(6 of 7)
When 14 French interior decorators swept down to redo its rooms, Mamie remained unawed, and directed their efforts with a firm hand. The results were applauded even by the French. So were her efforts as chatelaine and hostess. At Marnes-la-Coquette, as always, Mamie entertained her old friends as if they were all still young, usually ended up playing the piano while they sang. One New Year's Eve she produced hog jowl and black-eyed peas for a staff dinner: they would, she assured her guests, bring good luck for the coming year. She also entertained scores of military leaders and notables in less colloquial fashion.
Canasta & the Queen. During her tour in Paris she traveled in England, Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Holland, Belgium and Denmark. Prime Minister Clement Attlee was her dinner partner at a banquet in London; she lunched with Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard at The Hague and chatted about canasta with her royal hostess. She met Norway's King Haakon in Oslo, saw the British royal family several times in Britain.
After such a background, it seems doubtful that Mamie will be very much awed, although she might still be a little puzzled, by the vast, restless human conglomerate which is Washington society. In a sense it is composed of three rough segments, two of which are continually melting and running and dripping names into each other's cocktail parties and one of which is so deeply buried beneath the cool loam of self-esteem that it is generally all but invisible.
Segment One is official society: Senators, Cabinet members, foreign diplomats, Supreme Court Justices and other officials of Government, each of whom is granted a brass check of social importance when he takes office and generally must surrender it when he leaves. As First Lady, Mamie gets the biggest brass check of all and would rule unchallenged over officialdom if she served boiled dandelion stems at state dinners and introduced roller skating at state receptions.
The Remarkable Covey. Segment Two is composed of the capital's remarkable covey of rich lady climbers and clingers-who capitalize on the fact that Washington is a city almost without nightclubs, theaters or good restaurants. They lure big names by the dozen through the simple promise of good food and entertainment and by plainly implying that no social debt is incurred in accepting. In recent years, most of them, by the very nature of their guests, have been "Democratic" hostesses; last week their faces were turned toward Mamie like diamond-studded sunflowers swiveling east at dawn in search of warmth and sustenance.
Mrs. Eisenhower has given no indication at all as to how she will react to these odd political heliotropes. If she wishes, she may create new "Republican" hostesses simply by conferring favor. She may give the old models new luster by the same process. Though even a -. direct snub would hardly kill such hardy and well-rooted plants in the Washington of 1953, few of them seemed to be taking any chances.