Manslaughter

								

her friends expected that of her but because she needed a purpose, a
heightened interest--a great man in her life. 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. Only she knew that the very thing that made her fond of
men like Bobby prevented her falling in love with them; whereas the men
with whom it seemed possible to fall in love were men with whom she
always quarreled, so that instead of love there was not even friendship.
Some years before she had been actually engaged to be married--though
the engagement had never been announced--to an Englishman, a thin,
hawk-faced man, the Marquis of Ilseboro. She was not in love with him,
though he was a man with whom women did fall in love. Benny had been
crazy about him. He was companionable in a silent sort of way, made love
to her with extreme assurance and knew a great deal about life and
women.
But from the very first their two wills had clashed in small matters--in
questions of invitations, manners, Lydia's dress. Again and again
Ilseboro had yielded, but yielded with a deliberation that gave no
suggestion of defeat. 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 Caesar she was not liable to fear, but dimly
aware that his was a stronger nature than her own. This means either
love or hate. There had been a few hours one evening when she had felt
grateful, admiring, eager to give up; when if she had loved him at all
she could have worshiped him. But she did not love him, and when she saw
that what he was looking forward to was fitting her into a niche which
he'd been building for centuries for the wives of the Ilseboros she
really hated him.
Ever since her childhood the prospect of laying aside her own will had
stirred her to revolt. She could still remember waking herself up with a
start in terror at the thought that in sleep she would doff her will for
so many hours. Later her father had wished to send her to a fashionable
boarding school; but she had made such wild scenes at the idea of being