When she now and then gathered at an afternoon tea a handful of people
whose names she was proud to have reported in the society papers, she
did it by securing a lion of literary or of theatrical fame, whose
unwary feet she entangled in her cunningly laid snares before he knew
anything about social conditions in Boston. There were many people,
moreover, who would go to see a celebrity at a house like that of Mrs.
Sampson much as they would have gone to the theatre, when they would
have received neither the guest of honor nor the hostess, the latter of
whom, to their thinking, stood for the time being much in the position
of stage manager.
Mrs. Sampson never set herself to a problem like this without a feeling
of bitterness. To consider what woman of any standing could be induced
to eat her salt brought her true social position before her with
painful vividness. She could not, in face of the facts which then
forced themselves upon her, shut her eyes to the truth that her painful
struggles for position had been pretty nearly fruitless. She did now
and then get an invitation to a crush in a desirable house, some over-
sensitive woman who had been to stare at one of Mrs. Sampson's captures
thus discharging her debt, and at the same time virtually wiping her
hands of all intercourse with the dashing widow. As for asking her to
their tables or going to hers, everybody understood that that was not
to be thought of.
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