Wistfully watching Washington's eternal cycle

“This is odd,” said a well-known writer, looking around and taking a sip of his cocktail. “I barely recognize anyone.” A woman in lavender chiffon beside him smiled, and said with mock outrage: “I know! Who are all these people?”

“Young,” supplied a second woman a little incoherently, tugging ever so slightly self-consciously at the lapels of her brocade jacket. She did not elaborate. Her husband, a white-haired elder statesman, stood a short distance away in a knot of other old bulls, in grave conversation.