ing of having him there tucked in beside her while she absolutely
controlled his destiny for the next half hour. She liked even to take
risks with his life, more precious to her at least for the time than any
other, in the hope that he would protest, but he never did. He
understood his Lydia.

After a few minutes she observed, "I suppose you know Eleanor has a new
young man."

"Intensely interesting, or absolutely worth while?" he asked.

"Both, according to her. She's bringing him out at the Piers' this
evening. She was just asking me to be nice to him."

"Like asking the boa constrictor to be nice to a newborn lamb, isn't
it?"

"If I'm nice to her men it gives her a feeling of confidence in them."

"If you're nice to them you take them away from her."

"No, Bobby. It's a funny thing, but it isn't so easy as you think to get
Eleanor's men away from her."

"Ah, you've tried?"

"She has a funny kind of hold on them. It's her brains. She has brains,
and they appreciate it. I don't often want her men. They're apt to be so
dreadful. Do you remember the biologist with the pearl buttons on his
boots? This one is in politics--or something. He has a funny
name--O'Bannon."

"Oh, yes--Dan O'Bannon."

"You know him?"

"I used to know him in college. Lord, he was a wild man in those days!"
Bobby snickered reminiscently. "And now he's the local district
attorney."

"What does a district attorney do, Bobby?"

"Why, he's a fellow elected by the county to prosecute----"

"Look here, Bobby, if the Emmonses ask you to spend this coming Sunday
with them, go, because I'm going." She interrupted him because it was
the kind of explanation that she had never been able to listen to. In
fact she had so completely ceased to listen that she was unaware of
having interrupted the answer to her own question, and Bobby did not
care to bring the matter to her attention for fear her invitation to the
Emmonses might be lost in the subsequent scuffle. Besides he esteemed it
his own fault. Most people who ask you a question like that really mean
to say, "Would there be anything interesting to me in the answer to this
question? If not, for goodness' sake don't answer it." So he gladly
abandoned defining the duties of the district attorney and answered her
more important statement.

"Of course I'll go, only they haven't asked me."

"They will--or else I won't go. You'll come out on Friday afternoon."

"I can't, Lydia, until Saturday.