As they were waiting in the crowded lobby of the Thirty-ninth Street entrance—all the faces above velvets and furs peering out and all the footmen's faces peering in and everyone chattering and shouting and so little apparently accomplished in the way of clearing the crowd—Albee said: "Mrs. Little has asked me to dine on the sixteenth."
Lydia caught something complaisant in the tone. The idea that he could be flattered by such an invitation was distasteful to her.
"Did you accept?" she asked in a cold tone that she tried to make noncommittal.
Fortunately politics had taught Albee caution. He had not accepted. He had said that he would let the great lady know in the morning.
"Do you think that sort of thing will amuse you?"
He answered that it would amuse him if she were going, and against her better judgment she allowed herself to believe that the eagerness in his voice had been occasioned by the promised opportunity of seeing her.
The fancy ball was more serious. The Pulsifers were giving it in their great ballroom just before Lent. Lydia and Miss Bennett were discussing costumes one afternoon at tea time when Albee was announced. Lydia had been at his investigation that morning, and had never admired him more.
"It's the Pulsifers we're talking about," said Miss Bennett as he entered. "Lydia wants to be a Japanese, but there'll be lots of them. I want her to go as an American Indian."
With a vivid recollection of him deciding a struggle that morning between two lawyers, Lydia felt ashamed, humbled, that she should be presented to him as occupied with such a subject as a fancy costume. His voice cut in.
"Oh, yes, the Pulsifers! I had a card this morning." It was the same complaisant tone—as if it mattered whether he had or not.