifference, Flossy, in her perplexity, began to bend her acute mental faculties more searchingly on her idol.  A fixed point of view will keep a shrine sacred forever, but let a worshipper’s perspective be altered, and it is astonishing how different the features of divinity will appear.  Flossy had worshipped with the eyes of faith.  Now that her adoration was rejected without apparent cause, her curiosity was piqued, and she sought an interpretation of the mystery from her clever wits.  As she observed Selma more dispassionately her suspicion was stirred, and she began to wonder if she had been burning incense before a false goddess.  This doubt was agitating her mind at the time when they moved from the street.