Not for a moment, I suppose, is a woman ever ignorant of a man's admiration of her, however uncertain she may be of his intentions, and it was with an unusual flutter of the heart that Margaret received Mr. Lyon that afternoon. If she had doubts, they were dissipated by a certain constraint in his manner, and the importance he seemed to be attaching to his departure, and she was warned to go within her defenses. Even the most complaisant women like at least the appearance of a siege. “I'm off tomorrow,” he said, “for Washington. You know you recommended it as necessary to my American education.” “Yes. We send Representatives and strangers there to be educated. I have never been there myself.” “And do you not wish to go?” “Very much. All Americans want to go to Washington. It is the great social opportunity; everybody there is in society. You will be able to see there, Mr. Lyon, how a republican democracy manages social life. “Do you mean to say there are no distinctions?” “Oh, no; there are plenty of official distinctions, and a code that is very curious and complicated, I believe. But still society is open.” “It must be--pardon me--a good deal like a mob.” “Well, our mobs of that sort are said to be very well behaved. Mr. Morgan says that Washington is the only capital in the world where the principle of natural selection applies to society; that it is there shown for the first time that society is able to take care of itself in the free play of democratic opportunities.” “It must be very interesting to see that.” “I hope you will find it so. The resident diplomats, I have heard, say that they find society there more agreeable than at any other capital--at least those who have the qualities to make themselves agreeable independent of their rank.” “Is there nothing like a court? I cannot see who sets the mode.” “Officially there may be something like a court, but it can be only temporary, for the personnel of it is dissolved every four years. And society, always forming and reforming, as the voters of the republic dictate, is almost independent of the Government, and has nothing of the social caste of Berlin or London.” “You make quite an ideal picture.” “Oh, I dare say it is not at all ideal; only it is rather fluid, and interesting, to see how society, without caste and subject to such constant change, can still be what is called 'society.' And I am told that while it is all open in a certain way, it nevertheless selects itself into agreeable groups, much as society does elsewhere. Yes, you ought to see what a democracy can do in this way.” “But I am told that money makes your aristocracy here.”