not do that, Bobby."

"Do you hate it?"

"Not particularly, only I don't want you to get dependent on it."

He laughed as he shut the car door. The light of the engine was visible
above the low woods to their left.

"I'll take my chances on that," he said.

As she drove away she felt the injustice of the world. Everyone did ask
your advice; they did want you to take an interest, but they complained
when this interest led you to exert the slightest pressure on them to do
what you saw was best. That was so illogical. You couldn't give a person
advice that was any good unless you entered in and made their problem
yours, and of course if you did that--only how few people except herself
ever did it for their friends--then you were concerned, personally
concerned that they should follow your advice. They were all content,
too, she thought, when her tyranny worked out for their good. Bobby, for
instance, had not complained of her having forced the Emmonses to ask
him for Sunday. He thought that commendable. Perhaps the Emmonses
hadn't. And yet how much better to be clear. She did not want to go and
spend Sunday with anyone unless she could be sure of having someone to
amuse her. Suppose she had gone there and found that like Benny they
were using her to entertain some of their dull friends. That would have
made her angry. She might have been disagreeable and broken up a
friendship. This way it was safe.

She did not get home until half past seven, and she was dining at eight,
fifteen minutes' drive away.

A pleasant smell of roses and wood smoke greeted her as she entered the
house. She loved her house, with the broad shingles and classic
pilasters of the front still untouched. Ten years ago her father had
bought it--a nice old farmhouse with an ornamental band running round it
below the eaves and a perfect little porch before the door. Since then
she had been becoming more and more attached to it as it became more and
more the work of her own creation. She had added whatever she needed
without much regard to the effect of the whole--a large paneled room,
English as much as anything, an inner garden suggestive of a Spanish
patio, a tiled Italian hall and a long servant's wing that was nothing
at all.

She put her head in the dining room, where Miss Bennett in a stately tea
gown was just beginning a solitary dinner.

"Hello, Benny! Have a good dinner. I forgot to tell you I'm going to the
Emmonses for Sunday, so if y