"Well," she said, "my party seems to have broken up early."
"Broken's the word," answered Bobby.
"Isn't Eleanor absurd?" said Lydia. "She loves so to be superior—'Order my carriage'—like the virtuous duchess in a melodrama."
"She doesn't seem absurd to me," said Bobby.
"Oh, you've been tiptoeing about binding up everybody's wounds, I suppose," she answered. "Did you tell them that you knew I didn't mean a word I said? Ah, yes, I see you did. Well, I did mean every single word, and more. Upon my word, I wish you'd mind your own business, Bobby."
"I will," said Bobby, and got up and left the room.
He went out and walked quickly up and down the flat stones under the grape arbor. The moon was not up, and the stars twinkled fiercely in the crisp cool air. He thought of other women—lovelier and kinder than Lydia. What kept him in this bondage to her? All the time he was asking the question he was aware of her image in her orange tea gown against the dark woodwork of the room, and suddenly, before he knew it—certainly before he had made any resolve to return—he was back in the doorway, saying,
"Would you like to play a game of piquet?"
She nodded, and they sat down at the card table. Bobby's faint resentment had gone in ten minutes, but it was longer before Lydia, laying down her cards, said, as if they had just been talking about her misdeeds instead of merely thinking about them, "But Benny is awfully obstinate, isn't she? I mean the way she goes on doing things the way she thinks I ought to like them instead of finding out the way I do like."
"She's very sweet—Benny is."