“I daresay it’s rather beastly of me to have said that, when I’ve asked you here to spend the evening,” said Rosie with a certain compunction in her voice.
“I’m very glad you said what you thought,” Lydia returned calmly. “Good night, and thanks for having me.”
“Good night. And I say—don’t do anything in a hurry about that coloured friend of yours.”
Lydia walked downstairs and out of the front door without deigning any reply to this last, urgent piece of advice.
As she sat in the jolting, nearly empty omnibus that was to take her as far as Southampton Row, she reviewed Rosie Graham’s speeches of the evening.
It was quite true, Lydia supposed, that she did not really care for anybody but herself. She was too clear-sighted to pretend that this distressed her. On the contrary, she realized the immense simplification of a life into which no seriously conflicting claims could enter.
After all it had taken the almost uncanny acumen of a Rosie Graham to discover the fundamental egotism that underlay all Lydia’s careful courtesy and studied kindness of word and deed.
She was annoyed that Rosie should have so poor an opinion of her, but Rosie was only one person; and though in Lydia’s present surroundings she held rank of high importance, the importance was merely relative.
The day would come when Rosie Graham, and what Rosie Graham thought, whether true or otherwise, would matter not at all to Lydia Raymond.