"I feel rather sorry for Albee."

"You mean you don't think he's a worm?" Lydia was genuinely surprised.

"Oh, yes, I think he is just as you represent him! I feel sorry for
people whose faults make them comic and defenseless. After all, Albee
has great abilities. You don't care a bit for those, because he turns
out not to be perfect. And who are you, my dear, to demand perfection?"

"I don't! I don't," cried Lydia eagerly. "Oh, Eleanor, men are
fortunate! Apparently they can fall in love without a bit respecting
you--all the more if they don't--but a woman must believe a man has
something superior about him, if it is only his wickedness. I don't
demand perfection--not a bit--but I do ask that a man's faults should
not be contemptible faults; that he should have some force and snap;
that he should be at least a man."

"That doesn't seem to please you always either."

"You're thinking of Ilseboro. I did like Ilseboro, though he was such a
bully."

"No, I was thinking of Dan."

Lydia opened her eyes as if she couldn't imagine whom she meant.

"Of Dan?"

"Dan O'Bannon."

"Oh, it's got as far as being 'Dan' now, has it?"

"You dislike him for these very qualities you say you demand," Eleanor
went on--"force and strength----"

Lydia broke in.

"Strength and force! What I really dislike about him, Eleanor dear, is
that you take him so seriously. I can't bear to see you making yourself
ridiculous about any man."

"I don't feel I make myself ridiculous, thank you."

"I don't mean you'd ever be undignified, but it is ridiculous for a
woman of your attainment and position to take that young Irishman so
seriously--a country lawyer. Why, I can't bear to name you in the same
breath!"

Eleanor raised her shoulders a little.

"He'll be here in a few minutes."

"Here?" Lydia sprang up. "I'm off then!"

"I wish you wouldn't go. If you saw more of him you'd change your
opinion of him."

"If I saw more of him I'd insult him. Send for my car, will you? No, no,
Eleanor! I know I'm right about this--really, I am. Some day you'll come
to agree with me."

"Or you with me," answered Eleanor, but she rang and ordered Lydia's
car.

A few minutes later Lydia was on her way home. It was a day when
everything had gone wrong, she thought; but now a cure for the nerves
was open to her. The roads were empty at that hour, and her foot pressed
the accelerator. She thought that if Eleanor married O'Bannon she would
lose her