oot of
the bed.

"Well, my dear, good morning," was Eleanor's greeting, though she was
not unaware that something emotional was in the air.

"Eleanor," began the other, her enormous tragic eyes fixed now, not on
her friend's, but on a spot on the pillow about five inches away, "there
is something I want to say to you." The best agreement was silence, and
Lydia went on, "I want you never to talk to me about that man--your
friend--I mean O'Bannon."

"Talk of him!" exclaimed Eleanor, her first thought being, "Am I always
talking of him?"

"I don't want to hear of him or think of him or speak of him."

This time Eleanor's hesitation was not entirely acquiescent.

"I can understand," she said, "that you might not want to see him, but
to speak of him----I have been thinking, Lydia, that that is one of the
subjects that you and I ought to talk over--to talk out."

"No, no!" returned Lydia quickly, and Eleanor saw with surprise that it
was only by leaning on her hands that she kept them from trembling. "I
can't explain it to you--I don't want to go into it--but I don't want to
remember that he exists. If you would just accept it as a fact, and
tell other people--Benny and Bobby. If you would do that for me,
Eleanor----"

"Of course I'll do it," answered Eleanor. There really was not anything
else to say. The next instant Lydia was gone.

Eleanor lay quite still, trying to understand the meaning of the scene.
She was often accused by her friends of coldness, of lack of human
imagination, of attempting to substitute mental for emotional processes.
Aware of a certain amount of justice in these accusations, she tried to
atone by putting her reasoning faculty most patiently and gently at work
upon the problems of those she loved. Her nature was not capable of
really understanding turgidity, but she did better than most people
inasmuch as she avoided forming wrong judgments about it. She felt about
Lydia now as she had once felt when O'Bannon had described to her his
struggle against drinking--wonder that a person so much braver and
stronger than she, Eleanor, was, could be content to avoid temptation
instead of fighting it.

At breakfast, which the three women had together, Eleanor saw that Lydia
had regained her calm of the evening before. While they were still at
table Wiley was shown in. He felt obviously a certain constraint, an
embarrassment to know what to say, which he concealed under a formal
professional manner