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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
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+House of Mirth
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+by Edith Wharton
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+June, 1995  [Etext #284]
+[Date last updated: February 8, 2008]
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
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+
+
+
+The House of Mirth
+BY
+EDITH WHARTON
+
+
+
+
+                          BOOK ONE
+
+
+Chapter 1
+
+Selden paused in surprise. In the afternoon rush of the Grand
+Central Station his eyes had been refreshed by the sight of Miss
+Lily Bart.
+
+It was a Monday in early September, and he was returning to his
+work from a hurried dip into the country; but what was Miss Bart
+doing in town at that season? If she had appeared to be catching
+a train, he might have inferred that he had come on her in the
+act of transition between one and another of the country-houses
+which disputed her presence after the close of the Newport
+season; but her desultory air perplexed him. She stood apart from
+the crowd, letting it drift by her to the platform or the street,
+and wearing an air of irresolution which might, as he surmised,
+be the mask of a very definite purpose. It struck him at once
+that she was waiting for some one, but he hardly knew why the
+idea arrested him. There was nothing new about Lily Bart, yet he
+could never see her without a faint movement of interest: it was
+characteristic of her that she always roused speculation, that
+her simplest acts seemed the result of far-reaching intentions.
+
+An impulse of curiosity made him turn out of his direct line to
+the door, and stroll past her. He knew that if she did not wish
+to be seen she would contrive to elude him; and it amused him to
+think of putting her skill to the test.
+
+"Mr. Selden--what good luck!"
+
+She came forward smiling, eager almost, in her resolve to
+intercept him. One or two persons, in brushing past them,
+lingered to look; for Miss Bart was a figure to arrest even the
+suburban traveller rushing to his last train.
+
+Selden had never seen her more radiant. Her vivid head, relieved
+against the dull tints of the crowd, made her more conspicuous
+than in a ball-room, and under her dark hat and veil she regained
+the girlish smoothness, the purity of tint, that she was
+beginning to lose after eleven years of late hours and
+indefatigable dancing. Was it really eleven years, Selden found
+himself wondering, and had she indeed reached the
+nine-and-twentieth birthday with which her rivals credited her?
+
+"What luck!" she repeated. "How nice of you to come to my
+rescue!"
+
+He responded joyfully that to do so was his mission in life, and
+asked what form the rescue was to take.
+
+"Oh, almost any--even to sitting on a bench and talking to me.
+One sits out a cotillion--why not sit out a train? It isn't a bit
+hotter here than in Mrs. Van Osburgh's conservatory--and some of
+the women are not a bit uglier."  She broke off, laughing, to
+explain that she had come up to town from Tuxedo, on her way to
+the Gus Trenors' at Bellomont, and had missed the three-fifteen
+train to Rhinebeck.  "And there isn't another till half-past
+five." She consulted the little jewelled watch among her laces.
+"Just two hours to wait. And I don't know what to do with myself.
+My maid came up this morning to do some shopping for me, and was
+to go on to Bellomont at one o'clock, and my aunt's house is
+closed, and I don't know a soul in town." She glanced plaintively
+about the station. "It IS hotter than Mrs. Van Osburgh's, after
+all. If you can spare the time, do take me somewhere for a breath
+of air."
+
+He declared himself entirely at her disposal: the adventure
+struck him as diverting. As a spectator, he had always enjoyed
+Lily Bart; and his course lay so far out of her orbit that it
+amused him to be drawn for a moment into the sudden intimacy
+which her proposal implied.
+
+"Shall we go over to Sherry's for a cup of tea?"
+
+She smiled assentingly, and then made a slight grimace.
+
+"So many people come up to town on a Monday--one is sure to meet
+a lot of bores. I'm as old as the hills, of course, and it ought
+not to make any difference; but if I'M old enough, you're not,"
+she objected gaily. "I'm dying for tea--but isn't there a quieter
+place?"
+
+He answered her smile, which rested on him vividly. Her
+discretions interested him almost as much as her imprudences: he
+was so sure that both were part of the same carefully-elaborated
+plan. In judging Miss Bart, he had always made use of the
+"argument from design."
+
+"The resources of New York are rather meagre," he said; "but I'll
+find a hansom first, and then we'll invent something." He led her
+through the throng of returning holiday-makers, past sallow-faced
+girls in preposterous hats, and flat-chested women struggling
+with paper bundles and palm-leaf fans. Was it possible that she
+belonged to the same race? The dinginess, the crudity of this
+average section of womanhood made him feel how highly
+specialized she was.
+
+A rapid shower had cooled the air, and clouds still hung
+refreshingly over the moist street.
+
+"How delicious! Let us walk a little," she said as they emerged
+from the station.
+
+They turned into Madison Avenue and began to stroll northward. As
+she moved beside him, with her long light step, Selden was
+conscious of taking a luxurious pleasure in her nearness: in the
+modelling of her little ear, the crisp upward wave of her
+hair--was it ever so slightly brightened by art?--and the thick
+planting of her straight black lashes. Everything about her was
+at once vigorous and exquisite, at once strong and fine. He had a
+confused sense that she must have cost a great deal to make, that
+a great many dull and ugly people must, in some mysterious way,
+have been sacrificed to produce her. He was aware that the
+qualities distinguishing her from the herd of her sex were
+chiefly external: as though a fine glaze of beauty and
+fastidiousness had been applied to vulgar clay. Yet the analogy
+left him unsatisfied, for a coarse texture will not take a high
+finish; and was it not possible that the material was fine, but
+that circumstance had fashioned it into a futile shape?
+
+As he reached this point in his speculations the sun came out,
+and her lifted parasol cut off his enjoyment. A moment or two
+later she paused with a sigh.
+
+"Oh, dear, I'm so hot and thirsty--and what a hideous place New
+York is!" She looked despairingly up and down the dreary
+thoroughfare. "Other cities put on their best clothes in summer,
+but New York seems to sit in its shirtsleeves." Her eyes wandered
+down one of the side-streets. "Someone has had the humanity to
+plant a few trees over there. Let us go into the shade."
+
+"I am glad my street meets with your approval," said Selden as
+they turned the corner.
+
+"Your street? Do you live here?"
+
+She glanced with interest along the new brick and limestone
+house-fronts, fantastically varied in obedience to the American
+craving for novelty, but fresh and inviting with their awnings
+and flower-boxes.
+
+"Ah, yes--to be sure: THE BENEDICK. What a nice-looking building!
+I don't think I've ever seen it before." She looked across at the
+flat-house with its marble porch and pseudo-Georgian facade.
+"Which are your windows? Those with the awnings down?"
+
+"On the top floor--yes."
+
+"And that nice little balcony is yours? How cool it looks up
+there!"
+
+He paused a moment. "Come up and see," he suggested. "I can give
+you a cup of tea in no time--and you won't meet any bores."
+
+Her colour deepened--she still had the art of blushing at the
+right time--but she took the suggestion as lightly as it was
+made.
+
+"Why not? It's too tempting--I'll take the risk," she declared.
+
+"Oh, I'm not dangerous," he said in the same key. In truth, he
+had never liked her as well as at that moment. He knew she had
+accepted without afterthought: he could never be a factor in her
+calculations, and there was a surprise, a refreshment almost, in
+the spontaneity of her consent.
+
+On the threshold he paused a moment, feeling for his latchkey.
+
+"There's no one here; but I have a servant who is supposed to
+come in the mornings, and it's just possible he may have put out
+the tea-things and provided some cake."
+
+He ushered her into a slip of a hall hung with old prints. She
+noticed the letters and notes heaped on the table among his
+gloves and sticks; then she found herself in a small library,
+dark but cheerful, with its walls of books, a pleasantly faded
+Turkey rug, a littered desk and, as he had foretold, a tea-tray
+on a low table near the window. A breeze had sprung up, swaying
+inward the muslin curtains, and bringing a fresh scent of
+mignonette and petunias from the flower-box on the balcony.
+
+Lily sank with a sigh into one of the shabby leather chairs.
+
+"How delicious to have a place like this all to one's self! What
+a miserable thing it is to be a woman." She leaned back in a
+luxury of discontent.
+
+Selden was rummaging in a cupboard for the cake.
+
+"Even women," he said, "have been known to enjoy the privileges
+of a flat."
+
+"Oh, governesses--or widows. But not girls--not poor, miserable,
+marriageable girls!"
+
+"I even know a girl who lives in a flat."
+
+She sat up in surprise. "You do?"
+
+"I do," he assured her, emerging from the cupboard with the
+sought-for cake.
+
+"Oh, I know--you mean Gerty Farish." She smiled a little
+unkindly. "But I said MARRIAGEABLE--and besides, she has a horrid
+little place, and no maid, and such queer things to eat. Her cook
+does the washing and the food tastes of soap. I should hate that,
+you know."
+
+"You shouldn't dine with her on wash-days," said Selden, cutting
+the cake.
+
+They both laughed, and he knelt by the table to light the lamp
+under the kettle, while she measured out the tea into a little
+tea-pot of green glaze. As he watched her hand, polished as a bit
+of old ivory, with its slender pink nails, and the sapphire
+bracelet slipping over her wrist, he was struck with the irony of
+suggesting to her such a life as his cousin Gertrude Farish had
+chosen. She was so evidently the victim of the civilization which
+had produced her, that the links of her bracelet seemed like
+manacles chaining her to her fate.
+
+She seemed to read his thought. "It was horrid of me to say that
+of Gerty," she said with charming compunction. "I forgot she was
+your cousin. But we're so different, you know: she likes being
+good, and I like being happy. And besides, she is free and I am
+not. If I were, I daresay I could manage to be happy even in her
+flat. It must be pure bliss to arrange the furniture just as one
+likes, and give all the horrors to the ash-man. If I could only
+do over my aunt's drawing-room I know I should be a better
+woman."
+
+"Is it so very bad?" he asked sympathetically.
+
+She smiled at him across the tea-pot which she was holding up to
+be filled.
+
+"That shows how seldom you come there. Why don't you come
+oftener?"
+
+"When I do come, it's not to look at Mrs. Peniston's furniture."
+
+"Nonsense," she said. "You don't come at all--and yet we get on
+so well when we meet."
+
+"Perhaps that's the reason," he answered promptly. "I'm afraid I
+haven't any cream, you know--shall you mind a slice of lemon
+instead?"
+
+"I shall like it better." She waited while he cut the lemon and
+dropped a thin disk into her cup. "But that is not the reason,"
+she insisted.
+
+"The reason for what?"
+
+"For your never coming." She leaned forward with a shade of
+perplexity in her charming eyes. "I wish I knew--I wish I could
+make you out. Of course I know there are men who don't like
+me--one can tell that at a glance. And there are others who are
+afraid of me: they think I want to marry them." She smiled up at
+him frankly. "But I don't think you dislike me--and you can't
+possibly think I want to marry you."
+
+"No--I absolve you of that," he agreed.
+
+"Well, then---?"
+
+He had carried his cup to the fireplace, and stood leaning
+against the chimney-piece and looking down on her with an air of
+indolent amusement. The provocation in her eyes increased his
+amusement--he had not supposed she would waste her powder on such
+small game; but perhaps she was only keeping her hand in; or
+perhaps a girl of her type had no conversation but of the
+personal kind. At any rate, she was amazingly pretty, and he had
+asked her to tea and must live up to his obligations.
+
+"Well, then," he said with a plunge, "perhaps THAT'S the reason."
+
+"What?"
+
+"The fact that you don't want to marry me. Perhaps I don't regard
+it as such a strong inducement to go and see you." He felt
+a slight shiver down his spine as he ventured this, but her laugh
+reassured him.
+
+"Dear Mr. Selden, that wasn't worthy of you. It's stupid of you
+to make love to me, and it isn't like you to be stupid." She
+leaned back, sipping her tea with an air so enchantingly judicial
+that, if they had been in her aunt's drawing-room, he might
+almost have tried to disprove her deduction.
+
+"Don't you see," she continued, "that there are men enough to say
+pleasant things to me, and that what I want is a friend who won't
+be afraid to say disagreeable ones when I need them? Sometimes I
+have fancied you might be that friend--I don't know why, except
+that you are neither a prig nor a bounder, and that I shouldn't
+have to pretend with you or be on my guard against you." Her
+voice had dropped to a note of seriousness, and she sat gazing up
+at him with the troubled gravity of a child.
+
+"You don't know how much I need such a friend," she said. "My
+aunt is full of copy-book axioms, but they were all meant to
+apply to conduct in the early fifties. I always feel that to live
+up to them would include wearing book-muslin with gigot sleeves.
+And the other women--my best friends--well, they use me or abuse
+me; but they don't care a straw what happens to me. I've been
+about too long--people are getting tired of me; they are
+beginning to say I ought to marry."
+
+There was a moment's pause, during which Selden meditated one or
+two replies calculated to add a momentary zest to the situation;
+but he rejected them in favour of the simple question: "Well, why
+don't you?"
+
+She coloured and laughed. "Ah, I see you ARE a friend after all,
+and that is one of the disagreeable things I was asking for."
+
+"It wasn't meant to be disagreeable," he returned amicably.
+"Isn't marriage your vocation? Isn't it what you're all brought
+up for?"
+
+She sighed. "I suppose so. What else is there?"
+
+"Exactly. And so why not take the plunge and have it over?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders. "You speak as if I ought to marry the
+first man who came along."
+
+"I didn't mean to imply that you are as hard put to it as
+that. But there must be some one with the requisite
+qualifications."
+
+She shook her head wearily. "I threw away one or two good chances
+when I first came out--I suppose every girl does; and you know I
+am horribly poor--and very expensive. I must have a great deal of
+money."
+
+Selden had turned to reach for a cigarette-box on the
+mantelpiece.
+
+"What's become of Dillworth?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, his mother was frightened--she was afraid I should have all
+the family jewels reset. And she wanted me to promise that I
+wouldn't do over the drawing-room."
+
+"The very thing you are marrying for!"
+
+"Exactly. So she packed him off to India."
+
+"Hard luck--but you can do better than Dillworth."
+
+He offered the box, and she took out three or four cigarettes,
+putting one between her lips and slipping the others into a
+little gold case attached to her long pearl chain.
+
+"Have I time? Just a whiff, then." She leaned forward, holding
+the tip of her cigarette to his. As she did so, he noted, with a
+purely impersonal enjoyment, how evenly the black lashes were set
+in her smooth white lids, and how the purplish shade beneath them
+melted into the pure pallour of the cheek.
+
+She began to saunter about the room, examining the bookshelves
+between the puffs of her cigarette-smoke. Some of the volumes had
+the ripe tints of good tooling and old morocco, and her eyes
+lingered on them caressingly, not with the appreciation of the
+expert, but with the pleasure in agreeable tones and textures
+that was one of her inmost susceptibilities. Suddenly her
+expression changed from desultory enjoyment to active conjecture,
+and she turned to Selden with a question.
+
+"You collect, don't you--you know about first editions and
+things?"
+
+"As much as a man may who has no money to spend. Now and then I
+pick up something in the rubbish heap; and I go and look on at
+the big sales."
+
+She had again addressed herself to the shelves, but her eyes now
+swept them inattentively, and he saw that she was preoccupied
+with a new idea.
+
+"And Americana--do you collect Americana?"
+
+Selden stared and laughed.
+
+"No, that's rather out of my line. I'm not really a collector,
+you see; I simply like to have good editions of the books I am
+fond of."
+
+She made a slight grimace. "And Americana are horribly dull, I
+suppose?"
+
+"I should fancy so--except to the historian. But your real
+collector values a thing for its rarity. I don't suppose the
+buyers of Americana sit up reading them all night--old Jefferson
+Gryce certainly didn't."
+
+She was listening with keen attention. "And yet they fetch
+fabulous prices, don't they? It seems so odd to want to pay a lot
+for an ugly badly-printed book that one is never going to read!
+And I suppose most of the owners of Americana are not historians
+either?"
+
+"No; very few of the historians can afford to buy them. They have
+to use those in the public libraries or in private collections.
+It seems to be the mere rarity that attracts the average
+collector."
+
+He had seated himself on an arm of the chair near which she was
+standing, and she continued to question him, asking which were
+the rarest volumes, whether the Jefferson Gryce collection was
+really considered the finest in the world, and what was the
+largest price ever fetched by a single volume.
+
+It was so pleasant to sit there looking up at her, as she lifted
+now one book and then another from the shelves, fluttering the
+pages between her fingers, while her drooping profile was
+outlined against the warm background of old bindings, that he
+talked on without pausing to wonder at her sudden interest in so
+unsuggestive a subject. But he could never be long with her
+without trying to find a reason for what she was doing, and as
+she replaced his first edition of La Bruyere and turned away from
+the bookcases, he began to ask himself what she had been driving
+at. Her next question was not of a nature to enlighten him. She
+paused before him with a smile which seemed at once designed to
+admit him to her familiarity, and to remind him of the
+restrictions it imposed.
+
+"Don't you ever mind," she asked suddenly, "not being rich enough
+to buy all the books you want?"
+
+He followed her glance about the room, with its worn furniture
+and shabby walls.
+
+"Don't I just? Do you take me for a saint on a pillar?"
+
+"And having to work--do you mind that?"
+
+"Oh, the work itself is not so bad--I'm rather fond of the law."
+
+"No; but the being tied down: the routine--don't you ever want to
+get away, to see new places and people?"
+
+"Horribly--especially when I see all my friends rushing to the
+steamer."
+
+She drew a sympathetic breath. "But do you mind enough--to marry
+to get out of it?"
+
+Selden broke into a laugh. "God forbid!" he declared.
+
+She rose with a sigh, tossing her cigarette into the grate.
+
+"Ah, there's the difference--a girl must, a man may if he
+chooses." She surveyed him critically. "Your coat's a little
+shabby--but who cares? It doesn't keep people from asking you to
+dine. If I were shabby no one would have me: a woman is asked out
+as much for her clothes as for herself. The clothes are the
+background, the frame, if you like: they don't make success, but
+they are a part of it. Who wants a dingy woman? We are expected
+to be pretty and well-dressed till we drop--and if we can't keep
+it up alone, we have to go into partnership."
+
+Selden glanced at her with amusement: it was impossible, even
+with her lovely eyes imploring him, to take a sentimental view of
+her case.
+
+"Ah, well, there must be plenty of capital on the look-out for
+such an investment. Perhaps you'll meet your fate tonight at the
+Trenors'."
+
+She returned his look interrogatively.
+
+"I thought you might be going there--oh, not in that capacity!
+But there are to be a lot of your set--Gwen Van Osburgh, the
+Wetheralls, Lady Cressida Raith--and the George Dorsets."
+
+She paused a moment before the last name, and shot a query
+through her lashes; but he remained imperturbable.
+
+"Mrs. Trenor asked me; but I can't get away till the end of the
+week; and those big parties bore me."
+
+"Ah, so they do me," she exclaimed.
+
+"Then why go?"
+
+"It's part of the business--you forget! And besides, if I didn't,
+I should be playing bezique with my aunt at Richfield Springs."
+
+"That's almost as bad as marrying Dillworth," he agreed, and they
+both laughed for pure pleasure in their sudden intimacy.
+
+She glanced at the clock.
+
+"Dear me! I must be off. It's after five."
+
+She paused before the mantelpiece, studying herself in the mirror
+while she adjusted her veil. The attitude revealed the long slope
+of her slender sides, which gave a kind of wild-wood grace to her
+outline--as though she were a captured dryad subdued to the
+conventions of the drawing-room; and Selden reflected that it was
+the same streak of sylvan freedom in her nature that lent such
+savour to her artificiality.
+
+He followed her across the room to the entrance-hall; but on the
+threshold she held out her hand with a gesture of leave-taking.
+
+"It's been delightful; and now you will have to return my visit."
+
+"But don't you want me to see you to the station?"
+
+"No; good bye here, please."
+
+She let her hand lie in his a moment, smiling up at him adorably.
+
+"Good bye, then--and good luck at Bellomont!" he said, opening
+the door for her.
+
+On the landing she paused to look about her. There were a
+thousand chances to one against her meeting anybody, but one
+could never tell, and she always paid for her rare indiscretions
+by a violent reaction of prudence. There was no one in sight,
+however, but a char-woman who was scrubbing the stairs. Her own
+stout person and its surrounding implements took up so much room
+that Lily, to pass her, had to gather up her skirts and brush
+against the wall. As she did so, the woman paused in her work and
+looked up curiously, resting her clenched red fists on the
+wet cloth she had just drawn from her pail. She had a broad
+sallow face, slightly pitted with small-pox, and thin
+straw-coloured hair through which her scalp shone unpleasantly.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Lily, intending by her politeness to
+convey a criticism of the other's manner.
+
+The woman, without answering, pushed her pail aside, and
+continued to stare as Miss Bart swept by with a murmur of silken
+linings. Lily felt herself flushing under the look. What did the
+creature suppose? Could one never do the simplest, the most
+harmless thing, without subjecting one's self to some odious
+conjecture? Half way down the next flight, she smiled to think
+that a char-woman's stare should so perturb her. The poor thing
+was probably dazzled by such an unwonted apparition. But WERE
+such apparitions unwonted on Selden's stairs? Miss Bart was not
+familiar with the moral code of bachelors' flat-houses, and her
+colour rose again as it occurred to her that the woman's
+persistent gaze implied a groping among past associations. But
+she put aside the thought with a smile at her own fears, and
+hastened downward, wondering if she should find a cab short of
+Fifth Avenue.
+
+Under the Georgian porch she paused again, scanning the street
+for a hansom. None was in sight, but as she reached the sidewalk
+she ran against a small glossy-looking man with a gardenia in his
+coat, who raised his hat with a surprised exclamation.
+
+"Miss Bart? Well--of all people! This IS luck," he declared; and
+she caught a twinkle of amused curiosity between his screwed-up
+lids.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Rosedale--how are you?" she said, perceiving that the
+irrepressible annoyance on her face was reflected in the sudden
+intimacy of his smile.
+
+Mr. Rosedale stood scanning her with interest and approval. He
+was a plump rosy man of the blond Jewish type, with smart London
+clothes fitting him like upholstery, and small sidelong eyes
+which gave him the air of appraising people as if they were
+bric-a-brac. He glanced up interrogatively at the porch of the
+Benedick.
+
+"Been up to town for a little shopping, I suppose?" he said, in a
+tone which had the familiarity of a touch.
+
+Miss Bart shrank from it slightly, and then flung herself into
+precipitate explanations.
+
+"Yes--I came up to see my dress-maker. I am just on my way to
+catch the train to the Trenors'."
+
+"Ah--your dress-maker; just so," he said blandly. "I didn't know
+there were any dress-makers in the Benedick."
+
+"The Benedick?" She looked gently puzzled. "Is that the name of
+this building?"
+
+"Yes, that's the name: I believe it's an old word for bachelor,
+isn't it? I happen to own the building--that's the way I know."
+His smile deepened as he added with increasing assurance: "But
+you must let me take you to the station. The Trenors are at
+Bellomont, of course? You've barely time to catch the five-forty.
+The dress-maker kept you waiting, I suppose."
+
+Lily stiffened under the pleasantry.
+
+"Oh, thanks," she stammered; and at that moment her eye caught a
+hansom drifting down Madison Avenue, and she hailed it with a
+desperate gesture.
+
+"You're very kind; but I couldn't think of troubling you," she
+said, extending her hand to Mr. Rosedale; and heedless of his
+protestations, she sprang into the rescuing vehicle, and called
+out a breathless order to the driver.
+
+
+
+Chapter 2
+
+In the hansom she leaned back with a sigh. Why must a girl pay so
+dearly for her least escape from routine? Why could one never do
+a natural thing without having to screen it behind a structure of
+artifice? She had yielded to a passing impulse in going to
+Lawrence Selden's rooms, and it was so seldom that she could
+allow herself the luxury of an impulse! This one, at any rate,
+was going to cost her rather more than she could afford. She was
+vexed to see that, in spite of so many years of vigilance, she
+had blundered twice within five minutes. That stupid story about
+her dress-maker was bad enough--it would have been so simple to
+tell Rosedale that she had been taking tea with Selden! The mere
+statement of the fact would have rendered it innocuous. But,
+after having let herself be surprised in a falsehood, it was
+doubly stupid to snub the witness of her discomfiture. If she had
+had the presence of mind to let Rosedale drive her to the
+station, the concession might have purchased his silence. He had
+his race's accuracy in the appraisal of values, and to be seen
+walking down the platform at the crowded afternoon hour in the
+company of Miss Lily Bart would have been money in his pocket, as
+he might himself have phrased it. He knew, of course, that there
+would be a large house-party at Bellomont, and the possibility of
+being taken for one of Mrs. Trenor's guests was doubtless
+included in his calculations. Mr. Rosedale was still at a stage
+in his social ascent when it was of importance to produce such
+impressions.
+
+The provoking part was that Lily knew all this--knew how easy it
+would have been to silence him on the spot, and how difficult it
+might be to do so afterward. Mr. Simon Rosedale was a man who
+made it his business to know everything about every one, whose
+idea of showing himself to be at home in society was to display
+an inconvenient familiarity with the habits of those with whom he
+wished to be thought intimate. Lily was sure that within
+twenty-four hours the story of her visiting her dress-maker at
+the Benedick would be in active circulation among Mr. Rosedale's
+acquaintances. The worst of it was that she had always snubbed
+and ignored him. On his first appearance--when her
+improvident cousin, Jack Stepney, had obtained for him (in return
+for favours too easily guessed) a card to one of the vast
+impersonal Van Osburgh "crushes"--Rosedale, with that mixture of
+artistic sensibility and business astuteness which characterizes
+his race, had instantly gravitated toward Miss Bart. She
+understood his motives, for her own course was guided by as nice
+calculations. Training and experience had taught her to be
+hospitable to newcomers, since the most unpromising might be
+useful later on, and there were plenty of available OUBLIETTES to
+swallow them if they were not. But some intuitive repugnance,
+getting the better of years of social discipline, had made her
+push Mr. Rosedale into his OUBLIETTE without a trial. He had left
+behind only the ripple of amusement which his speedy despatch had
+caused among her friends; and though later (to shift the
+metaphor) he reappeared lower down the stream, it was only in
+fleeting glimpses, with long submergences between.
+
+Hitherto Lily had been undisturbed by scruples. In her little set
+Mr. Rosedale had been pronounced "impossible," and Jack Stepney
+roundly snubbed for his attempt to pay his debts in dinner
+invitations. Even Mrs. Trenor, whose taste for variety had led
+her into some hazardous experiments, resisted Jack's attempts to
+disguise Mr. Rosedale as a novelty, and declared that he was the
+same little Jew who had been served up and rejected at the social
+board a dozen times within her memory; and while Judy Trenor was
+obdurate there was small chance of Mr. Rosedale's penetrating
+beyond the outer limbo of the Van Osburgh crushes. Jack gave up
+the contest with a laughing "You'll see," and, sticking manfully
+to his guns, showed himself with Rosedale at the fashionable
+restaurants, in company with the personally vivid if socially
+obscure ladies who are available for such purposes. But the
+attempt had hitherto been vain, and as Rosedale undoubtedly paid
+for the dinners, the laugh remained with his debtor.
+
+Mr. Rosedale, it will be seen, was thus far not a factor to be
+feared--unless one put one's self in his power. And this was
+precisely what Miss Bart had done. Her clumsy fib had let him see
+that she had something to conceal; and she was sure he had a
+score to settle with her. Something in his smile told her
+he had not forgotten. She turned from the thought with a little
+shiver, but it hung on her all the way to the station, and dogged
+her down the platform with the persistency of Mr. Rosedale
+himself.
+
+She had just time to take her seat before the train started; but
+having arranged herself in her corner with the instinctive
+feeling for effect which never forsook her, she glanced about in
+the hope of seeing some other member of the Trenors' party. She
+wanted to get away from herself, and conversation was the only
+means of escape that she knew.
+
+Her search was rewarded by the discovery of a very blond young
+man with a soft reddish beard, who, at the other end of the
+carriage, appeared to be dissembling himself behind an unfolded
+newspaper. Lily's eye brightened, and a faint smile relaxed the
+drawn lines of her mouth. She had known that Mr. Percy Gryce was
+to be at Bellomont, but she had not counted on the luck of having
+him to herself in the train; and the fact banished all perturbing
+thoughts of Mr. Rosedale. Perhaps, after all, the day was to end
+more favourably than it had begun.
+
+She began to cut the pages of a novel, tranquilly studying her
+prey through downcast lashes while she organized a method of
+attack. Something in his attitude of conscious absorption told
+her that he was aware of her presence: no one had ever been quite
+so engrossed in an evening paper! She guessed that he was too shy
+to come up to her, and that she would have to devise some means
+of approach which should not appear to be an advance on her part.
+It amused her to think that any one as rich as Mr. Percy Gryce
+should be shy; but she was gifted with treasures of indulgence
+for such idiosyncrasies, and besides, his timidity might serve
+her purpose better than too much assurance. She had the art of
+giving self-confidence to the embarrassed, but she was not
+equally sure of being able to embarrass the self-confident.
+
+She waited till the train had emerged from the tunnel and was
+racing between the ragged edges of the northern suburbs. Then, as
+it lowered its speed near Yonkers, she rose from her seat and
+drifted slowly down the carriage. As she passed Mr. Gryce, the
+train gave a lurch, and he was aware of a slender hand gripping
+the back of his chair. He rose with a start, his ingenuous
+face looking as though it had been dipped in crimson: even the
+reddish tint in his beard seemed to deepen. The train swayed
+again, almost flinging Miss Bart into his arms.
+
+She steadied herself with a laugh and drew back; but he was
+enveloped in the scent of her dress, and his shoulder had felt
+her fugitive touch.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Gryce, is it you? I'm so sorry--I was trying to find the
+porter and get some tea."
+
+She held out her hand as the train resumed its level rush, and
+they stood exchanging a few words in the aisle. Yes--he was going
+to Bellomont. He had heard she was to be of the party--he blushed
+again as he admitted it. And was he to be there for a whole week?
+How delightful!
+
+But at this point one or two belated passengers from the last
+station forced their way into the carriage, and Lily had to
+retreat to her seat.
+
+"The chair next to mine is empty--do take it," she said over her
+shoulder; and Mr. Gryce, with considerable embarrassment,
+succeeded in effecting an exchange which enabled him to transport
+himself and his bags to her side.
+
+"Ah--and here is the porter, and perhaps we can have some tea."
+
+She signalled to that official, and in a moment, with the ease
+that seemed to attend the fulfilment of all her wishes, a little
+table had been set up between the seats, and she had helped Mr.
+Gryce to bestow his encumbering properties beneath it.
+
+When the tea came he watched her in silent fascination while her
+hands flitted above the tray, looking miraculously fine and
+slender in contrast to the coarse china and lumpy bread. It
+seemed wonderful to him that any one should perform with such
+careless ease the difficult task of making tea in public in a
+lurching train. He would never have dared to order it for
+himself, lest he should attract the notice of his
+fellow-passengers; but, secure in the shelter of her
+conspicuousness, he sipped the inky draught with a delicious
+sense of exhilaration.
+
+Lily, with the flavour of Selden's caravan tea on her lips, had
+no great fancy to drown it in the railway brew which seemed such
+nectar to her companion; but, rightly judging that one of
+the charms of tea is the fact of drinking it together, she
+proceeded to give the last touch to Mr. Gryce's enjoyment by
+smiling at him across her lifted cup.
+
+"Is it quite right--I haven't made it too strong?" she asked
+solicitously; and he replied with conviction that he had never
+tasted better tea.
+
+"I daresay it is true," she reflected; and her imagination was
+fired by the thought that Mr. Gryce, who might have sounded the
+depths of the most complex self-indulgence, was perhaps actually
+taking his first journey alone with a pretty woman.
+
+It struck her as providential that she should be the instrument
+of his initiation. Some girls would not have known how to manage
+him. They would have over-emphasized the novelty of the
+adventure, trying to make him feel in it the zest of an escapade.
