"A hat—any hat, Evans."
She pulled it on with one quick, level glance in the glass, and was gone with the bracelet, half forgotten, on her arm.
During the few minutes that Lydia had been upstairs a conflict had gone on in the mind of Miss Bennett downstairs. Should she be offended or should she be superior? Was it more dignified to be angry because she really could not allow herself to be treated like that? Or should she forgive because she was obviously so much older and wiser than Lydia?
She decided—as she always did—in favor of forgiveness, and as she heard Lydia's quick light footsteps crossing the hall she called out, "Don't drive the little car too fast!"
"Not over sixty," Lydia's voice answered.
As she sprang into the gray runabout waiting at the door with its front wheels turned invitingly outward, pressed on the self-starter with her foot, slid the gears in without a sound, it looked as if she intended her reply to be taken literally. But the speedometer registered only thirty on her own drive—thirty-five as she straightened out on the highway. As she said, she never drove fast without a good reason.
Like most people of her type and situation, Lydia was habitually late. The reason she gave to herself was that she crowded a little more activity into the twenty-four hours than those who managed to be on time. But the true reason was that she preferred to be waited for rather than to run any risk of waiting herself. It seemed a distinct humiliation to her that she should await anyone else's convenience. To-day, however, she had a motive for being on time—that is to say, not more than twenty minutes late. They were going to play bridge at Eleanor's and Bobby would be there; and for some reason she never understood it fussed Bobby if she were late and everyone began abusing her behind her back; and if Bobby were fussed he lost money, and he couldn't afford to lose it. She hated Bobby to lose money—minded it for him more than he minded it for himself.
One of the facts that she saw most clearly in regard to her own life was that the man she married must be a man of importance, not only because her friends expected that of her but because she needed a purpose, a heightened interest—a great man in her life. Yet strangely enough the only men to whom her heart had ever softened were idle, worthless men, of whom Bobby was only a sample. Among women she liked the positive qualities—courage, brilliance, achievement; but among men she seemed to have selected those who needed a strong controlling hand upon their destiny. Benny said it was the maternal in her, but less friendly critics said it was the boss. Perhaps the two are not so dissociated as is generally thought. Lydia repudiated the maternal explanation without finding another. Only she knew that the very thing that made her fond of men like Bobby prevented her falling in love with them; whereas the men with whom it seemed possible to fall in love were men with whom she always quarreled, so that instead of love there was not even friendship.
Some years before she had been actually engaged to be married—though the engagement had never been announced—to an Englishman, a thin, hawk-faced man, the Marquis of Ilseboro. She was not in love with him, though he was a man with whom women did fall in love. Benny had been crazy about him. He was companionable in a silent sort of way, made love to her with extreme assurance and knew a great deal about life and women.
But from the very first their two wills had clashed in small matters—in questions of invitations, manners, Lydia's dress. Again and again Ilseboro had yielded, but yielded with a deliberation that gave no suggestion of defeat. These struggles which go on out of sight and below consciousness in most relations are never decided by the actual event but by the strength of position in which the combatants are left. Benny, for instance, sometimes did the most rebellious things, but did them in a sort of frenzy of panic, followed by unsought explanations. Ilseboro was just the reverse. He yielded because he had a positive wish to adjust himself, as far as possible, to her wishes. Lydia began to be not afraid of him, for like Caesar she was not liable to fear, but dimly aware that his was a stronger nature than her own. This means either love or hate. There had been a few hours one evening when she had felt grateful, admiring, eager to give up; when if she had loved him at all she could have worshiped him. But she did not love him, and when she saw that what he was looking forward to was fitting her into a niche which he'd been building for centuries for the wives of the Ilseboros she really hated him.