Alice Duer Miller

“ Just as she had expected, the bridge table was set inside the house, and while she was protesting and having it moved to the terrace she mentioned that she was late because she had had a fuss with Miss Bennett.
"Dear little Benny," said Andrews. "She's like a nice brown-eyed animal with gray fur, isn't she?"
"Tim always talks as if he were in love with Benny."
"She's so gentle, Lydia, and you are so ruthless with her," said Dorset.
"I have to be, Bobby," answered Lydia, and perhaps to no one else would she have stooped to offer an explanation. "She's gentle, but marvelously persistent. ”

“ Miss Bennett amiably drifted, letting events and her friends control. She could never understand why Lydia held her responsible for situations which it seemed to her simply happened, and yet she could never resist pretending that she had deliberately brought them about. She began to think now that it had been her idea, not Mrs. Galton's, to get Lydia interested in prison reform.
"No one can be happy, Lydia, without an unselfish interest, something outside of themselves."
Lydia smiled. There was something pathetic in poor little ineffective Benny trying to arrange her life for her. ”

“ He said nothing, and her car began to move forward. Presently she heard the sound of a motorcycle going in the opposite direction. She smiled to herself. There was always a way.
She found them waiting for her at Eleanor's, and she felt at once that the atmosphere was hostile; but when Lydia really liked people, and she really liked all the three who were waiting, she had command of a wonderfully friendly coöperative sort of gayety that was hard to resist.
She liked Eleanor Bellington better than any woman she knew. They had been friends since their school days. ”

“ There were always two or three interesting men, coming men, men of whom one said on speaking of them "You know, he's the man——" who seemed to be intimately woven into Eleanor's everyday life. A never-ending subject of discussion among Miss Bellington's friends was the exact emotional standing of these intimacies of Nellie's.
Lydia liked Tim Andrews too—a young man of universal friendships and no emotions; but most necessary of all to her enjoyment was Bobby Dorset, who came out to meet her, sauntering down the steps with his hands in his pockets. ”

“ These struggles which go on out of sight and below consciousness in most relations are never decided by the actual event but by the strength of position in which the combatants are left. Benny, for instance, sometimes did the most rebellious things, but did them in a sort of frenzy of panic, followed by unsought explanations. Ilseboro was just the reverse. He yielded because he had a positive wish to adjust himself, as far as possible, to her wishes. Lydia began to be not afraid of him, for like Cæsar she was not liable to fear, but dimly aware that his was a stronger nature than her own. ”

“ But Lydia's will, for good or evil, flowed with a steady current.
She looked down at the seat beside her for her mesh bag, opened it and found that Evans, who was a good deal of a goose, had forgotten to put her purse in it, although she knew bridge was to be played. Lydia looked up and saw that the officer of the law had followed her gesture with his eyes. She slipped Bobby's bracelet off her arm, and holding her hand well over the edge of the car dropped it on the road. She heard it tinkle on the hard surface. ”

“ Yet strangely enough the only men to whom her heart had ever softened were idle, worthless men, of whom Bobby was only a sample. Among women she liked the positive qualities—courage, brilliance, achievement; but among men she seemed to have selected those who needed a strong controlling hand upon their destiny. Benny said it was the maternal in her, but less friendly critics said it was the boss. Perhaps the two are not so dissociated as is generally thought. Lydia repudiated the maternal explanation without finding another. ”

“ The rite of polishing Miss Thorne's jewels took place in the bathroom, which was also a dressing room, containing long mirrors, a dressing table, cupboards with glass doors through which Miss Thorne's bright hats and beribboned underclothes showed faintly. ”