She was thirty and penniless. She belonged to a circle where everybody
had money. Her sister had married well, and Harriet was no
better-looking than she. All Lydia Sessions's considerable forces were
by heredity and training turned into one narrow channel--the effort to
make a creditable, if not a brilliant, match. And she had thought she
was succeeding. Gray Stoddard had seemed seriously interested. In those
long night watches while the lights flared on either side of her mirror,
and the luxurious room of a modern young lady lay disclosed, with all
its sumptuous fittings of beauty and inutility, Lydia went over her
plans of campaign. She was a suitable match for him--anybody would say
so. He had liked her--he had liked her well enough--till he got
interested in this mill girl. They had never agreed on anything
concerning Johnnie Consadine. If that element were eliminated to-morrow,
she knew she could go back and pick up the thread of their intimacy
which had promised so well, and, she doubted not at all, twist it safely
into a marriage-knot. If Johnnie were only out of the way. If she would
leave Cottonville. If she would marry that good-looking mechanic who
plainly wanted her. How silly of her not to take him!
Toward dawn, she snatched a little cape from the garments hanging in the
closet, flung it over her shoulders and ran downstairs.
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