She wondered, with the curious analytical detachment characteristic of the self-centred, that she had never seen it for herself. It vexed her that it should have been left to little Rosie Graham’s penetration to enlighten her.
She rallied her forces. Rosie should at least see in her the saving grace of a courageous candour.
“Perhaps that’s true,” she said slowly. “I’ve been first with one set of people, and then with another, since I was a small child, and perhaps I’ve got into a calculating way of just trying to please them, so that they should be nice to me. I don’t know that I’m really particularly fond of any of them....”
She passed in mental review as she spoke those with whom her short life had been most nearly connected.
Her parents.
She could hardly remember her father, and she had certainly never loved her mother, weak where Lydia, at twelve years old, was already hard, irrationally impulsive where Lydia was calculating, sentimental where Lydia was contemptuous. Looking back, she realized that her mother had done her best to make Lydia as feebly emotional as she was herself, and that Lydia’s own clear-sightedness had not only saved her, but had also forced upon her a very thorough reaction.
Grandpapa—Aunt Beryl—Uncle George—she thought of them all. Certainly she was fond of them in a way, and Grandpapa she most sincerely admired and respected, more than anyone she knew.
She was grateful to Aunt Beryl and Uncle George, and anxious to do them credit, but her interest in their welfare was not excessive. If she heard of their deaths that evening, Lydia knew very well that her chief pang would be remorse for a complete absence of acute sorrow.
There was Nathalie Palmer.
At school, Nathalie had adored her. She still wrote her long, intimate letters full of personal details which Lydia could not help thinking rather trivial and unnecessary.