nnett that he should
have seen that she could not have stayed if she had been dependent on
Lydia's capricious will. It was this that made her position
possible--the fact that they both knew she could go in an instant if
she wanted; not that she ever doubted that Lydia was sincerely attached
to her.

CHAPTER III

When Lydia ran upstairs to dress everything was waiting for her--the
lights lit, the fires crackling, her bath drawn, her underclothes and
stockings folded on a chair, her green-and-gold dress spread out upon
the bed, her narrow gold slippers standing exactly parallel on the floor
beside it, and in the midst Evans, like a priestess waiting to serve the
altar of a goddess, was standing with her eyes on the clock.

[Illustration: LYDIA LITTLE REALIZES WHAT A TEMPTATION SHE IS PLACING
BEFORE EVANS.]

Lydia snatched off her hat, rumpled her hair with both hands as Evans
began to undo her blouse. She unfastened the cuff, and then looked up
with pale startled eyes.

"Your bracelet, miss?"

"Bracelet?" For a second Lydia had really forgotten it.

"The little diamond bracelet. You were wearing it this afternoon."

Something panic-stricken and excited in the girl's tone annoyed Lydia.

"I must have dropped it," she said.

The maid gave a little cry as if she herself had suffered a loss.

"Oh, to lose a valuable bracelet like that!"

"If I don't mind I don't see why you should, Evans."

Evans began unhooking her skirt in silence.

Twenty minutes later she was being driven rapidly toward the Piers'.
These minutes were among the most contemplative of her life, shut in for
a few seconds alone without possibility of interruption. Now as she
leaned back she thought how lonely her life was--always facing criticism
alone. Was she a bully, as Ilseboro had said? Perhaps she was hard. But
then how could you get things done if you were soft? There was Benny.
Benny, with many excellent abilities, was soft, and look where she
was--a paid companion at fifty-five. Lydia suspected that ten years
before her father had wanted to marry Benny, and Benny had refused.
Lydia thought she knew why--because Benny thought old Joe Thorne a
vulgar man whom she didn't love. Very high-minded, of course, and yet
wasn't there a sort of weakness in not taking your chance and putting
through a thing like that? Wouldn't Benny be more a person from every
point of view if she had decided to marry the old man for his money? If
she had