+But Lily's methods were more delicate. She remembered that her
+cousin Jack Stepney had once defined Mr. Gryce as the young man
+who had promised his mother never to go out in the rain without
+his overshoes; and acting on this hint, she resolved to impart a
+gently domestic air to the scene, in the hope that her companion,
+instead of feeling that he was doing something reckless or
+unusual, would merely be led to dwell on the advantage of always
+having a companion to make one's tea in the train.
+
+But in spite of her efforts, conversation flagged after the tray
+had been removed, and she was driven to take a fresh measurement
+of Mr. Gryce's limitations. It was not, after all, opportunity
+but imagination that he lacked: he had a mental palate which
+would never learn to distinguish between railway tea and nectar.
+There was, however, one topic she could rely on: one spring that
+she had only to touch to set his simple machinery in motion. She
+had refrained from touching it because it was a last resource,
+and she had relied on other arts to stimulate other sensations;
+but as a settled look of dulness began to creep over his candid
+features, she saw that extreme measures were necessary.
+
+"And how," she said, leaning forward, "are you getting on with
+your Americana?"
+
+His eye became a degree less opaque: it was as though an
+incipient film had been removed from it, and she felt the pride
+of a skilful operator.
+
+"I've got a few new things," he said, suffused with pleasure, but
+lowering his voice as though he feared his fellow-passengers
+might be in league to despoil him.
+
+She returned a sympathetic enquiry, and gradually he was drawn on
+to talk of his latest purchases. It was the one subject which
+enabled him to forget himself, or allowed him, rather, to
+remember himself without constraint, because he was at home in
+it, and could assert a superiority that there were few to
+dispute. Hardly any of his acquaintances cared for Americana, or
+knew anything about them; and the consciousness of this ignorance
+threw Mr. Gryce's knowledge into agreeable relief. The only
+difficulty was to introduce the topic and to keep it to the
+front; most people showed no desire to have their ignorance
+dispelled, and Mr. Gryce was like a merchant whose warehouses are
+crammed with an unmarketable commodity.
+
+But Miss Bart, it appeared, really did want to know about
+Americana; and moreover, she was already sufficiently informed to
+make the task of farther instruction as easy as it was agreeable.
+She questioned him intelligently, she heard him submissively;
+and, prepared for the look of lassitude which usually crept over
+his listeners' faces, he grew eloquent under her receptive gaze.
+The "points" she had had the presence of mind to glean from
+Selden, in anticipation of this very contingency, were serving
+her to such good purpose that she began to think her visit to him
+had been the luckiest incident of the day. She had once more
+shown her talent for profiting by the unexpected, and dangerous
+theories as to the advisability of yielding to impulse were
+germinating under the surface of smiling attention which she
+continued to present to her companion.
+
+Mr. Gryce's sensations, if less definite, were equally agreeable.
+He felt the confused titillation with which the lower organisms
+welcome the gratification of their needs, and all his senses
+floundered in a vague well-being, through which Miss Bart's
+personality was dimly but pleasantly perceptible.
+
+Mr. Gryce's interest in Americana had not originated with
+himself: it was impossible to think of him as evolving any taste
+of his own. An uncle had left him a collection already noted
+among bibliophiles; the existence of the collection was
+the only fact that had ever shed glory on the name of Gryce, and
+the nephew took as much pride in his inheritance as though it had
+been his own work. Indeed, he gradually came to regard it as
+such, and to feel a sense of personal complacency when he chanced
+on any reference to the Gryce Americana. Anxious as he was to
+avoid personal notice, he took, in the printed mention of his
+name, a pleasure so exquisite and excessive that it seemed a
+compensation for his shrinking from publicity.
+
+To enjoy the sensation as often as possible, he subscribed to all
+the reviews dealing with book-collecting in general, and American
+history in particular, and as allusions to his library abounded
+in the pages of these journals, which formed his only reading, he
+came to regard himself as figuring prominently in the public eye,
+and to enjoy the thought of the interest which would be excited
+if the persons he met in the street, or sat among in travelling,
+were suddenly to be told that he was the possessor of the Gryce
+Americana.
+
+Most timidities have such secret compensations, and Miss Bart was
+discerning enough to know that the inner vanity is generally in
+proportion to the outer self-depreciation. With a more confident
+person she would not have dared to dwell so long on one topic, or
+to show such exaggerated interest in it; but she had rightly
+guessed that Mr. Gryce's egoism was a thirsty soil, requiring
+constant nurture from without. Miss Bart had the gift of
+following an undercurrent of thought while she appeared to be
+sailing on the surface of conversation; and in this case her
+mental excursion took the form of a rapid survey of Mr. Percy
+Gryce's future as combined with her own. The Gryces were from
+Albany, and but lately introduced to the metropolis, where the
+mother and son had come, after old Jefferson Gryce's death, to
+take possession of his house in Madison Avenue--an appalling
+house, all brown stone without and black walnut within, with the
+Gryce library in a fire-proof annex that looked like a mausoleum.
+Lily, however, knew all about them: young Mr. Gryce's arrival had
+fluttered the maternal breasts of New York, and when a girl has
+no mother to palpitate for her she must needs be on the alert for
+herself. Lily, therefore, had not only contrived to put herself
+in the young man's way, but had made the acquaintance of
+Mrs. Gryce, a monumental woman with the voice of a pulpit orator
+and a mind preoccupied with the iniquities of her servants, who
+came sometimes to sit with Mrs. Peniston and learn from that lady
+how she managed to prevent the kitchen-maid's smuggling groceries
+out of the house. Mrs. Gryce had a kind of impersonal
+benevolence: cases of individual need she regarded with
+suspicion, but she subscribed to Institutions when their annual
+reports showed an impressive surplus. Her domestic duties were
+manifold, for they extended from furtive inspections of the
+servants' bedrooms to unannounced descents to the cellar; but she
+had never allowed herself many pleasures. Once, however, she had
+had a special edition of the Sarum Rule printed in rubric and
+presented to every clergyman in the diocese; and the gilt album
+in which their letters of thanks were pasted formed the chief
+ornament of her drawing-room table.
+
+Percy had been brought up in the principles which so excellent a
+woman was sure to inculcate. Every form of prudence and suspicion
+had been grafted on a nature originally reluctant and cautious,
+with the result that it would have seemed hardly needful for Mrs.
+Gryce to extract his promise about the overshoes, so little
+likely was he to hazard himself abroad in the rain. After
+attaining his majority, and coming into the fortune which the
+late Mr. Gryce had made out of a patent device for excluding
+fresh air from hotels, the young man continued to live with his
+mother in Albany; but on Jefferson Gryce's death, when another
+large property passed into her son's hands, Mrs. Gryce thought
+that what she called his "interests" demanded his presence in New
+York. She accordingly installed herself in the Madison Avenue
+house, and Percy, whose sense of duty was not inferior to his
+mother's, spent all his week days in the handsome Broad Street
+office where a batch of pale men on small salaries had grown grey
+in the management of the Gryce estate, and where he was initiated
+with becoming reverence into every detail of the art of
+accumulation.
+
+As far as Lily could learn, this had hitherto been Mr. Gryce's
+only occupation, and she might have been pardoned for thinking it
+not too hard a task to interest a young man who had been kept on
+such low diet. At any rate, she felt herself so completely
+in command of the situation that she yielded to a sense of
+security in which all fear of Mr. Rosedale, and of the
+difficulties on which that fear was contingent, vanished beyond
+the edge of thought.
+
+The stopping of the train at Garrisons would not have distracted
+her from these thoughts, had she not caught a sudden look of
+distress in her companion's eye. His seat faced toward the door,
+and she guessed that he had been perturbed by the approach of an
+acquaintance; a fact confirmed by the turning of heads and
+general sense of commotion which her own entrance into a
+railway-carriage was apt to produce.
+
+She knew the symptoms at once, and was not surprised to be hailed
+by the high notes of a pretty woman, who entered the train
+accompanied by a maid, a bull-terrier, and a footman staggering
+under a load of bags and dressing-cases.
+
+"Oh, Lily--are you going to Bellomont? Then you can't let me have
+your seat, I suppose? But I MUST have a seat in this
+carriage--porter, you must find me a place at once. Can't some
+one be put somewhere else? I want to be with my friends. Oh, how
+do you do, Mr. Gryce? Do please make him understand that I must
+have a seat next to you and Lily."
+
+Mrs. George Dorset, regardless of the mild efforts of a traveller
+with a carpet-bag, who was doing his best to make room for her by
+getting out of the train, stood in the middle of the aisle,
+diffusing about her that general sense of exasperation which a
+pretty woman on her travels not infrequently creates.
+
+She was smaller and thinner than Lily Bart, with a restless
+pliability of pose, as if she could have been crumpled up and run
+through a ring, like the sinuous draperies she affected. Her
+small pale face seemed the mere setting of a pair of dark
+exaggerated eyes, of which the visionary gaze contrasted
+curiously with her self-assertive tone and gestures; so that, as
+one of her friends observed, she was like a disembodied spirit
+who took up a great deal of room.
+
+Having finally discovered that the seat adjoining Miss Bart's was
+at her disposal, she possessed herself of it with a farther
+displacement of her surroundings, explaining meanwhile that she
+had come across from Mount Kisco in her motor-car that morning,
+and had been kicking her heels for an hour at Garrisons, without
+even the alleviation of a cigarette, her brute of a
+husband having neglected to replenish her case before they parted
+that morning.
+
+"And at this hour of the day I don't suppose you've a single one
+left, have you, Lily?" she plaintively concluded.
+
+Miss Bart caught the startled glance of Mr. Percy Gryce, whose
+own lips were never defiled by tobacco.
+
+"What an absurd question, Bertha!" she exclaimed, blushing at the
+thought of the store she had laid in at Lawrence Selden's.
+
+"Why, don't you smoke? Since when have you given it up? What--you
+never---And you don't either, Mr. Gryce? Ah, of course--how
+stupid of me--I understand."
+
+And Mrs. Dorset leaned back against her travelling cushions with
+a smile which made Lily wish there had been no vacant seat beside
+her own.
+
+
+
+Chapter 3
+
+Bridge at Bellomont usually lasted till the small hours; and when
+Lily went to bed that night she had played too long for her own
+good.
+
+Feeling no desire for the self-communion which awaited her in her
+room, she lingered on the broad stairway, looking down into the
+hall below, where the last card-players were grouped about the
+tray of tall glasses and silver-collared decanters which the
+butler had just placed on a low table near the fire.
+
+The hall was arcaded, with a gallery supported on columns of pale
+yellow marble. Tall clumps of flowering plants were grouped
+against a background of dark foliage in the angles of the walls.
+On the crimson carpet a deer-hound and two or three spaniels
+dozed luxuriously before the fire, and the light from the great
+central lantern overhead shed a brightness on the women's hair
+and struck sparks from their jewels as they moved.
+
+There were moments when such scenes delighted Lily, when they
+gratified her sense of beauty and her craving for the external
+finish of life; there were others when they gave a sharper edge
+to the meagreness of her own opportunities. This was one of the
+moments when the sense of contrast was uppermost, and she turned
+away impatiently as Mrs. George Dorset, glittering in serpentine
+spangles, drew Percy Gryce in her wake to a confidential nook
+beneath the gallery.
+
+It was not that Miss Bart was afraid of losing her newly-acquired
+hold over Mr. Gryce. Mrs. Dorset might startle or dazzle him, but
+she had neither the skill nor the patience to effect his capture.
+She was too self-engrossed to penetrate the recesses of his
+shyness, and besides, why should she care to give herself the
+trouble? At most it might amuse her to make sport of his
+simplicity for an evening--after that he would be merely a burden
+to her, and knowing this, she was far too experienced to
+encourage him. But the mere thought of that other woman, who
+could take a man up and toss him aside as she willed, without
+having to regard him as a possible factor in her plans, filled
+Lily Bart with envy. She had been bored all the afternoon
+by Percy Gryce--the mere thought seemed to waken an echo of his
+droning voice--but she could not ignore him on the morrow, she
+must follow up her success, must submit to more boredom, must be
+ready with fresh compliances and adaptabilities, and all on the
+bare chance that he might ultimately decide to do her the honour
+of boring her for life.
+
+It was a hateful fate--but how escape from it? What choice had
+she? To be herself, or a Gerty Farish. As she entered her
+bedroom, with its softly-shaded lights, her lace dressing-gown
+lying across the silken bedspread, her little embroidered
+slippers before the fire, a vase of carnations filling the air
+with perfume, and the last novels and magazines lying uncut on a
+table beside the reading-lamp, she had a vision of Miss Farish's
+cramped flat, with its cheap conveniences and hideous
+wall-papers. No; she was not made for mean and shabby
+surroundings, for the squalid compromises of poverty. Her whole
+being dilated in an atmosphere of luxury; it was the background
+she required, the only climate she could breathe in. But the
+luxury of others was not what she wanted. A few years ago it had
+sufficed her: she had taken her daily meed of pleasure without
+caring who provided it. Now she was beginning to chafe at the
+obligations it imposed, to feel herself a mere pensioner on the
+splendour which had once seemed to belong to her. There were even
+moments when she was conscious of having to pay her way.
+
+For a long time she had refused to play bridge. She knew she
+could not afford it, and she was afraid of acquiring so expensive
+a taste. She had seen the danger exemplified in more than one of
+her associates--in young Ned Silverton, for instance, the
+charming fair boy now seated in abject rapture at the elbow of
+Mrs. Fisher, a striking divorcee with eyes and gowns as emphatic
+as the head-lines of her "case." Lily could remember when young
+Silverton had stumbled into their circle, with the air of a
+strayed Arcadian who has published chamung sonnets in his college
+journal. Since then he had developed a taste for Mrs. Fisher and
+bridge, and the latter at least had involved him in expenses from
+which he had been more than once rescued by harassed maiden
+sisters, who treasured the sonnets, and went without sugar in
+their tea to keep their darling afloat. Ned's case was
+familiar to Lily: she had seen his charming eyes--which had a
+good deal more poetry in them than the sonnets--change from
+surprise to amusement, and from amusement to anxiety, as he
+passed under the spell of the terrible god of chance; and she was
+afraid of discovering the same symptoms in her own case.
+
+For in the last year she had found that her hostesses expected
+her to take a place at the card-table. It was one of the taxes
+she had to pay for their prolonged hospitality, and for the
+dresses and trinkets which occasionally replenished her
+insufficient wardrobe. And since she had played regularly the
+passion had grown on her. Once or twice of late she had won a
+large sum, and instead of keeping it against future losses, had
+spent it in dress or jewelry; and the desire to atone for this
+imprudence, combined with the increasing exhilaration of the
+game, drove her to risk higher stakes at each fresh venture. She
+tried to excuse herself on the plea that, in the Trenor set, if
+one played at all one must either play high or be set down as
+priggish or stingy; but she knew that the gambling passion was
+upon her, and that in her present surroundings there was small
+hope of resisting it.
+
+Tonight the luck had been persistently bad, and the little gold
+purse which hung among her trinkets was almost empty when she
+returned to her room. She unlocked the wardrobe, and taking out
+her jewel-case, looked under the tray for the roll of bills from
+which she had replenished the purse before going down to dinner.
+Only twenty dollars were left: the discovery was so startling
+that for a moment she fancied she must have been robbed. Then she
+took paper and pencil, and seating herself at the writing-table,
+tried to reckon up what she had spent during the day. Her head
+was throbbing with fatigue, and she had to go over the figures
+again and again; but at last it became clear to her that she had
+lost three hundred dollars at cards. She took out her cheque-book
+to see if her balance was larger than she remembered, but found
+she had erred in the other direction. Then she returned to her
+calculations; but figure as she would, she could not conjure back
+the vanished three hundred dollars. It was the sum she had set
+aside to pacify her dress-maker--unless she should decide to use
+it as a sop to the jeweller. At any rate, she had so many
+uses for it that its very insufficiency had caused her to play
+high in the hope of doubling it. But of course she had lost--she
+who needed every penny, while Bertha Dorset, whose husband
+showered money on her, must have pocketed at least five hundred,
+and Judy Trenor, who could have afforded to lose a thousand a
+night, had left the table clutching such a heap of bills that she
+had been unable to shake hands with her guests when they bade her
+good night.
+
+A world in which such things could be seemed a miserable place to
+Lily Bart; but then she had never been able to understand the
+laws of a universe which was so ready to leave her out of its
+calculations.
+
+She began to undress without ringing for her maid, whom she had
+sent to bed. She had been long enough in bondage to other
+people's pleasure to be considerate of those who depended on
+hers, and in her bitter moods it sometimes struck her that she
+and her maid were in the same position, except that the latter
+received her wages more regularly.
+
+As she sat before the mirror brushing her hair, her face looked
+hollow and pale, and she was frightened by two little lines near
+her mouth, faint flaws in the smooth curve of the cheek.
+
+"Oh, I must stop worrying!" she exclaimed. "Unless it's the
+electric light---" she reflected, springing up from her seat and
+lighting the candles on the dressing-table.
+
+She turned out the wall-lights, and peered at herself between the
+candle-flames. The white oval of her face swam out waveringly
+from a background of shadows, the uncertain light blurring it
+like a haze; but the two lines about the mouth remained.
+
+Lily rose and undressed in haste.
+
+"It is only because I am tired and have such odious things to
+think about," she kept repeating; and it seemed an added
+injustice that petty cares should leave a trace on the beauty
+which was her only defence against them.
+
+But the odious things were there, and remained with her. She
+returned wearily to the thought of Percy Gryce, as a wayfarer
+picks up a heavy load and toils on after a brief rest. She was
+almost sure she had "landed" him: a few days' work and she would
+win her reward. But the reward itself seemed upalatable
+just then: she could get no zest from the thought of victory. It
+would be a rest from worry, no more--and how little that would
+have seemed to her a few years earlier! Her ambitions had shrunk
+gradually in the desiccating air of failure. But why had she
+failed? Was it her own fault or that of destiny?
+
+She remembered how her mother, after they had lost their money,
+used to say to her with a kind of fierce vindictiveness: "But
+you'll get it all back--you'll get it all back, with your face."
+. . . The remembrance roused a whole train of association, and
+she lay in the darkness reconstructing the past out of which her
+present had grown.
+
+A house in which no one ever dined at home unless there was
+"company"; a door-bell perpetually ringing; a hall-table showered
+with square envelopes which were opened in haste, and oblong
+envelopes which were allowed to gather dust in the depths of a
+bronze jar; a series of French and English maids giving warning
+amid a chaos of hurriedly-ransacked wardrobes and dress-closets;
+an equally changing dynasty of nurses and footmen; quarrels in
+the pantry, the kitchen and the drawing-room; precipitate trips
+to Europe, and returns with gorged trunks and days of
+interminable unpacking; semi-annual discussions as to where the
+summer should be spent, grey interludes of economy and brilliant
+reactions of expense--such was the setting of Lily Bart's first
+memories.
+
+Ruling the turbulent element called home was the vigorous and
+determined figure of a mother still young enough to dance her
+ball-dresses to rags, while the hazy outline of a neutral-tinted
+father filled an intermediate space between the butler and the
+man who came to wind the clocks. Even to the eyes of infancy,
+Mrs. Hudson Bart had appeared young; but Lily could not recall
+the time when her father had not been bald and slightly stooping,
+with streaks of grey in his hair, and a tired walk. It was a
+shock to her to learn afterward that he was but two years older
+than her mother.
+
+Lily seldom saw her father by daylight. All day he was "down
+town"; and in winter it was long after nightfall when she heard
+his fagged step on the stairs and his hand on the school-room
+door. He would kiss her in silence, and ask one or two questions
+of the nurse or the governess; then Mrs. Bart's maid would
+come to remind him that he was dining out, and he would hurry
+away with a nod to Lily. In summer, when he joined them for a
+Sunday at Newport or Southampton, he was even more effaced and
+silent than in winter. It seemed to tire him to rest, and he
+would sit for hours staring at the sea-line from a quiet corner
+of the verandah, while the clatter of his wife's existence went
+on unheeded a few feet off. Generally, however, Mrs. Bart and
+Lily went to Europe for the summer, and before the steamer was
+half way over Mr. Bart had dipped below the horizon. Sometimes
+his daughter heard him denounced for having neglected to forward
+Mrs. Bart's remittances; but for the most part he was never
+mentioned or thought of till his patient stooping figure
+presented itself on the New York dock as a buffer between the
+magnitude of his wife's luggage and the restrictions of the
+American custom-house.
+
+In this desultory yet agitated fashion life went on through
+Lily's teens: a zig-zag broken course down which the family craft
+glided on a rapid current of amusement, tugged at by the
+underflow of a perpetual need--the need of more money. Lily could
+not recall the time when there had been money enough, and in some
+vague way her father seemed always to blame for the deficiency.
+It could certainly not be the fault of Mrs. Bart, who was spoken
+of by her friends as a "wonderful manager." Mrs. Bart was famous
+for the unlimited effect she produced on limited means; and to
+the lady and her acquaintances there was something heroic in
+living as though one were much richer than one's bank-book
+denoted.
+
+Lily was naturally proud of her mother's aptitude in this line:
+she had been brought up in the faith that, whatever it cost, one
+must have a good cook, and be what Mrs. Bart called "decently
+dressed." Mrs. Bart's worst reproach to her husband was to ask
+him if he expected her to "live like a pig"; and his replying in
+the negative was always regarded as a justification for cabling
+to Paris for an extra dress or two, and telephoning to the
+jeweller that he might, after all, send home the turquoise
+bracelet which Mrs. Bart had looked at that morning.
+
+Lily knew people who "lived like pigs," and their appearance and
+surroundings justified her mother's repugnance to that
+form of existence. They were mostly cousins, who inhabited dingy
+houses with engravings from Cole's Voyage of Life on the
+drawing-room walls, and slatternly parlour-maids who said "I'll
+go and see" to visitors calling at an hour when all right-minded
+persons are conventionally if not actually out. The disgusting
+part of it was that many of these cousins were rich, so that Lily
+imbibed the idea that if people lived like pigs it was from
+choice, and through the lack of any proper standard of conduct.
+This gave her a sense of reflected superiority, and she did not
+need Mrs. Bart's comments on the family frumps and misers to
+foster her naturally lively taste for splendour.
+
+Lily was nineteen when circumstances caused her to revise her
+view of the universe.
+
+The previous year she had made a dazzling debut fringed by a
+heavy thunder-cloud of bills. The light of the debut still
+lingered on the horizon, but the cloud had thickened; and
+suddenly it broke. The suddenness added to the horror; and there
+were still times when Lily relived with painful vividness every
+detail of the day on which the blow fell. She and her mother had
+been seated at the luncheon-table, over the CHAUFROIX and cold
+salmon of the previous night's dinner: it was one of Mrs. Bart's
+few economies to consume in private the expensive remnants of her
+hospitality. Lily was feeling the pleasant languor which is
+youth's penalty for dancing till dawn; but her mother, in spite
+of a few lines about the mouth, and under the yellow waves on her
+temples, was as alert, determined and high in colour as if she
+had risen from an untroubled sleep.
+
+In the centre of the table, between the melting MARRONS GLACES
+and candied cherries, a pyramid of American Beauties lifted their
+vigorous stems; they held their heads as high as Mrs. Bart, but
+their rose-colour had turned to a dissipated purple, and Lily's
+sense of fitness was disturbed by their reappearance on the
+luncheon-table.
+
+"I really think, mother," she said reproachfully, "we might
+afford a few fresh flowers for luncheon. Just some jonquils or
+lilies-of-the-valley---"
+
+Mrs. Bart stared. Her own fastidiousness had its eye fixed on the
+world, and she did not care how the luncheon-table looked
+when there was no one present at it but the family. But she
+smiled at her daughter's innocence.
+
+"Lilies-of-the-valley," she said calmly, "cost two dollars a
+dozen at this season."
+
+Lily was not impressed. She knew very little of the value of
+money.
+
+"It would not take more than six dozen to fill that bowl," she
+argued.
+
+"Six dozen what?" asked her father's voice in the doorway.
+
+The two women looked up in surprise; though it was a Saturday,
+the sight of Mr. Bart at luncheon was an unwonted one. But
+neither his wife nor his daughter was sufficiently interested to
+ask an explanation.
+
+Mr. Bart dropped into a chair, and sat gazing absently at the
+fragment of jellied salmon which the butler had placed before
+him.
+
+"I was only saying," Lily began, "that I hate to see faded
+flowers at luncheon; and mother says a bunch of lilies-of-the-
+valley would not cost more than twelve dollars. Mayn't I tell the
+florist to send a few every day?"
+
+She leaned confidently toward her father: he seldom refused her
+anything, and Mrs. Bart had taught her to plead with him when her
+own entreaties failed.
+
+Mr. Bart sat motionless, his gaze still fixed on the salmon, and
+his lower jaw dropped; he looked even paler than usual, and his
+thin hair lay in untidy streaks on his forehead. Suddenly he
+looked at his daughter and laughed. The laugh was so strange that
+Lily coloured under it: she disliked being ridiculed, and her
+father seemed to see something ridiculous in the request. Perhaps
+he thought it foolish that she should trouble him about such a
+trifle.
+
+"Twelve dollars--twelve dollars a day for flowers? Oh, certainly,
+my dear--give him an order for twelve hundred." He continued to
+laugh.
+
+Mrs. Bart gave him a quick glance.
+
+"You needn't wait, Poleworth--I will ring for you," she said to
+the butler.
+
+The butler withdrew with an air of silent disapproval, leaving
+the remains of the CHAUFROIX on the sideboard.
+
+"What is the matter, Hudson? Are you ill?" said Mrs. Bart
+severely.
+
+She had no tolerance for scenes which were not of her own making,
+and it was odious to her that her husband should make a show of
+himself before the servants.
+
+"Are you ill?" she repeated.
+
+"Ill?---No, I'm ruined," he said.
+
+Lily made a frightened sound, and Mrs. Bart rose to her
+feet.
+
+"Ruined---?" she cried; but controlling herself instantly, she
+turned a calm face to Lily.
+
+"Shut the pantry door," she said.
+
+Lily obeyed, and when she turned back into the room her father
+was sitting with both elbows on the table, the plate of salmon
+between them, and his head bowed on his hands.
+
+Mrs. Bart stood over him with a white face which made her hair
+unnaturally yellow. She looked at Lily as the latter approached:
+her look was terrible, but her voice was modulated to a ghastly
+cheerfulness.
+
+"Your father is not well--he doesn't know what he is saying. It
+is nothing--but you had better go upstairs; and don't talk to the
+servants," she added.
+
+Lily obeyed; she always obeyed when her mother spoke in that
+voice. She had not been deceived by Mrs. Bart's words: she knew
+at once that they were ruined. In the dark hours which followed,
+that awful fact overshadowed even her father's slow and difficult
+dying. To his wife he no longer counted: he had become extinct
+when he ceased to fulfil his purpose, and she sat at his side
+with the provisional air of a traveller who waits for a belated
+train to start. Lily's feelings were softer: she pitied him in a
+frightened ineffectual way. But the fact that he was for the most
+part unconscious, and that his attention, when she stole into the
+room, drifted away from her after a moment, made him even more of
+a stranger than in the nursery days when he had never come home
+till after dark. She seemed always to have seen him through a
+blur--first of sleepiness, then of distance and indifference--
+and now the fog had thickened till he was almost
+indistinguishable. If she could have performed any little
+services for him, or have exchanged with him a few of those
+affecting words which an extensive perusal of fiction had
+led her to connect with such occasions, the filial instinct might
+have stirred in her; but her pity, finding no active expression,
+remained in a state of spectatorship, overshadowed by her
+mother's grim unflagging resentment. Every look and act of Mrs.
+Bart's seemed to say: "You are sorry for him now--but you will
+feel differently when you see what he has done to us."
+
+It was a relief to Lily when her father died.
+
+Then a long winter set in. There was a little money left, but to
+Mrs. Bart it seemed worse than nothing--the mere mockery of what
+she was entitled to. What was the use of living if one had to
+live like a pig? She sank into a kind of furious apathy, a state
+of inert anger against fate. Her faculty for "managing" deserted
+her, or she no longer took sufficient pride in it to exert it. It
+was well enough to "manage" when by so doing one could keep one's
+own carriage; but when one's best contrivance did not conceal the
+fact that one had to go on foot, the effort was no longer worth
+making.
+
+Lily and her mother wandered from place to place, now paying long
+visits to relations whose house-keeping Mrs. Bart criticized, and
+who deplored the fact that she let Lily breakfast in bed when the
+girl had no prospects before her, and now vegetating in cheap
+continental refuges, where Mrs. Bart held herself fiercely aloof
+from the frugal tea-tables of her companions in misfortune. She
+was especially careful to avoid her old friends and the scenes of
+her former successes. To be poor seemed to her such a confession
+of failure that it amounted to disgrace; and she detected a note
+of condescension in the friendliest advances.
+
+Only one thought consoled her, and that was the contemplation of
+Lily's beauty. She studied it with a kind of passion, as though
+it were some weapon she had slowly fashioned for her vengeance.
+It was the last asset in their fortunes, the nucleus around which
+their life was to be rebuilt. She watched it jealously, as though
+it were her own property and Lily its mere custodian; and she
+tried to instil into the latter a sense of the responsibility
+that such a charge involved. She followed in imagination the
+career of other beauties, pointing out to her daughter what might
+be achieved through such a gift, and dwelling on the awful
+warning of those who, in spite of it, had failed to get what they
+wanted: to Mrs. Bart, only stupidity could explain the lamentable
+denouement of some of her examples. She was not above the
+inconsistency of charging fate, rather than herself, with her own
+misfortunes; but she inveighed so acrimoniously against
+love-matches that Lily would have fancied her own marriage had
+been of that nature, had not Mrs. Bart frequently assured her
+that she had been "talked into it"--by whom, she never made
+clear.
+
+Lily was duly impressed by the magnitude of her opportunities.
+The dinginess of her present life threw into enchanting relief
+the existence to which she felt herself entitled. To a less
+illuminated intelligence Mrs. Bart's counsels might have been
+dangerous; but Lily understood that beauty is only the raw
+material of conquest, and that to convert it into success other
+arts are required. She knew that to betray any sense of
+superiority was a subtler form of the stupidity her mother
+denounced, and it did not take her long to learn that a beauty
+needs more tact than the possessor of an average set of features.
+
+Her ambitions were not as crude as Mrs. Bart's. It had been among
+that lady's grievances that her husband--in the early days,
+before he was too tired--had wasted his evenings in what she
+vaguely described as "reading poetry"; and among the effects
+packed off to auction after his death were a score or two of
+dingy volumes which had struggled for existence among the boots
+and medicine bottles of his dressing-room shelves. There was in
+Lily a vein of sentiment, perhaps transmitted from this source,
+which gave an idealizing touch to her most prosaic purposes. She
+liked to think of her beauty as a power for good, as giving her
+the opportunity to attain a position where she should make her
+influence felt in the vague diffusion of refinement and good
+taste. She was fond of pictures and flowers, and of sentimental
+fiction, and she could not help thinking that the possession of
+such tastes ennobled her desire for worldly advantages. She would
+not indeed have cared to marry a man who was merely rich: she
+was secretly ashamed of her mother's crude passion for money.
+Lily's preference would have been for an English nobleman with
+political ambitions and vast estates; or, for second
+choice, an Italian prince with a castle in the Apennines and an
+hereditary office in the Vatican. Lost causes had a romantic
+charm for her, and she liked to picture herself as standing aloof
+from the vulgar press of the Quirinal, and sacrificing her
+pleasure to the claims of an immemorial tradition. . . .
+
+How long ago and how far off it all seemed! Those ambitions were
+hardly more futile and childish than the earlier ones which had
+centred about the possession of a French jointed doll with real
+hair. Was it only ten years since she had wavered in imagination
+between the English earl and the Italian prince? Relentlessly her
+mind travelled on over the dreary interval. . . .
+
+After two years of hungry roaming Mrs. Bart had died---died of a
+deep disgust. She had hated dinginess, and it was her fate to be
+dingy. Her visions of a brilliant marriage for Lily had faded
+after the first year.
+
+"People can't marry you if they don't see you--and how can they
+see you in these holes where we're stuck?" That was the burden of
+her lament; and her last adjuration to her daughter was to escape
+from dinginess if she could.
