n home?"

But July came without the decision, and Lydia was obliged to cancel her
passage. She was annoyed.

"Those lazy old judges," she said, "have actually adjourned for two
months, and now I can't get off until September." Her tone indicated
that she was doing a good deal for the law of her country, changing her
plans like this.

O'Bannon, she heard, was taking a holiday too--going to Wyoming for a
month. She thought that she would like to see something of the West, but
instead she took a house at Newport for August--a fevered month. Blythe
came to spend Sunday with her and stayed two weeks, fell in love with
May Swayne, attempted to use his position as a guest of Lydia's to make
himself appear a more desirable suitor in the eyes of the Swayne
family--a solid old-fashioned fortune--and was turned out by Lydia after
a scene of unusual violence.

A feud followed in which many people took--and changed--sides. Lydia
fought gayly, briskly in the open. Her object was not Blythe's death,
but his social extinction, and her method was not cold steel but
ridicule. The war was won when May was made to see him as an impossible
figure, comic, on the make--as perhaps he was, but no more so than when
Lydia herself had received him. After this, though he lingered on a few
days at a hotel, his ultimate disappearance was certain. Lydia and May
remained friends throughout--as much friends as they had ever been.
Since the day of their first meeting the two women had never permitted
any man to be a friend of both of them.

Albee came and spent a brief twenty-four hours with her between a
midnight train and Sunday boat. He was in the midst of a campaign as
United States senator from his own state--certain of election. Lydia was
kind and patient with him, but frankly bored.

"There's more stuff in Bobby," she confided to Benny, "who doesn't
expect you to tremble at his nod. I hate fake strong men. I always feel
tempted to call their bluff. It's a hard role they want to play. If they
don't break you, you despise them. If they do--why, you're broken, no
good to anyone."

She asked Eleanor to come and spend August with her, but Eleanor
refused, saying, what was true enough, that she couldn't bear Newport.
She could bear even less constant association with Lydia at this moment.
Lydia's one preoccupation when they were together was to destroy
Eleanor's friendship for O'Bannon. Often in old times Eleanor had
laughed at the steady persi