"If you say things like that, Mr. President," interjected Lyons, "you will turn her head; she will become a Republican, and then where should I be?"
While she perceived that the President was still inclined to levity, the compliment pleased Selma. Yet, though she appreciated that her husband was merely humoring him by his reply, she did not like the suggestion that any flattery could affect her principles. She shook her head coquettishly and said:
"James, I'm sure the President thinks too well of American women to believe that any admiration, however gratifying, would make me lukewarm in devotion to my party."
This speech appeared to her apposite and called for, and she departed in high spirits, which were illuminated by the thought that the administration was not wholly to be trusted.
On the following evening Selma went to the reception at the White House. The process of arrival was trying to her patience, for they were obliged to await their turn in the long file of carriages. She could not but approve of the democratic character of the entertainment, which anyone who desired to behold and shake hands with the Chief Magistrate was free to attend. Still, it again crossed her mind that, as an official's wife, she ought to have been given precedence. Their turn to alight came at last, and they took their places in the procession of visitors on its way through the East room to the spot where the President and his wife, assisted by some of the ladies of the Cabinet, were submitting to the ordeal of receiving the nation. There was a veritable crush, in which there was every variety of evening toilette, a display essentially in keeping with the doctrines which Selma felt that she stood for. She took occasion to rejoice in Lyons's ear at the realization of her anticipations in this respect. At the same time she was agreeably stimulated by the belief that her wedding dress was sumptuous and stylish, and her appearance striking. Her hair had been dressed as elaborately as possible; she wore all her jewelry; and she carried a bouquet of costly roses. Her wish was to regard the function as the height of social demonstration, and she had spared no pains to make herself effective. She had esteemed it her duty to do so both as a Congressman's wife and as a champion of moral and democratic ideas.
The crowd was oppressive, and three times the train of her dress was stepped on to her discomfiture. Amid the sea of faces she recognized a few of the people she had seen at the hotel. It struck her that no one of the women was dressed so elegantly as herself, an observation which cheered her and yet was not without its thorn. But the music, the lights, and the variegated movement of the scene kept her senses absorbed and interfered with introspection, until at last they were close to the receiving party. Selma fixed her eyes on the President, expecting recognition. Like her husband, the President possessed a gift of faces and the faculty of rallying all his energies to the important task of remembering who people were. An usher asked and announced the names, but the Chief Magistrate's perceptions were kept hard at work. His "How do you do, Congressman Lyons? I am very glad to see you here, Mrs. Lyons," were uttered with a smiling spontaneity, which to his own soul meant a momentary agreeable relaxation of the nerves of memory, resembling the easy flourish with which a gymnast engaged in lifting heavy weights encounters a wooden dumb-bell. But though his eyes and voice were flattering, Selma had barely completed the little bob of a courtesy which accompanied her act of shaking hands when she discovered that the machinery of the national custom was not to halt on their account, and that she must proceed without being able to renew the half flirtatious interview of the previous day. She proceeded to courtesy to the President's wife and to the row of wives of members of the Cabinet who were assisting. Before she could adequately observe them, she found herself beyond and a part once more of a heterogeneous crush, the current of which she 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.