This was amiable, particularly as Flossy was very busily engaged in contemplating the brilliant progress of Gregory Williams and his wife. But Selma returned home feeling sore and dissatisfied. Flossy had been gracious, but still dense and naïvely condescending. Selma chose to foresee that her friend would neglect her, and her foresight was correct. The call was not returned for many weeks, although Flossy had assured her when they separated that distance would make no difference in their intimacy. But in the first place, her doubts recurred to Flossy after the departure of her visitor, and in the second, the agitations incident to her new surroundings, fortified by these doubts, made neglect easy. When she did call, Selma happened to be out. A few days later an invitation to dine with the Williamses arrived. Selma would have preferred to remain at home as a rebuke, but she was miserably conscious that Flossy would not perceive the point of the refusal. So she went, and was annoyed when she realized that the guests were only people whom she knew already--the Parsonses, and some of Gregory Williams's former associates, whom she had met at the old house. It was a pleasant dinner, apparently, to all except Selma. The entertainment was flatteringly lavish, and both the host and hostess with suavity put in circulation, under the rose, the sentiment that there are no friends like old friends--a graceful insincerity which most of them present accepted as true. Indeed, in one sense it was not an insincerity, for Gregory and his wife entertained cordial feelings toward them all. But on the other hand, Selma's immediate and bitter conclusion was also true, that the company had been invited together for the reason that, in the opinion of Flossy, they would not have harmonized well with anyone else. Said Wilbur as they drove away from the house--"Barring a few moments of agony in the society of my tormentor, Mrs. Parsons, I had a pleasant evening. They were obviously potting their old acquaintance in one pie, but to my thinking it was preferable to being sandwiched in between some of their new friends whom we do not know and who know nothing of us. It was a little evident, but on the whole agreeable." Selma, shrouded in her wraps, made no reply at first. Suddenly she exclaimed, with, fierceness, "I consider it rank impertinence. It was as much as to say that they do not think us good enough to meet their new friends." Littleton, who still found difficulty in remembering that his wife would not always enjoy the humor of an equivocal situation, was sorry that he had spoken. "Come, Selma," he said, "there's no use in taking that view of the matter. You would not really care to meet the other people." "Yes, I would, and she knows it. I shall never enter her house again."