ked us to dinner to meet--to meet just
the people we knew already, and didn't care to meet; but you have never
asked us to meet your new friends, and you left us out when you gave
your dancing party."

"You do not dance."

"How do you know?"

"I have never associated you with dancing. I assumed that you did not
dance."

"What grounds had you for such an assumption?"

"Really, Selma, your catechism is most extraordinary. Excuse my smiling.
And I don't know how to answer your questions--your fierce questions any
better. I didn't ask you to my party because I supposed that you and
your husband were not interested in that sort of thing, and would not
know any of the people. You have often told me that you thought they
were frivolous."

"I consider them so still."

"Then why do you complain?"

"Because--because you have not acted like a friend. Your idea of
friendship has been to pour into my ears, day after day, how you had
been asked to dinner by this person and taken up by that person, until I
was weary of the sound of your voice, but it seems not to have occurred
to you, as a friend of mine, and a friend and admirer of my husband, to
introduce us to people whom you were eager to know, and who might have
helped him in his profession. And now, after turning the cold shoulder
on us, and omitting us from your party, because you assumed I didn't
dance, you have come here this morning, in the name of friendship, to
tell me that your cousins, at last, have invited you to dinner. And yet
you think it strange that I'm not interested. That's the only reason you
came--to let me know that you are a somebody now; and you expected me,
as a friend and a nobody, to tell you how glad I am."

Flossy's eyes opened wide. Free as she was accustomed to be in her own
utterances, this flow of bitter speech delivered with seer-like
intensity was a new experience to her. She did not know whether to be
angry or amused by the indictment, which caused her to wince
notwithstanding that she deemed it slander. Moreover the insinuation
that she had been a bore was humiliating.

"I shall not weary you soon again with my confidences," she answered.
"So it appears that you were envious of me all the time--that while you
were preaching to me that fashionable society was hollow and
un-American, you were secretly unhappy because you couldn't do what I
was doing--because you weren't invited, too. Oh, I see it all now; it's
clear as daylight. I've