+
+"Don't let it creep up on you and drag you down. Fight your way
+out of it somehow--you're young and can do it," she insisted.
+
+She had died during one of their brief visits to New York, and
+there Lily at once became the centre of a family council composed
+of the wealthy relatives whom she had been taught to despise for
+living like pigs. It may be that they had an inkling of the
+sentiments in which she had been brought up, for none of them
+manifested a very lively desire for her company; indeed, the
+question threatened to remain unsolved till Mrs. Peniston with a
+sigh announced: "I'll try her for a year."
+
+Every one was surprised, but one and all concealed their
+surprise, lest Mrs. Peniston should be alarmed by it into
+reconsidering her decision.
+
+Mrs. Peniston was Mr. Bart's widowed sister, and if she was by no
+means the richest of the family group, its other members
+nevertheless abounded in reasons why she was clearly destined by
+Providence to assume the charge of Lily. In the first place she
+was alone, and it would be charming for her to have a
+young companion. Then she sometimes travelled, and Lily's
+familiarity with foreign customs--deplored as a misfortune by her
+more conservative relatives--would at least enable her to act as
+a kind of courier. But as a matter of fact Mrs. Peniston had not
+been affected by these considerations. She had taken the girl
+simply because no one else would have her, and because she had
+the kind of moral MAUVAISE HONTE which makes the public display
+of selfishness difficult, though it does not interfere with its
+private indulgence. It would have been impossible for Mrs.
+Peniston to be heroic on a desert island, but with the eyes of
+her little world upon her she took a certain pleasure in her act.
+
+She reaped the reward to which disinterestedness is entitled, and
+found an agreeable companion in her niece. She had expected to
+find Lily headstrong, critical and "foreign"--for even Mrs.
+Peniston, though she occasionally went abroad, had the family
+dread of foreignness--but the girl showed a pliancy, which, to a
+more penetrating mind than her aunt's, might have been less
+reassuring than the open selfishness of youth. Misfortune had
+made Lily supple instead of hardening her, and a pliable
+substance is less easy to break than a stiff one.
+
+Mrs. Peniston, however, did not suffer from her niece's
+adaptability. Lily had no intention of taking advantage of her
+aunt's good nature. She was in truth grateful for the refuge
+offered her: Mrs. Peniston's opulent interior was at least not
+externally dingy. But dinginess is a quality which assumes all
+manner of disguises; and Lily soon found that it was as latent in
+the expensive routine of her aunt's life as in the makeshift
+existence of a continental pension.
+
+Mrs. Peniston was one of the episodical persons who form the
+padding of life. It was impossible to believe that she had
+herself ever been a focus of activities. The most vivid thing
+about her was the fact that her grandmother had been a Van
+Alstyne. This connection with the well-fed and industrious stock
+of early New York revealed itself in the glacial neatness of Mrs.
+Peniston's drawing-room and in the excellence of her cuisine. She
+belonged to the class of old New Yorkers who have always lived
+well, dressed expensively, and done little else; and to these
+inherited obligations Mrs. Peniston faitfully conformed.
+She had always been a looker-on at life, and her mind resembled
+one of those little mirrors which her Dutch ancestors were
+accustomed to affix to their upper windows, so that from the
+depths of an impenetrable domesticity they might see what was
+happening in the street.
+
+Mrs. Peniston was the owner of a country-place in New Jersey, but
+she had never lived there since her husband's death--a remote
+event, which appeared to dwell in her memory chiefly as a
+dividing point in the personal reminiscences that formed the
+staple of her conversation. She was a woman who remembered dates
+with intensity, and could tell at a moment's notice whether the
+drawing-room curtains had been renewed before or after Mr.
+Peniston's last illness.
+
+Mrs. Peniston thought the country lonely and trees damp, and
+cherished a vague fear of meeting a bull. To guard against such
+contingencies she frequented the more populous watering-places,
+where she installed herself impersonally in a hired house and
+looked on at life through the matting screen of her verandah. In
+the care of such a guardian, it soon became clear to Lily that
+she was to enjoy only the material advantages of good food and
+expensive clothing; and, though far from underrating these, she
+would gladly have exchanged them for what Mrs. Bart had taught
+her to regard as opportunities. She sighed to think what her
+mother's fierce energies would have accomplished, had they been
+coupled with Mrs. Peniston's resources. Lily had abundant energy
+of her own, but it was restricted by the necessity of adapting
+herself to her aunt's habits. She saw that at all costs she must
+keep Mrs. Peniston's favour till, as Mrs. Bart would have phrased
+it, she could stand on her own legs. Lily had no mind for the
+vagabond life of the poor relation, and to adapt herself to Mrs.
+Peniston she had, to some degree, to assume that lady's passive
+attitude. She had fancied at first that it would be easy to draw
+her aunt into the whirl of her own activities, but there was a
+static force in Mrs. Peniston against which her niece's efforts
+spent themselves in vain. To attempt to bring her into active
+relation with life was like tugging at a piece of furniture which
+has been screwed to the floor. She did not, indeed, expect Lily
+to remain equally immovable: she had all the American guardian's
+indulgence for the volatility of youth.
+
+She had indulgence also for certain other habits of her niece's.
+It seemed to her natural that Lily should spend all her money on
+dress, and she supplemented the girl's scanty income by
+occasional "handsome presents" meant to be applied to the same
+purpose. Lily, who was intensely practical, would have preferred
+a fixed allowance; but Mrs. Peniston liked the periodical
+recurrence of gratitude evoked by unexpected cheques, and was
+perhaps shrewd enough to perceive that such a method of giving
+kept alive in her niece a salutary sense of dependence.
+
+Beyond this, Mrs. Peniston had not felt called upon to do
+anything for her charge: she had simply stood aside and let her
+take the field. Lily had taken it, at first with the confidence
+of assured possessorship, then with gradually narrowing demands,
+till now she found herself actually struggling for a foothold on
+the broad space which had once seemed her own for the asking. How
+it happened she did not yet know. Sometimes she thought it was
+because Mrs. Peniston had been too passive, and again she feared
+it was because she herself had not been passive enough. Had she
+shown an undue eagerness for victory? Had she lacked patience,
+pliancy and dissimulation? Whether she charged herself with these
+faults or absolved herself from them, made no difference in the
+sum-total of her failure. Younger and plainer girls had been
+married off by dozens, and she was nine-and-twenty, and still
+Miss Bart.
+
+She was beginning to have fits of angry rebellion against fate,
+when she longed to drop out of the race and make an independent
+life for herself. But what manner of life would it be? She had
+barely enough money to pay her dress-makers' bills and her
+gambling debts; and none of the desultory interests which she
+dignified with the name of tastes was pronounced enough to enable
+her to live contentedly in obscurity. Ah, no--she was too
+intelligent not to be honest with herself. She knew that she
+hated dinginess as much as her mother had hated it, and to her
+last breath she meant to fight against it, dragging herself up
+again and again above its flood till she gained the bright
+pinnacles of success which presented such a slippery surface to
+her clutch.
+
+
+
+Chapter 4
+
+The next morning, on her breakfast tray, Miss Bart found a note
+from her hostess.
+
+"Dearest Lily," it ran, "if it is not too much of a bore to be
+down by ten, will you come to my sitting-room to help me with
+some tiresome things?"
+
+Lily tossed aside the note and subsided on her pillows with a
+sigh. It WAS a bore to be down by ten--an hour regarded at
+Bellomont as vaguely synchronous with sunrise--and she knew too
+well the nature of the tiresome things in question. Miss Pragg,
+the secretary, had been called away, and there would be notes and
+dinner-cards to write, lost addresses to hunt up, and other
+social drudgery to perform. It was understood that Miss Bart
+should fill the gap in such emergencies, and she usually
+recognized the obligation without a murmur.
+
+Today, however, it renewed the sense of servitude which the
+previous night's review of her cheque-book had produced.
+Everything in her surroundings ministered to feelings of ease and
+amenity. The windows stood open to the sparkling freshness of the
+September morning, and between the yellow boughs she caught a
+perspective of hedges and parterres leading by degrees of
+lessening formality to the free undulations of the park. Her maid
+had kindled a little fire on the hearth, and it contended
+cheerfully with the sunlight which slanted across the moss-green
+carpet and caressed the curved sides of an old marquetry desk.
+Near the bed stood a table holding her breakfast tray, with its
+harmonious porcelain and silver, a handful of violets in a
+slender glass, and the morning paper folded beneath her letters.
+There was nothing new to Lily in these tokens of a studied
+luxury; but, though they formed a part of her atmosphere, she
+never lost her sensitiveness to their charm. Mere display left
+her with a sense of superior distinction; but she felt an
+affinity to all the subtler manifestations of wealth.
+
+Mrs. Trenor's summons, however, suddenly recalled her state of
+dependence, and she rose and dressed in a mood of irritability
+that she was usually too prudent to indulge. She knew that such
+emotions leave lines on the face as well as in the
+character, and she had meant to take warning by the little
+creases which her midnight survey had revealed.
+
+The matter-of-course tone of Mrs. Trenor's greeting deepened her
+irritation. If one did drag one's self out of bed at such an
+hour, and come down fresh and radiant to the monotony of
+note-writing, some special recognition of the sacrifice seemed
+fitting. But Mrs. Trenor's tone showed no consciousness of the
+fact.
+
+"Oh, Lily, that's nice of you," she merely sighed across the
+chaos of letters, bills and other domestic documents which gave
+an incongruously commercial touch to the slender elegance of her
+writing-table.
+
+"There are such lots of horrors this morning," she added,
+clearing a space in the centre of the confusion and rising to
+yield her seat to Miss Bart.
+
+Mrs. Trenor was a tall fair woman, whose height just saved her
+from redundancy. Her rosy blondness had survived some forty years
+of futile activity without showing much trace of ill-usage except
+in a diminished play of feature. It was difficult to define her
+beyond saying that she seemed to exist only as a hostess, not so
+much from any exaggerated instinct of hospitality as because she
+could not sustain life except in a crowd. The collective nature
+of her interests exempted her from the ordinary rivalries of her
+sex, and she knew no more personal emotion than that of hatred
+for the woman who presumed to give bigger dinners or have more
+amusing house-parties than herself. As her social talents, backed
+by Mr. Trenor's bank-account, almost always assured her ultimate
+triumph in such competitions, success had developed in her an
+unscrupulous good nature toward the rest of her sex, and in Miss
+Bart's utilitarian classification of her friends, Mrs. Trenor
+ranked as the woman who was least likely to "go back" on her.
+
+"It was simply inhuman of Pragg to go off now," Mrs. Trenor
+declared, as her friend seated herself at the desk. "She says her
+sister is going to have a baby--as if that were anything to
+having a house-party! I'm sure I shall get most horribly mixed up
+and there will be some awful rows. When I was down at Tuxedo I
+asked a lot of people for next week, and I've mislaid the list
+and can't remember who is coming. And this week is going to be a
+horrid failure too--and Gwen Van Osburgh will go back and
+tell her mother how bored people were. I did mean to ask the
+Wetheralls--that was a blunder of Gus's. They disapprove of Carry
+Fisher, you know. As if one could help having Carry Fisher! It
+WAS foolish of her to get that second divorce--Carry always
+overdoes things--but she said the only way to get a penny out of
+Fisher was to divorce him and make him pay alimony. And poor
+Carry has to consider every dollar. It's really absurd of Alice
+Wetherall to make such a fuss about meeting her, when one thinks
+of what society is coming to. Some one said the other day that
+there was a divorce and a case of appendicitis in every family
+one knows. Besides, Carry is the only person who can keep Gus in
+a good humour when we have bores in the house. Have you noticed
+that ALL the husbands like her? All, I mean, except her own. It's
+rather clever of her to have made a specialty of devoting herself
+to dull people--the field is such a large one, and she has it
+practically to herself. She finds compensations, no doubt--I know
+she borrows money of Gus--but then I'd PAY her to keep him in a
+good humour, so I can't complain, after all."
+
+Mrs. Trenor paused to enjoy the spectacle of Miss Bart's efforts
+to unravel her tangled correspondence.
+
+"But it is only the Wetheralls and Carry," she resumed, with a
+fresh note of lament. "The truth is, I'm awfully disappointed in
+Lady Cressida Raith."
+
+"Disappointed? Had you known her before?"
+
+"Mercy, no--never saw her till yesterday. Lady Skiddaw sent her
+over with letters to the Van Osburghs, and I heard that Maria Van
+Osburgh was asking a big party to meet her this week, so I
+thought it would be fun to get her away, and Jack Stepney, who
+knew her in India, managed it for me. Maria was furious, and
+actually had the impudence to make Gwen invite herself here, so
+that they shouldn't be QUITE out of it--if I'd known what Lady
+Cressida was like, they could have had her and welcome! But I
+thought any friend of the Skiddaws' was sure to be amusing. You
+remember what fun Lady Skiddaw was? There were times when I
+simply had to send the girls out of the room. Besides, Lady
+Cressida is the Duchess of Beltshire's sister, and I naturally
+supposed she was the same sort; but you never can tell in those
+English families. They are so big that there's room for
+all kinds, and it turns out that Lady Cressida is the moral
+one--married a clergy-man and does missionary work in the East
+End. Think of my taking such a lot of trouble about a clergyman's
+wife, who wears Indian jewelry and botanizes! She made Gus take
+her all through the glass-houses yesterday, and bothered him to
+death by asking him the names of the plants. Fancy treating Gus
+as if he were the gardener!"
+
+Mrs. Trenor brought this out in a CRESCENDO of indignation.
+
+"Oh, well, perhaps Lady Cressida will reconcile the Wetheralls to
+meeting Carry Fisher," said Miss Bart pacifically.
+
+"I'm sure I hope so! But she is boring all the men horribly, and
+if she takes to distributing tracts, as I hear she does, it will
+be too depressing. The worst of it is that she would have been so
+useful at the right time. You know we have to have the Bishop
+once a year, and she would have given just the right tone to
+things. I always have horrid luck about the Bishop's visits,"
+added Mrs. Trenor, whose present misery was being fed by a
+rapidly rising tide of reminiscence; "last year, when he came,
+Gus forgot all about his being here, and brought home the Ned
+Wintons and the Farleys--five divorces and six sets of children
+between them!"
+
+"When is Lady Cressida going?" Lily enquired.
+
+Mrs. Trenor cast up her eyes in despair. "My dear, if one only
+knew! I was in such a hurry to get her away from Maria that I
+actually forgot to name a date, and Gus says she told some one
+she meant to stop here all winter."
+
+"To stop here? In this house?"
+
+"Don't be silly--in America. But if no one else asks her--you
+know they NEVER go to hotels."
+
+"Perhaps Gus only said it to frighten you."
+
+"No--I heard her tell Bertha Dorset that she had six months to
+put in while her husband was taking the cure in the Engadine. You
+should have seen Bertha look vacant! But it's no joke, you
+know--if she stays here all the autumn she'll spoil everything,
+and Maria Van Osburgh will simply exult."
+
+At this affecting vision Mrs. Trenor's voice trembled with
+self-pity.
+
+"Oh, Judy--as if any one were ever bored at Bellomont!"
+Miss Bart tactfully protested. "You know perfectly well that,
+if Mrs. Van Osburgh were to get all the right people and leave you
+with all the wrong ones, you'd manage to make things go off,
+and she wouldn't."
+
+Such an assurance would usually have restored Mrs. Trenor's
+complacency; but on this occasion it did not chase the cloud from
+her brow.
+
+"It isn't only Lady Cressida," she lamented. "Everything has gone
+wrong this week. I can see that Bertha Dorset is furious with
+me."
+
+"Furious with you? Why?"
+
+"Because I told her that Lawrence Selden was coming; but he
+wouldn't, after all, and she's quite unreasonable enough to think
+it's my fault."
+
+Miss Bart put down her pen and sat absently gazing at the note
+she had begun.
+
+"I thought that was all over," she said.
+
+"So it is, on his side. And of course Bertha has been idle since.
+But I fancy she's out of a job just at present--and some one gave
+me a hint that I had better ask Lawrence. Well, I DID ask
+him--but I couldn't make him come; and now I suppose she'll take
+it out of me by being perfectly nasty to every one else."
+
+"Oh, she may take it out of HIM by being perfectly charming--to
+some one else."
+
+Mrs. Trenor shook her head dolefully. "She knows he wouldn't
+mind. And who else is there? Alice Wetherall won't let Lucius out
+of her sight. Ned Silverton can't take his eyes off Carry
+Fisher--poor boy! Gus is bored by Bertha, Jack Stepney knows her
+too well--and--well, to be sure, there's Percy Gryce!"
+
+She sat up smiling at the thought.
+
+Miss Bart's countenance did not reflect the smile.
+
+"Oh, she and Mr. Gryce would not be likely to hit it off."
+
+"You mean that she'd shock him and he'd bore her? Well, that's
+not such a bad beginning, you know. But I hope she won't take it
+into her head to be nice to him, for I asked him here on purpose
+for you."
+
+Lily laughed. "MERCI DU COMPLIMENT! I should certainly have no
+show against Bertha."
+
+"Do you think I am uncomplimentary? I'm not really, you know.
+Every one knows you're a thousand times handsomer and cleverer
+than Bertha; but then you're not nasty. And for always getting
+what she wants in the long run, commend me to a nasty woman."
+
+Miss Bart stared in affected reproval. "I thought you were so
+fond of Bertha."
+
+"Oh, I am--it's much safer to be fond of dangerous people. But
+she IS dangerous--and if I ever saw her up to mischief it's now.
+I can tell by poor George's manner. That man is a perfect
+barometer--he always knows when Bertha is going to---"
+
+"To fall?" Miss Bart suggested.
+
+"Don't be shocking! You know he believes in her still. And of
+course I don't say there's any real harm in Bertha. Only she
+delights in making people miserable, and especially poor George."
+
+"Well, he seems cut out for the part--I don't wonder she likes
+more cheerful companionship."
+
+"Oh, George is not as dismal as you think. If Bertha did worry
+him he would be quite different. Or if she'd leave him alone, and
+let him arrange his life as he pleases. But she doesn't dare lose
+her hold of him on account of the money, and so when HE isn't
+jealous she pretends to be."
+
+Miss Bart went on writing in silence, and her hostess sat
+following her train of thought with frowning intensity.
+
+"Do you know," she exclaimed after a long pause, "I believe I'll
+call up Lawrence on the telephone and tell him he simply MUST
+come?"
+
+"Oh, don't," said Lily, with a quick suffusion of colour. The
+blush surprised her almost as much as it did her hostess, who,
+though not commonly observant of facial changes, sat staring at
+her with puzzled eyes.
+
+"Good gracious, Lily, how handsome you are! Why? Do you dislike
+him so much?"
+
+"Not at all; I like him. But if you are actuated by the
+benevolent intention of protecting me from Bertha--I don't think
+I need your protection."
+
+Mrs. Trenor sat up with an exclamation. "Lily!---PERCY? Do you
+mean to say you've actually done it?"
+
+Miss Bart smiled. "I only mean to say that Mr. Gryce and I are
+getting to be very good friends."
+
+"H'm--I see." Mrs. Trenor fixed a rapt eye upon her. "You know
+they say he has eight hundred thousand a year--and spends
+nothing, except on some rubbishy old books. And his mother has
+heart-disease and will leave him a lot more. OH, LILY, DO GO
+SLOWLY," her friend adjured her.
+
+Miss Bart continued to smile without annoyance. "I shouldn't, for
+instance," she remarked, "be in any haste to tell him that he had
+a lot of rubbishy old books."
+
+"No, of course not; I know you're wonderful about getting up
+people's subjects. But he's horribly shy, and easily shocked,
+and--and---"
+
+"Why don't you say it, Judy? I have the reputation of being on
+the hunt for a rich husband?"
+
+"Oh, I don't mean that; he wouldn't believe it of you--at first,"
+said Mrs. Trenor, with candid shrewdness. "But you know things
+are rather lively here at times--I must give Jack and Gus a
+hint--and if he thought you were what his mother would call
+fast--oh, well, you know what I mean. Don't wear your scarlet
+CREPE-DE-CHINE for dinner, and don't smoke if you can help it,
+Lily dear!"
+
+Lily pushed aside her finished work with a dry smile. "You're very
+kind, Judy: I'll lock up my cigarettes and wear that last year's
+dress you sent me this morning. And if you are really interested
+in my career, perhaps you'll be kind enough not to ask me to play
+bridge again this evening."
+
+"Bridge? Does he mind bridge, too? Oh, Lily, what an awful life
+you'll lead! But of course I won't--why didn't you give me a hint
+last night? There's nothing I wouldn't do, you poor duck, to see
+you happy!"
+
+And Mrs. Trenor, glowing with her sex's eagerness to smooth the
+course of true love, enveloped Lily in a long embrace.
+
+"You're quite sure," she added solicitously, as the latter
+extricated herself, "that you wouldn't like me to telephone for
+Lawrence Selden?"
+
+"Quite sure," said Lily.
+
+
+
+The next three days demonstrated to her own complete satisfaction
+Miss Bart's ability to manage her affairs without extraneous aid.
+
+As she sat, on the Saturday afternoon, on the terrace at
+Bellomont, she smiled at Mrs. Trenor's fear that she might go too
+fast. If such a warning had ever been needful, the years had
+taught her a salutary lesson, and she flattered herself that she
+now knew how to adapt her pace to the object of pursuit. In the
+case of Mr. Gryce she had found it well to flutter ahead, losing
+herself elusively and luring him on from depth to depth of
+unconscious intimacy. The surrounding atmosphere was propitious
+to this scheme of courtship. Mrs. Trenor, true to her word, had
+shown no signs of expecting Lily at the bridge-table, and had
+even hinted to the other card-players that they were to betray no
+surprise at her unwonted defection. In consequence of this hint,
+Lily found herself the centre of that feminine solicitude which
+envelops a young woman in the mating season. A solitude was
+tacitly created for her in the crowded existence of Bellomont,
+and her friends could not have shown a greater readiness for
+self-effacement had her wooing been adorned with all the
+attributes of romance. In Lily's set this conduct implied a
+sympathetic comprehension of her motives, and Mr. Gryce rose in
+her esteem as she saw the consideration he inspired.
+
+The terrace at Bellomont on a September afternoon was a spot
+propitious to sentimental musings, and as Miss Bart stood leaning
+against the balustrade above the sunken garden, at a little
+distance from the animated group about the tea-table, she might
+have been lost in the mazes of an inarticulate happiness. In
+reality, her thoughts were finding definite utterance in the
+tranquil recapitulation of the blessings in store for her. From
+where she stood she could see them embodied in the form of Mr.
+Gryce, who, in a light overcoat and muffler, sat somewhat
+nervously on the edge of his chair, while Carry Fisher, with all
+the energy of eye and gesture with which nature and art had
+combined to endow her, pressed on him the duty of taking part in
+the task of municipal reform.
+
+Mrs. Fisher's latest hobby was municipal reform. It had been
+preceded by an equal zeal for socialism, which had in turn
+replaced an energetic advocacy of Christian Science. Mrs. Fisher
+was small, fiery and dramatic; and her hands and eyes were
+admirable instruments in the service of whatever causes he
+happened to espouse. She had, however, the fault common to
+enthusiasts of ignoring any slackness of response on the part of
+her hearers, and Lily was amused by her unconsciousness of the
+resistance displayed in every angle of Mr. Gryce's attitude. Lily
+herself knew that his mind was divided between the dread of
+catching cold if he remained out of doors too long at that hour,
+and the fear that, if he retreated to the house, Mrs. Fisher
+might follow him up with a paper to be signed. Mr. Gryce had a
+constitutional dislike to what he called "committing himself,"
+and tenderly as he cherished his health, he evidently concluded
+that it was safer to stay out of reach of pen and ink till chance
+released him from Mrs. Fisher's toils. Meanwhile he cast agonized
+glances in the direction of Miss Bart, whose only response was to
+sink into an attitude of more graceful abstraction. She had
+learned the value of contrast in throwing her charms into relief,
+and was fully aware of the extent to which Mrs. Fisher's
+volubility was enhancing her own repose.
+
+She was roused from her musings by the approach of her cousin
+Jack Stepney who, at Gwen Van Osburgh's side, was returning
+across the garden from the tennis court.
+
+The couple in question were engaged in the same kind of romance
+in which Lily figured, and the latter felt a certain annoyance in
+contemplating what seemed to her a caricature of her own
+situation. Miss Van Osburgh was a large girl with flat surfaces
+and no high lights: Jack Stepney had once said of her that she
+was as reliable as roast mutton. His own taste was in the line of
+less solid and more highly-seasoned diet; but hunger makes any
+fare palatable, and there had been times when Mr. Stepney had
+been reduced to a crust.
+
+Lily considered with interest the expression of their faces: the
+girl's turned toward her companion's like an empty plate held up
+to be filled, while the man lounging at her side already betrayed
+the encroaching boredom which would presently crack the thin
+veneer of his smile.
+
+"How impatient men are!" Lily reflected. "All Jack has to do to
+get everything he wants is to keep quiet and let that girl marry
+him; whereas I have to calculate and contrive, and retreat and
+advance, as if I were going through an intricate dance,
+where one misstep would throw me hopelessly out of time."
+
+As they drew nearer she was whimsically struck by a kind of
+family likeness between Miss Van Osburgh and Percy Gryce. There
+was no resemblance of feature. Gryce was handsome in a didactic
+way--he looked like a clever pupil's drawing from a
+plaster-cast--while Gwen's countenance had no more modelling than
+a face painted on a toy balloon. But the deeper affinity was
+unmistakable: the two had the same prejudices and ideals, and the
+same quality of making other standards non-existent by ignoring
+them. This attribute was common to most of Lily's set: they had a
+force of negation which eliminated everything beyond their own
+range of perception. Gryce and Miss Van Osburgh were, in short,
+made for each other by every law of moral and physical
+correspondence---"Yet they wouldn't look at each other," Lily
+mused, "they never do. Each of them wants a creature of a
+different race, of Jack's race and mine, with all sorts of
+intuitions, sensations and perceptions that they don't even guess
+the existence of. And they always get what they want."
+
+She stood talking with her cousin and Miss Van Osburgh, till a
+slight cloud on the latter's brow advised her that even cousinly
+amenities were subject to suspicion, and Miss Bart, mindful of
+the necessity of not exciting enmities at this crucial point of
+her career, dropped aside while the happy couple proceeded toward
+the tea-table.
+
+Seating herself on the upper step of the terrace, Lily leaned her
+head against the honeysuckles wreathing the balustrade. The
+fragrance of the late blossoms seemed an emanation of the
+tranquil scene, a landscape tutored to the last degree of rural
+elegance. In the foreground glowed the warm tints of the gardens.
+Beyond the lawn, with its pyramidal pale-gold maples and velvety
+firs, sloped pastures dotted with cattle; and through a long
+glade the river widened like a lake under the silver light of
+September. Lily did not want to join the circle about the
+tea-table. They represented the future she had chosen, and she
+was content with it, but in no haste to anticipate its joys. The
+certainty that she could marry Percy Gryce when she pleased had
+lifted a heavy load from her mind, and her money troubles were
+too recent for their removal not to leave a sense of
+relief which a less discerning intelligence might have taken for
+happiness. Her vulgar cares were at an end. She would be able to
+arrange her life as she pleased, to soar into that empyrean of
+security where creditors cannot penetrate. She would have smarter
+gowns than Judy Trenor, and far, far more jewels than Bertha
+Dorset. She would be free forever from the shifts, the
+expedients, the humiliations of the relatively poor. Instead of
+having to flatter, she would be flattered; instead of being
+grateful, she would receive thanks. There were old scores she
+could pay off as well as old benefits she could return. And she
+had no doubts as to the extent of her power. She knew that Mr.
+Gryce was of the small chary type most inaccessible to impulses
+and emotions. He had the kind of character in which prudence is a
+vice, and good advice the most dangerous nourishment. But Lily
+had known the species before: she was aware that such a guarded
+nature must find one huge outlet of egoism, and she determined to
+be to him what his Americana had hitherto been: the one
+possession in which he took sufficient pride to spend money on
+it. She knew that this generosity to self is one of the forms of
+meanness, and she resolved so to identify herself with her
+husband's vanity that to gratify her wishes would be to him the
+most exquisite form of self-indulgence. The system might at first
+necessitate a resort to some of the very shifts and expedients
+from which she intended it should free her; but she felt sure
+that in a short time she would be able to play the game in her
+own way. How should she have distrusted her powers? Her beauty
+itself was not the mere ephemeral possession it might have been
+in the hands of inexperience: her skill in enhancing it, the care
+she took of it, the use she made of it, seemed to give it a kind
+of permanence. She felt she could trust it to carry her through
+to the end.
+
+And the end, on the whole, was worthwhile. Life was not the
+mockery she had thought it three days ago. There was room for
+her, after all, in this crowded selfish world of pleasure whence,
+so short a time since, her poverty had seemed to exclude her.
+These people whom she had ridiculed and yet envied were glad to
+make a place for her in the charmed circle about which all her
+desires revolved. They were not as brutal and self-engrossed as
+she had fancied--or rather, since it would no longer be
+necessary to flatter and humour them, that side of their nature
+became less conspicuous. Society is a revolving body which is apt
+to be judged according to its place in each man's heaven; and at
+present it was turning its illuminated face to Lily.
+
+In the rosy glow it diffused her companions seemed full of
+amiable qualities. She liked their elegance, their lightness,
+their lack of emphasis: even the self-assurance which at times
+was so like obtuseness now seemed the natural sign of social
+ascendency. They were lords of the only world she cared for, and
+they were ready to admit her to their ranks and let her lord it
+with them. Already she felt within her a stealing allegiance to
+their standards, an acceptance of their limitations, a disbelief
+in the things they did not believe in, a contemptuous pity for
+the people who were not able to live as they lived.
+
+The early sunset was slanting across the park. Through the boughs
+of the long avenue beyond the gardens she caught the flash of
+wheels, and divined that more visitors were approaching. There
+was a movement behind her, a scattering of steps and voices: it
+was evident that the party about the tea-table was breaking up.
+Presently she heard a tread behind her on the terrace. She
+supposed that Mr. Gryce had at last found means to escape from
+his predicament, and she smiled at the significance of his coming
+to join her instead of beating an instant retreat to the
+fire-side.
+
+She turned to give him the welcome which such gallantry deserved;
+but her greeting wavered into a blush of wonder, for the man who
+had approached her was Lawrence Selden.
+
+"You see I came after all," he said; but before she had time to
+answer, Mrs. Dorset, breaking away from a lifeless colloquy with
+her host, had stepped between them with a little gesture of
+appropriation.
+
+
+
+Chapter 5
+
+The observance of Sunday at Bellomont was chiefly marked by the
+punctual appearance of the smart omnibus destined to convey the
+household to the little church at the gates. Whether any one got
+into the omnibus or not was a matter of secondary importance,
+since by standing there it not only bore witness to the orthodox
+intentions of the family, but made Mrs. Trenor feel, when she
+finally heard it drive away, that she had somehow vicariously
+made use of it.
+
+It was Mrs. Trenor's theory that her daughters actually did go to
+church every Sunday; but their French governess's convictions
+calling her to the rival fane, and the fatigues of the week
+keeping their mother in her room till luncheon, there was seldom
+any one present to verify the fact. Now and then, in a spasmodic
+burst of virtue--when the house had been too uproarious over
+night--Gus Trenor forced his genial bulk into a tight frock-coat
+and routed his daughters from their slumbers; but habitually, as
+Lily explained to Mr. Gryce, this parental duty was forgotten
+till the church bells were ringing across the park, and the
+omnibus had driven away empty.
+
+Lily had hinted to Mr. Gryce that this neglect of religious
+observances was repugnant to her early traditions, and that
+during her visits to Bellomont she regularly accompanied Muriel
+and Hilda to church. This tallied with the assurance, also
+confidentially imparted, that, never having played bridge
+before, she had been "dragged into it" on the night of her
+arrival, and had lost an appalling amount of money in
+consequence of her ignorance of the game and of the rules of
+betting. Mr. Gryce was undoubtedly enjoying Bellomont. He liked
+the ease and glitter of the life, and the lustre conferred on him
+by being a member of this group of rich and conspicuous people.
