"Of course if you don't care to hear how it happened, I won't tell you." So saying, Douglas suffered himself to be conveyed the necessary few steps, and performed the ceremony of introduction.
Lydia let her eyes rest with keen but interested scrutiny on this new-comer. He was a boon at the moment, for she had taken the gauge of everybody at Westfield, and was conscious that neither her heart nor her brain was satisfied. She craved novelty and true aesthetic appreciation. Did anyone really understand her? Not even Fannie Cole, who came the nearest to divining her hatred of the commonplace and her dread of being bored. But Fannie, though discerning, chose to remain a slave to the canons of conformity. That morning, in her looking-glass she had asked herself the question, "Why did I ever marry Herbert Maxwell?" But she had asked it with no malice aforethought, merely as one who, with leisure to take account of stock, foots up his assets and puts the question, "Am I solvent?" The interrogation was simply searching and contemplative. The answer had been prompt, and in a measure assuring. "Because it gave me everything I need." Yet, somehow, there remained a cloud upon her spirit. Was this all? Did life offer nothing further?
"We make a fuss and circumstance about our sports," she said.
"They do creak."
It was agreeable to be comprehended so promptly. "It isn't sport for sport's sake, but for the sake of the cups and because it's the thing."
"And above all to beat the other fellow. That's the national creed. It's so in everything—competition. We are brought up from childhood to consider that winning is the thing which counts. We must win at any cost at foot-ball or trade, in affairs or in love."
She made one of her little pauses. Decidedly he was a kindred spirit and to be cultivated. "I am an exotic then."
"How so?"
"Competition—the national creed—does not interest me."
"Because you win so easily. I watched you play this morning. You will have no rival of your own sex here."