“Are the friends with whom you are staying connected with the Government?” Selma asked airily.

“Official people?  Goodness, no.  But I can point out to you who everybody is, for we have been in Washington frequently during the last three sessions.  Gregory has to run over here on business every now and then, and I almost always come with him.  To-night is the opportunity to see the queer people in all their glory—­the woolly curiosities, as Gregory calls them.  And a sprinkling of the real celebrities too,” she added.

Selma’s inquiry had been put with a view to satisfy herself that Flossy’s friends were mere civilians.  But she was glad of an opportunity to be enlightened as to the names of her fellow-officials, though she resented Flossy’s flippant tone regarding the character of the entertainment.  While she listened to the breezy, running commentary by which Flossy proceeded to identify for her benefit the conspicuous figures in the procession she nursed her offended sensibilities.

“I should suppose,” she said, taking advantage of a pause, “that on such an occasion as this everybody worth knowing would be present.”

Flossy gave Selma one of her quick glances.  She had not forgotten the past, nor her discovery of the late Mrs. Littleton’s real grievance against her and the world.  Nor did she consider that her husband’s caveat debarred her from the amusement of worrying the wife of the Hon. James O. Lyons, provided it could be done by means of the truth ingenuously uttered.  She said with a confidential smile—­

“The important and the interesting political people have other opportunities to meet one another—­at dinner parties and less promiscuous entertainments than this, and the Washington people have other opportunities to meet them.  Of course the President is a dear, and everyone makes a point of attending a public reception once in a while, but this sort of thing isn’t exactly an edifying society event.  For instance, notice the woman in the pomegranate velvet with two diamond sprays in her hair.  That’s the wife of Senator Colman—­his child wife, so they call her.  She came to Washington six years ago as the wife of a member of the House from one of the wild and woolly States, and was notorious then in the hotel corridors on account of her ringletty raven hair and the profusion of rings she wore.  She used to make eyes at the hotel guests and romp with her husband’s friends in the hotel parlors, which was the theatre of her social activities.  Her husband died, and a year ago she married old Senator Colman, old enough to be her grandfather, and one of the very rich and influential men in the Senate.  Now she has developed social ambition and is anxious to entertain.  They have hired a large house for the winter and are building a larger one.  As Mrs. Polsen—­that was her first husband’s name—­she was invited nowhere except to wholesale official functions like this.  The wife of a United States Senator with plenty of money can generally attract a following; she is somebody.  And it happens that people are amused by Mrs. Cohnan’s eccentricities.  She still overdresses, and makes eyes, and she nudges those who sit next her at table, but she is good-natured, says whatever comes into her head, and has a strong sense of humor.  So she is getting on.”