+But he thought it a very materialistic society; there were times
+when he was frightened by the talk of the men and the looks of
+the ladies, and he was glad to find that Miss Bart, for all her
+ease and self-possession, was not at home in so ambiguous an
+atmosphere. For this reason he had been especially pleased to
+learn that she would, as usual, attend the young Trenors
+to church on Sunday morning; and as he paced the gravel sweep
+before the door, his light overcoat on his arm and his
+prayer-book in one carefully-gloved hand, he reflected agreeably
+on the strength of character which kept her true to her early
+training in surroundings so subversive to religious principles.
+
+For a long time Mr. Gryce and the omnibus had the gravel sweep to
+themselves; but, far from regretting this deplorable indifference
+on the part of the other guests, he found himself nourishing the
+hope that Miss Bart might be unaccompanied. The precious minutes
+were flying, however; the big chestnuts pawed the ground and
+flecked their impatient sides with foam; the coachman seemed to
+be slowly petrifying on the box, and the groom on the doorstep;
+and still the lady did not come. Suddenly, however, there was a
+sound of voices and a rustle of skirts in the doorway, and Mr.
+Gryce, restoring his watch to his pocket, turned with a nervous
+start; but it was only to find himself handing Mrs. Wetherall
+into the carriage.
+
+The Wetheralls always went to church. They belonged to the vast
+group of human automata who go through life without neglecting to
+perform a single one of the gestures executed by the surrounding
+puppets. It is true that the Bellomont puppets did not go to
+church; but others equally important did--and Mr. and Mrs.
+Wetherall's circle was so large that God was included in their
+visiting-list. They appeared, therefore, punctual and resigned,
+with the air of people bound for a dull "At Home," and after them
+Hilda and Muriel straggled, yawning and pinning each other's
+veils and ribbons as they came. They had promised Lily to go to
+church with her, they declared, and Lily was such a dear old duck
+that they didn't mind doing it to please her, though they
+couldn't fancy what had put the idea in her head, and though for
+their own part they would much rather have played lawn tennis
+with Jack and Gwen, if she hadn't told them she was coming. The
+Misses Trenor were followed by Lady Cressida Raith, a
+weather-beaten person in Liberty silk and ethnological trinkets,
+who, on seeing the omnibus, expressed her surprise that they were
+not to walk across the park; but at Mrs. Wetherall's horrified
+protest that the church was a mile away, her ladyship,
+after a glance at the height of the other's heels, acquiesced in
+the necessity of driving, and poor Mr. Gryce found himself
+rolling off between four ladies for whose spiritual welfare he
+felt not the least concern.
+
+It might have afforded him some consolation could he have known
+that Miss Bart had really meant to go to church. She had even
+risen earlier than usual in the execution of her purpose. She had
+an idea that the sight of her in a grey gown of devotional cut,
+with her famous lashes drooped above a prayer-book, would put the
+finishing touch to Mr. Gryce's subjugation, and render inevitable
+a certain incident which she had resolved should form a part of
+the walk they were to take together after luncheon. Her
+intentions in short had never been more definite; but poor Lily,
+for all the hard glaze of her exterior, was inwardly as malleable
+as wax. Her faculty for adapting herself, for entering into other
+people's feelings, if it served her now and then in small
+contingencies, hampered her in the decisive moments of life. She
+was like a water-plant in the flux of the tides, and today the
+whole current of her mood was carrying her toward Lawrence
+Selden. Why had he come? Was it to see herself or Bertha Dorset?
+It was the last question which, at that moment, should have
+engaged her. She might better have contented herself with
+thinking that he had simply responded to the despairing summons
+of his hostess, anxious to interpose him between herself and the
+ill-humour of Mrs. Dorset. But Lily had not rested till she
+learned from Mrs. Trenor that Selden had come of his own accord.
+"He didn't even wire me--he just happened to find the trap at the
+station. Perhaps it's not over with Bertha after all," Mrs.
+Trenor musingly concluded; and went away to arrange her
+dinner-cards accordingly.
+
+Perhaps it was not, Lily reflected; but it should be soon, unless
+she had lost her cunning. If Selden had come at Mrs. Dorset's
+call, it was at her own that he would stay. So much the previous
+evening had told her. Mrs. Trenor, true to her simple principle
+of making her married friends happy, had placed Selden and Mrs.
+Dorset next to each other at dinner; but, in obedience to the
+time-honoured traditions of the match-maker, she had separated
+Lily and Mr. Gryce, sending in the former with George
+Dorset, while Mr. Gryce was coupled with Gwen Van Osburgh.
+
+George Dorset's talk did not interfere with the range of his
+neighbour's thoughts. He was a mournful dyspeptic, intent on
+finding out the deleterious ingredients of every dish and
+diverted from this care only by the sound of his wife's voice. On
+this occasion, however, Mrs. Dorset took no part in the general
+conversation. She sat talking in low murmurs with Selden, and
+turning a contemptuous and denuded shoulder toward her host, who,
+far from resenting his exclusion, plunged into the excesses of
+the MENU with the joyous irresponsibility of a free man. To Mr.
+Dorset, however, his wife's attitude was a subject of such
+evident concern that, when he was not scraping the sauce from his
+fish, or scooping the moist bread-crumbs from the interior of his
+roll, he sat straining his thin neck for a glimpse of her between
+the lights.
+
+Mrs. Trenor, as it chanced, had placed the husband and wife on
+opposite sides of the table, and Lily was therefore able to
+observe Mrs. Dorset also, and by carrying her glance a few feet
+farther, to set up a rapid comparison between Lawrence Selden and
+Mr. Gryce. It was that comparison which was her undoing. Why else
+had she suddenly grown interested in Selden? She had known him
+for eight years or more: ever since her return to America he had
+formed a part of her background. She had always been glad to sit
+next to him at dinner, had found him more agreeable than most
+men, and had vaguely wished that he possessed the other qualities
+needful to fix her attention; but till now she had been too busy
+with her own affairs to regard him as more than one of the
+pleasant accessories of life. Miss Bart was a keen reader of her
+own heart, and she saw that her sudden preoccupation with Selden
+was due to the fact that his presence shed a new light on her
+surroundings. Not that he was notably brilliant or exceptional;
+in his own profession he was surpassed by more than one man who
+had bored Lily through many a weary dinner. It was rather that he
+had preserved a certain social detachment, a happy air of viewing
+the show objectively, of having points of contact outside the
+great gilt cage in which they were all huddled for the mob to
+gape at. How alluring the world outside the cage appeared
+to Lily, as she heard its door clang on her! In reality, as she
+knew, the door never clanged: it stood always open; but most of
+the captives were like flies in a bottle, and having once flown
+in, could never regain their freedom. It was Selden's distinction
+that he had never forgotten the way out.
+
+That was the secret of his way of readjusting her vision. Lily,
+turning her eyes from him, found herself scanning her little
+world through his retina: it was as though the pink lamps had
+been shut off and the dusty daylight let in. She looked down the
+long table, studying its occupants one by one, from Gus Trenor,
+with his heavy carnivorous head sunk between his shoulders, as he
+preyed on a jellied plover, to his wife, at the opposite end of
+the long bank of orchids, suggestive, with her glaring
+good-looks, of a jeweller's window lit by electricity. And
+between the two, what a long stretch of vacuity! How dreary and
+trivial these people were! Lily reviewed them with a scornful
+impatience: Carry Fisher, with her shoulders, her eyes, her
+divorces, her general air of embodying a "spicy paragraph"; young
+Silverton, who had meant to live on proof-reading and write an
+epic, and who now lived on his friends and had become critical of
+truffles; Alice Wetherall, an animated visiting-list, whose most
+fervid convictions turned on the wording of invitations and the
+engraving of dinner-cards; Wetherall, with his perpetual nervous
+nod of acquiescence, his air of agreeing with people before he
+knew what they were saying; Jack Stepney, with his confident
+smile and anxious eyes, half way between the sheriff and an
+heiress; Gwen Van Osburgh, with all the guileless confidence of a
+young girl who has always been told that there is no one richer
+than her father.
+
+Lily smiled at her classification of her friends. How different
+they had seemed to her a few hours ago! Then they had symbolized
+what she was gaining, now they stood for what she was giving up.
+That very afternoon they had seemed full of brilliant qualities;
+now she saw that they were merely dull in a loud way. Under the
+glitter of their opportunities she saw the poverty of their
+achievement. It was not that she wanted them to be more
+disinterested; but she would have liked them to be more
+picturesque. And she had a shamed recollection of the way
+in which, a few hours since, she had felt the centripetal force
+of their standards. She closed her eyes an instant, and the
+vacuous routine of the life she had chosen stretched before her
+like a long white road without dip or turning: it was true she
+was to roll over it in a carriage instead of trudging it on foot,
+but sometimes the pedestrian enjoys the diversion of a short cut
+which is denied to those on wheels.
+
+She was roused by a chuckle which Mr. Dorset seemed to eject from
+the depths of his lean throat.
+
+"I say, do look at her," he exclaimed, turning to Miss Bart with
+lugubrious merriment--"I beg your pardon, but do just look at my
+wife making a fool of that poor devil over there! One would
+really suppose she was gone on him--and it's all the other way
+round, I assure you."
+
+Thus adjured, Lily turned her eyes on the spectacle which was
+affording Mr. Dorset such legitimate mirth. It certainly
+appeared, as he said, that Mrs. Dorset was the more active
+participant in the scene: her neighbour seemed to receive her
+advances with a temperate zest which did not distract him from
+his dinner. The sight restored Lily's good humour, and knowing
+the peculiar disguise which Mr. Dorset's marital fears assumed,
+she asked gaily: "Aren't you horribly jealous of her?"
+
+Dorset greeted the sally with delight. "Oh, abominably--you've
+just hit it--keeps me awake at night. The doctors tell me that's
+what has knocked my digestion out--being so infernally jealous of
+her.--I can't eat a mouthful of this stuff, you know," he added
+suddenly, pushing back his plate with a clouded countenance; and
+Lily, unfailingly adaptable, accorded her radiant attention to
+his prolonged denunciation of other people's cooks, with a
+supplementary tirade on the toxic qualities of melted butter.
+
+It was not often that he found so ready an ear; and, being a man
+as well as a dyspeptic, it may be that as he poured his
+grievances into it he was not insensible to its rosy symmetry. At
+any rate he engaged Lily so long that the sweets were being
+handed when she caught a phrase on her other side, where Miss
+Corby, the comic woman of the company, was bantering Jack Stepney
+on his approaching engagement. Miss Corby's role was
+jocularity: she always entered the conversation with a
+handspring.
+
+"And of course you'll have Sim Rosedale as best man!" Lily heard
+her fling out as the climax of her prognostications; and Stepney
+responded, as if struck: "Jove, that's an idea. What a thumping
+present I'd get out of him!"
+
+SIM ROSEDALE! The name, made more odious by its diminutive,
+obtruded itself on Lily's thoughts like a leer. It stood for one
+of the many hated possibilities hovering on the edge of life. If
+she did not marry Percy Gryce, the day might come when she would
+have to be civil to such men as Rosedale. IF SHE DID NOT MARRY
+HIM? But she meant to marry him--she was sure of him and sure of
+herself. She drew back with a shiver from the pleasant paths in
+which her thoughts had been straying, and set her feet once more
+in the middle of the long white road.... When she went upstairs
+that night she found that the late post had brought her a fresh
+batch of bills. Mrs. Peniston, who was a conscientious woman, had
+forwarded them all to Bellomont.
+
+Miss Bart, accordingly, rose the next morning with the most
+earnest conviction that it was her duty to go to church. She tore
+herself betimes from the lingering enjoyment of her
+breakfast-tray, rang to have her grey gown laid out, and
+despatched her maid to borrow a prayer-book from Mrs. Trenor.
+
+But her course was too purely reasonable not to contain the germs
+of rebellion. No sooner were her preparations made than they
+roused a smothered sense of resistance. A small spark was enough
+to kindle Lily's imagination, and the sight of the grey dress and
+the borrowed prayer-book flashed a long light down the years. She
+would have to go to church with Percy Gryce every Sunday. They
+would have a front pew in the most expensive church in New York,
+and his name would figure handsomely in the list of parish
+charities. In a few years, when he grew stouter, he would be made
+a warden. Once in the winter the rector would come to dine, and
+her husband would beg her to go over the list and see that no
+DIVORCEES were included, except those who had showed signs of
+penitence by being re-married to the very wealthy. There was
+nothing especially arduous in this round of religious
+obligations; but it stood for a fraction of that great bulk of
+boredom which loomed across her path. And who could consent to be
+bored on such a morning? Lily had slept well, and her bath had
+filled her with a pleasant glow, which was becomingly reflected
+in the clear curve of her cheek. No lines were visible this
+morning, or else the glass was at a happier angle.
+
+And the day was the accomplice of her mood: it was a day for
+impulse and truancy. The light air seemed full of powdered gold;
+below the dewy bloom of the lawns the woodlands blushed and
+smouldered, and the hills across the river swam in molten blue.
+Every drop of blood in Lily's veins invited her to happiness.
+
+The sound of wheels roused her from these musings, and leaning
+behind her shutters she saw the omnibus take up its freight. She
+was too late, then--but the fact did not alarm her. A glimpse of
+Mr. Gryce's crestfallen face even suggested that she had done
+wisely in absenting herself, since the disappointment he so
+candidly betrayed would surely whet his appetite for the
+afternoon walk. That walk she did not mean to miss; one glance at
+the bills on her writing-table was enough to recall its
+necessity. But meanwhile she had the morning to herself, and
+could muse pleasantly on the disposal of its hours. She was
+familiar enough with the habits of Bellomont to know that she was
+likely to have a free field till luncheon. She had seen the
+Wetheralls, the Trenor girls and Lady Cressida packed safely into
+the omnibus; Judy Trenor was sure to be having her hair
+shampooed; Carry Fisher had doubtless carried off her host for a
+drive; Ned Silverton was probably smoking the cigarette of young
+despair in his bedroom; and Kate Corby was certain to be playing
+tennis with Jack Stepney and Miss Van Osburgh. Of the ladies,
+this left only Mrs. Dorset unaccounted for, and Mrs. Dorset never
+came down till luncheon: her doctors, she averred, had forbidden
+her to expose herself to the crude air of the morning.
+
+To the remaining members of the party Lily gave no special
+thought; wherever they were, they were not likely to interfere
+with her plans. These, for the moment, took the shape of assuming
+a dress somewhat more rustic and summerlike in style than the
+garment she had first selected, and rustling downstairs,
+sunshade in hand, with the disengaged air of a lady in quest of
+exercise. The great hall was empty but for the knot of dogs by
+the fire, who, taking in at a glance the outdoor aspect of Miss
+Bart, were upon her at once with lavish offers of companionship.
+She put aside the ramming paws which conveyed these offers, and
+assuring the joyous volunteers that she might presently have a
+use for their company, sauntered on through the empty
+drawing-room to the library at the end of the house. The library
+was almost the only surviving portion of the old manor-house of
+Bellomont: a long spacious room, revealing the traditions of the
+mother-country in its classically-cased doors, the Dutch tiles of
+the chimney, and the elaborate hob-grate with its shining brass
+urns. A few family portraits of lantern-jawed gentlemen in
+tie-wigs, and ladies with large head-dresses and small bodies,
+hung between the shelves lined with pleasantly-shabby books:
+books mostly contemporaneous with the ancestors in question, and
+to which the subsequent Trenors had made no perceptible
+additions. The library at Bellomont was in fact never used for
+reading, though it had a certain popularity as a smoking-room or
+a quiet retreat for flirtation. It had occurred to Lily, however,
+that it might on this occasion have been resorted to by the only
+member of the party in the least likely to put it to its original
+use. She advanced noiselessly over the dense old rug scattered
+with easy-chairs, and before she reached the middle of the room
+she saw that she had not been mistaken. Lawrence Selden was in
+fact seated at its farther end; but though a book lay on his
+knee, his attention was not engaged with it, but directed to a
+lady whose lace-clad figure, as she leaned back in an adjoining
+chair, detached itself with exaggerated slimness against the
+dusky leather upholstery.
+
+Lily paused as she caught sight of the group; for a moment she
+seemed about to withdraw, but thinking better of this, she
+announced her approach by a slight shake of her skirts which made
+the couple raise their heads, Mrs. Dorset with a look of frank
+displeasure, and Selden with his usual quiet smile. The sight of
+his composure had a disturbing effect on Lily; but to be
+disturbed was in her case to make a more brilliant effort at
+self-possession.
+
+"Dear me, am I late?" she asked, putting a hand in his as he
+advanced to greet her.
+
+"Late for what?" enquired Mrs. Dorset tartly. "Not for luncheon,
+certainly--but perhaps you had an earlier engagement?"
+
+"Yes, I had," said Lily confidingly.
+
+"Really? Perhaps I am in the way, then? But Mr. Selden is
+entirely at your disposal." Mrs. Dorset was pale with temper, and
+her antagonist felt a certain pleasure in prolonging her
+distress.
+
+"Oh, dear, no--do stay," she said good-humouredly. "I don't in
+the least want to drive you away."
+
+"You're awfully good, dear, but I never interfere with Mr.
+Selden's engagements."
+
+The remark was uttered with a little air of proprietorship not
+lost on its object, who concealed a faint blush of annoyance by
+stooping to pick up the book he had dropped at Lily's approach.
+The latter's eyes widened charmingly and she broke into a light
+laugh.
+
+"But I have no engagement with Mr. Selden! My engagement was to
+go to church; and I'm afraid the omnibus has started without me.
+HAS it started, do you know?"
+
+She turned to Selden, who replied that he had heard it drive away
+some time since.
+
+"Ah, then I shall have to walk; I promised Hilda and Muriel to go
+to church with them. It's too late to walk there, you say? Well,
+I shall have the credit of trying, at any rate--and the advantage
+of escaping part of the service. I'm not so sorry for myself,
+after all!"
+
+And with a bright nod to the couple on whom she had intruded,
+Miss Bart strolled through the glass doors and carried her
+rustling grace down the long perspective of the garden walk.
+
+She was taking her way churchward, but at no very quick pace; a
+fact not lost on one of her observers, who stood in the doorway
+looking after her with an air of puzzled amusement. The truth is
+that she was conscious of a somewhat keen shock of
+disappointment. All her plans for the day had been built on the
+assumption that it was to see her that Selden had come to
+Bellomont. She had expected, when she came downstairs, to
+find him on the watch for her; and she had found him, instead, in
+a situation which might well denote that he had been on the watch
+for another lady. Was it possible, after all, that he had come
+for Bertha Dorset? The latter had acted on the assumption to the
+extent of appearing at an hour when she never showed herself to
+ordinary mortals, and Lily, for the moment, saw no way of putting
+her in the wrong. It did not occur to her that Selden might have
+been actuated merely by the desire to spend a Sunday out of town:
+women never learn to dispense with the sentimental motive in
+their judgments of men. But Lily was not easily disconcerted;
+competition put her on her mettle, and she reflected that
+Selden's coming, if it did not declare him to be still in Mrs.
+Dorset's toils, showed him to be so completely free from them
+that he was not afraid of her proximity.
+
+These thoughts so engaged her that she fell into a gait hardly
+likely to carry her to church before the sermon, and at length,
+having passed from the gardens to the wood-path beyond, so far
+forgot her intention as to sink into a rustic seat at a bend of
+the walk. The spot was charming, and Lily was not insensible to
+the charm, or to the fact that her presence enhanced it; but she
+was not accustomed to taste the joys of solitude except in
+company, and the combination of a handsome girl and a romantic
+scene struck her as too good to be wasted. No one, however,
+appeared to profit by the opportunity; and after a half hour of
+fruitless waiting she rose and wandered on. She felt a stealing
+sense of fatigue as she walked; the sparkle had died out of her,
+and the taste of life was stale on her lips. She hardly knew what
+she had been seeking, or why the failure to find it had so
+blotted the light from her sky: she was only aware of a vague
+sense of failure, of an inner isolation deeper than the
+loneliness about her.
+
+Her footsteps flagged, and she stood gazing listlessly ahead,
+digging the ferny edge of the path with the tip of her sunshade.
+As she did so a step sounded behind her, and she saw Selden at
+her side.
+
+"How fast you walk!" he remarked. "I thought I should never catch
+up with you."
+
+She answered gaily: "You must be quite breathless! I've been
+sitting under that tree for an hour."
+
+"Waiting for me, I hope?" he rejoined; and she said with a vague
+laugh:
+
+"Well--waiting to see if you would come."
+
+"I seize the distinction, but I don't mind it, since doing the
+one involved doing the other. But weren't you sure that I should
+come?"
+
+"If I waited long enough--but you see I had only a limited time
+to give to the experiment."
+
+"Why limited? Limited by luncheon?"
+
+"No; by my other engagement."
+
+"Your engagement to go to church with Muriel and Hilda?"
+
+"No; but to come home from church with another person."
+
+"Ah, I see; I might have known you were fully provided with
+alternatives. And is the other person coming home this way?"
+
+Lily laughed again. "That's just what I don't know; and to find
+out, it is my business to get to church before the service is
+over."
+
+"Exactly; and it is my business to prevent your doing so; in
+which case the other person, piqued by your absence, will form
+the desperate resolve of driving back in the omnibus."
+
+Lily received this with fresh appreciation; his nonsense was like
+the bubbling of her inner mood. "Is that what you would do in
+such an emergency?" she enquired.
+
+Selden looked at her with solemnity. "I am here to prove to you,"
+he cried, "what I am capable of doing in an emergency!"
+
+"Walking a mile in an hour--you must own that the omnibus would
+be quicker!"
+
+"Ah--but will he find you in the end? That's the only test of
+success."
+
+They looked at each other with the same luxury of enjoyment that
+they had felt in exchanging absurdities over his tea-table; but
+suddenly Lily's face changed, and she said: "Well, if it is, he
+has succeeded."
+
+Selden, following her glance, perceived a party of people
+advancing toward them from the farther bend of the path. Lady
+Cressida had evidently insisted on walking home, and the rest of
+the church-goers had thought it their duty to accompany
+her. Lily's companion looked rapidly from one to the other of the
+two men of the party; Wetherall walking respectfully at Lady
+Cressida's side with his little sidelong look of nervous
+attention, and Percy Gryce bringing up the rear with Mrs.
+Wetherall and the Trenors.
+
+"Ah--now I see why you were getting up your Americana!" Selden
+exclaimed with a note of the freest admiration but the blush with
+which the sally was received checked whatever amplifications he
+had meant to give it.
+
+That Lily Bart should object to being bantered about her suitors,
+or even about her means of attracting them, was so new to Selden
+that he had a momentary flash of surprise, which lit up a number
+of possibilities; but she rose gallantly to the defence of her
+confusion, by saying, as its object approached: "That was why I
+was waiting for you--to thank you for having given me so many
+points!"
+
+"Ah, you can hardly do justice to the subject in such a short
+time," said Selden, as the Trenor girls caught sight of Miss
+Bart; and while she signalled a response to their boisterous
+greeting, he added quickly: "Won't you devote your afternoon to
+it? You know I must be off tomorrow morning. We'll take a walk,
+and you can thank me at your leisure."
+
+
+
+Chapter 6
+
+The afternoon was perfect. A deeper stillness possessed the air,
+and the glitter of the American autumn was tempered by a haze
+which diffused the brightness without dulling it.
+
+In the woody hollows of the park there was already a faint chill;
+but as the ground rose the air grew lighter, and ascending the
+long slopes beyond the high-road, Lily and her companion reached
+a zone of lingering summer. The path wound across a meadow with
+scattered trees; then it dipped into a lane plumed with asters
+and purpling sprays of bramble, whence, through the light quiver
+of ash-leaves, the country unrolled itself in pastoral distances.
+
+Higher up, the lane showed thickening tufts of fern and of the
+creeping glossy verdure of shaded slopes; trees began to overhang
+it, and the shade deepened to the checkered dusk of a
+beech-grove. The boles of the trees stood well apart, with only a
+light feathering of undergrowth; the path wound along the edge of
+the wood, now and then looking out on a sunlit pasture or on an
+orchard spangled with fruit.
+
+Lily had no real intimacy with nature, but she had a passion for
+the appropriate and could be keenly sensitive to a scene which
+was the fitting background of her own sensations. The landscape
+outspread below her seemed an enlargement of her present mood,
+and she found something of herself in its calmness, its breadth,
+its long free reaches. On the nearer slopes the sugar-maples
+wavered like pyres of light; lower down was a massing of grey
+orchards, and here and there the lingering green of an oak-grove.
+Two or three red farm-houses dozed under the apple-trees, and the
+white wooden spire of a village church showed beyond the shoulder
+of the hill; while far below, in a haze of dust, the high-road
+ran between the fields.
+
+"Let us sit here," Selden suggested, as they reached an open
+ledge of rock above which the beeches rose steeply between mossy
+boulders.
+
+Lily dropped down on the rock, glowing with her long climb. She
+sat quiet, her lips parted by the stress of the ascent,
+her eyes wandering peacefully over the broken ranges of the
+landscape. Selden stretched himself on the grass at her feet,
+tilting his hat against the level sun-rays, and clasping his
+hands behind his head, which rested against the side of the rock.
+He had no wish to make her talk; her quick-breathing silence
+seemed a part of the general hush and harmony of things. In his
+own mind there was only a lazy sense of pleasure, veiling the
+sharp edges of sensation as the September haze veiled the scene
+at their feet. But Lily, though her attitude was as calm as his,
+was throbbing inwardly with a rush of thoughts. There were in her
+at the moment two beings, one drawing deep breaths of freedom and
+exhilaration, the other gasping for air in a little black
+prison-house of fears. But gradually the captive's gasps grew
+fainter, or the other paid less heed to them: the horizon
+expanded, the air grew stronger, and the free spirit quivered for
+flight.
+
+She could not herself have explained the sense of buoyancy which
+seemed to lift and swing her above the sun-suffused world at her
+feet. Was it love, she wondered, or a mere fortuitous combination
+of happy thoughts and sensations? How much of it was owing to the
+spell of the perfect afternoon, the scent of the fading woods,
+the thought of the dulness she had fled from? Lily had no
+definite experience by which to test the quality of her feelings.
+She had several times been in love with fortunes or careers, but
+only once with a man. That was years ago, when she first came
+out, and had been smitten with a romantic passion for a young
+gentleman named Herbert Melson, who had blue eyes and a little
+wave in his hair. Mr. Melson, who was possessed of no other
+negotiable securities, had hastened to employ these in capturing
+the eldest Miss Van Osburgh: since then he had grown stout and
+wheezy, and was given to telling anecdotes about his children. If
+Lily recalled this early emotion it was not to compare it with
+that which now possessed her; the only point of comparison was
+the sense of lightness, of emancipation, which she remembered
+feeling, in the whirl of a waltz or the seclusion of a
+conservatory, during the brief course of her youthful romance.
+She had not known again till today that lightness, that glow of
+freedom; but now it was something more than a blind groping of
+the blood. The peculiar charm of her feeling for Selden
+was that she understood it; she could put her finger on every
+link of the chain that was drawing them together. Though his
+popularity was of the quiet kind, felt rather than actively
+expressed among his friends, she had never mistaken his
+inconspicuousness for obscurity. His reputed cultivation was
+generally regarded as a slight obstacle to easy intercourse, but
+Lily, who prided herself on her broad-minded recognition of
+literature, and always carried an Omar Khayam in her
+travelling-bag, was attracted by this attribute, which she felt
+would have had its distinction in an older society. It was,
+moreover, one of his gifts to look his part; to have a height
+which lifted his head above the crowd, and the keenly-modelled
+dark features which, in a land of amorphous types, gave him the
+air of belonging to a more specialized race, of carrying the
+impress of a concentrated past. Expansive persons found him a
+little dry, and very young girls thought him sarcastic; but this
+air of friendly aloofness, as far removed as possible from any
+assertion of personal advantage, was the quality which piqued
+Lily's interest. Everything about him accorded with the
+fastidious element in her taste, even to the light irony with
+which he surveyed what seemed to her most sacred. She admired him
+most of all, perhaps, for being able to convey as distinct a
+sense of superiority as the richest man she had ever met.
+
+It was the unconscious prolongation of this thought which led her
+to say presently, with a laugh: "I have broken two engagements
+for you today. How many have you broken for me?"
+
+"None," said Selden calmly. "My only engagement at Bellomont was
+with you."
+
+She glanced down at him, faintly smiling.
+
+"Did you really come to Bellomont to see me?"
+
+"Of course I did."
+
+Her look deepened meditatively. "Why?" she murmured, with an
+accent which took all tinge of coquetry from the question.
+
+"Because you're such a wonderful spectacle: I always like to see
+what you are doing."
+
+"How do you know what I should be doing if you were not here?"
+
+Selden smiled. "I don't flatter myself that my coming has
+deflected your course of action by a hair's breadth."
+
+"That's absurd--since, if you were not here, I could obviously
+not be taking a walk with you."
+
+"No; but your taking a walk with me is only another way of making
+use of your material. You are an artist and I happen to be the
+bit of colour you are using today. It's a part of your cleverness
+to be able to produce premeditated effects extemporaneously."
+
+Lily smiled also: his words were too acute not to strike her
+sense of humour. It was true that she meant to use the accident
+of his presence as part of a very definite effect; or that, at
+least, was the secret pretext she had found for breaking her
+promise to walk with Mr. Gryce. She had sometimes been accused of
+being too eager--even Judy Trenor had warned her to go slowly.
+Well, she would not be too eager in this case; she would give her
+suitor a longer taste of suspense. Where duty and inclination
+jumped together, it was not in Lily's nature to hold them
+asunder. She had excused herself from the walk on the plea of a
+headache: the horrid headache which, in the morning, had
+prevented her venturing to church. Her appearance at luncheon
+justified the excuse. She looked languid, full of a suffering
+sweetness; she carried a scent-bottle in her hand. Mr. Gryce was
+new to such manifestations; he wondered rather nervously if she
+were delicate, having far-reaching fears about the future of his
+progeny. But sympathy won the day, and he besought her not to
+expose herself: he always connected the outer air with ideas of
+exposure.
+
+Lily had received his sympathy with languid gratitude, urging
+him, since she should be such poor company, to join the rest of
+the party who, after luncheon, were starting in automobiles on a
+visit to the Van Osburghs at Peekskill. Mr. Gryce was touched by
+her disinterestedness, and, to escape from the threatened vacuity
+of the afternoon, had taken her advice and departed mournfully,
+in a dust-hood and goggles: as the motor-car plunged down the
+avenue she smiled at his resemblance to a baffled beetle. Selden
+had watched her manoeuvres with lazy amusement. She had made no
+reply to his suggestion that they should spend the
+afternoon together, but as her plan unfolded itself he felt
+fairly confident of being included in it. The house was empty
+when at length he heard her step on the stair and strolled out of
+the billiard-room to join her.
+
+She had on a hat and walking-dress, and the dogs were bounding at
+her feet.
+
+"I thought, after all, the air might do me good," she explained;
+and he agreed that so simple a remedy was worth trying.
+
+The excursionists would be gone at least four hours; Lily and
+Selden had the whole afternoon before them, and the sense of
+leisure and safety gave the last touch of lightness to her
+spirit. With so much time to talk, and no definite object to be
+led up to, she could taste the rare joys of mental vagrancy.
+
+She felt so free from ulterior motives that she took up his
+charge with a touch of resentment.
+
+"I don't know," she said, "why you are always accusing me of
+premeditation."
+
+"I thought you confessed to it: you told me the other day that
+you had to follow a certain line--and if one does a thing at all
+it is a merit to do it thoroughly."
+
+"If you mean that a girl who has no one to think for her is
+obliged to think for herself, I am quite willing to accept the
+imputation. But you must find me a dismal kind of person if you
+suppose that I never yield to an impulse."
+
+"Ah, but I don't suppose that: haven't I told you that your
+genius lies in converting impulses into intentions?"
+
+"My genius?" she echoed with a sudden note of weariness. "Is
+there any final test of genius but success? And I certainly
+haven't succeeded."
