It was one of those mild days that make you think March is really a spring month. Eleanor did not like to drive fast; and Lydia, with unusual thoughtfulness, remembered her friend's wishes and drove at a moderate pace. That was one way to tell if Lydia was really fond of anyone—if she showed the sort of consideration that most people are brought up to show to all human beings. The two women gossiped like schoolgirls.
"Was Bobby too wonderful in his costume?"
"My dear, I wish you could have seen him. May Swayne made really rather a goose of herself about him."
"Yes"—this thoughtfully from Lydia—"she always does when I'm not there to protect him. And Fanny—was her Cleopatra as comic as it sounded?"
Eleanor wanted to know about Lydia's experiences—the hearing, Washington. Lydia told how magnificently the governor had defended himself, and added nothing at first about the less desirable aspects of his character. She thought this reserve arose from loyalty, but the fact that the governor was generally considered to be her own property made her feel that to criticize him was to cheapen her own assets. But she had great confidence in Eleanor, and by the time they had sat down to lunch alone together she found herself launched on the whole story of the impression Albee had made upon her. So interested, indeed, was she in the narrative that when toward the end of luncheon Eleanor was called to the telephone she hardly noticed the incident, except as it was an interruption. She sat going over it all in her mind during the few minutes that Eleanor was away, and the instant Eleanor came back she resumed what she was saying.
Eleanor was a satisfactory listener. She did not begin scolding you, telling you what you ought to have done before you had half finished. She did not allow herself to be reminded of adventures of her own and snatch the narrative away from you. She sat silent but alert, conveying by something neither words nor motion that she followed every intricacy.
Her comment was, "I feel rather sorry for Albee."
"You mean you don't think he's a worm?" Lydia was genuinely surprised.
"Oh, yes, I think he is just as you represent him! I feel sorry for people whose faults make them comic and defenseless. After all, Albee has great abilities. You don't care a bit for those, because he turns out not to be perfect. And who are you, my dear, to demand perfection?"
"I don't! I don't," cried Lydia eagerly. "Oh, Eleanor, men are fortunate! Apparently they can fall in love without a bit respecting you—all the more if they don't—but a woman must believe a man has something superior about him, if it is only his wickedness. I don't demand perfection—not a bit—but I do ask that a man's faults should not be contemptible faults; that he should have some force and snap; that he should be at least a man."