Hillary Clinton at Capitol Hill in Washington DC. (Reuters)

Washington, June 25: Hillary Clinton was taking the elevator up to her Senate office yesterday for the first time since she lost the Democratic presidential nomination when one of her aides, Philippe Reines, warned her about the condition of her office.

In her months-long absence, Reines cautioned: “Things have got a little casual.” The vanquished candidate swung open the door of her private office and found two of her legislative assistants in T-shirts, caps and sunglasses playing at a ping-pong table while the rest of the staff cheered them on. Clinton tossed her head back with her famous laughter, then sat on the couch to watch Mike Szymanski score match point against colleague Ann Gavaghan.

The girl had lost — again! To the ping-pong loser, Clinton had some empathetic advice. “Ann,” she said, “you have to be very gracious in defeat.”

It was a lesson Clinton learned at great cost in her extended battle with Barack Obama. But as she returned in defeat to her old home in the Senate yesterday, she was received as if in triumph. And, in a sense, her stature had increased during the failed primary battle: She left as a legislator but returned as the leader of an 18 million-strong movement of women and working-class voters — a group whose support Clinton’s Democratic colleagues fervently desire.

And so, as Clinton entered a private luncheon in the Capitol, these colleagues greeted her with cheers, hugs and high-fives. “It’s great to be here among my colleagues,” Clinton teased, “just another regular, plain old superdelegate.”

Among the well-wishers was Senator John F. Kerry, the failed Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, who had some hard-won advice for Clinton. “Compartmentalise,” he recommended.

Kerry knew what he was talking about. Two hundred journalists, interns and others awaited her arrival at the carriage entrance outside the Senate chamber yesterday. A Senate official tried to keep order among the cameras, boom microphones and shotgun-wielding cops: “I need media credentials out! I need a space for her!”