"I don't feel I make myself ridiculous, thank you."
"I don't mean you'd ever be undignified, but it is ridiculous for a woman of your attainment and position to take that young Irishman so seriously—a country lawyer. Why, I can't bear to name you in the same breath!"
Eleanor raised her shoulders a little.
"He'll be here in a few minutes."
"Here?" Lydia sprang up. "I'm off then!"
"I wish you wouldn't go. If you saw more of him you'd change your opinion of him."
"If I saw more of him I'd insult him. Send for my car, will you? No, no, Eleanor! I know I'm right about this—really, I am. Some day you'll come to agree with me."
"Or you with me," answered Eleanor, but she rang and ordered Lydia's car.
A few minutes later Lydia was on her way home. It was a day when everything had gone wrong, she thought; but now a cure for the nerves was open to her. The roads were empty at that hour, and her foot pressed the accelerator. She thought that if Eleanor married O'Bannon she would lose her. She would like to prevent it. With most girls she could poison their minds against a man by representing him as ludicrous, but Eleanor was not easily swayed. Lydia wondered if after they were married she could be more successful. She had never hated anyone quite the way she hated O'Bannon. It was fun, in a way, to hate a person. Her spirits began to mount as speed, like a narcotic, soothed her nerves. The road was smooth and new and had stood the winter frosts well. The first spring thaw had deposited on its cement surface a dampness which glistened here and there and made the wheels slip and the car waver like a living thing. This only increased Lydia's pleasure and fixed her attention as on the narrow ribbon of cement she passed an occasional car.
Suddenly as she dashed past a crossroad she caught a glimpse of a motorcycle and a khaki figure already preparing to mount. She turned her head far enough to be sure that it was the same man. She saw him hold up his hand, heard his voice calling to her to stop.