+
+Selden pushed his hat back and took a side-glance at her.
+"Success--what is success? I shall be interested to have your
+definition."
+
+"Success?" She hesitated. "Why, to get as much as one can out of
+life, I suppose. It's a relative quality, after all. Isn't that
+your idea of it?"
+
+"My idea of it? God forbid!" He sat up with sudden energy,
+resting his elbows on his knees and staring out upon the mellow
+fields. "My idea of success," he said, "is personal freedom."
+
+"Freedom? Freedom from worries?"
+
+"From everything--from money, from poverty, from ease and
+anxiety, from all the material accidents. To keep a kind of
+republic of the spirit--that's what I call success."
+
+She leaned forward with a responsive flash. "I know--I know--it's
+strange; but that's just what I've been feeling today."
+
+He met her eyes with the latent sweetness of his. "Is the feeling
+so rare with you?" he said.
+
+She blushed a little under his gaze. "You think me horribly
+sordid, don't you? But perhaps it's rather that I never had any
+choice. There was no one, I mean, to tell me about the republic
+of the spirit."
+
+"There never is--it's a country one has to find the way to one's
+self."
+
+"But I should never have found my way there if you hadn't told
+me."
+
+"Ah, there are sign-posts--but one has to know how to read them."
+
+"Well, I have known, I have known!" she cried with a glow of
+eagerness. "Whenever I see you, I find myself spelling out a
+letter of the sign--and yesterday--last evening at dinner--I
+suddenly saw a little way into your republic."
+
+Selden was still looking at her, but with a changed eye. Hitherto
+he had found, in her presence and her talk, the aesthetic
+amusement which a reflective man is apt to seek in desultory
+intercourse with pretty women. His attitude had been one of
+admiring spectatorship, and he would have been almost sorry to
+detect in her any emotional weakness which should interfere with
+the fulfilment of her aims. But now the hint of this weakness had
+become the most interesting thing about her. He had come on her
+that morning in a moment of disarray; her face had been pale and
+altered, and the diminution of her beauty had lent her a poignant
+charm. THAT IS HOW SHE LOOKS WHEN SHE IS ALONE! had been his
+first thought; and the second was to note in her the change which
+his coming produced. It was the danger-point of their intercourse
+that he could not doubt the spontaneity of her liking. From
+whatever angle he viewed their dawning intimacy, he could not see
+it as part of her scheme of life; and to be the unforeseen
+element in a career so accurately planned was stimulating
+even to a man who had renounced sentimental experiments.
+
+"Well," he said, "did it make you want to see more? Are you going
+to become one of us?"
+
+He had drawn out his cigarettes as he spoke, and she reached her
+hand toward the case.
+
+"Oh, do give me one--I haven't smoked for days!"
+
+"Why such unnatural abstinence? Everybody smokes at Bellomont."
+
+"Yes--but it is not considered becoming in a JEUNE FILLE A
+MARIER; and at the present moment I am a JEUNE FILLE A MARIER."
+
+"Ah, then I'm afraid we can't let you into the republic."
+
+"Why not? Is it a celibate order?"
+
+"Not in the least, though I'm bound to say there are not many
+married people in it. But you will marry some one very rich, and
+it's as hard for rich people to get into as the kingdom of
+heaven."
+
+"That's unjust, I think, because, as I understand it, one of the
+conditions of citizenship is not to think too much about money,
+and the only way not to think about money is to have a great deal
+of it."
+
+"You might as well say that the only way not to think about air
+is to have enough to breathe. That is true enough in a sense; but
+your lungs are thinking about the air, if you are not. And so it
+is with your rich people--they may not be thinking of money, but
+they're breathing it all the while; take them into another
+element and see how they squirm and gasp!"
+
+Lily sat gazing absently through the blue rings of her
+cigarette-smoke.
+
+"It seems to me," she said at length, "that you spend a good deal
+of your time in the element you disapprove of."
+
+Selden received this thrust without discomposure. "Yes; but I
+have tried to remain amphibious: it's all right as long as one's
+lungs can work in another air. The real alchemy consists in being
+able to turn gold back again into something else; and that's the
+secret that most of your friends have lost."
+
+Lily mused. "Don't you think," she rejoined after a moment, "that
+the people who find fault with society are too apt to regard it
+as an end and not a means, just as the people who despise
+money speak as if its only use were to be kept in bags and
+gloated over? Isn't it fairer to look at them both as
+opportunities, which may be used either stupidly or
+intelligently, according to the capacity of the user?"
+
+"That is certainly the sane view; but the queer thing about
+society is that the people who regard it as an end are those who
+are in it, and not the critics on the fence. It's just the other
+way with most shows--the audience may be under the illusion, but
+the actors know that real life is on the other side of the
+footlights. The people who take society as an escape from work
+are putting it to its proper use; but when it becomes the thing
+worked for it distorts all the relations of life." Selden raised
+himself on his elbow. "Good heavens!" he went on, "I don't
+underrate the decorative side of life. It seems to me the sense
+of splendour has justified itself by what it has produced. The
+worst of it is that so much human nature is used up in the
+process. If we're all the raw stuff of the cosmic effects, one
+would rather be the fire that tempers a sword than the fish that
+dyes a purple cloak. And a society like ours wastes such good
+material in producing its little patch of purple! Look at a boy
+like Ned Silverton--he's really too good to be used to refurbish
+anybody's social shabbiness. There's a lad just setting out to
+discover the universe: isn't it a pity he should end by finding
+it in Mrs. Fisher's drawing-room?"
+
+"Ned is a dear boy, and I hope he will keep his illusions long
+enough to write some nice poetry about them; but do you think it
+is only in society that he is likely to lose them?"
+
+Selden answered her with a shrug. "Why do we call all our
+generous ideas illusions, and the mean ones truths? Isn't it a
+sufficient condemnation of society to find one's self accepting
+such phraseology? I very nearly acquired the jargon at
+Silverton's age, and I know how names can alter the colour of
+beliefs."
+
+She had never heard him speak with such energy of affirmation.
+His habitual touch was that of the eclectic, who lightly turns
+over and compares; and she was moved by this sudden glimpse into
+the laboratory where his faiths were formed.
+
+"Ah, you are as bad as the other sectarians," she exclaimed; "why
+do you call your republic a republic? It is a closed corporation,
+and you create arbitrary objections in order to keep people out."
+
+"It is not MY republic; if it were, I should have a COUP D'ETAT
+and seat you on the throne."
+
+"Whereas, in reality, you think I can never even get my foot
+across the threshold? Oh, I understand what you mean. You despise
+my ambitions--you think them unworthy of me!"
+
+Selden smiled, but not ironically. "Well, isn't that a tribute? I
+think them quite worthy of most of the people who live by them."
+
+She had turned to gaze on him gravely. "But isn't it possible
+that, if I had the opportunities of these people, I might make a
+better use of them? Money stands for all kinds of things--its
+purchasing quality isn't limited to diamonds and motor-cars."
+
+
+"Not in the least: you might expiate your enjoyment of them by
+founding a hospital."
+
+"But if you think they are what I should really enjoy, you must
+think my ambitions are good enough for me."
+
+Selden met this appeal with a laugh. "Ah, my dear Miss Bart, I am
+not divine Providence, to guarantee your enjoying the things you
+are trying to get!"
+
+"Then the best you can say for me is, that after struggling to
+get them I probably shan't like them?" She drew a deep breath.
+"What a miserable future you foresee for me!"
+
+"Well--have you never foreseen it for yourself?" The slow colour
+rose to her cheek, not a blush of excitement but drawn from the
+deep wells of feeling; it was as if the effort of her spirit had
+produced it.
+
+"Often and often," she said. "But it looks so much darker when
+you show it to me!"
+
+He made no answer to this exclamation, and for a while they sat
+silent, while something throbbed between them in the wide quiet
+of the air.
+
+But suddenly she turned on him with a kind of vehemence. "Why do
+you do this to me?" she cried. "Why do you make the things I have
+chosen seem hateful to me, if you have nothing to give me
+instead?"
+
+The words roused Selden from the musing fit into which he had
+fallen. He himself did not know why he had led their talk along
+such lines; it was the last use he would have imagined himself
+making of an afternoon's solitude with Miss Bart. But it was one
+of those moments when neither seemed to speak deliberately, when
+an indwelling voice in each called to the other across unsounded
+depths of feeling.
+
+"No, I have nothing to give you instead," he said, sitting up and
+turning so that he faced her. "If I had, it should be yours, you
+know."
+
+She received this abrupt declaration in a way even stranger than
+the manner of its making: she dropped her face on her hands and
+he saw that for a moment she wept.
+
+It was for a moment only, however; for when he leaned nearer and
+drew down her hands with a gesture less passionate than grave,
+she turned on him a face softened but not disfigured by emotion,
+and he said to himself, somewhat cruelly, that even her weeping
+was an art.
+
+The reflection steadied his voice as he asked, between pity and
+irony: "Isn't it natural that I should try to belittle all the
+things I can't offer you?"
+
+Her face brightened at this, but she drew her hand away, not with
+a gesture of coquetry, but as though renouncing something to
+which she had no claim.
+
+"But you belittle ME, don't you," she returned gently, "in being
+so sure they are the only things I care for?"
+
+Selden felt an inner start; but it was only the last quiver of
+his egoism. Almost at once he answered quite simply: "But you do
+care for them, don't you? And no wishing of mine can alter that."
+
+He had so completely ceased to consider how far this might carry
+him, that he had a distinct sense of disappointment when she
+turned on him a face sparkling with derision.
+
+"Ah," she cried, "for all your fine phrases you're really as
+great a coward as I am, for you wouldn't have made one of them if
+you hadn't been so sure of my answer."
+
+The shock of this retort had the effect of crystallizing Selden's
+wavering intentions.
+
+"I am not so sure of your answer," he said quietly. "And I do you
+the justice to believe that you are not either."
+
+It was her turn to look at him with surprise; and after a
+moment--"Do you want to marry me?" she asked.
+
+He broke into a laugh. "No, I don't want to--but perhaps I should
+if you did!"
+
+"That's what I told you--you're so sure of me that you can amuse
+yourself with experiments." She drew back the hand he had
+regained, and sat looking down on him sadly.
+
+"I am not making experiments," he returned. "Or if I am, it is
+not on you but on myself. I don't know what effect they are going
+to have on me--but if marrying you is one of them, I will take
+the risk."
+
+She smiled faintly. "It would be a great risk, certainly--I have
+never concealed from you how great."
+
+"Ah, it's you who are the coward!" he exclaimed.
+
+She had risen, and he stood facing her with his eyes on hers. The
+soft isolation of the falling day enveloped them: they seemed
+lifted into a finer air. All the exquisite influences of the hour
+trembled in their veins, and drew them to each other as the
+loosened leaves were drawn to the earth.
+
+"It's you who are the coward," he repeated, catching her hands in
+his.
+
+She leaned on him for a moment, as if with a drop of tired wings:
+he felt as though her heart were beating rather with the stress
+of a long flight than the thrill of new distances. Then, drawing
+back with a little smile of warning--"I shall look hideous in
+dowdy clothes; but I can trim my own hats," she declared.
+
+They stood silent for a while after this, smiling at each other
+like adventurous children who have climbed to a forbidden height
+from which they discover a new world. The actual world at their
+feet was veiling itself in dimness, and across the valley a clear
+moon rose in the denser blue.
+
+Suddenly they heard a remote sound, like the hum of a giant
+insect, and following the high-road, which wound whiter through
+the surrounding twilight, a black object rushed across their
+vision.
+
+Lily started from her attitude of absorption; her smile faded and
+she began to move toward the lane.
+
+"I had no idea it was so late! We shall not be back till after
+dark," she said, almost impatiently.
+
+Selden was looking at her with surprise: it took him a moment to
+regain his usual view of her; then he said, with an
+uncontrollable note of dryness: "That was not one of our party;
+the motor was going the other way."
+
+"I know--I know---" She paused, and he saw her redden through the
+twilight. "But I told them I was not well--that I should not go
+out. Let us go down!" she murmured.
+
+Selden continued to look at her; then he drew his cigarette-case
+from his pocket and slowly lit a cigarette. It seemed to him
+necessary, at that moment, to proclaim, by some habitual gesture
+of this sort, his recovered hold on the actual: he had an almost
+puerile wish to let his companion see that, their flight over, he
+had landed on his feet.
+
+She waited while the spark flickered under his curved palm; then
+he held out the cigarettes to her.
+
+She took one with an unsteady hand, and putting it to her lips,
+leaned forward to draw her light from his. In the indistinctness
+the little red gleam lit up the lower part of her face, and he
+saw her mouth tremble into a smile.
+
+"Were you serious?" she asked, with an odd thrill of gaiety which
+she might have caught up, in haste, from a heap of stock
+inflections, without having time to select the just note.
+Selden's voice was under better control. "Why not?" he returned.
+"You see I took no risks in being so." And as she continued to
+stand before him, a little pale under the retort, he added
+quickly: "Let us go down."
+
+
+
+Chapter 7
+
+It spoke much for the depth of Mrs. Trenor's friendship that her
+voice, in admonishing Miss Bart, took the same note of personal
+despair as if she had been lamenting the collapse of a
+house-party.
+
+"All I can say is, Lily, that I can't make you out!" She leaned
+back, sighing, in the morning abandon of lace and muslin, turning
+an indifferent shoulder to the heaped-up importunities of her
+desk, while she considered, with the eye of a physician who has
+given up the case, the erect exterior of the patient confronting
+her.
+
+"If you hadn't told me you were going in for him seriously--but
+I'm sure you made that plain enough from the beginning! Why else
+did you ask me to let you off bridge, and to keep away Carry and
+Kate Corby? I don't suppose you did it because he amused you; we
+could none of us imagine your putting up with him for a moment
+unless you meant to marry him. And I'm sure everybody played
+fair! They all wanted to help it along. Even Bertha kept her
+hands off--I will say that--till Lawrence came down and you
+dragged him away from her. After that she had a right to
+retaliate--why on earth did you interfere with her? You've known
+Lawrence Selden for years--why did you behave as if you had just
+discovered him? If you had a grudge against Bertha it was a
+stupid time to show it--you could have paid her back just as well
+after you were married! I told you Bertha was dangerous. She was
+in an odious mood when she came here, but Lawrence's turning up
+put her in a good humour, and if you'd only let her think he came
+for HER it would have never occurred to her to play you this
+trick. Oh, Lily, you'll never do anything if you're not serious!"
+
+Miss Bart accepted this exhortation in a spirit of the purest
+impartiality. Why should she have been angry? It was the voice of
+her own conscience which spoke to her through Mrs. Trenor's
+reproachful accents. But even to her own conscience she must
+trump up a semblance of defence. "I only took a day off--I
+thought he meant to stay on all this week, and I knew Mr. Selden
+was leaving this morning."
+
+Mrs. Trenor brushed aside the plea with a gesture which laid bare
+its weakness.
+
+"He did mean to stay--that's the worst of it. It shows that he's
+run away from you; that Bertha's done her work and poisoned him
+thoroughly."
+
+Lily gave a slight laugh. "Oh, if he's running I'll overtake
+him!"
+
+Her friend threw out an arresting hand. "Whatever you do, Lily,
+do nothing!"
+
+Miss Bart received the warning with a smile. "I don't mean,
+literally, to take the next train. There are ways---" But she did
+not go on to specify them.
+
+Mrs. Trenor sharply corrected the tense. "There WERE ways--plenty
+of them! I didn't suppose you needed to have them pointed out.
+But don't deceive yourself--he's thoroughly frightened. He has
+run straight home to his mother, and she'll protect him!"
+
+"Oh, to the death," Lily agreed, dimpling at the vision.
+
+"How you can LAUGH---" her friend rebuked her; and she dropped
+back to a soberer perception of things with the question: "What
+was it Bertha really told him?"
+
+"Don't ask me--horrors! She seemed to have raked up everything.
+Oh, you know what I mean--of course there isn't anything, REALLY;
+but I suppose she brought in Prince Varigliano--and Lord
+Hubert--and there was some story of your having borrowed money of
+old Ned Van Alstyne: did you ever?"
+
+"He is my father's cousin," Miss Bart interposed.
+
+"Well, of course she left THAT out. It seems Ned told Carry
+Fisher; and she told Bertha, naturally. They're all alike, you
+know: they hold their tongues for years, and you think you're
+safe, but when their opportunity comes they remember everything."
+
+Lily had grown pale: her voice had a harsh note in it. "It was
+some money I lost at bridge at the Van Osburghs'. I repaid it, of
+course."
+
+"Ah, well, they wouldn't remember that; besides, it was the idea
+of the gambling debt that frightened Percy. Oh, Bertha knew her
+man--she knew just what to tell him!"
+
+In this strain Mrs. Trenor continued for nearly an hour to
+admonish her friend. Miss Bart listened with admirable
+equanimity. Her naturally good temper had been disciplined by
+years of enforced compliance, since she had almost always had to
+attain her ends by the circuitous path of other people's; and,
+being naturally inclined to face unpleasant facts as soon as they
+presented themselves, she was not sorry to hear an impartial
+statement of what her folly was likely to cost, the more so as
+her own thoughts were still insisting on the other side of the
+case. Presented in the light of Mrs. Trenor's vigorous comments,
+the reckoning was certainly a formidable one, and Lily, as she
+listened, found herself gradually reverting to her friend's view
+of the situation. Mrs. Trenor's words were moreover emphasized
+for her hearer by anxieties which she herself could scarcely
+guess. Affluence, unless stimulated by a keen imagination, forms
+but the vaguest notion of the practical strain of poverty. Judy
+knew it must be "horrid" for poor Lily to have to stop to
+consider whether she could afford real lace on her petticoats,
+and not to have a motor-car and a steam-yacht at her orders; but
+the daily friction of unpaid bills, the daily nibble of small
+temptations to expenditure, were trials as far out of her
+experience as the domestic problems of the char-woman. Mrs.
+Trenor's unconsciousness of the real stress of the situation had
+the effect of making it more galling to Lily. While her friend
+reproached her for missing the opportunity to eclipse her rivals,
+she was once more battling in imagination with the mounting tide
+of indebtedness from which she had so nearly escaped. What wind
+of folly had driven her out again on those dark seas?
+
+If anything was needed to put the last touch to her
+self-abasement it was the sense of the way her old life was
+opening its ruts again to receive her. Yesterday her fancy had
+fluttered free pinions above a choice of occupations; now she had
+to drop to the level of the familiar routine, in which moments of
+seeming brilliancy and freedom alternated with long hours of
+subjection.
+
+She laid a deprecating hand on her friend's. "Dear Judy! I'm
+sorry to have been such a bore, and you are very good to me. But
+you must have some letters for me to answer--let me at least be
+useful."
+
+She settled herself at the desk, and Mrs. Trenor accepted her
+resumption of the morning's task with a sigh which implied that,
+after all, she had proved herself unfit for higher uses.
+
+The luncheon table showed a depleted circle. All the men but Jack
+Stepney and Dorset had returned to town (it seemed to Lily a last
+touch of irony that Selden and Percy Gryce should have gone in
+the same train), and Lady Cressida and the attendant Wetheralls
+had been despatched by motor to lunch at a distant country-house.
+At such moments of diminished interest it was usual for Mrs.
+Dorset to keep her room till the afternoon; but on this occasion
+she drifted in when luncheon was half over, hollowed-eyed and
+drooping, but with an edge of malice under her indifference.
+
+She raised her eyebrows as she looked about the table. "How few
+of us are left! I do so enjoy the quiet--don't you, Lily? I wish
+the men would always stop away--it's really much nicer without
+them. Oh, you don't count, George: one doesn't have to talk to
+one's husband. But I thought Mr. Gryce was to stay for the rest
+of the week?" she added enquiringly. "Didn't he intend to, Judy?
+He's such a nice boy--I wonder what drove him away? He is rather
+shy, and I'm afraid we may have shocked him: he has been brought
+up in such an old-fashioned way. Do you know, Lily, he told me he
+had never seen a girl play cards for money till he saw you doing
+it the other night? And he lives on the interest of his income,
+and always has a lot left over to invest!"
+
+Mrs. Fisher leaned forward eagerly. "I do believe it is some
+one's duty to educate that young man. It is shocking that he has
+never been made to realize his duties as a citizen. Every wealthy
+man should be compelled to study the laws of his country."
+
+Mrs. Dorset glanced at her quietly. "I think he HAS studied the
+divorce laws. He told me he had promised the Bishop to sign some
+kind of a petition against divorce."
+
+Mrs. Fisher reddened under her powder, and Stepney said with a
+laughing glance at Miss Bart: "I suppose he is thinking of
+marriage, and wants to tinker up the old ship before he goes
+aboard."
+
+His betrothed looked shocked at the metaphor, and George Dorset
+exclaimed with a sardonic growl: "Poor devil! It isn't the ship
+that will do for him, it's the crew."
+
+"Or the stowaways," said Miss Corby brightly. "If I contemplated
+a voyage with him I should try to start with a friend in the
+hold."
+
+Miss Van Osburgh's vague feeling of pique was struggling for
+appropriate expression. "I'm sure I don't see why you laugh at
+him; I think he's very nice," she exclaimed; "and, at any rate, a
+girl who married him would always have enough to be comfortable."
+
+She looked puzzled at the redoubled laughter which hailed her
+words, but it might have consoled her to know how deeply they had
+sunk into the breast of one of her hearers.
+
+Comfortable! At that moment the word was more eloquent to Lily
+Bart than any other in the language. She could not even pause to
+smile over the heiress's view of a colossal fortune as a mere
+shelter against want: her mind was filled with the vision of what
+that shelter might have been to her. Mrs. Dorset's pin-pricks did
+not smart, for her own irony cut deeper: no one could hurt her as
+much as she was hurting herself, for no one else--not even Judy
+Trenor--knew the full magnitude of her folly.
+
+She was roused from these unprofitable considerations by a
+whispered request from her hostess, who drew her apart as they
+left the luncheon-table.
+
+"Lily, dear, if you've nothing special to do, may I tell Carry
+Fisher that you intend to drive to the station and fetch Gus? He
+will be back at four, and I know she has it in her mind to meet
+him. Of course I'm very glad to have him amused, but I happen to
+know that she has bled him rather severely since she's been here,
+and she is so keen about going to fetch him that I fancy she must
+have got a lot more bills this morning. It seems to me," Mrs.
+Trenor feelingly concluded, "that most of her alimony is paid by
+other women's husbands!"
+
+Miss Bart, on her way to the station, had leisure to muse over
+her friend's words, and their peculiar application to herself.
+Why should she have to suffer for having once, for a few hours,
+borrowed money of an elderly cousin, when a woman like Carry
+Fisher could make a living unrebuked from the good-nature of her
+men friends and the tolerance of their wives? It all turned on
+the tiresome distinction between what a married woman
+might, and a girl might not, do. Of course it was shocking for a
+married woman to borrow money--and Lily was expertly aware of the
+implication involved--but still, it was the mere MALUM PROHIBITUM
+which the world decries but condones, and which, though it may be
+punished by private vengeance, does not provoke the collective
+disapprobation of society. To Miss Bart, in short, no such
+opportunities were possible. She could of course borrow from her
+women friends--a hundred here or there, at the utmost--but they
+were more ready to give a gown or a trinket, and looked a little
+askance when she hinted her preference for a cheque. Women are
+not generous lenders, and those among whom her lot was cast were
+either in the same case as herself, or else too far removed from
+it to understand its necessities. The result of her meditations
+was the decision to join her aunt at Richfield. She could not
+remain at Bellomont without playing bridge, and being involved in
+other expenses; and to continue her usual series of autumn visits
+would merely prolong the same difficulties. She had reached a
+point where abrupt retrenchment was necessary, and the only cheap
+life was a dull life. She would start the next morning for
+Richfield.
+
+At the station she thought Gus Trenor seemed surprised, and not
+wholly unrelieved, to see her. She yielded up the reins of the
+light runabout in which she had driven over, and as he climbed
+heavily to her side, crushing her into a scant third of the seat,
+he said: "Halloo! It isn't often you honour me. You must have
+been uncommonly hard up for something to do."
+
+The afternoon was warm, and propinquity made her more than
+usually conscious that he was red and massive, and that beads of
+moisture had caused the dust of the train to adhere unpleasantly
+to the broad expanse of cheek and neck which he turned to her;
+but she was aware also, from the look in his small dull eyes,
+that the contact with her freshness and slenderness was as
+agreeable to him as the sight of a cooling beverage.
+
+The perception of this fact helped her to answer gaily: "It's not
+often I have the chance. There are too many ladies to dispute the
+privilege with me."
+
+"The privilege of driving me home? Well, I'm glad you won
+the race, anyhow. But I know what really happened--my wife sent
+you. Now didn't she?"
+
+He had the dull man's unexpected flashes of astuteness, and Lily
+could not help joining in the laugh with which he had pounced on
+the truth.
+
+"You see, Judy thinks I'm the safest person for you to be with;
+and she's quite right," she rejoined.
+
+"Oh, is she, though? If she is, it's because you wouldn't waste
+your time on an old hulk like me. We married men have to put up
+with what we can get: all the prizes are for the clever chaps
+who've kept a free foot. Let me light a cigar, will you? I've had
+a beastly day of it."
+
+He drew up in the shade of the village street, and passed the
+reins to her while he held a match to his cigar. The little flame
+under his hand cast a deeper crimson on his puffing face, and
+Lily averted her eyes with a momentary feeling of repugnance. And
+yet some women thought him handsome!
+
+As she handed back the reins, she said sympathetically: "Did you
+have such a lot of tiresome things to do?"
+
+"I should say so--rather!" Trenor, who was seldom listened to,
+either by his wife or her friends, settled down into the rare
+enjoyment of a confidential talk. "You don't know how a fellow
+has to hustle to keep this kind of thing going." He waved his
+whip in the direction of the Bellomont acres, which lay outspread
+before them in opulent undulations. "Judy has no idea of what she
+spends--not that there isn't plenty to keep the thing going," he
+interrupted himself, "but a man has got to keep his eyes open and
+pick up all the tips he can. My father and mother used to live
+like fighting-cocks on their income, and put by a good bit of it
+too--luckily for me--but at the pace we go now, I don't know
+where I should be if it weren't for taking a flyer now and then.
+The women all think--I mean Judy thinks--I've nothing to do but
+to go down town once a month and cut off coupons, but the truth
+is it takes a devilish lot of hard work to keep the machinery
+running. Not that I ought to complain to-day, though," he went on
+after a moment, "for I did a very neat stroke of business, thanks
+to Stepney's friend Rosedale: by the way, Miss Lily, I wish you'd
+try to persuade Judy to be decently civil to that chap. He's
+going to be rich enough to buy us all out one of these
+days, and if she'd only ask him to dine now and then I could get
+almost anything out of him. The man is mad to know the people who
+don't want to know him, and when a fellow's in that state there
+is nothing he won't do for the first woman who takes him up."
+
+Lily hesitated a moment. The first part of her companion's
+discourse had started an interesting train of thought, which was
+rudely interrupted by the mention of Mr. Rosedale's name. She
+uttered a faint protest.
+
+"But you know Jack did try to take him about, and he was
+impossible."
+
+"Oh, hang it--because he's fat and shiny, and has a sloppy
+manner! Well, all I can say is that the people who are clever
+enough to be civil to him now will make a mighty good thing of
+it. A few years from now he'll be in it whether we want him or
+not, and then he won't be giving away a half-a-million tip for a
+dinner."
+
+Lily's mind had reverted from the intrusive personality of Mr.
+Rosedale to the train of thought set in motion by Trenor's first
+words. This vast mysterious Wall Street world of "tips" and
+"deals"--might she not find in it the means of escape from her
+dreary predicament? She had often heard of women making money in
+this way through their friends: she had no more notion than most
+of her sex of the exact nature of the transaction, and its
+vagueness seemed to diminish its indelicacy. She could not,
+indeed, imagine herself, in any extremity, stooping to extract a
+"tip" from Mr. Rosedale; but at her side was a man in possession
+of that precious commodity, and who, as the husband of her
+dearest friend, stood to her in a relation of almost fraternal
+intimacy.
+
+In her inmost heart Lily knew it was not by appealing to the
+fraternal instinct that she was likely to move Gus Trenor; but
+this way of explaining the situation helped to drape its crudity,
+and she was always scrupulous about keeping up appearances to
+herself. Her personal fastidiousness had a moral equivalent, and
+when she made a tour of inspection in her own mind there were
+certain closed doors she did not open.
+
+As they reached the gates of Bellomont she turned to Trenor with
+a smile. "The afternoon is so perfect--don't you want to drive me
+a little farther? I've been rather out of spirits all day,
+and it's so restful to be away from people, with some one who
+won't mind if I'm a little dull."
+
+She looked so plaintively lovely as she proffered the request, so
+trustfully sure of his sympathy and understanding, that Trenor
+felt himself wishing that his wife could see how other women
+treated him--not battered wire-pullers like Mrs. Fisher, but a
+girl that most men would have given their boots to get such a
+look from.
+
+"Out of spirits? Why on earth should you ever be out of spirits?
+Is your last box of Doucet dresses a failure, or did Judy rook
+you out of everything at bridge last night?"
+
+Lily shook her head with a sigh. "I have had to give up Doucet;
+and bridge too--I can't afford it. In fact I can't afford any of
+the things my friends do, and I am afraid Judy often thinks me a
+bore because I don't play cards any longer, and because I am not
+as smartly dressed as the other women. But you will think me a
+bore too if I talk to you about my worries, and I only mention
+them because I want you to do me a favour--the very greatest of
+favours."
+
+Her eyes sought his once more, and she smiled inwardly at the
+tinge of apprehension that she read in them.
+
+"Why, of course--if it's anything I can manage---" He broke off,
+and she guessed that his enjoyment was disturbed by the
+remembrance of Mrs. Fisher's methods.
+
+"The greatest of favours," she rejoined gently. "The fact is,
+Judy is angry with me, and I want you to make my peace."
+
+"Angry with you? Oh, come, nonsense---" his relief broke through
+in a laugh. "Why, you know she's devoted to you."
+
+"She is the best friend I have, and that is why I mind having to
+vex her. But I daresay you know what she has wanted me to do. She
+has set her heart--poor dear--on my marrying--marrying a great
+deal of money."
+
+She paused with a slight falter of embarrassment, and Trenor,
+turning abruptly, fixed on her a look of growing intelligence.
+
+"A great deal of money? Oh, by Jove--you don't mean Gryce?
+What--you do? Oh, no, of course I won't mention it--you can trust
+me to keep my mouth shut--but Gryce--good Lord, GRYCE! Did
+Judy really think you could bring yourself to marry that
+portentous little ass? But you couldn't, eh? And so you gave him
+the sack, and that's the reason why he lit out by the first train
+this morning?" He leaned back, spreading himself farther across
+the seat, as if dilated by the joyful sense of his own
+discernment. "How on earth could Judy think you would do such a
+thing? I could have told her you'd never put up with such a
+little milksop!"
+
+Lily sighed more deeply. "I sometimes think," she murmured, "that
+men understand a woman's motives better than other women do."
+
+"Some men--I'm certain of it! I could have TOLD Judy," he
+repeated, exulting in the implied superiority over his wife.
+
+"I thought you would understand; that's why I wanted to speak to
+you," Miss Bart rejoined. "I can't make that kind of marriage;
+it's impossible. But neither can I go on living as all the women
+in my set do. I am almost entirely dependent on my aunt, and
+though she is very kind to me she makes me no regular allowance,
+and lately I've lost money at cards, and I don't dare tell her
+about it. I have paid my card debts, of course, but there is
+hardly anything left for my other expenses, and if I go on with
+my present life I shall be in horrible difficulties. I have a
+tiny income of my own, but I'm afraid it's badly invested, for it
+seems to bring in less every year, and I am so ignorant of money
+matters that I don't know if my aunt's agent, who looks after it,
+is a good adviser." She paused a moment, and added in a lighter
+tone: "I didn't mean to bore you with all this, but I want your
+help in making Judy understand that I can't, at present, go on
+living as one must live among you all. I am going away tomorrow
+to join my aunt at Richfield, and I shall stay there for the rest
+of the autumn, and dismiss my maid and learn how to mend my own
+clothes."
