Lily did not sleep very well that night. She was repentant, for one thing, for her mother's evening alone, and for the anxiety in her face when she arrived.
"I've been so worried," she said, "I was afraid your grandfather would get back before you did."
"I'm sorry, mother dear. I know it was selfish. But I've had a wonderful evening."
"Wonderful?"
"All sorts of talk," Lily said, and hesitated. After all, her mother would not understand, and it would only make her uneasy. "I suppose it is rank hearsay to say it, but I like Mr. Doyle."
"I detest him."
"But you don't know him, do you?"
"I know he is stirring up all sorts of trouble for us. Lily, I want you to promise not to go back there."
There was a little silence. A small feeling of rebellion was rising in the girl's heart.
"I don't see why. She is my own aunt."
"Will you promise?"
"Please don't ask me, mother. I--oh, don't you understand? It is interesting there, that's all. It isn't wrong to go. And the moment you forbid it you make me want to go back."
"Were there any other people there to dinner?" Grace asked, with sudden suspicion.
"Only one man. A lawyer named Akers."
The name meant nothing to Grace Cardew.
"A young man?"
"Not very young. In his thirties, I should think," Lily hesitated again. She had meant to tell her mother of the engagement for the next day, but Grace's attitude made it difficult. To be absolutely forbidden to meet Louis Akers at the gallery, and to be able to give no reason beyond the fact that she had met him at the Doyle house, seemed absurd.
"A gentleman?"
"I hardly know," Lily said frankly. "In your sense of the word, perhaps not, mother. But he is very clever."
Grace Cardew sighed and picked up her book. She never retired until Howard came in. And Lily went upstairs, uneasy and a little defiant. She must live her own life, somehow; have her own friends; think her own thoughts. The quiet tyranny of the family was again closing down on her. It would squeeze her dry, in the end, as it had her mother and Aunt Elinor.
She stood for a time by her window, looking out at the city. Behind her was her warm, luxurious room, her deep, soft bed. Yet all through the city there were those who did not sleep warm and soft. Close by, perhaps, in that deteriorated neighborhood, there were children that very night going to bed hungry.