Alice Duer Miller

“ Eleanor went on—"force and strength——"
Lydia broke in.
"Strength and force! What I really dislike about him, Eleanor dear, is that you take him so seriously. I can't bear to see you making yourself ridiculous about any man." ”

“ Some day you'll come to agree with me."
"Or you with me," answered Eleanor, but she rang and ordered Lydia's car.
A few minutes later Lydia was on her way home. It was a day when everything had gone wrong, she thought; but now a cure for the nerves was open to her. The roads were empty at that hour, and her foot pressed the accelerator. She thought that if Eleanor married O'Bannon she would lose her. She would like to prevent it. With most girls she could poison their minds against a man by representing him as ludicrous, but Eleanor was not easily swayed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All her powers were concentrated now on keeping her car straight on the slippery road, but she thought grimly, "Worse for him on two wheels than for me on four." She felt a mounting determination not to be caught—a willingness to take any risk. Still the man on the motorcycle was gaining on her. At an inequality in the road her front wheels veered sharply. ”

“ Lydia met most of the notables, even the fox-faced senator, who, she was told was very much of a ladies' man. She was for the first time a satellite, a part of the suite of a great man, and glad to be.
Then, after luncheon, Benny having tactfully expressed a wish to go back to the hotel and rest, as they were going out to dinner, Lydia and the governor took a walk along the banks of the Potomac. March is very springlike in Washington. ”

“ She did not see him alone again. After dinner they went to the theater and then to the train. In the compartment she and Benny had the little scene they always had on these occasions. Lydia assumed that she as the younger woman would take the upper berth. Miss Bennett asserted that she infinitely preferred it. Lydia ignored the assertion, doubting its accuracy. Miss Bennett insisted, and Lydia yielded—yielded largely for the reason that the dispute seemed to her undignified. ”

“ She felt proud to be identified with him. She looked at him as he sat down at the chairman's right, and tried to think how she would feel if she were saying to herself, "There's my husband." Could you marry a man for whom you felt an immovable physical coldness? She thought of Dan O'Bannon's kiss, and the continuity of her thought broke up in a tangle of emotion—even there in the white morning light of that remote committee room.
The hearing was beginning ”

“ I don't mean you'd ever be undignified, but it is ridiculous for a woman of your attainment and position to take that young Irishman so seriously—a country lawyer. Why, I can't bear to name you in the same breath! ”