"Then you admit your defeat beforehand."
"You are rather a formidable antagonist."
"Antagonist!" Anthony repeated in mock protest. "I am a quiet onlooker at the game. I am amused, naturally. You must understand," he said to Lily, "that this is a matter of a principle with your father. He believes that he should serve. My whole contention is that the people don't want to be served. They want to be bossed. They like it; it's all they know. And they're suspicious of a man who puts his hand into his own pocket instead of into theirs."
He smiled and sipped his wine.
"Good wine, this," he observed. "I'm buying all I can lay my hands on, against the approaching drought."
Lily's old distrust of her grandfather revived. Why did people sharpen like that with age? Age should be mellow, like old wine. And--what was she going to do with herself? Already the atmosphere of the house began to depress and worry her; she felt a new, almost violent impatience with it. It was so unnecessary.
She went to the pipe organ which filled the space behind the staircase, and played a little, but she had never been very proficient, and her own awkwardness annoyed her. In the dining room she could hear the men talking, Howard quietly, his father in short staccato barks. She left the organ and wandered into her mother's morning room, behind the drawing room, where Grace sat with the coffee tray before her.
"I'm afraid I'm going to be terribly on your hands, mother," she said, "I don't know what to do with myself, so how can you know what to do with me?"
"It is going to be rather stupid for you at first, of course," Grace said. "Lent, and then so many of the men are not at home. Would you like to go South?"
"Why, I've just come home!"
"We can have some luncheons, of course. Just informal ones. And there will be small dinners. You'll have to get some clothes. I saw Suzette yesterday. She has some adorable things."
"I'd love them. Mother, why doesn't he want father to go into politics?"
Grace hesitated.
"He doesn't like change, for one thing. But I don't know anything about politics. Suzette says--"
"Will he try to keep him from being elected?"
"He won't support him. Of course I hardly think he would oppose him. I really don't understand about those things."