O'Bannon simply turned from her, and holding up his hand to the shifty-eyed boy said clearly, "I'll see you now, Gray."
There was nothing for Lydia to do but accept her dismissal. She flounced out of the room, and all the way home in the car shocked Miss Bennett by her epithets. "Insolent country lout" was the mildest of them.
A few days afterward Miss Thorne moved back to New York to the house in the East Seventies. Miss Bennett, who hated the country, partly because there she was more under Lydia's thumb, rejoiced at being back in New York. She had many friends—was much more personally popular than her charge—and in town she could see them more easily. Every morning after she had finished her housekeeping she went out and walked round the reservoir. She liked to walk, planting her little feet as precisely as if she were dancing or skating. Then there was usually some necessary shopping for Lydia or the house or herself; then luncheon, and afterward for an hour or two her own work. She was a member of endless committees, entertainments for charitable purposes, hospital boards, reform associations. Then before five she was at home, behind the tea table, waiting on Lydia, engaged in getting rid of people whom Lydia didn't want to see and keeping those whom Lydia would want to see but had forgotten. And then dinner—at home if Lydia was giving a party; but most often both women dined out.
The winter was notable for Lydia's sudden friendship or flirtation, or affair as it was variously described, with Stephen Albee, the ex-governor of a great state. It would have seemed more natural if he had been one of Eleanor's discoveries, but he was not—he was Lydia's own find. Eleanor, with all her airs of a young old maid, had never been known to distinguish any man lacking in the physical attractions of youth. Albee, though he had been a fine-looking man once and still had a certain magnificent leonine appearance, was over fifty and showed his years. He had come to New York to conduct an important Federal investigation, and the masterly manner in which he was doing it led to presidential prophecies. Lydia's friends were beginning to murmur that it would be just like Lydia to end in the White House. Besides, the governor was rich, the owner of silver mines and a widower. It was noticed that Lydia was more respectful to him than she had ever been to anyone, followed his lead intellectually, and quoted him to the verge of being comic.
"It is painful to me," Eleanor said, "to watch the process of Lydia's discovering politics. Last Monday the existence of the Federal constitution dawned upon her, and next week states' rights may emerge."
It was equally painful to the governor's old friends to watch the even less graceful process of his discovery of social life. The two friends adventured mutually. If Lydia sat all day listening to his investigation, he appeared hardly less regularly in her opera box.
Oddly enough, they had met at a prison-reform luncheon given by the same noble women whose presence at her house had so much irritated Lydia. The object of the luncheon was to advertise the cause, to inspire workers, to raise money. Albee was the principal speaker, not because he had any special interest in prison reform, but because he was the most conspicuous public figure in New York at the moment, and as he was known not to be an orator, everyone was eager to hear him speak. Mrs. Galton, the chairman of the meeting, was shocked by his reactionary views on prisons when he expounded them to her in an attempt to evade her invitation; but with the sound worldliness which every reformer must acquire she knew that his name was far more important to her cause than his views, and with a little judicious flattery she roped him into promising he would come and say a few words—not, he specially insisted, a speech. Mrs. Galton agreed, knowing that no speaker in the world, certainly no masculine speaker, could resist the appeal of a large, warm, admiring audience when once he got to his feet. "The only difficulty will be stopping him," she thought rather sadly. It would be wise, too, she thought, to put someone next to him at luncheon who would please him. Flattery from an ugly old woman like herself wouldn't be enough. Then she remembered Lydia, whom, after their unfortunate meeting at luncheon in the autumn, she had taken through one of the men's prisons in an effort to enlist the girl's coöperation. They had had conferences over Evans too, for Lydia had not remained utterly indifferent to Evans' situation, had indeed permitted, even urged, Miss Bennett to go to visit the girl and see what could be done for her.
Miss Thorne accepted the invitation to attend the luncheon; and then, as cold-bloodedly as a diplomat might make use of a lovely courtesan, Mrs. Galton put her next to the great man at the speakers' table, where of course so young, idle and useless a person had no right to be.
The governor arrived very late, with his fingers in his waistcoat pocket to indicate to all who saw him hurrying in between the crowded tables that he had been unavoidably detained and had spent the last half hour in agonized contemplation of his watch. As a matter of fact, he had been reading the papers at his club, wishing to cut down the hour of too much food and too much noise which he knew would precede the hour of too much speaking. He knew he would sit next to Mrs. Galton, whom he esteemed as a wise and good philanthropist but dreaded as a companion.
Everything began as he feared. He took his place on Mrs. Galton's right, with an apology for having been detained—unavoidably. It had looked at one time as if he could not get there, but of course his feeling for the great work——