"Often! No, there wouldn't be any question then."
"She's been perfectly charming at the Emmonses'—gay and friendly, and everyone crazy about her. And by the way, Eleanor, I didn't say O'Bannon was a drunkard."
"Of course you didn't," said Eleanor.
"But he used to go on the most smashing sprees in college, and I told her about one of those and made her promise not to tell."
"A lot that would influence Lydia."
The car was at the door now, and as he put her into it he asked, "Oh, don't you feel so sorry for her sometimes that you could almost weep over her?"
"I certainly do not!" said Eleanor.
Turning from the front door, Bobby ran upstairs and knocked at Miss Bennett's door. He found her sunk in an enormous chair, looking very pathetic and more like an unhappy child than a middle-aged woman.
"It isn't bearable," she said. "Life under these conditions is too disagreeable. I don't complain of her never noticing all the little sacrifices one makes—all the trouble one takes for her sake. But when she's absolutely rude—just vulgarly, grossly rude as she was this evening——"
"Miss Bennett," said Bobby seriously, "when things go wrong with women they cry, and when things go wrong with men they swear. Lydia takes a little from both sexes. These outbursts are her equivalent for feminine tears or masculine profanity."