She was glad on this occasion that she was in the lower berth, for she did not sleep, and raising the shade she stared out. There was something soothing in lying back on her pillows watching the world flash past you as if you were being dragged along on a magic carpet while everyone else slept. Her future was all in chaos again. She could never marry Albee. She thought, as she so often did, of Ilseboro's parting words about her being such a bully that she would always get second-rate playmates. It seemed to her the real trouble lay in her demand that they should be first-rate. Most women would have accepted Albee as first-rate, but she knew he wasn't. She felt tragically alone. Their train got in at seven, and as soon as Lydia had had a bath and breakfast--that is, by nine o'clock--she was calling Eleanor on the telephone. Consideration of the fact that her friend might have been up late the night before was not characteristic of Lydia. Tragic or not, she was curious to hear what had happened at the Pulsifers'. She wanted Eleanor to come and lunch with her. No, Miss Bellington was going back to the country that morning. It was finally settled that Lydia should drive Eleanor home in the little runabout and stay for luncheon with her. It was one of those mild days that make you think March is really a spring month. Eleanor did not like to drive fast; and Lydia, with unusual thoughtfulness, remembered her friend's wishes and drove at a moderate pace. That was one way to tell if Lydia was really fond of anyone--if she showed the sort of consideration that most people are brought up to show to all human beings. The two women gossiped like schoolgirls. "Was Bobby too wonderful in his costume?" "My dear, I wish you could have seen him. May Swayne made really rather a goose of herself about him." "Yes"--this thoughtfully from Lydia--"she always does when I'm not there to protect him. And Fanny--was her Cleopatra as comic as it sounded?" Eleanor wanted to know about Lydia's experiences--the hearing, Washington. Lydia told how magnificently the governor had defended himself, and added nothing at first about the less desirable aspects of his character. She thought this reserve arose from loyalty, but the fact that the governor was generally considered to be her own property made her feel that to criticize him was to cheapen her own assets. But she had great confidence in Eleanor, and by the time they had sat down to lunch alone together she found herself launched on the whole story of the impression Albee had made upon her. So interested, indeed, was she in the narrative that when toward the end of luncheon Eleanor was called to the telephone she hardly noticed the incident, except as it was an interruption. She sat going over it all in her mind during the few minutes that Eleanor was away, and the instant Eleanor came back she resumed what she was saying.