Flossy gave an embarrassed little laugh. "Yes, that's what I meant. I see you have a good memory, and it sounds nicer on your lips than it would on mine."
"You have come here to-day on purpose to tell me this?" said Selma.
"I thought you would be interested to hear that my cousins had recognized me at last. I remember, you thought it strange that they should take so little notice of me." Flossy's festive manner had disappeared before the tart reception of her confidences, and her keen wits, baffled in their search for flattery, recalled the suspicions which were only slumbering. She realized that Selma was seriously offended with her, and though she did not choose to acknowledge to herself that she knew the cause, she had already guessed it. An encounter at repartee had no terrors for her, if necessary, and the occasion seemed to her opportune for probing the accumulating mysteries of Selma's hostile demeanor. Yet, without waiting for a response to her last remark, she changed the subject, and said, volubly, "I hear that your husband has refused to build the new Parsons house because Mrs. Parsons insisted on drawing the plans."
Selma's pale, tense face flushed. She thought for a moment that she was being taunted.
"That was Mr. Littleton's decision, not mine."
"I admire his independence. He was quite right. What do Mrs. Parsons or her daughter know about architecture? Everybody is laughing at them. You know I consider your husband a friend of mine, Selma."
"And we were friends, too, I believe?" Selma exclaimed, after a moment of stern silence.
"Naturally," responded Flossy, with a slightly sardonic air, prompted by the acerbity with which the question was put.
"Then, if we were friends--are friends, why have you ceased to associate with us, simply because you live in another street and a finer house?"
Flossy gave a gasp. "Oh," she said to herself, "it's true. She is jealous. Why didn't I appreciate it before?"
"Am I not associating with you now by calling on you, Selma?" she said aloud. "I don't understand what you mean."
"You are calling on me, and you asked 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."