"No, but I was going to ask--"

"Yes, I am coming to it, coming to it as fast as I can. It is my first
visit. I think you should know that yourself."

And straightway a wave of the crowd swept her beyond his reach.

"Now what can the girl mean? Of course she likes Washington--I'm not
such a dummy as to have to ask her that. And as to its being her first
visit, why bang it, she knows that I knew it was. Does she think I have
turned idiot? Curious girl, anyway. But how they do swarm about her!
She is the reigning belle of Washington after this night. She'll know
five hundred of the heaviest guns in the town before this night's
nonsense is over. And this isn't even the beginning. Just as I used to
say--she'll be a card in the matter of--yes sir! She shall turn the
men's heads and I'll turn the women's! What a team that will be in
politics here. I wouldn't take a quarter of a million for what I can do
in this present session--no indeed I wouldn't. Now, here--I don't
altogether like this. That insignificant secretary of legation is--why,
she's smiling on him as if he--and now on the Admiral! Now she's
illuminating that, stuffy Congressman from Massachusetts--vulgar
ungrammatcal shovel-maker--greasy knave of spades. I don't like this
sort of thing. She doesn't appear to be much distressed about me--she
hasn't looked this way once. All right, my bird of Paradise, if it suits
you, go on. But I think I know your sex. I'll go to smiling around a
little, too, and see what effect that will have on you"

And he did "smile around a little," and got as near to her as he could to
watch the effect, but the scheme was a failure--he could not get her
attention. She seemed wholly unconscious of him, and so he could not