hostess

Everyone was too surprised to speak except Lady Constance, who was adamant about performing her duties as a hostess, despite the fact that she was swinging from a chandelier and had only recently stopped screaming.

But at age 47, Pelosi had never held public office — she was too busy raising five kids, on top of all that political moving and shaking — and opponents made light of role as hostess.

“Why don’t you rest for a few minutes in the hostess’s bedroom?”

“I remember going to one party with a lot of CEOs and big, big, big business guys and, the hostess was serving a butternut squash soup,” Stewart recounted.

The new tension is there in just a few whispers, as when Hedda overhears a guest murmur that their hostess is “duskier than I thought she would be.”