vite me, but I was glad of an excuse to avoid it. Only for Miss
Thorne----"

Even his voice sounded different--specious, servile--"servile" was the
word in Lydia's mind. Mrs. Framingham, if she were impressed by the news
that the governor could have gone if he had wanted, betrayed not the
least interest. Lydia pieced out the story of her attitude to the
governor. Evidently when she had been last in the capital of her
husband's state Albee had been only a powerful member of the
legislature--useful to her husband, but not invited to her house. All
very well, thought Lydia--a criticism of Mrs. Framingham's lack of
vision--if only Albee would stand by it, resent it, and not be so eager
to please.

As she grew more and more silent the governor, ably seconded by Miss
Bennett, grew more and more affable. It would have been a very pleasant
party if Lydia had not been there. Miss Bennett could not imagine what
was wrong; and even Albee, with his instinctive knowledge of human
beings and his quick egotism to guide him, was too well pleased with his
own relation to his party to feel anything wrong. Lydia's silence only
gave him greater scope.

She did not see him alone again. After dinner they went to the theater
and then to the train. In the compartment she and Benny had the little
scene they always had on these occasions. Lydia assumed that she as the
younger woman would take the upper berth. Miss Bennett asserted that she
infinitely preferred it. Lydia ignored the assertion, doubting its
accuracy. Miss Bennett insisted, and Lydia yielded--yielded largely for
the reason that the dispute seemed to her undignified.

She was glad on this occasion that she was in the lower berth, for she
did not sleep, and raising the shade she stared out. There was something
soothing in lying back on her pillows watching the world flash past you
as if you were being dragged along on a magic carpet while everyone else
slept.

Her future was all in chaos again. She could never marry Albee. She
thought, as she so often did, of Ilseboro's parting words about her
being such a bully that she would always get second-rate playmates. It
seemed to her the real trouble lay in her demand that they should be
first-rate. Most women would have accepted Albee as first-rate, but she
knew he wasn't. She felt tragically alone.

Their train got in at seven, and as soon as Lydia had had a bath and
breakfast--that is, by nine o'clock--she was calling Eleanor on t