And then one day, when I was on the stairs of our own house, coming down from the third to the second story, I saw Lydia Blair standing on the landing, outside of Vio’s door. Boosey was beside her, and she was taking a parcel from his hands.
"Hello, kid," she said, nodding in my direction. "Thought I should see you round here some day. Wonder I didn’t do it before." She addressed Boosey, with another nod toward me. "He and me were at school together. Weren’t we?" she continued, with her enchanting smile, as I reached the lowest step.
"Yes," I managed to gasp, "the school of adversity."
"And a mighty good school, too, for a sport. Do you know it?"
"But, Lydia," I began, "what in the name of—?"
"Sh-h! Don’t swear," was all she said, as taking Boosey’s parcel she opened Vio’s door. Going in softly she closed it behind her.
Once more Boosey’s expression dramatized my situation. That the master of the house in which he exercised his functions—even such a master as I—should be called "kid" by a girl like Lydia created a social topsyturvydom defying all his principles. For perceptible seconds he stared in an astonishment mingled with disdain, after which he turned on his heel to tell the news in the kitchen.
But I was too puzzled by Lydia’s reappearance to tear myself away. What had she to do with Vio? How did she get the right to go in and out of Vio’s room with this matter-of-course authority?
In a corner of the hall, beside the window looking over the Common, was an armchair in which Vio often sat when taking her breakfast up-stairs and glancing over her correspondence. I sank into it now, and waited. Sooner or later Lydia must come out again.
This she did, some twenty minutes later, dainty and nonchalant.
"Lydia," I cried, springing to my feet, "what in the name of Heaven are you doing here?"
The parcel she had taken from Boosey was now undone, revealing some three or four pairs of corsets. Laying the bundle on the table Vio used for her breakfast-tray the girl began to roll the corsets neatly.
There were so many questions I wanted to ask that I hardly knew where to begin.
"How long have you been coming to—to see my wife?"
She glanced up sidewise from her work, with one of those glances she alone could fling.