+
+At this picture of loveliness in distress, the pathos of which
+was heightened by the light touch with which it was drawn, a
+murmur of indignant sympathy broke from Trenor. Twenty-four hours
+earlier, if his wife had consulted him on the subject of Miss
+Bart's future, he would have said that a girl with extravagant
+tastes and no money had better marry the first rich man she could
+get; but with the subject of discussion at his side,
+turning to him for sympathy, making him feel that he understood
+her better than her dearest friends, and confirming the assurance
+by the appeal of her exquisite nearness, he was ready to swear
+that such a marriage was a desecration, and that, as a man of
+honour, he was bound to do all he could to protect her from the
+results of her disinterestedness. This impulse was reinforced by
+the reflection that if she had married Gryce she would have been
+surrounded by flattery and approval, whereas, having refused to
+sacrifice herself to expediency, she was left to bear the whole
+cost of her resistance. Hang it, if he could find a way out of
+such difficulties for a professional sponge like Carry Fisher,
+who was simply a mental habit corresponding to the physical
+titillations of the cigarette or the cock-tail, he could surely
+do as much for a girl who appealed to his highest sympathies, and
+who brought her troubles to him with the trustfulness of a child.
+
+Trenor and Miss Bart prolonged their drive till long after
+sunset; and before it was over he had tried, with some show of
+success, to prove to her that, if she would only trust him, he
+could make a handsome sum of money for her without endangering
+the small amount she possessed. She was too genuinely ignorant of
+the manipulations of the stock-market to understand his technical
+explanations, or even perhaps to perceive that certain points in
+them were slurred; the haziness enveloping the transaction served
+as a veil for her embarrassment, and through the general blur her
+hopes dilated like lamps in a fog. She understood only that her
+modest investments were to be mysteriously multiplied without
+risk to herself; and the assurance that this miracle would take
+place within a short time, that there would be no tedious
+interval for suspense and reaction, relieved her of her lingering
+scruples.
+
+Again she felt the lightening of her load, and with it the
+release of repressed activities. Her immediate worries conjured,
+it was easy to resolve that she would never again find herself in
+such straits, and as the need of economy and self-denial receded
+from her foreground she felt herself ready to meet any other
+demand which life might make. Even the immediate one of letting
+Trenor, as they drove homeward, lean a little nearer and
+rest his hand reassuringly on hers, cost her only a momentary
+shiver of reluctance. It was part of the game to make him feel
+that her appeal had been an uncalculated impulse, provoked by the
+liking he inspired; and the renewed sense of power in handling
+men, while it consoled her wounded vanity, helped also to obscure
+the thought of the claim at which his manner hinted. He was a
+coarse dull man who, under all his show of authority, was a mere
+supernumerary in the costly show for which his money paid:
+surely, to a clever girl, it would be easy to hold him by his
+vanity, and so keep the obligation on his side.
+
+
+
+Chapter 8
+
+The first thousand dollar cheque which Lily received with a
+blotted scrawl from Gus Trenor strengthened her self-confidence
+in the exact degree to which it effaced her debts.
+
+The transaction had justified itself by its results: she saw now
+how absurd it would have been to let any primitive scruple
+deprive her of this easy means of appeasing her creditors. Lily
+felt really virtuous as she dispensed the sum in sops to her
+tradesmen, and the fact that a fresh order accompanied each
+payment did not lessen her sense of disinterestedness. How many
+women, in her place, would have given the orders without making
+the payment!
+
+She had found it reassuringly easy to keep Trenor in a good
+humour. To listen to his stories, to receive his confidences and
+laugh at his jokes, seemed for the moment all that was required
+of her, and the complacency with which her hostess regarded these
+attentions freed them of the least hint of ambiguity. Mrs. Trenor
+evidently assumed that Lily's growing intimacy with her husband
+was simply an indirect way of returning her own kindness.
+
+"I'm so glad you and Gus have become such good friends," she said
+approvingly. "It's too delightful of you to be so nice to him,
+and put up with all his tiresome stories. I know what they are,
+because I had to listen to them when we were engaged--I'm sure he
+is telling the same ones still. And now I shan't always have to
+be asking Carry Fisher here to keep him in a good-humour. She's a
+perfect vulture, you know; and she hasn't the least moral sense.
+She is always getting Gus to speculate for her, and I'm sure she
+never pays when she loses."
+
+Miss Bart could shudder at this state of things without the
+embarrassment of a personal application. Her own position was
+surely quite different. There could be no question of her not
+paying when she lost, since Trenor had assured her that she was
+certain not to lose. In sending her the cheque he had explained
+that he had made five thousand for her out of Rosedale's "tip,"
+and had put four thousand back in the same venture, as
+there was the promise of another "big rise"; she understood
+therefore that he was now speculating with her own money, and
+that she consequently owed him no more than the gratitude which
+such a trifling service demanded. She vaguely supposed that, to
+raise the first sum, he had borrowed on her securities; but this
+was a point over which her curiosity did not linger. It was
+concentrated, for the moment, on the probable date of the next
+"big rise."
+
+The news of this event was received by her some weeks later, on
+the occasion of Jack Stepney's marriage to Miss Van Osburgh. As a
+cousin of the bridegroom, Miss Bart had been asked to act as
+bridesmaid; but she had declined on the plea that, since she was
+much taller than the other attendant virgins, her presence might
+mar the symmetry of the group. The truth was, she had attended
+too many brides to the altar: when next seen there she meant to
+be the chief figure in the ceremony. She knew the pleasantries
+made at the expense of young girls who have been too long before
+the public, and she was resolved to avoid such assumptions of
+youthfulness as might lead people to think her older than she
+really was.
+
+The Van Osburgh marriage was celebrated in the village church
+near the paternal estate on the Hudson. It was the "simple
+country wedding" to which guests are convoyed in special trains,
+and from which the hordes of the uninvited have to be fended off
+by the intervention of the police. While these sylvan rites were
+taking place, in a church packed with fashion and festooned with
+orchids, the representatives of the press were threading their
+way, note-book in hand, through the labyrinth of wedding
+presents, and the agent of a cinematograph syndicate was setting
+up his apparatus at the church door. It was the kind of scene in
+which Lily had often pictured herself as taking the principal
+part, and on this occasion the fact that she was once more merely
+a casual spectator, instead of the mystically veiled figure
+occupying the centre of attention, strengthened her resolve to
+assume the latter part before the year was over. The fact that
+her immediate anxieties were relieved did not blind her to a
+possibility of their recurrence; it merely gave her enough
+buoyancy to rise once more above her doubts and feel a renewed
+faith in her beauty, her power, and her general fitness to
+attract a brilliant destiny. It could not be that one
+conscious of such aptitudes for mastery and enjoyment was doomed
+to a perpetuity of failure; and her mistakes looked easily
+reparable in the light of her restored self-confidence.
+
+A special appositeness was given to these reflections by the
+discovery, in a neighbouring pew, of the serious profile and
+neatly-trimmed beard of Mr. Percy Gryce. There was something
+almost bridal in his own aspect: his large white gardenia had a
+symbolic air that struck Lily as a good omen. After all, seen in
+an assemblage of his kind he was not ridiculous-looking: a
+friendly critic might have called his heaviness weighty, and he
+was at his best in the attitude of vacant passivity which brings
+out the oddities of the restless. She fancied he was the kind of
+man whose sentimental associations would be stirred by the
+conventional imagery of a wedding, and she pictured herself, in
+the seclusion of the Van Osburgh conservatories, playing
+skillfully upon sensibilities thus prepared for her touch. In
+fact, when she looked at the other women about her, and recalled
+the image she had brought away from her own glass, it did not
+seem as though any special skill would be needed to repair her
+blunder and bring him once more to her feet.
+
+The sight of Selden's dark head, in a pew almost facing her,
+disturbed for a moment the balance of her complacency. The rise
+of her blood as their eyes met was succeeded by a contrary
+motion, a wave of resistance and withdrawal. She did not wish to
+see him again, not because she feared his influence, but because
+his presence always had the effect of cheapening her aspirations,
+of throwing her whole world out of focus. Besides, he was a
+living reminder of the worst mistake in her career, and the fact
+that he had been its cause did not soften her feelings toward
+him. She could still imagine an ideal state of existence in
+which, all else being superadded, intercourse with Selden might
+be the last touch of luxury; but in the world as it was, such a
+privilege was likely to cost more than it was worth.
+
+"Lily, dear, I never saw you look so lovely! You look as if
+something delightful had just happened to you!"
+
+The young lady who thus formulated her admiration of her
+brilliant friend did not, in her own person, suggest such
+happy possibilities. Miss Gertrude Farish, in fact, typified the
+mediocre and the ineffectual. If there were compensating
+qualities in her wide frank glance and the freshness of her
+smile, these were qualities which only the sympathetic observer
+would perceive before noticing that her eyes were of a workaday
+grey and her lips without haunting curves. Lily's own view of her
+wavered between pity for her limitations and impatience at her
+cheerful acceptance of them. To Miss Bart, as to her mother,
+acquiescence in dinginess was evidence of stupidity; and there
+were moments when, in the consciousness of her own power to look
+and to be so exactly what the occasion required, she almost felt
+that other girls were plain and inferior from choice. Certainly
+no one need have confessed such acquiescence in her lot as was
+revealed in the "useful" colour of Gerty Farish's gown and the
+subdued lines of her hat: it is almost as stupid to let your
+clothes betray that you know you are ugly as to have them
+proclaim that you think you are beautiful.
+
+Of course, being fatally poor and dingy, it was wise of Gerty to
+have taken up philanthropy and symphony concerts; but there was
+something irritating in her assumption that existence yielded no
+higher pleasures, and that one might get as much interest and
+excitement out of life in a cramped flat as in the splendours of
+the Van Osburgh establishment. Today, however, her chirping
+enthusiasms did not irritate Lily. They seemed only to throw her
+own exceptionalness into becoming relief, and give a soaring
+vastness to her scheme of life.
+
+"Do let us go and take a peep at the presents before everyone
+else leaves the dining-room!" suggested Miss Farish, linking her
+arm in her friend's. It was characteristic of her to take a
+sentimental and unenvious interest in all the details of a
+wedding: she was the kind of person who always kept her
+handkerchief out during the service, and departed clutching a box
+of wedding-cake.
+
+"Isn't everything beautifully done?" she pursued, as they entered
+the distant drawing-room assigned to the display of Miss Van
+Osburgh's bridal spoils. "I always say no one does things better
+than cousin Grace! Did you ever taste anything more delicious
+than that MOUSSE of lobster with champagne sauce? I made up my
+mind weeks ago that I wouldn't miss this wedding, and just
+fancy how delightfully it all came about. When Lawrence Selden
+heard I was coming, he insisted on fetching me himself and
+driving me to the station, and when we go back this evening I am
+to dine with him at Sherry's. I really feel as excited as if I
+were getting married myself!"
+
+Lily smiled: she knew that Selden had always been kind to his
+dull cousin, and she had sometimes wondered why he wasted so much
+time in such an unremunerative manner; but now the thought gave
+her a vague pleasure.
+
+"Do you see him often?" she asked.
+
+"Yes; he is very good about dropping in on Sundays. And now and
+then we do a play together; but lately I haven't seen much of
+him. He doesn't look well, and he seems nervous and unsettled.
+The dear fellow! I do wish he would marry some nice girl. I told
+him so today, but he said he didn't care for the really nice
+ones, and the other kind didn't care for him--but that was just
+his joke, of course. He could never marry a girl who WASN'T nice.
+Oh, my dear, did you ever see such pearls?"
+
+They had paused before the table on which the bride's jewels were
+displayed, and Lily's heart gave an envious throb as she caught
+the refraction of light from their surfaces--the milky gleam of
+perfectly matched pearls, the flash of rubies relieved against
+contrasting velvet, the intense blue rays of sapphires kindled
+into light by surrounding diamonds: all these precious tints
+enhanced and deepened by the varied art of their setting. The
+glow of the stones warmed Lily's veins like wine. More completely
+than any other expression of wealth they symbolized the life she
+longed to lead, the life of fastidious aloofness and refinement
+in which every detail should have the finish of a jewel, and the
+whole form a harmonious setting to her own jewel-like rareness.
+
+"Oh, Lily, do look at this diamond pendant--it's as big as a
+dinner-plate! Who can have given it?" Miss Farish bent
+short-sightedly over the accompanying card. "MR. SIMON ROSEDALE.
+What, that horrid man? Oh, yes--I remember he's a friend of
+Jack's, and I suppose cousin Grace had to ask him here today; but
+she must rather hate having to let Gwen accept such a present
+from him."
+
+Lily smiled. She doubted Mrs. Van Osburgh's reluctance, but was
+aware of Miss Farish's habit of ascribing her own delicacies of
+feeling to the persons least likely to be encumbered by them.
+
+"Well, if Gwen doesn't care to be seen wearing it she can always
+exchange it for something else," she remarked.
+
+"Ah, here is something so much prettier," Miss Farish continued.
+"Do look at this exquisite white sapphire. I'm sure the person
+who chose it must have taken particular pains. What is the name?
+Percy Gryce? Ah, then I'm not surprised!" She smiled
+significantly as she replaced the card. "Of course you've heard
+that he's perfectly devoted to Evie Van Osburgh? Cousin Grace is
+so pleased about it--it's quite a romance! He met her first at
+the George Dorsets', only about six weeks ago, and it's just the
+nicest possible marriage for dear Evie. Oh, I don't mean the
+money--of course she has plenty of her own--but she's such a
+quiet stay-at-home kind of girl, and it seems he has just the
+same tastes; so they are exactly suited to each other."
+
+Lily stood staring vacantly at the white sapphire on its velvet
+bed. Evie Van Osburgh and Percy Gryce? The names rang derisively
+through her brain. EVIE VAN OSBURGH? The youngest, dumpiest,
+dullest of the four dull and dumpy daughters whom Mrs. Van
+Osburgh, with unsurpassed astuteness, had "placed" one by one in
+enviable niches of existence! Ah, lucky girls who grow up in the
+shelter of a mother's love--a mother who knows how to contrive
+opportunities without conceding favours, how to take advantage of
+propinquity without allowing appetite to be dulled by habit! The
+cleverest girl may miscalculate where her own interests are
+concerned, may yield too much at one moment and withdraw too far
+at the next: it takes a mother's unerring vigilance and foresight
+to land her daughters safely in the arms of wealth and
+suitability.
+
+Lily's passing light-heartedness sank beneath a renewed sense of
+failure. Life was too stupid, too blundering! Why should Percy
+Gryce's millions be joined to another great fortune, why should
+this clumsy girl be put in possession of powers she would never
+know how to use?
+
+She was roused from these speculations by a familiar touch
+on her arm, and turning saw Gus Trenor beside her. She felt a
+thrill of vexation: what right had he to touch her? Luckily Gerty
+Farish had wandered off to the next table, and they were alone.
+
+Trenor, looking stouter than ever in his tight frock-coat, and
+unbecomingly flushed by the bridal libations, gazed at her with
+undisguised approval.
+
+"By Jove, Lily, you do look a stunner!" He had slipped insensibly
+into the use of her Christian name, and she had never found the
+right moment to correct him. Besides, in her set all the men and
+women called each other by their Christian names; it was only on
+Trenor's lips that the familiar address had an unpleasant
+significance.
+
+"Well," he continued, still jovially impervious to her annoyance,
+"have you made up your mind which of these little trinkets you
+mean to duplicate at Tiffany's tomorrow? I've got a cheque for
+you in my pocket that will go a long way in that line!"
+
+Lily gave him a startled look: his voice was louder than usual,
+and the room was beginning to fill with people. But as her glance
+assured her that they were still beyond ear-shot a sense of
+pleasure replaced her apprehension.
+
+"Another dividend?" she asked, smiling and drawing near him in
+the desire not to be overheard.
+
+"Well, not exactly: I sold out on the rise and I've pulled off
+four thou' for you. Not so bad for a beginner, eh? I suppose
+you'll begin to think you're a pretty knowing speculator. And
+perhaps you won't think poor old Gus such an awful ass as some
+people do."
+
+"I think you the kindest of friends; but I can't thank you
+properly now."
+
+She let her eyes shine into his with a look that made up for the
+hand-clasp he would have claimed if they had been alone--and how
+glad she was that they were not! The news filled her with the
+glow produced by a sudden cessation of physical pain. The world
+was not so stupid and blundering after all: now and then a stroke
+of luck came to the unluckiest. At the thought her spirits began
+to rise: it was characteristic of her that one trifling piece of
+good fortune should give wings to all her hopes. Instantly came
+the reflection that Percy Gryce was not irretrievably
+lost; and she smiled to think of the excitement of recapturing
+him from Evie Van Osburgh. What chance could such a simpleton
+have against her if she chose to exert herself? She glanced
+about, hoping to catch a glimpse of Gryce; but her eyes lit
+instead on the glossy countenance of Mr. Rosedale, who was
+slipping through the crowd with an air half obsequious, half
+obtrusive, as though, the moment his presence was recognized, it
+would swell to the dimensions of the room.
+
+Not wishing to be the means of effecting this enlargement, Lily
+quickly transferred her glance to Trenor, to whom the expression
+of her gratitude seemed not to have brought the complete
+gratification she had meant it to give.
+
+"Hang thanking me--I don't want to be thanked, but I SHOULD like
+the chance to say two words to you now and then," he grumbled. "I
+thought you were going to spend the whole autumn with us, and
+I've hardly laid eyes on you for the last month. Why can't you
+come back to Bellomont this evening? We're all alone, and Judy is
+as cross as two sticks. Do come and cheer a fellow up. If you say
+yes I'll run you over in the motor, and you can telephone your
+maid to bring your traps from town by the next train."
+
+Lily shook her head with a charming semblance of regret. "I wish
+I could--but it's quite impossible. My aunt has come back to
+town, and I must be with her for the next few days."
+
+"Well, I've seen a good deal less of you since we've got to be
+such pals than I used to when you were Judy's friend," he
+continued with unconscious penetration.
+
+"When I was Judy's friend? Am I not her friend still? Really, you
+say the most absurd things! If I were always at Bellomont you
+would tire of me much sooner than Judy--but come and see me at my
+aunt's the next afternoon you are in town; then we can have a
+nice quiet talk, and you can tell me how I had better invest my
+fortune."
+
+It was true that, during the last three or four weeks, she had
+absented herself from Bellomont on the pretext of having other
+visits to pay; but she now began to feel that the reckoning she
+had thus contrived to evade had rolled up interest in the
+interval.
+
+The prospect of the nice quiet talk did not appear as all-sufficing
+to Trenor as she had hoped, and his brows continued to lower
+as he said: "Oh, I don't know that I can promise you a fresh tip
+every day. But there's one thing you might do for me;
+and that is, just to be a little civil to Rosedale. Judy has
+promised to ask him to dine when we get to town, but I can't
+induce her to have him at Bellomont, and if you would let me
+bring him up now it would make a lot of difference. I don't
+believe two women have spoken to him this afternoon, and I can
+tell you he's a chap it pays to be decent to."
+
+Miss Bart made an impatient movement, but suppressed the words
+which seemed about to accompany it. After all, this was an
+unexpectedly easy way of acquitting her debt; and had she not
+reasons of her own for wishing to be civil to Mr. Rosedale?
+
+"Oh, bring him by all means," she said smiling; "perhaps I can
+get a tip out of him on my own account."
+
+Trenor paused abruptly, and his eyes fixed themselves on hers
+with a look which made her change colour.
+
+"I say, you know--you'll please remember he's a blooming
+bounder," he said; and with a slight laugh she turned toward the
+open window near which they had been standing.
+
+The throng in the room had increased, and she felt a desire for
+space and fresh air. Both of these she found on the terrace,
+where only a few men were lingering over cigarettes and liqueur,
+while scattered couples strolled across the lawn to the
+autumn-tinted borders of the flower-garden.
+
+As she emerged, a man moved toward her from the knot of smokers,
+and she found herself face to face with Selden. The stir of the
+pulses which his nearness always caused was increased by a slight
+sense of constraint. They had not met since their Sunday
+afternoon walk at Bellomont, and that episode was still so vivid
+to her that she could hardly believe him to be less conscious of
+it. But his greeting expressed no more than the satisfaction
+which every pretty woman expects to see reflected in masculine
+eyes; and the discovery, if distasteful to her vanity, was
+reassuring to her nerves. Between the relief of her escape from
+Trenor, and the vague apprehension of her meeting with Rosedale,
+it was pleasant to rest a moment on the sense of complete
+understanding which Lawrence Selden's manner always conveyed.
+
+"This is luck," he said smiling. "I was wondering if I should be
+able to have a word with you before the special snatches us away.
+I came with Gerty Farish, and promised not to let her miss the
+train, but I am sure she is still extracting sentimental solace
+from the wedding presents. She appears to regard their number and
+value as evidence of the disinterested affection of the
+contracting parties."
+
+There was not the least trace of embarrassment in his voice, and
+as he spoke, leaning slightly against the jamb of the window, and
+letting his eyes rest on her in the frank enjoyment of her grace,
+she felt with a faint chill of regret that he had gone back
+without an effort to the footing on which they had stood before
+their last talk together. Her vanity was stung by the sight of
+his unscathed smile. She longed to be to him something more than
+a piece of sentient prettiness, a passing diversion to his eye
+and brain; and the longing betrayed itself in her reply.
+
+"Ah," she said, "I envy Gerty that power she has of dressing up
+with romance all our ugly and prosaic arrangements! I have never
+recovered my self-respect since you showed me how poor and
+unimportant my ambitions were."
+
+The words were hardly spoken when she realized their infelicity.
+It seemed to be her fate to appear at her worst to Selden.
+
+"I thought, on the contrary," he returned lightly, "that I had
+been the means of proving they were more important to you than
+anything else."
+
+It was as if the eager current of her being had been checked by a
+sudden obstacle which drove it back upon itself. She looked at
+him helplessly, like a hurt or frightened child: this real self
+of hers, which he had the faculty of drawing out of the depths,
+was so little accustomed to go alone!
+
+The appeal of her helplessness touched in him, as it always did,
+a latent chord of inclination. It would have meant nothing to him
+to discover that his nearness made her more brilliant, but this
+glimpse of a twilight mood to which he alone had the clue seemed
+once more to set him in a world apart with her.
+
+"At least you can't think worse things of me than you say!" she
+exclaimed with a trembling laugh; but before he could
+answer, the flow of comprehension between them was abruptly
+stayed by the reappearance of Gus Trenor, who advanced with Mr.
+Rosedale in his wake.
+
+"Hang it, Lily, I thought you'd given me the slip: Rosedale and I
+have been hunting all over for you!"
+
+His voice had a note of conjugal familiarity: Miss Bart fancied
+she detected in Rosedale's eye a twinkling perception of the
+fact, and the idea turned her dislike of him to repugnance.
+
+She returned his profound bow with a slight nod, made more
+disdainful by the sense of Selden's surprise that she should
+number Rosedale among her acquaintances. Trenor had turned away,
+and his companion continued to stand before Miss Bart, alert and
+expectant, his lips parted in a smile at whatever she might be
+about to say, and his very back conscious of the privilege of
+being seen with her.
+
+It was the moment for tact; for the quick bridging over of gaps;
+but Selden still leaned against the window, a detached observer
+of the scene, and under the spell of his observation Lily felt
+herself powerless to exert her usual arts. The dread of Selden's
+suspecting that there was any need for her to propitiate such a
+man as Rosedale checked the trivial phrases of politeness.
+Rosedale still stood before her in an expectant attitude, and she
+continued to face him in silence, her glance just level with his
+polished baldness. The look put the finishing touch to what her
+silence implied.
+
+He reddened slowly, shifting from one foot to the other, fingered
+the plump black pearl in his tie, and gave a nervous twist to his
+moustache; then, running his eye over her, he drew back, and
+said, with a side-glance at Selden: "Upon my soul, I never saw a
+more ripping get-up. Is that the last creation of the dress-maker
+you go to see at the Benedick? If so, I wonder all the other
+women don't go to her too!"
+
+The words were projected sharply against Lily's silence, and she
+saw in a flash that her own act had given them their emphasis. In
+ordinary talk they might have passed unheeded; but following on
+her prolonged pause they acquired a special meaning. She felt,
+without looking, that Selden had immediately seized it, and would
+inevitably connect the allusion with her visit to himself. The
+consciousness increased her irritation against Rosedale, but also
+her feeling that now, if ever, was the moment to
+propitiate him, hateful as it was to do so in Selden's presence.
+
+"How do you know the other women don't go to my dress-maker?" she
+returned. "You see I'm not afraid to give her address to my
+friends!"
+
+Her glance and accent so plainly included Rosedale in this
+privileged circle that his small eyes puckered with
+gratification, and a knowing smile drew up his moustache.
+
+"By Jove, you needn't be!" he declared. "You could give 'em the
+whole outfit and win at a canter!"
+
+"Ah, that's nice of you; and it would be nicer still if you would
+carry me off to a quiet corner, and get me a glass of lemonade or
+some innocent drink before we all have to rush for the train."
+
+She turned away as she spoke, letting him strut at her side
+through the gathering groups on the terrace, while every nerve in
+her throbbed with the consciousness of what Selden must have
+thought of the scene.
+
+But under her angry sense of the perverseness of things, and the
+light surface of her talk with Rosedale, a third idea persisted:
+she did not mean to leave without an attempt to discover the
+truth about Percy Gryce. Chance, or perhaps his own resolve, had
+kept them apart since his hasty withdrawal from Bellomont; but
+Miss Bart was an expert in making the most of the unexpected, and
+the distasteful incidents of the last few minutes--the revelation
+to Selden of precisely that part of her life which she most
+wished him to ignore--increased her longing for shelter, for
+escape from such humiliating contingencies. Any definite
+situation would be more tolerable than this buffeting of chances,
+which kept her in an attitude of uneasy alertness toward every
+possibility of life.
+
+Indoors there was a general sense of dispersal in the air, as of
+an audience gathering itself up for departure after the principal
+actors had left the stage; but among the remaining groups, Lily
+could discover neither Gryce nor the youngest Miss Van Osburgh.
+That both should be missing struck her with foreboding; and she
+charmed Mr. Rosedale by proposing that they should make their way
+to the conservatories at the farther end of the house. There were
+just enough people left in the long suite of rooms to make their
+progress conspicuous, and Lily was aware of being followed
+by looks of amusement and interrogation, which glanced off as
+harmlessly from her indifference as from her companion's
+self-satisfaction. She cared very little at that moment about
+being seen with Rosedale: all her thoughts were centred on the
+object of her search. The latter, however, was not discoverable
+in the conservatories, and Lily, oppressed by a sudden conviction
+of failure, was casting about for a way to rid herself of her now
+superfluous companion, when they came upon Mrs. Van Osburgh,
+flushed and exhausted, but beaming with the consciousness of duty
+performed.
+
+She glanced at them a moment with the benign but vacant eye of
+the tired hostess, to whom her guests have become mere whirling
+spots in a kaleidoscope of fatigue; then her attention became
+suddenly fixed, and she seized on Miss Bart with a confidential
+gesture. "My dear Lily, I haven't had time for a word with you,
+and now I suppose you are just off. Have you seen Evie? She's
+been looking everywhere for you: she wanted to tell you her
+little secret; but I daresay you have guessed it already. The
+engagement is not to be announced till next week--but you are
+such a friend of Mr. Gryce's that they both wished you to be the
+first to know of their happiness."
+
+
+
+Chapter 9
+
+In Mrs. Peniston's youth, fashion had returned to town in
+October; therefore on the tenth day of the month the blinds of
+her Fifth Avenue residence were drawn up, and the eyes of the
+Dying Gladiator in bronze who occupied the drawing-room window
+resumed their survey of that deserted thoroughfare.
+
+The first two weeks after her return represented to Mrs. Peniston
+the domestic equivalent of a religious retreat. She "went
+through" the linen and blankets in the precise spirit of the
+penitent exploring the inner folds of conscience; she sought for
+moths as the stricken soul seeks for lurking infirmities. The
+topmost shelf of every closet was made to yield up its secret,
+cellar and coal-bin were probed to their darkest depths and, as a
+final stage in the lustral rites, the entire house was swathed in
+penitential white and deluged with expiatory soapsuds.
+
+It was on this phase of the proceedings that Miss Bart entered on
+the afternoon of her return from the Van Osburgh wedding. The
+journey back to town had not been calculated to soothe her
+nerves. Though Evie Van Osburgh's engagement was still officially
+a secret, it was one of which the innumerable intimate friends of
+the family were already possessed; and the trainful of returning
+guests buzzed with allusions and anticipations. Lily was acutely
+aware of her own part in this drama of innuendo: she knew the
+exact quality of the amusement the situation evoked. The crude
+forms in which her friends took their pleasure included a loud
+enjoyment of such complications: the zest of surprising destiny
+in the act of playing a practical joke. Lily knew well enough how
+to bear herself in difficult situations. She had, to a shade, the
+exact manner between victory and defeat: every insinuation was
+shed without an effort by the bright indifference of her manner.
+But she was beginning to feel the strain of the attitude; the
+reaction was more rapid, and she lapsed to a deeper self-disgust.
+
+
+As was always the case with her, this moral repulsion found a
+physical outlet in a quickened distaste for her surroundings.
+She revolted from the complacent ugliness of Mrs. Peniston's
+black walnut, from the slippery gloss of the vestibule tiles,
+and the mingled odour of sapolio and furniture-polish that
+met her at the door.
+
+The stairs were still carpetless, and on the way up to her room
+she was arrested on the landing by an encroaching tide of
+soapsuds. Gathering up her skirts, she drew aside with an
+impatient gesture; and as she did so she had the odd sensation of
+having already found herself in the same situation but in
+different surroundings. It seemed to her that she was again
+descending the staircase from Selden's rooms; and looking down to
+remonstrate with the dispenser of the soapy flood, she found
+herself met by a lifted stare which had once before confronted
+her under similar circumstances. It was the char-woman of the
+Benedick who, resting on crimson elbows, examined her with the
+same unflinching curiosity, the same apparent reluctance to let
+her pass. On this occasion, however, Miss Bart was on her own
+ground.
+
+"Don't you see that I wish to go by? Please move your pail," she
+said sharply.
+
+The woman at first seemed not to hear; then, without a word of
+excuse, she pushed back her pail and dragged a wet floor-cloth
+across the landing, keeping her eyes fixed on Lily while the
+latter swept by. It was insufferable that Mrs. Peniston should
+have such creatures about the house; and Lily entered her room
+resolved that the woman should be dismissed that evening.
+
+Mrs. Peniston, however, was at the moment inaccessible to
+remonstrance: since early morning she had been shut up with her
+maid, going over her furs, a process which formed the culminating
+episode in the drama of household renovation. In the evening also
+Lily found herself alone, for her aunt, who rarely dined out, had
+responded to the summons of a Van Alstyne cousin who was passing
+through town. The house, in its state of unnatural immaculateness
+and order, was as dreary as a tomb, and as Lily, turning from her
+brief repast between shrouded sideboards, wandered into the
+newly-uncovered glare of the drawing-room she felt as though she
+were buried alive in the stifling limits of Mrs. Peniston's
+existence.
+
+She usually contrived to avoid being at home during the season of
+domestic renewal. On the present occasion, however, a variety of
+reasons had combined to bring her to town; and foremost among
+them was the fact that she had fewer invitations than usual for
+the autumn. She had so long been accustomed to pass from one
+country-house to another, till the close of the holidays brought
+her friends to town, that the unfilled gaps of time confronting
+her produced a sharp sense of waning popularity. It was as she
+had said to Selden--people were tired of her. They would welcome
+her in a new character, but as Miss Bart they knew her by heart.
+She knew herself by heart too, and was sick of the old story.
+There were moments when she longed blindly for anything
+different, anything strange, remote and untried; but the utmost
+reach of her imagination did not go beyond picturing her usual
+life in a new setting. She could not figure herself as anywhere
+but in a drawing-room, diffusing elegance as a flower sheds
+perfume.
