She stood for a moment, sipping at the long, cool glass and listening to hear Miss Bennett's footsteps growing more and more distant; listening, too, for a footstep in the street.
In the drawing-room the firelight was already leaping up, outdoing the light of the shaded lamps. Left alone, Lydia slipped off her opera cloak very softly, as if she did not want to make the smallest noise that would interfere with her listening. The house was quiet, and even the noise of the city was beginning to die down. The steady roar of traffic returning from the theater was almost over. Now and then she could hear a Fifth Avenue bus rolling along on its heavy rubber tires; now and then the slamming of a motor door as some of her neighbors returned from an evening's amusement.
She bent over the fire trying to warm her hands. They were like ice, and it must have been from cold, not excitement, she thought, for her mind felt as calm as a well. She turned the little clock—all lilac enamel and rhinestones—so that she could watch it's tiny face. It was a quarter to twelve. She clenched her hands. Did he intend to keep her waiting?
She started, for the door had softly opened. Miss Bennett entered in one of her gorgeous dressing gowns of crimson satin and bright-blue birds.
"Dear child," she said, "you ought to be in bed."
"I'm waiting for someone who's coming to see me, Benny; and as he may be here at any minute, and I don't suppose you want to be caught in your present costume——"
Miss Bennett lifted her shoulders.
"Oh, at my age!" she said. "After all, what is the use of having lovely dressing gowns if no one ever sees them?"
"It's Dan O'Bannon that's coming," said Lydia, "and I want to see him alone."
"O'Bannon coming here! But, Lydia, you can't see him alone—at this hour. Why, it's midnight!"