Manslaughter

								

some ephemeral firm.
It amused him to hear her talk of Peter Gordon treating him like a
slave. The dignified, middle-aged head of the firm, whose business was
like an ancestral religion to him, hardly knew his clerks by sight.
"It isn't exactly servile to work half a day on Saturday," he said
mildly.
"They'd respect you more if you asserted yourself. Do come on Friday,
Bobby. I shall be so bored if you're not there."
He reflected that after all he would rather be dismissed by Gordon & Co.
than by the young lady beside him.
"Dearest Lydia, how nice you can be when you want to--like all tyrants."
They had reached the small deserted wooden hut that served as a railroad
station, and Lydia stopped the car.
"I suppose it's silly, but I wish you wouldn't say that--that I'm a
tyrant," she said appealingly. "I don't want to be, only so often I know
I know better what ought to be done. This afternoon, for instance,
wasn't it much better for us all to play outside instead of in that
stuffy little room of Eleanor's? Was that being a tyrant?"
"Yes, Lydia, it was; but I like it. All I ask is a little tyrant in my
home."
She sighed so deeply that he leaned over and kissed her cool cheek.
"Good-by, my dear," he said.
The kiss did not go badly. He had done it as if, though not sure of
success, he was not adventuring on absolutely untried ground.
"I think you'd better not do that, Bobby."
"Do you hate it?"
"Not particularly, only I don't want you to get dependent on it."
He laughed as he shut the car door. The light of the engine was visible
above the low woods to their left.
"I'll take my chances on that," he said.
As she drove away she felt the injustice of the world. Everyone did ask
your advice; they did want you to take an interest, but they complained
when this interest led you to exert the slightest pressure on them to do
what you saw was best. That was so illogical. You couldn't give a person
advice that was any good unless you entered in and made their problem
yours, and of course if you did that--only how few people except herself
ever did it for their friends--then you were concerned, personally
concerned that they should follow your advice. They were all content,
too, she thought, when her tyranny worked out for their good. Bobby, for
instance, had not complained of her having forced the Emmonses to ask
him for Sunday. He thought that commendable. Perhaps the Emmonses
hadn't. And yet how much better to be clear. She did not want to go and
spend Sunday with anyone unless she could be sure of having someone to
amuse her. Suppose she had gone there and found that like Benny they
were using her to entertain some of their dull friends. That would have
made her angry. She might have been disagreeable and broken up a
friendship. This way it was safe.
She did not get home until half past seven, and she was dining at eight,
fifteen minutes' drive away.
A pleasant smell of roses and wood smoke greeted her as she entered the