aimlessly followed on her husband's arm. She was
suspicious of the device of courtesying. Why had not the President's
wife and the Cabinet ladies shaken hands with her and given her an
opportunity to make their acquaintance? Could it be that the
administration was aping foreign manners and adopting effete and
aristocratic usages?

"What do we do now?" she asked of Lyons as they drifted along.

"I'd like to find Horace Elton and introduce him to you. I caught a
glimpse of him further on just before we reached the President. Horace
knows all the ropes and can tell us who everybody is."

Selma had heard her husband refer to Horace Elton on several occasions
in terms of respectful and somewhat mysterious consideration. She had
gathered in a general way that he was a far reaching and formidable
power in matters political and financial, besides being the president
and active organizer of the energetic corporation known as the
Consumers' Gas Light Company of their own state. As they proceeded she
kept her eyes on the alert for a man described by Lyons as short,
heavily built, and neat looking, with small side whiskers and a
close-mouthed expression. When they were not far from the door of exit
from the East room, some one on the edge of the procession accosted her
husband, who drew her after him in that direction. Selma found herself
in a sort of eddy occupied by half a dozen people engaged in observing
the passing show, and in the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Gregory Williams.
It was Mr. Williams who had diverted them. He now renewed his
acquaintance with her, exclaiming--"My wife insisted that she had met
you driving with some one she believed to be your husband. I had heard
that Congressman Lyons was on his bridal tour, and now everything is
clear. Flossy, you were right as usual, and it seems that our hearty
congratulations are in order to two old friends."

Williams spoke with his customary contagious confidence. Selma noted
that he was stouter and that his hair was becomingly streaked with gray.
Had not her attention been on the lookout for his wife she might have
noticed that his eye wore a restless, strained expression despite his
august banker's manner and showy gallantry. She did observe that the
moment he had made way for Flossy he turned to Lyons and began to talk
to him in a subdued tone under the guise of watching the procession.

The two women confronted each other with spontaneous forgetfulness of
the past. T