+
+Meanwhile, as October advanced she had to face the alternative of
+returning to the Trenors or joining her aunt in town. Even the
+desolating dulness of New York in October, and the soapy
+discomforts of Mrs. Peniston's interior, seemed preferable to
+what might await her at Bellomont; and with an air of heroic
+devotion she announced her intention of remaining with her
+aunt till the holidays.
+
+Sacrifices of this nature are sometimes received with feelings as
+mixed as those which actuate them; and Mrs. Peniston remarked to
+her confidential maid that, if any of the family were to be with
+her at such a crisis (though for forty years she had been thought
+competent to see to the hanging of her own curtains), she would
+certainly have preferred Miss Grace to Miss Lily. Grace Stepney
+was an obscure cousin, of adaptable manners and vicarious
+interests, who "ran in" to sit with Mrs. Peniston when Lily dined
+out too continuously; who played bezique, picked up dropped
+stitches, read out the deaths from the Times, and sincerely
+admired the purple satin drawing-room curtains, the Dying
+Gladiator in the window, and the seven-by-five painting of
+Niagara which represented the one artistic excess of Mr.
+Peniston's temperate career.
+
+Mrs. Peniston, under ordinary circumstances, was as much
+bored by her excellent cousin as the recipient of such services
+usually is by the person who performs them. She greatly preferred
+the brilliant and unreliable Lily, who did not know one end of a
+crochet-needle from the other, and had frequently wounded her
+susceptibilities by suggesting that the drawing-room should be
+"done over." But when it came to hunting for missing napkins, or
+helping to decide whether the backstairs needed re-carpeting,
+Grace's judgment was certainly sounder than Lily's: not to
+mention the fact that the latter resented the smell of beeswax
+and brown soap, and behaved as though she thought a house ought
+to keep clean of itself, without extraneous assistance.
+
+Seated under the cheerless blaze of the drawing-room
+chandelier--Mrs. Peniston never lit the lamps unless there was
+"company"--Lily seemed to watch her own figure retreating down
+vistas of neutral-tinted dulness to a middle age like Grace
+Stepney's. When she ceased to amuse Judy Trenor and her friends
+she would have to fall back on amusing Mrs. Peniston; whichever
+way she looked she saw only a future of servitude to the whims of
+others, never the possibility of asserting her own eager
+individuality.
+
+A ring at the door-bell, sounding emphatically through the empty
+house, roused her suddenly to the extent of her boredom. It was
+as though all the weariness of the past months had culminated in
+the vacuity of that interminable evening. If only the ring meant
+a summons from the outer world--a token that she was still
+remembered and wanted!
+
+After some delay a parlour-maid presented herself with the
+announcement that there was a person outside who was asking to
+see Miss Bart; and on Lily's pressing for a more specific
+description, she added:
+
+"It's Mrs. Haffen, Miss; she won't say what she wants."
+
+Lily, to whom the name conveyed nothing, opened the door upon a
+woman in a battered bonnet, who stood firmly planted under the
+hall-light. The glare of the unshaded gas shone familiarly on her
+pock-marked face and the reddish baldness visible through thin
+strands of straw-coloured hair. Lily looked at the char-woman in
+surprise.
+
+"Do you wish to see me?" she asked.
+
+"I should like to say a word to you, Miss." The tone was
+neither aggressive nor conciliatory: it revealed nothing of the
+speaker's errand. Nevertheless, some precautionary instinct
+warned Lily to withdraw beyond ear-shot of the hovering
+parlour-maid.
+
+She signed to Mrs. Haffen to follow her into the drawing-room,
+and closed the door when they had entered.
+
+"What is it that you wish?" she enquired.
+
+The char-woman, after the manner of her kind, stood with her arms
+folded in her shawl. Unwinding the latter, she produced a small
+parcel wrapped in dirty newspaper.
+
+"I have something here that you might like to see, Miss Bart."
+She spoke the name with an unpleasant emphasis, as though her
+knowing it made a part of her reason for being there. To Lily the
+intonation sounded like a threat.
+
+"You have found something belonging to me?" she asked, extending
+her hand.
+
+Mrs. Haffen drew back. "Well, if it comes to that, I guess it's
+mine as much as anybody's," she returned.
+
+Lily looked at her perplexedly. She was sure, now, that her
+visitor's manner conveyed a threat; but, expert as she was in
+certain directions, there was nothing in her experience to
+prepare her for the exact significance of the present scene. She
+felt, however, that it must be ended as promptly as possible.
+
+"I don't understand; if this parcel is not mine, why have you
+asked for me?"
+
+The woman was unabashed by the question. She was evidently
+prepared to answer it, but like all her class she had to go a
+long way back to make a beginning, and it was only after a pause
+that she replied: "My husband was janitor to the Benedick till
+the first of the month; since then he can't get nothing to do."
+
+Lily remained silent and she continued: "It wasn't no fault of
+our own, neither: the agent had another man he wanted the place
+for, and we was put out, bag and baggage, just to suit his fancy.
+I had a long sickness last winter, and an operation that ate up
+all we'd put by; and it's hard for me and the children, Haffen
+being so long out of a job."
+
+After all, then, she had come only to ask Miss Bart to find a
+place for her husband; or, more probably, to seek the young
+lady's intervention with Mrs. Peniston. Lily had such an air
+of always getting what she wanted that she was used to being
+appealed to as an intermediary, and, relieved of her vague
+apprehension, she took refuge in the conventional formula.
+
+"I am sorry you have been in trouble," she said.
+
+"Oh, that we have, Miss, and it's on'y just beginning. If on'y
+we'd 'a got another situation--but the agent, he's dead against
+us. It ain't no fault of ours, neither, but---"
+
+At this point Lily's impatience overcame her. "If you have
+anything to say to me---" she interposed.
+
+The woman's resentment of the rebuff seemed to spur her lagging ideas.
+
+"Yes, Miss; I'm coming to that," she said. She paused again, with
+her eyes on Lily, and then continued, in a tone of diffuse
+narrative: "When we was at the Benedick I had charge of some of
+the gentlemen's rooms; leastways, I swep' 'em out on Saturdays.
+Some of the gentlemen got the greatest sight of letters: I never
+saw the like of it. Their waste-paper baskets 'd be fairly
+brimming, and papers falling over on the floor. Maybe havin' so
+many is how they get so careless. Some of 'em is worse than
+others. Mr. Selden, Mr. Lawrence Selden, he was always one of the
+carefullest: burnt his letters in winter, and tore 'em in little
+bits in summer. But sometimes he'd have so many he'd just bunch
+'em together, the way the others did, and tear the lot through
+once--like this."
+
+While she spoke she had loosened the string from the parcel in
+her hand, and now she drew forth a letter which she laid on the
+table between Miss Bart and herself. As she had said, the letter
+was torn in two; but with a rapid gesture she laid the torn edges
+together and smoothed out the page.
+
+A wave of indignation swept over Lily. She felt herself in the
+presence of something vile, as yet but dimly conjectured--the
+kind of vileness of which people whispered, but which she had
+never thought of as touching her own life. She drew back with a
+motion of disgust, but her withdrawal was checked by a sudden
+discovery: under the glare of Mrs. Peniston's chandelier she had
+recognized the hand-writing of the letter. It was a large
+disjointed hand, with a flourish of masculinity which but
+slightly disguised its rambling weakness, and the words, scrawled
+in heavy ink on pale-tinted notepaper, smote on Lily's
+ear as though she had heard them spoken.
+
+At first she did not grasp the full import of the situation. She
+understood only that before her lay a letter written by Bertha
+Dorset, and addressed, presumably, to Lawrence Selden. There was
+no date, but the blackness of the ink proved the writing to be
+comparatively recent. The packet in Mrs. Haffen's hand doubtless
+contained more letters of the same kind--a dozen, Lily
+conjectured from its thickness. The letter before her was short,
+but its few words, which had leapt into her brain before she was
+conscious of reading them, told a long history--a history over
+which, for the last four years, the friends of the writer had
+smiled and shrugged, viewing it merely as one among the countless
+"good situations" of the mundane comedy. Now the other side
+presented itself to Lily, the volcanic nether side of the surface
+over which conjecture and innuendo glide so lightly till the
+first fissure turns their whisper to a shriek. Lily knew that
+there is nothing society resents so much as having given its
+protection to those who have not known how to profit by it: it is
+for having betrayed its connivance that the body social punishes
+the offender who is found out. And in this case there was no
+doubt of the issue. The code of Lily's world decreed that a
+woman's husband should be the only judge of her conduct: she was
+technically above suspicion while she had the shelter of his
+approval, or even of his indifference. But with a man of George
+Dorset's temper there could be no thought of condonation--the
+possessor of his wife's letters could overthrow with a touch the
+whole structure of her existence. And into what hands Bertha
+Dorset's secret had been delivered! For a moment the irony of the
+coincidence tinged Lily's disgust with a confused sense of
+triumph. But the disgust prevailed--all her instinctive
+resistances, of taste, of training, of blind inherited scruples,
+rose against the other feeling. Her strongest sense was one of
+personal contamination.
+
+She moved away, as though to put as much distance as possible
+between herself and her visitor. "I know nothing of these
+letters," she said; "I have no idea why you have brought them
+here."
+
+Mrs. Haffen faced her steadily. "I'll tell you why, Miss.
+I brought 'em to you to sell, because I ain't got no other way
+of raising money, and if we don't pay our rent by tomorrow night
+we'll be put out. I never done anythin' of the kind before, and
+if you'd speak to Mr. Selden or to Mr. Rosedale about getting
+Haffen taken on again at the Benedick--I seen you talking to Mr.
+Rosedale on the steps that day you come out of Mr. Selden's
+rooms---"
+
+The blood rushed to Lily's forehead. She understood now--Mrs.
+Haffen supposed her to be the writer of the letters. In the first
+leap of her anger she was about to ring and order the woman out;
+but an obscure impulse restrained her. The mention of Selden's
+name had started a new train of thought. Bertha Dorset's letters
+were nothing to her--they might go where the current of chance
+carried them! But Selden was inextricably involved in their fate.
+Men do not, at worst, suffer much from such exposure; and in this
+instance the flash of divination which had carried the meaning of
+the letters to Lily's brain had revealed also that they were
+appeals--repeated and therefore probably unanswered--for the
+renewal of a tie which time had evidently relaxed. Nevertheless,
+the fact that the correspondence had been allowed to fall into
+strange hands would convict Selden of negligence in a matter
+where the world holds it least pardonable; and there were graver
+risks to consider where a man of Dorset's ticklish balance was
+concerned.
+
+If she weighed all these things it was unconsciously: she was
+aware only of feeling that Selden would wish the letters rescued,
+and that therefore she must obtain possession of them. Beyond
+that her mind did not travel. She had, indeed, a quick vision of
+returning the packet to Bertha Dorset, and of the opportunities
+the restitution offered; but this thought lit up abysses from
+which she shrank back ashamed.
+
+Meanwhile Mrs. Haffen, prompt to perceive her hesitation, had
+already opened the packet and ranged its contents on the table.
+All the letters had been pieced together with strips of thin
+paper. Some were in small fragments, the others merely torn in
+half. Though there were not many, thus spread out they nearly
+covered the table. Lily's glance fell on a word here and
+there--then she said in a low voice: "What do you wish me to pay
+you?"
+
+Mrs. Haffen's face reddened with satisfaction. It was clear that
+the young lady was badly frightened, and Mrs. Haffen was the
+woman to make the most of such fears. Anticipating an easier
+victory than she had foreseen, she named an exorbitant sum.
+
+But Miss Bart showed herself a less ready prey than might have
+been expected from her imprudent opening. She refused to pay the
+price named, and after a moment's hesitation, met it by a
+counter-offer of half the amount.
+
+Mrs. Haffen immediately stiffened. Her hand travelled toward the
+outspread letters, and folding them slowly, she made as though to
+restore them to their wrapping.
+
+"I guess they're worth more to you than to me, Miss, but the poor
+has got to live as well as the rich," she observed sententiously.
+
+
+Lily was throbbing with fear, but the insinuation fortified her
+resistance.
+
+"You are mistaken," she said indifferently. "I have offered all I
+am willing to give for the letters; but there may be other ways
+of getting them."
+
+Mrs. Haffen raised a suspicious glance: she was too experienced
+not to know that the traffic she was engaged in had perils as
+great as its rewards, and she had a vision of the elaborate
+machinery of revenge which a word of this commanding young lady's
+might set in motion.
+
+She applied the corner of her shawl to her eyes, and murmured
+through it that no good came of bearing too hard on the poor, but
+that for her part she had never been mixed up in such a business
+before, and that on her honour as a Christian all she and Haffen
+had thought of was that the letters mustn't go any farther.
+
+Lily stood motionless, keeping between herself and the char-woman
+the greatest distance compatible with the need of speaking in low
+tones. The idea of bargaining for the letters was intolerable to
+her, but she knew that, if she appeared to weaken, Mrs. Haffen
+would at once increase her original demand.
+
+She could never afterward recall how long the duel lasted, or
+what was the decisive stroke which finally, after a lapse of time
+recorded in minutes by the clock, in hours by the precipitate
+beat of her pulses, put her in possession of the letters; she
+knew only that the door had finally closed, and that she stood
+alone with the packet in her hand.
+
+She had no idea of reading the letters; even to unfold Mrs.
+Haffen's dirty newspaper would have seemed degrading. But what
+did she intend to do with its contents? The recipient of the
+letters had meant to destroy them, and it was her duty to carry
+out his intention. She had no right to keep them--to do so was to
+lessen whatever merit lay in having secured their possession. But
+how destroy them so effectually that there should be no second
+risk of their falling in such hands? Mrs. Peniston's icy
+drawing-room grate shone with a forbidding lustre: the fire, like
+the lamps, was never lit except when there was company.
+
+Miss Bart was turning to carry the letters upstairs when she
+heard the opening of the outer door, and her aunt entered the
+drawing-room. Mrs. Peniston was a small plump woman, with a
+colourless skin lined with trivial wrinkles. Her grey hair was
+arranged with precision, and her clothes looked excessively new
+and yet slightly old-fashioned. They were always black and
+tightly fitting, with an expensive glitter: she was the kind of
+woman who wore jet at breakfast. Lily had never seen her when she
+was not cuirassed in shining black, with small tight boots, and
+an air of being packed and ready to start; yet she never started.
+
+She looked about the drawing-room with an expression of minute
+scrutiny. "I saw a streak of light under one of the blinds as I
+drove up: it's extraordinary that I can never teach that woman to
+draw them down evenly."
+
+Having corrected the irregularity, she seated herself on one of
+the glossy purple arm-chairs; Mrs. Peniston always sat on a
+chair, never in it.
+
+Then she turned her glance to Miss Bart. "My dear, you look
+tired; I suppose it's the excitement of the wedding. Cornelia Van
+Alstyne was full of it: Molly was there, and Gerty Farish ran in
+for a minute to tell us about it. I think it was odd, their
+serving melons before the CONSOMME: a wedding breakfast should
+always begin with CONSOMME. Molly didn't care for the
+bridesmaids' dresses. She had it straight from Julia Melson that
+they cost three hundred dollars apiece at Celeste's, but she says
+they didn't look it. I'm glad you decided not to be a
+bridesmaid; that shade of salmon-pink wouldn't have suited you."
+Mrs. Peniston delighted in discussing the minutest details of
+festivities in which she had not taken part. Nothing would have
+induced her to undergo the exertion and fatigue of attending the
+Van Osburgh wedding, but so great was her interest in the event
+that, having heard two versions of it, she now prepared to
+extract a third from her niece. Lily, however, had been
+deplorably careless in noting the particulars of the
+entertainment. She had failed to observe the colour of Mrs. Van
+Osburgh's gown, and could not even say whether the old Van
+Osburgh Sevres had been used at the bride's table: Mrs. Peniston,
+in short, found that she was of more service as a listener than
+as a narrator.
+
+"Really, Lily, I don't see why you took the trouble to go to the
+wedding, if you don't remember what happened or whom you saw
+there. When I was a girl I used to keep the MENU of every dinner
+I went to, and write the names of the people on the back; and I
+never threw away my cotillion favours till after your uncle's
+death, when it seemed unsuitable to have so many coloured things
+about the house. I had a whole closet-full, I remember; and I can
+tell to this day what balls I got them at. Molly Van Alstyne
+reminds me of what I was at that age; it's wonderful how she
+notices. She was able to tell her mother exactly how the
+wedding-dress was cut, and we knew at once, from the fold in the
+back, that it must have come from Paquin."
+
+Mrs. Peniston rose abruptly, and, advancing to the ormolu clock
+surmounted by a helmeted Minerva, which throned on the
+chimney-piece between two malachite vases, passed her lace
+handkerchief between the helmet and its visor.
+
+"I knew it--the parlour-maid never dusts there!" she exclaimed,
+triumphantly displaying a minute spot on the handkerchief; then,
+reseating herself, she went on: "Molly thought Mrs. Dorset the
+best-dressed woman at the wedding. I've no doubt her dress DID
+cost more than any one else's, but I can't quite like the idea--a
+combination of sable and POINT DE MILAN. It seems she goes to a
+new man in Paris, who won't take an order till his client has
+spent a day with him at his villa at Neuilly. He says he must
+study his subject's home life--a most peculiar
+arrangement, I should say! But Mrs. Dorset told Molly about it
+herself: she said the villa was full of the most exquisite things
+and she was really sorry to leave. Molly said she never saw her
+looking better; she was in tremendous spirits, and said she had
+made a match between Evie Van Osburgh and Percy Gryce. She really
+seems to have a very good influence on young men. I hear she is
+interesting herself now in that silly Silverton boy, who has had
+his head turned by Carry Fisher, and has been gambling so
+dreadfully. Well, as I was saying, Evie is really engaged: Mrs.
+Dorset had her to stay with Percy Gryce, and managed it all, and
+Grace Van Osburgh is in the seventh heaven--she had almost
+despaired of marrying Evie."
+
+Mrs. Peniston again paused, but this time her scrutiny addressed
+itself, not to the furniture, but to her niece.
+
+"Cornelia Van Alstyne was so surprised: she had heard that you
+were to marry young Gryce. She saw the Wetheralls just after they
+had stopped with you at Bellomont, and Alice Wetherall was quite
+sure there was an engagement. She said that when Mr. Gryce left
+unexpectedly one morning, they all thought he had rushed to town
+for the ring."
+
+Lily rose and moved toward the door.
+
+"I believe I AM tired: I think I will go to bed," she said; and
+Mrs. Peniston, suddenly distracted by the discovery that the
+easel sustaining the late Mr. Peniston's crayon-portrait was not
+exactly in line with the sofa in front of it, presented an
+absent-minded brow to her kiss.
+
+In her own room Lily turned up the gas-jet and glanced toward the
+grate. It was as brilliantly polished as the one below, but here
+at least she could burn a few papers with less risk of incurring
+her aunt's disapproval. She made no immediate motion to do so,
+however, but dropping into a chair looked wearily about her. Her
+room was large and comfortably-furnished--it was the envy and
+admiration of poor Grace Stepney, who boarded; but, contrasted
+with the light tints and luxurious appointments of the
+guest-rooms where so many weeks of Lily's existence were spent,
+it seemed as dreary as a prison. The monumental wardrobe and
+bedstead of black walnut had migrated from Mr. Peniston's
+bedroom, and the magenta "flock" wall-paper, of a pattern dear to
+the early 'sixties, was hung with large steel engravings
+of an anecdotic character. Lily had tried to mitigate this
+charmless background by a few frivolous touches, in the shape of
+a lace-decked toilet table and a little painted desk surmounted
+by photographs; but the futility of the attempt struck her as she
+looked about the room. What a contrast to the subtle elegance of
+the setting she had pictured for herself--an apartment which
+should surpass the complicated luxury of her friends'
+surroundings by the whole extent of that artistic sensibility
+which made her feel herself their superior; in which every tint
+and line should combine to enhance her beauty and give
+distinction to her leisure! Once more the haunting sense of
+physical ugliness was intensified by her mental depression, so
+that each piece of the offending furniture seemed to thrust forth
+its most aggressive angle.
+
+Her aunt's words had told her nothing new; but they had revived
+the vision of Bertha Dorset, smiling, flattered, victorious,
+holding her up to ridicule by insinuations intelligible to every
+member of their little group. The thought of the ridicule struck
+deeper than any other sensation: Lily knew every turn of the
+allusive jargon which could flay its victims without the shedding
+of blood. Her cheek burned at the recollection, and she rose and
+caught up the letters. She no longer meant to destroy them: that
+intention had been effaced by the quick corrosion of Mrs.
+Peniston's words.
+
+Instead, she approached her desk, and lighting a taper, tied and
+sealed the packet; then she opened the wardrobe, drew out a
+despatch-box, and deposited the letters within it. As she did so,
+it struck her with a flash of irony that she was indebted to Gus
+Trenor for the means of buying them.
+
+
+
+Chapter 10
+
+The autumn dragged on monotonously. Miss Bart had received one
+or two notes from Judy Trenor, reproaching her for not returning
+to Bellomont; but she replied evasively, alleging the obligation
+to remain with her aunt. In truth, however, she was fast wearying
+of her solitary existence with Mrs. Peniston, and only the
+excitement of spending her newly-acquired money lightened the
+dulness of the days.
+
+All her life Lily had seen money go out as quickly as it came in,
+and whatever theories she cultivated as to the prudence of
+setting aside a part of her gains, she had unhappily no saving
+vision of the risks of the opposite course. It was a keen
+satisfaction to feel that, for a few months at least, she would
+be independent of her friends' bounty, that she could show
+herself abroad without wondering whether some penetrating eye
+would detect in her dress the traces of Judy Trenor's refurbished
+splendour. The fact that the money freed her temporarily from all
+minor obligations obscured her sense of the greater one it
+represented, and having never before known what it was to command
+so large a sum, she lingered delectably over the amusement of
+spending it.
+
+It was on one of these occasions that, leaving a shop where she
+had spent an hour of deliberation over a dressing-case of the
+most complicated elegance, she ran across Miss Farish, who had
+entered the same establishment with the modest object of having
+her watch repaired. Lily was feeling unusually virtuous. She had
+decided to defer the purchase of the dressing-case till she
+should receive the bill for her new opera-cloak, and the resolve
+made her feel much richer than when she had entered the shop. In
+this mood of self-approval she had a sympathetic eye for others,
+and she was struck by her friend's air of dejection.
+
+Miss Farish, it appeared, had just left the committee-meeting of
+a struggling charity in which she was interested. The object of
+the association was to provide comfortable lodgings, with a
+reading-room and other modest distractions, where young women of
+the class employed in down town offices might find a home when
+out of work, or in need of rest, and the first year's
+financial report showed so deplorably small a balance that Miss
+Farish, who was convinced of the urgency of the work, felt
+proportionately discouraged by the small amount of interest it
+aroused. The other-regarding sentiments had not been cultivated
+in Lily, and she was often bored by the relation of her friend's
+philanthropic efforts, but today her quick dramatizing fancy
+seized on the contrast between her own situation and that
+represented by some of Gerty's "cases." These were young girls,
+like herself; some perhaps pretty, some not without a trace of
+her finer sensibilities. She pictured herself leading such a life
+as theirs--a life in which achievement seemed as squalid as
+failure--and the vision made her shudder sympathetically. The
+price of the dressing-case was still in her pocket; and drawing
+out her little gold purse she slipped a liberal fraction of the
+amount into Miss Farish's hand.
+
+The satisfaction derived from this act was all that the most
+ardent moralist could have desired. Lily felt a new interest in
+herself as a person of charitable instincts: she had never before
+thought of doing good with the wealth she had so often dreamed of
+possessing, but now her horizon was enlarged by the vision of a
+prodigal philanthropy. Moreover, by some obscure process of
+logic, she felt that her momentary burst of generosity had
+justified all previous extravagances, and excused any in which
+she might subsequently indulge. Miss Farish's surprise and
+gratitude confirmed this feeling, and Lily parted from her with a
+sense of self-esteem which she naturally mistook for the fruits
+of altruism.
+
+About this time she was farther cheered by an invitation to spend
+the Thanksgiving week at a camp in the Adirondacks. The
+invitation was one which, a year earlier, would have provoked a
+less ready response, for the party, though organized by Mrs.
+Fisher, was ostensibly given by a lady of obscure origin and
+indomitable social ambitions, whose acquaintance Lily had
+hitherto avoided. Now, however, she was disposed to coincide with
+Mrs. Fisher's view, that it didn't matter who gave the party, as
+long as things were well done; and doing things well (under
+competent direction) was Mrs. Wellington Bry's strong point. The
+lady (whose consort was known as "Welly" Bry on the Stock
+Exchange and in sporting circles) had already sacrificed
+one husband, and sundry minor considerations, to her
+determination to get on; and, having obtained a hold on Carry
+Fisher, she was astute enough to perceive the wisdom of
+committing herself entirely to that lady's guidance. Everything,
+accordingly, was well done, for there was no limit to Mrs.
+Fisher's prodigality when she was not spending her own money, and
+as she remarked to her pupil, a good cook was the best
+introduction to society. If the company was not as select as the
+CUISINE, the Welly Brys at least had the satisfaction of
+figuring for the first time in the society columns in company
+with one or two noticeable names; and foremost among these was of
+course Miss Bart's. The young lady was treated by her hosts with
+corresponding deference; and she was in the mood when such
+attentions are acceptable, whatever their source. Mrs. Bry's
+admiration was a mirror in which Lily's self-complacency
+recovered its lost outline. No insect hangs its nest on threads
+as frail as those which will sustain the weight of human vanity;
+and the sense of being of importance among the insignificant was
+enough to restore to Miss Bart the gratifying consciousness of
+power. If these people paid court to her it proved that she was
+still conspicuous in the world to which they aspired; and she was
+not above a certain enjoyment in dazzling them by her fineness,
+in developing their puzzled perception of her superiorities.
+
+Perhaps, however, her enjoyment proceeded more than she was aware
+from the physical stimulus of the excursion, the challenge of
+crisp cold and hard exercise, the responsive thrill of her body
+to the influences of the winter woods. She returned to town in a
+glow of rejuvenation, conscious of a clearer colour in her
+cheeks,
+a fresh elasticity in her muscles. The future seemed full of a
+vague promise, and all her apprehensions were swept out of sight
+on the buoyant current of her mood.
+
+A few days after her return to town she had the unpleasant
+surprise of a visit from Mr. Rosedale. He came late, at the
+confidential hour when the tea-table still lingers by the fire in
+friendly expectancy; and his manner showed a readiness to adapt
+itself to the intimacy of the occasion.
+
+Lily, who had a vague sense of his being somehow connected
+with her lucky speculations, tried to give him the welcome he
+expected; but there was something in the quality of his geniality
+which chilled her own, and she was conscious of marking each step
+in their acquaintance by a fresh blunder.
+
+Mr. Rosedale--making himself promptly at home in an adjoining
+easy-chair, and sipping his tea critically, with the comment:
+"You ought to go to my man for something really good"--appeared
+totally unconscious of the repugnance which kept her in frozen
+erectness behind the urn. It was perhaps her very manner of
+holding herself aloof that appealed to his collector's passion
+for the rare and unattainable. He gave, at any rate, no sign of
+resenting it and seemed prepared to supply in his own manner all
+the ease that was lacking in hers.
+
+His object in calling was to ask her to go to the opera in his
+box on the opening night, and seeing her hesitate he said
+persuasively: "Mrs. Fisher is coming, and I've secured a
+tremendous admirer of yours, who'll never forgive me if you don't
+accept."
+
+As Lily's silence left him with this allusion on his hands, he
+added with a confidential smile: "Gus Trenor has promised to come
+to town on purpose. I fancy he'd go a good deal farther for the
+pleasure of seeing you."
+
+Miss Bart felt an inward motion of annoyance: it was distasteful
+enough to hear her name coupled with Trenor's, and on Rosedale's
+lips the allusion was peculiarly unpleasant.
+
+"The Trenors are my best friends--I think we should all go a long
+way to see each other," she said, absorbing herself in the
+preparation of fresh tea.
+
+Her visitor's smile grew increasingly intimate. "Well, I wasn't
+thinking of Mrs. Trenor at the moment--they say Gus doesn't
+always, you know." Then, dimly conscious that he had not struck
+the right note, he added, with a well-meant effort at diversion:
+"How's your luck been going in Wall Street, by the way? I hear
+Gus pulled off a nice little pile for you last month."
+
+Lily put down the tea-caddy with an abrupt gesture. She felt that
+her hands were trembling, and clasped them on her knee to steady
+them; but her lip trembled too, and for a moment she was afraid
+the tremor might communicate itself to her voice. When
+she spoke, however, it was in a tone of perfect lightness.
+
+"Ah, yes--I had a little bit of money to invest, and Mr. Trenor,
+who helps me about such matters, advised my putting it in stocks
+instead of a mortgage, as my aunt's agent wanted me to do; and as
+it happened, I made a lucky 'turn'--is that what you call it? For
+you make a great many yourself, I believe."
+
+She was smiling back at him now, relaxing the tension of her
+attitude, and admitting him, by imperceptible gradations of
+glance and manner, a step farther toward intimacy. The protective
+instinct always nerved her to successful dissimulation, and it
+was not the first time she had used her beauty to divert
+attention from an inconvenient topic.
+
+When Mr. Rosedale took leave, he carried with him, not only her
+acceptance of his invitation, but a general sense of having
+comported himself in a way calculated to advance his cause. He
+had always believed he had a light touch and a knowing way with
+women, and the prompt manner in which Miss Bart (as he would have
+phrased it) had "come into line," confirmed his confidence in his
+powers of handling this skittish sex. Her way of glossing over
+the transaction with Trenor he regarded at once as a tribute to
+his own acuteness, and a confirmation of his suspicions. The girl
+was evidently nervous, and Mr. Rosedale, if he saw no other means
+of advancing his acquaintance with her, was not above taking
+advantage of her nervousness.
+
+He left Lily to a passion of disgust and fear. It seemed
+incredible that Gus Trenor should have spoken of her to Rosedale.
+With all his faults, Trenor had the safeguard of his traditions,
+and was the less likely to overstep them because they were so
+purely instinctive. But Lily recalled with a pang that there were
+convivial moments when, as Judy had confided to her, Gus "talked
+foolishly": in one of these, no doubt, the fatal word had slipped
+from him. As for Rosedale, she did not, after the first shock,
+greatly care what conclusions he had drawn. Though usually adroit
+enough where her own interests were concerned, she made the
+mistake, not uncommon to persons in whom the social habits are
+instinctive, of supposing that the inability to acquire them
+quickly implies a general dulness. Because a blue-bottle
+bangs irrationally against a window-pane, the drawing-room
+naturalist may forget that under less artificial conditions it is
+capable of measuring distances and drawing conclusions with all
+the accuracy needful to its welfare; and the fact that Mr.
+Rosedale's drawing-room manner lacked perspective made Lily class
+him with Trenor and the other dull men she knew, and assume that
+a little flattery, and the occasional acceptance of his
+hospitality, would suffice to render him innocuous. However,
+there could be no doubt of the expediency of showing herself in
+his box on the opening night of the opera; and after all, since
+Judy Trenor had promised to take him up that winter, it was as
+well to reap the advantage of being first in the field.
+
+For a day or two after Rosedale's visit, Lily's thoughts were
+dogged by the consciousness of Trenor's shadowy claim, and she
+wished she had a clearer notion of the exact nature of the
+transaction which seemed to have put her in his power; but her
+mind shrank from any unusual application, and she was always
+helplessly puzzled by figures. Moreover she had not seen Trenor
+since the day of the Van Osburgh wedding, and in his continued
+absence the trace of Rosedale's words was soon effaced by other
+impressions.
+
+When the opening night of the opera came, her apprehensions had
+so completely vanished that the sight of Trenor's ruddy
+countenance in the back of Mr. Rosedale's box filled her with a
+sense of pleasant reassurance. Lily had not quite reconciled
+herself to the necessity of appearing as Rosedale's guest on so
+conspicuous an occasion, and it was a relief to find herself
+supported by any one of her own set--for Mrs. Fisher's social
+habits were too promiscuous for her presence to justify Miss
+Bart's.
