be satisfied until one thing happened?  Well, you may congratulate me; it has happened.  We dined a week ago to-night with my cousins—­the Morton Prices—­a dinner of fourteen, all of them just the people I wished to know.  Wasn’t it lovely?  I have waited for it to come, and I haven’t moved a finger to bring it about, except to ask them to my dancing party—­I had to do that, for after all they are my relations.  They accepted and came and I was pleased by it; but they could easily have ignored me afterward if they had wished.  What really pleased me, Selma, was their asking me to one of their select dinners, because—­because it showed that we are—­”

Flossy’s hesitation was due partly to the inherent difficulty of expressing her thought with proper regard for modesty.  With her rise in life she had learned that unlimited laudation of self was not altogether consistent with “fitness,” even in such a confidential interview as the present.  But she was also disconcerted by the look in Selma’s eyes—­a look which, at first startled into momentary friendliness by the suddenness of the onslaught, had become more and more lowering until it was unpleasantly suggestive of scornful dislike.  While she thus faltered, Selma drily rounded out the sentence with the words, “Because it showed that you are somebodies now.”

Flossy gave an embarrassed little laugh.  “Yes, that’s what I meant.  I see you have a good memory, and it sounds nicer on your lips than it would on mine.”

“You have come here to-day on purpose to tell me this?” said Selma.

“I thought you would be interested to hear that my cousins had recognized me at last.  I remember, you thought it strange that they should take so little notice of me.”  Flossy’s festive manner had disappeared before the tart reception of her confidences, and her keen wits, baffled in their search for flattery, recalled the suspicions which were only slumbering.  She realized that Selma was seriously offended with her, and though she did not choose to acknowledge to herself that she knew the cause, she had already guessed it.  An encounter at repartee had no terrors for her, if necessary, and the occasion seemed to her opportune for probing the accumulating mysteries of Selma’s hostile demeanor.  Yet, without waiting for a response to her last remark, she changed the subject, and said, volubly, “I hear that your husband has refused to build the new Parsons house because Mrs. Parsons insisted on drawing the plans.”

Selma’s pale, tense face flushed.  She thought for a moment that she was being taunted.

“That was Mr. Littleton’s decision, not mine.”

“I admire his independence.  He was quite right.  What do Mrs. Parsons or her daughter know about architecture?  Everybody is laughing at them.  You know I consider your husband a friend of mine, Selma.”

“And we were friends, too, I believe?” Selma exclaimed, after a moment of stern silence.