She was so occupied with him in this character that almost all the other distinguished people who attended the _soiree_ of the Arcadia Club escaped her.

Golightly asked her reproachfully afterward how he could possibly have pointed them out to her, absorbed as she was--and some of them would have been so pleased to be introduced to her! She met a few notwithstanding; they were chiefly rather elderly unmarried ladies, who immediately mentioned to her the paper they were connected with, and one or two of them, learning that she was a newcomer, kindly gave her their cards, and asked her to come and see them any second Tuesday.

They had indefinite and primitive ideas of doing their hair, and they were certainly _mal tournee_; but Elfrida saw that she made an impression on them--that they would remember her and talk of her; and seeing that, other things became less noteworthy.

She felt that these ladies were more or less emancipated, on easy terms with the facts of life, free from the prejudices that tied the souls of people she saw shopping at the Stores, for instance.

That, and a familiarity with the exigencies of copy at short notice, was discernible in the way they talked and looked about them, and the readiness with which they produced a pencil to write the second Tuesday on their cards.