“Oh, Lydia! Why will you be so contrary? Everybody says laundress now!”
“—And however Paul and I can pay back all the social debts we’ve incurred this winter. Everybody’s invited us. It makes me wild to think of how we owe everybody.”
“Oh, you can give two or three big receptions this spring and clear millions off the list. And then a dinner party or two for the more exclusives. You won’t need to be out of things till June—with the fashion for loose-fitting evening gowns; you’re so slender. And you’ll be out again long before Christmas. It’s very fortunate having it come at this time of year.”
Lydia looked rather dazed at this brisk and matter-of-fact disposing of the matter, and seemed about to make a comment, but the bell rang for card-playing to begin and Mrs. Emery hurried to her table.
Lydia had meant to ask her mother’s sympathy about another matter that for the time was occupying her own thoughts, but there was no other opportunity for further speech between them during the card party—Mrs. Emery devoting herself with her usual competent energy to playing a good game. She played much better bridge than did either of her daughters. She liked cards, liked to excel and always found easy to accomplish what seemed to her worth doing. Marietta also felt that to avoid being “queer” and “different” one had to play a good hand, but, as she herself confessed, it made her “sick” to give up to it the necessary time and thought. As for Lydia, she got rid of her cards as fast as possible, as if with the deluded hope that when they were all played, she might find time for something else. On the afternoon in question her game was more unscientific than usual. Criticism was deterred from articulate expression by the common feeling in regard to her, assiduously fostered by Flora Burgess’ continuous references to her in Society Notes as the coming social ruler of Endbury’s smart set. There was as yet, to be sure, no visible indication whatever of such a capacity on Lydia’s part, but the printed word—particularly Miss Burgess’ printed word—was not to be doubted. Madeleine Hollister, however (now soon to be Madeleine Lowdor), was no respecter of personages, past or future. At the appearance of an especially unexpected and disappointing card from her sister-in-law’s hand, she pounced upon her with: “Lydia, what are you thinking about?”
“My washwoman’s grandson,” burst out Lydia, laying down her cards with a careless negligence, so that everyone could see the contents of her hand. “Oh, Madeleine! I’m so worried about her, and I wish you’d—”
She got no further. Madeleine’s shriek of good-natured laughter cut her short like a blow in the face. The other ladies were laughing, too.
“Oh, Lydia! You are the most original, unexpected piece in the world!” cried her sister-in-law. “You’ll be the death of me!” She appealed to the other players at their table: “Did you ever hear anything come out funnier?”
To the players at the next tables, who were looking with vague, reflected smiles at this burst of merriment, she called: “Oh, it’s too killing! Lydia Hollister just played a trump on a trick her partner had already taken, and when I asked what in the world she was thinking about—meaning, of course—”
Lydia sat silent, looking at her useless cards during the rest of the narration of her comic speech. She was reflecting rather sadly that she had been very foolish to think, even in a thoughtless impulse, of telling Madeleine the story she had so impetuously begun. After a time it came to her, as a commentary of the little incident, that neither could she get anything from Marietta in the matter. At the end of the party, she and her mother walked together to the street-cars, but she still said nothing of what was in her mind. She would not admit to herself that her mother would receive it as she felt sure Marietta and Madeleine would, but—she dared not risk putting her to the test. It was a period in Lydia’s life when she was constantly in fear of tests applied to the people she loved and longed to admire.