+
+To Lily, always inspirited by the prospect of showing her beauty
+in public, and conscious tonight of all the added enhancements of
+dress, the insistency of Trenor's gaze merged itself in the
+general stream of admiring looks of which she felt herself the
+centre. Ah, it was good to be young, to be radiant, to glow with
+the sense of slenderness, strength and elasticity, of well-poised
+lines and happy tints, to feel one's self lifted to a height
+apart by that incommunicable grace which is the bodily
+counterpart of genius!
+
+All means seemed justifiable to attain such an end, or rather, by
+a happy shifting of lights with which practice had familiarized
+Miss Bart, the cause shrank to a pin-point in the general
+brightness of the effect. But brilliant young ladies, a little
+blinded by their own effulgence, are apt to forget that the
+modest satellite drowned in their light is still performing its
+own revolutions and generating heat at its own rate. If Lily's
+poetic enjoyment of the moment was undisturbed by the base
+thought that her gown and opera cloak had been indirectly paid
+for by Gus Trenor, the latter had not sufficient poetry in his
+composition to lose sight of these prosaic facts. He knew only
+that he had never seen Lily look smarter in her life, that there
+wasn't a woman in the house who showed off good clothes as she
+did, and that hitherto he, to whom she owed the opportunity of
+making this display, had reaped no return beyond that of gazing
+at her in company with several hundred other pairs of eyes.
+
+It came to Lily therefore as a disagreeable surprise when, in the
+back of the box, where they found themselves alone between two
+acts, Trenor said, without preamble, and in a tone of sulky
+authority: "Look here, Lily, how is a fellow ever to see anything
+of you? I'm in town three or four days in the week, and you know
+a line to the club will always find me, but you don't seem to
+remember my existence nowadays unless you want to get a tip out
+of me."
+
+The fact that the remark was in distinctly bad taste did not make
+it any easier to answer, for Lily was vividly aware that it was
+not the moment for that drawing up of her slim figure and
+surprised lifting of the brows by which she usually quelled
+incipient signs of familiarity.
+
+"I'm very much flattered by your wanting to see me," she
+returned, essaying lightness instead, "but, unless you have
+mislaid my address, it would have been easy to find me any
+afternoon at my aunt's--in fact, I rather expected you to look me
+up there."
+
+If she hoped to mollify him by this last concession the attempt
+was a failure, for he only replied, with the familiar lowering of
+the brows that made him look his dullest when he was angry: "Hang
+going to your aunt's, and wasting the afternoon listening to a
+lot of other chaps talking to you! You know I'm not the
+kind to sit in a crowd and jaw--I'd always rather clear out when
+that sort of circus is going on. But why can't we go off
+somewhere on a little lark together--a nice quiet little
+expedition like that drive at Bellomont, the day you met me at
+the station?"
+
+He leaned unpleasantly close in order to convey this suggestion,
+and she fancied she caught a significant aroma which explained
+the dark flush on his face and the glistening dampness of his
+forehead.
+
+The idea that any rash answer might provoke an unpleasant
+outburst tempered her disgust with caution, and she answered with
+a laugh: "I don't see how one can very well take country drives
+in town, but I am not always surrounded by an admiring throng,
+and if you will let me know what afternoon you are coming I will
+arrange things so that we can have a nice quiet talk."
+
+"Hang talking! That's what you always say," returned Trenor,
+whose expletives lacked variety. "You put me off with that at the
+Van Osburgh wedding--but the plain English of it is that, now
+you've got what you wanted out of me, you'd rather have any other
+fellow about."
+
+His voice had risen sharply with the last words, and Lily flushed
+with annoyance, but she kept command of the situation and laid a
+persuasive hand on his arm.
+
+"Don't be foolish, Gus; I can't let you talk to me in that
+ridiculous way. If you really want to see me, why shouldn't we
+take a walk in the Park some afternoon? I agree with you that
+it's amusing to be rustic in town, and if you like I'll meet you
+there, and we'll go and feed the squirrels, and you shall take me
+out on the lake in the steam-gondola."
+
+She smiled as she spoke, letting her eyes rest on his in a way
+that took the edge from her banter and made him suddenly
+malleable to her will.
+
+"All right, then: that's a go. Will you come tomorrow? Tomorrow
+at three o'clock, at the end of the Mall. I'll be there sharp,
+remember; you won't go back on me, Lily?"
+
+But to Miss Bart's relief the repetition of her promise was cut
+short by the opening of the box door to admit George Dorset.
+
+Trenor sulkily yielded his place, and Lily turned a brilliant
+smile on the newcomer. She had not talked with Dorset since
+their visit at Bellomont, but something in his look and manner
+told her that he recalled the friendly footing on which they had
+last met. He was not a man to whom the expression of admiration
+came easily: his long sallow face and distrustful eyes seemed
+always barricaded against the expansive emotions. But, where her
+own influence was concerned, Lily's intuitions sent out
+thread-like feelers, and as she made room for him on the narrow
+sofa she was sure he found a dumb pleasure in being near her. Few
+women took the trouble to make themselves agreeable to Dorset,
+and Lily had been kind to him at Bellomont, and was now smiling
+on him with a divine renewal of kindness.
+
+"Well, here we are, in for another six months of caterwauling,"
+he began complainingly. "Not a shade of difference between this
+year and last, except that the women have got new clothes and the
+singers haven't got new voices. My wife's musical, you know--puts
+me through a course of this every winter. It isn't so bad on
+Italian nights--then she comes late, and there's time to digest.
+But when they give Wagner we have to rush dinner, and I pay up
+for it. And the draughts are damnable--asphyxia in front and
+pleurisy in the back. There's Trenor leaving the box without
+drawing the curtain! With a hide like that draughts don't make
+any difference. Did you ever watch Trenor eat? If you did, you'd
+wonder why he's alive; I suppose he's leather inside too.--But I
+came to say that my wife wants you to come down to our place next
+Sunday. Do for heaven's sake say yes. She's got a lot of bores
+coming--intellectual ones, I mean; that's her new line, you
+know, and I'm not sure it ain't worse than the music. Some of 'em
+have long hair, and they start an argument with the soup, and
+don't notice when things are handed to them. The consequence is
+the dinner gets cold, and I have dyspepsia. That silly ass
+Silverton brings them to the house--he writes poetry, you know,
+and Bertha and he are getting tremendously thick. She could write
+better than any of 'em if she chose, and I don't blame her for
+wanting clever fellows about; all I say is: 'Don't let me see 'em
+eat!'"
+
+The gist of this strange communication gave Lily a distinct
+thrill of pleasure. Under ordinary circumstances, there would
+have been nothing surprising in an invitation from Bertha Dorset;
+but since the Bellomont episode an unavowed hostility had
+kept the two women apart. Now, with a start of inner wonder,
+Lily felt that her thirst for retaliation had died out. IF YOU WOULD
+FORGIVE YOUR ENEMY, says the Malay proverb, FIRST INFLICT A HURT
+ON HIM; and Lily was experiencing the truth of the apothegm.
+If she had destroyed Mrs. Dorset's letters, she might have
+continued to hate her; but the fact that they remained in her
+possession had fed her resentment to satiety.
+
+She uttered a smiling acceptance, hailing in the renewal of the
+tie an escape from Trenor's importunities.
+
+
+
+Chapter 11
+
+Meanwhile the holidays had gone by and the season was beginning.
+Fifth Avenue had become a nightly torrent of carriages surging
+upward to the fashionable quarters about the Park, where
+illuminated windows and outspread awnings betokened the usual
+routine of hospitality. Other tributary currents crossed the
+mainstream, bearing their freight to the theatres, restaurants or
+opera; and Mrs. Peniston, from the secluded watch-tower of her
+upper window, could tell to a nicety just when the chronic volume
+of sound was increased by the sudden influx setting toward a Van
+Osburgh ball, or when the multiplication of wheels meant merely
+that the opera was over, or that there was a big supper at
+Sherry's.
+
+Mrs. Peniston followed the rise and culmination of the season as
+keenly as the most active sharer in its gaieties; and, as a
+looker-on, she enjoyed opportunities of comparison and
+generalization such as those who take part must proverbially
+forego. No one could have kept a more accurate record of social
+fluctuations, or have put a more unerring finger on the
+distinguishing features of each season: its dulness, its
+extravagance, its lack of balls or excess of divorces. She had a
+special memory for the vicissitudes of the "new people" who rose
+to the surface with each recurring tide, and were either
+submerged beneath its rush or landed triumphantly beyond the
+reach of envious breakers; and she was apt to display a
+remarkable retrospective insight into their ultimate fate, so
+that, when they had fulfilled their destiny, she was almost
+always able to say to Grace Stepney--the recipient of her
+prophecies--that she had known exactly what would happen.
+
+This particular season Mrs. Peniston would have characterized as
+that in which everybody "felt poor" except the Welly Brys and Mr.
+Simon Rosedale. It had been a bad autumn in Wall Street, where
+prices fell in accordance with that peculiar law which proves
+railway stocks and bales of cotton to be more sensitive to the
+allotment of executive power than many estimable citizens trained
+to all the advantages of self-government. Even fortunes supposed
+to be independent of the market either betrayed a secret
+dependence on it, or suffered from a sympathetic affection:
+fashion sulked in its country houses, or came to town incognito,
+general entertainments were discountenanced, and informality and
+short dinners became the fashion.
+
+But society, amused for a while at playing Cinderella, soon
+wearied of the hearthside role, and welcomed the Fairy Godmother
+in the shape of any magician powerful enough to turn the shrunken
+pumpkin back again into the golden coach. The mere fact of
+growing richer at a time when most people's investments are
+shrinking, is calculated to attract envious attention; and
+according to Wall Street rumours, Welly Bry and Rosedale had
+found the secret of performing this miracle.
+
+Rosedale, in particular, was said to have doubled his fortune,
+and there was talk of his buying the newly-finished house of one
+of the victims of the crash, who, in the space of twelve short
+months, had made the same number of millions, built a house in
+Fifth Avenue, filled a picture-gallery with old masters,
+entertained all New York in it, and been smuggled out of the
+country between a trained nurse and a doctor, while his creditors
+mounted guard over the old masters, and his guests explained to
+each other that they had dined with him only because they wanted
+to see the pictures. Mr. Rosedale meant to have a less meteoric
+career. He knew he should have to go slowly, and the instincts of
+his race fitted him to suffer rebuffs and put up with delays. But
+he was prompt to perceive that the general dulness of the season
+afforded him an unusual opportunity to shine, and he set about
+with patient industry to form a background for his growing glory.
+Mrs. Fisher was of immense service to him at this period. She had
+set off so many newcomers on the social stage that she was like
+one of those pieces of stock scenery which tell the experienced
+spectator exactly what is going to take place. But Mr. Rosedale
+wanted, in the long run, a more individual environment. He was
+sensitive to shades of difference which Miss Bart would never
+have credited him with perceiving, because he had no
+corresponding variations of manner; and it was becoming more and
+more clear to him that Miss Bart herself possessed precisely the
+complementary qualities needed to round off his social
+personality.
+
+Such details did not fall within the range of Mrs. Peniston's
+vision. Like many minds of panoramic sweep, hers was apt to
+overlook the MINUTIAE of the foreground, and she was much more
+likely to know where Carry Fisher had found the Welly Brys' CHEF
+for them, than what was happening to her own niece. She was not,
+however, without purveyors of information ready to supplement her
+deficiencies. Grace Stepney's mind was like a kind of moral
+fly-paper, to which the buzzing items of gossip were drawn by a
+fatal attraction, and where they hung fast in the toils of an
+inexorable memory. Lily would have been surprised to know how
+many trivial facts concerning herself were lodged in Miss
+Stepney's head. She was quite aware that she was of interest to
+dingy people, but she assumed that there is only one form of
+dinginess, and that admiration for brilliancy is the natural
+expression of its inferior state. She knew that Gerty Farish
+admired her blindly, and therefore supposed that she inspired the
+same sentiments in Grace Stepney, whom she classified as a Gerty
+Farish without the saving traits of youth and enthusiasm.
+
+In reality, the two differed from each other as much as they
+differed from the object of their mutual contemplation. Miss
+Farish's heart was a fountain of tender illusions, Miss Stepney's
+a precise register of facts as manifested in their relation to
+herself. She had sensibilities which, to Lily, would have seemed
+comic in a person with a freckled nose and red eyelids, who lived
+in a boarding-house and admired Mrs. Peniston's drawing-room; but
+poor Grace's limitations gave them a more concentrated inner
+life, as poor soil starves certain plants into intenser
+efflorescence. She had in truth no abstract propensity to malice:
+she did not dislike Lily because the latter was brilliant and
+predominant, but because she thought that Lily disliked her. It
+is less mortifying to believe one's self unpopular than
+insignificant, and vanity prefers to assume that indifference is
+a latent form of unfriendliness. Even such scant civilities as
+Lily accorded to Mr. Rosedale would have made Miss Stepney her
+friend for life; but how could she foresee that such a friend was
+worth cultivating? How, moreover, can a young woman who has never
+been ignored measure the pang which this injury inflicts? And,
+lastly, how could Lily, accustomed to choose between a
+pressure of engagements, guess that she had mortally offended
+Miss Stepney by causing her to be excluded from one of Mrs.
+Peniston's infrequent dinner-parties?
+
+Mrs. Peniston disliked giving dinners, but she had a high sense
+of family obligation, and on the Jack Stepneys' return from their
+honeymoon she felt it incumbent upon her to light the
+drawing-room lamps and extract her best silver from the Safe
+Deposit vaults. Mrs. Peniston's rare entertainments were preceded
+by days of heart-rending vacillation as to every detail of the
+feast, from the seating of the guests to the pattern of the
+table-cloth, and in the course of one of these preliminary
+discussions she had imprudently suggested to her cousin Grace
+that, as the dinner was a family affair, she might be included in
+it. For a week the prospect had lighted up Miss Stepney's
+colourless existence; then she had been given to understand that
+it would be more convenient to have her another day. Miss Stepney
+knew exactly what had happened. Lily, to whom family reunions
+were occasions of unalloyed dulness, had persuaded her aunt that
+a dinner of "smart" people would be much more to the taste of the
+young couple, and Mrs. Peniston, who leaned helplessly on her
+niece in social matters, had been prevailed upon to pronounce
+Grace's exile. After all, Grace could come any other day; why
+should she mind being put off?
+
+It was precisely because Miss Stepney could come any other
+day--and because she knew her relations were in the secret of her
+unoccupied evenings--that this incident loomed gigantically on
+her horizon. She was aware that she had Lily to thank for it; and
+dull resentment was turned to active animosity.
+
+Mrs. Peniston, on whom she had looked in a day or two after the
+dinner, laid down her crochet-work and turned abruptly from her
+oblique survey of Fifth Avenue.
+
+"Gus Trenor?--Lily and Gus Trenor?" she said, growing so suddenly
+pale that her visitor was almost alarmed.
+
+"Oh, cousin Julia . . . of course I don't mean . . ."
+
+"I don't know what you DO mean," said Mrs. Peniston, with a
+frightened quiver in her small fretful voice. "Such things were
+never heard of in my day. And my own niece! I'm not sure I
+understand you. Do people say he's in love with her?"
+
+Mrs. Peniston's horror was genuine. Though she boasted an
+unequalled familiarity with the secret chronicles of society, she
+had the innocence of the school-girl who regards wickedness as a
+part of "history," and to whom it never occurs that the scandals
+she reads of in lesson-hours may be repeating themselves in the
+next street. Mrs. Peniston had kept her imagination shrouded,
+like the drawing-room furniture. She knew, of course, that
+society was "very much changed," and that many women her mother
+would have thought "peculiar" were now in a position to be
+critical about their visiting-lists; she had discussed the perils
+of divorce with her rector, and had felt thankful at times that
+Lily was still unmarried; but the idea that any scandal could
+attach to a young girl's name, above all that it could be lightly
+coupled with that of a married man, was so new to her that she
+was as much aghast as if she had been accused of leaving her
+carpets down all summer, or of violating any of the other
+cardinal laws of housekeeping.
+
+Miss Stepney, when her first fright had subsided, began to feel
+the superiority that greater breadth of mind confers. It was
+really pitiable to be as ignorant of the world as Mrs. Peniston!
+She smiled at the latter's question. "People always say
+unpleasant things--and certainly they're a great deal together. A
+friend of mine met them the other afternoon in the Park-quite
+late, after the lamps were lit. It's a pity Lily makes herself so
+conspicuous."
+
+"CONSPICUOUS!" gasped Mrs. Peniston. She bent forward, lowering
+her voice to mitigate the horror. "What sort of things do they
+say? That he means to get a divorce and marry her?"
+
+Grace Stepney laughed outright. "Dear me, no! He would hardly do
+that. It--it's a flirtation--nothing more."
+
+"A flirtation? Between my niece and a married man? Do you mean to
+tell me that, with Lily's looks and advantages, she could find no
+better use for her time than to waste it on a fat stupid man
+almost old enough to be her father?" This argument had such a
+convincing ring that it gave Mrs. Peniston sufficient reassurance
+to pick up her work, while she waited for Grace Stepney to rally
+her scattered forces.
+
+But Miss Stepney was on the spot in an instant. "That's the worst
+of it--people say she isn't wasting her time! Every one knows, as
+you say, that Lily is too handsome and-and charming--to devote
+herself to a man like Gus Trenor unless--"
+
+"Unless?" echoed Mrs. Peniston. Her visitor drew breath
+nervously. It was agreeable to shock Mrs. Peniston, but not to
+shock her to the verge of anger. Miss Stepney was not
+sufficiently familiar with the classic drama to have recalled in
+advance how bearers of bad tidings are proverbially received, but
+she now had a rapid vision of forfeited dinners and a reduced
+wardrobe as the possible consequence of her disinterestedness. To
+the honour of her sex, however, hatred of Lily prevailed over
+more personal considerations. Mrs. Peniston had chosen the wrong
+moment to boast of her niece's charms.
+
+"Unless," said Grace, leaning forward to speak with low-toned
+emphasis, "unless there are material advantages to be gained by
+making herself agreeable to him."
+
+She felt that the moment was tremendous, and remembered suddenly
+that Mrs. Peniston's black brocade, with the cut jet fringe,
+would have been hers at the end of the season.
+
+Mrs. Peniston put down her work again. Another aspect of the same
+idea had presented itself to her, and she felt that it was
+beneath her dignity to have her nerves racked by a dependent
+relative who wore her old clothes.
+
+"If you take pleasure in annoying me by mysterious insinuations,"
+she said coldly, "you might at least have chosen a more suitable
+time than just as I am recovering from the strain of giving a
+large dinner."
+
+The mention of the dinner dispelled Miss Stepney's last scruples.
+"I don't know why I should be accused of taking pleasure in
+telling you about Lily. I was sure I shouldn't get any thanks for
+it," she returned with a flare of temper. "But I have some family
+feeling left, and as you are the only person who has any
+authority over Lily, I thought you ought to know what is being
+said of her."
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Peniston, "what I complain of is that you
+haven't told me yet what IS being said."
+
+"I didn't suppose I should have to put it so plainly. People say
+that Gus Trenor pays her bills."
+
+"Pays her bills--her bills?" Mrs. Peniston broke into a laugh. "I
+can't imagine where you can have picked up such rubbish. Lily has
+her own income--and I provide for her very handsomely--"
+
+"Oh, we all know that," interposed Miss Stepney drily. "But Lily
+wears a great many smart gowns--"
+
+"I like her to be well-dressed--it's only suitable!"
+
+"Certainly; but then there are her gambling debts besides."
+
+Miss Stepney, in the beginning, had not meant to bring up this
+point; but Mrs. Peniston had only her own incredulity to blame.
+She was like the stiff-necked unbelievers of Scripture, who must
+be annihilated to be convinced.
+
+"Gambling debts? Lily?" Mrs. Peniston's voice shook with anger
+and bewilderment. She wondered whether Grace Stepney had gone out
+of her mind. "What do you mean by her gambling debts?"
+
+"Simply that if one plays bridge for money in Lily's set one is
+liable to lose a great deal--and I don't suppose Lily always
+wins."
+
+"Who told you that my niece played cards for money?"
+
+"Mercy, cousin Julia, don't look at me as if I were trying to
+turn you against Lily! Everybody knows she is crazy about bridge.
+Mrs. Gryce told me herself that it was her gambling that
+frightened Percy Gryce--it seems he was really taken with her at
+first. But, of course, among Lily's friends it's quite the custom
+for girls to play for money. In fact, people are inclined to
+excuse her on that account---"
+
+"To excuse her for what?"
+
+"For being hard up--and accepting attentions from men like Gus
+Trenor--and George Dorset---"
+
+Mrs. Peniston gave another cry. "George Dorset? Is there any one
+else? I should like to know the worst, if you please."
+
+"Don't put it in that way, cousin Julia. Lately Lily has been a
+good deal with the Dorsets, and he seems to admire her--but of
+course that's only natural. And I'm sure there is no truth in the
+horrid things people say; but she HAS been spending a great deal
+of money this winter. Evie Van Osburgh was at Celeste's
+ordering her trousseau the other day--yes, the marriage takes
+place next month--and she told me that Celeste showed her the
+most exquisite things she was just sending home to Lily. And
+people say that Judy Trenor has quarrelled with her on account of
+Gus; but I'm sure I'm sorry I spoke, though I only meant it as a
+kindness."
+
+Mrs. Peniston's genuine incredulity enabled her to dismiss Miss
+Stepney with a disdain which boded ill for that lady's prospect
+of succeeding to the black brocade; but minds impenetrable to
+reason have generally some crack through which suspicion filters,
+and her visitor's insinuations did not glide off as easily as she
+had expected. Mrs. Peniston disliked scenes, and her
+determination to avoid them had always led her to hold herself
+aloof from the details of Lily's life. In her youth, girls had
+not been supposed to require close supervision. They were
+generally assumed to be taken up with the legitimate business of
+courtship and marriage, and interference in such affairs on the
+part of their natural guardians was considered as unwarrantable
+as a spectator's suddenly joining in a game. There had of course
+been "fast" girls even in Mrs. Peniston's early experience; but
+their fastness, at worst, was understood to be a mere excess of
+animal spirits, against which there could be no graver charge
+than that of being "unladylike." The modern fastness appeared
+synonymous with immorality, and the mere idea of immorality was
+as offensive to Mrs. Peniston as a smell of cooking in the
+drawing-room: it was one of the conceptions her mind refused to
+admit.
+
+She had no immediate intention of repeating to Lily what she had
+heard, or even of trying to ascertain its truth by means of
+discreet interrogation. To do so might be to provoke a scene; and
+a scene, in the shaken state of Mrs. Peniston's nerves, with the
+effects of her dinner not worn off, and her mind still tremulous
+with new impressions, was a risk she deemed it her duty to avoid.
+But there remained in her thoughts a settled deposit of
+resentment against her niece, all the denser because it was not
+to be cleared by explanation or discussion. It was horrible of a
+young girl to let herself be talked about; however unfounded the
+charges against her, she must be to blame for their
+having been made. Mrs. Peniston felt as if there had been a
+contagious illness in the house, and she was doomed to sit
+shivering among her contaminated furniture.
+
+
+
+Chapter 12
+
+Miss Bart had in fact been treading a devious way, and none of
+her critics could have been more alive to the fact than herself;
+but she had a fatalistic sense of being drawn from one wrong
+turning to another, without ever perceiving the right road till
+it was too late to take it.
+
+Lily, who considered herself above narrow prejudices, had not
+imagined that the fact of letting Gus Trenor make a little money
+for her would ever disturb her self-complacency. And the fact in
+itself still seemed harmless enough; only it was a fertile source
+of harmful complications. As she exhausted the amusement of
+spending the money these complications became more pressing, and
+Lily, whose mind could be severely logical in tracing the causes
+of her ill-luck to others, justified herself by the thought that
+she owed all her troubles to the enmity of Bertha Dorset. This
+enmity, however, had apparently expired in a renewal of
+friendliness between the two women. Lily's visit to the Dorsets
+had resulted, for both, in the discovery that they could be of
+use to each other; and the civilized instinct finds a subtler
+pleasure in making use of its antagonist than in confounding him.
+Mrs. Dorset was, in fact, engaged in a new sentimental
+experiment, of which Mrs. Fisher's late property, Ned Silverton,
+was the rosy victim; and at such moments, as Judy Trenor had once
+remarked, she felt a peculiar need of distracting her husband's
+attention. Dorset was as difficult to amuse as a savage; but even
+his self-engrossment was not proof against Lily's arts, or rather
+these were especially adapted to soothe an uneasy egoism. Her
+experience with Percy Gryce stood her in good stead in
+ministering to Dorset's humours, and if the incentive to please
+was less urgent, the difficulties of her situation were teaching
+her to make much of minor opportunities.
+
+Intimacy with the Dorsets was not likely to lessen such
+difficulties on the material side. Mrs. Dorset had none of Judy
+Trenor's lavish impulses, and Dorset's admiration was not likely
+to express itself in financial "tips," even had Lily cared to
+renew her experiences in that line. What she required, for the
+moment, of the Dorsets' friendship, was simply its social
+sanction. She knew that people were beginning to talk of her; but
+this fact did not alarm her as it had alarmed Mrs. Peniston. In
+her set such gossip was not unusual, and a handsome girl who
+flirted with a married man was merely assumed to be pressing to
+the limit of her opportunities. It was Trenor himself who
+frightened her. Their walk in the Park had not been a success.
+Trenor had married young, and since his marriage his intercourse
+with women had not taken the form of the sentimental small-talk
+which doubles upon itself like the paths in a maze. He was first
+puzzled and then irritated to find himself always led back to the
+same starting-point, and Lily felt that she was gradually losing
+control of the situation. Trenor was in truth in an unmanageable
+mood. In spite of his understanding with Rosedale he had been
+somewhat heavily "touched" by the fall in stocks; his household
+expenses weighed on him, and he seemed to be meeting, on all
+sides, a sullen opposition to his wishes, instead of the easy
+good luck he had hitherto encountered.
+
+Mrs. Trenor was still at Bellomont, keeping the town-house open,
+and descending on it now and then for a taste of the world, but
+preferring the recurrent excitement of week-end parties to the
+restrictions of a dull season. Since the holidays she had not
+urged Lily to return to Bellomont, and the first time they met in
+town Lily fancied there was a shade of coldness in her manner.
+Was it merely the expression of her displeasure at Miss Bart's
+neglect, or had disquieting rumours reached her? The latter
+contingency seemed improbable, yet Lily was not without a sense
+of uneasiness. If her roaming sympathies had struck root
+anywhere, it was in her friendship with Judy Trenor. She believed
+in the sincerity of her friend's affection, though it sometimes
+showed itself in self-interested ways, and she shrank with
+peculiar reluctance from any risk of estranging it. But, aside
+from this, she was keenly conscious of the way in which such an
+estrangement would react on herself. The fact that Gus Trenor was
+Judy's husband was at times Lily's strongest reason for disliking
+him, and for resenting the obligation under which he had placed
+her. To set her doubts at rest, Miss Bart, soon after the New
+Year, "proposed" herself for a week-end at Bellomont. She had
+learned in advance that the presence of a large party
+would protect her from too great assiduity on Trenor's part, and
+his wife's telegraphic "come by all means" seemed to assure her
+of her usual welcome.
+
+Judy received her amicably. The cares of a large party always
+prevailed over personal feelings, and Lily saw no change in her
+hostess's manner. Nevertheless, she was soon aware that the
+experiment of coming to Bellomont was destined not to be
+successful. The party was made up of what Mrs. Trenor called
+"poky people"--her generic name for persons who did not play
+bridge--and, it being her habit to group all such obstructionists
+in one class, she usually invited them together, regardless of
+their other characteristics. The result was apt to be an
+irreducible combination of persons having no other quality in
+common than their abstinence from bridge, and the antagonisms
+developed in a group lacking the one taste which might have
+amalgamated them, were in this case aggravated by bad weather,
+and by the ill-concealed boredom of their host and hostess. In
+such emergencies, Judy would usually have turned to Lily to fuse
+the discordant elements; and Miss Bart, assuming that such a
+service was expected of her, threw herself into it with her
+accustomed zeal. But at the outset she perceived a subtle
+resistance to her efforts. If Mrs. Trenor's manner toward her was
+unchanged, there was certainly a faint coldness in that of the
+other ladies. An occasional caustic allusion to "your friends the
+Wellington Brys," or to "the little Jew who has bought the
+Greiner house--some one told us you knew him, Miss Bart,"--showed
+Lily that she was in disfavour with that portion of society
+which, while contributing least to its amusement, has assumed the
+right to decide what forms that amusement shall take. The
+indication was a slight one, and a year ago Lily would have
+smiled at it, trusting to the charm of her personality to dispel
+any prejudice against her. But now she had grown more sensitive
+to criticism and less confident in her power of disarming it. She
+knew, moreover, that if the ladies at Bellomont permitted
+themselves to criticize her friends openly, it was a proof that
+they were not afraid of subjecting her to the same treatment
+behind her back. The nervous dread lest anything in Trenor's
+manner should seem to justify their disapproval made her seek
+every pretext for avoiding him, and she left Bellomont conscious
+of having failed in every purpose which had taken her
+there.
+
+In town she returned to preoccupations which, for the moment, had
+the happy effect of banishing troublesome thoughts. The Welly
+Brys, after much debate, and anxious counsel with their newly
+acquired friends, had decided on the bold move of giving a
+general entertainment. To attack society collectively, when one's
+means of approach are limited to a few acquaintances, is like
+advancing into a strange country with an insufficient number of
+scouts; but such rash tactics have sometimes led to brilliant
+victories, and the Brys had determined to put their fate to the
+touch. Mrs. Fisher, to whom they had entrusted the conduct of the
+affair, had decided that TABLEAUX VIVANTS and expensive music
+were the two baits most likely to attract the desired prey, and
+after prolonged negotiations, and the kind of wire-pulling in
+which she was known to excel, she had induced a dozen fashionable
+women to exhibit themselves in a series of pictures which, by a
+farther miracle of persuasion, the distinguished portrait
+painter, Paul Morpeth, had been prevailed upon to organize.
+
+Lily was in her element on such occasions. Under Morpeth's
+guidance her vivid plastic sense, hitherto nurtured on no higher
+food than dress-making and upholstery, found eager expression in
+the disposal of draperies, the study of attitudes, the shifting
+of lights and shadows. Her dramatic instinct was roused by the
+choice of subjects, and the gorgeous reproductions of historic
+dress stirred an imagination which only visual impressions could
+reach. But keenest of all was the exhilaration of displaying her
+own beauty under a new aspect: of showing that her loveliness was
+no mere fixed quality, but an element shaping all emotions to
+fresh forms of grace.
+
+Mrs. Fisher's measures had been well-taken, and society,
+surprised in a dull moment, succumbed to the temptation of Mrs.
+Bry's hospitality. The protesting minority were forgotten in the
+throng which abjured and came; and the audience was almost as
+brilliant as the show.
+
+Lawrence Selden was among those who had yielded to the proffered
+inducements. If he did not often act on the accepted social axiom
+that a man may go where he pleases, it was because he had
+long since learned that his pleasures were mainly to be found in
+a small group of the like-minded. But he enjoyed spectacular
+effects, and was not insensible to the part money plays in their
+production: all he asked was that the very rich should live up to
+their calling as stage-managers, and not spend their money in a
+dull way. This the Brys could certainly not be charged with
+doing. Their recently built house, whatever it might lack as a
+frame for domesticity, was almost as well-designed for the
+display of a festal assemblage as one of those airy
+pleasure-halls which the Italian architects improvised to set off
+the hospitality of princes. The air of improvisation was in fact
+strikingly present: so recent, so rapidly-evoked was the whole
+MISE-EN-SCENE that one had to touch the marble columns to learn
+they were not of cardboard, to seat one's self in one of the
+damask-and-gold arm-chairs to be sure it was not painted against
+the wall.
+
+Selden, who had put one of these seats to the test, found
+himself, from an angle of the ball-room, surveying the scene with
+frank enjoyment. The company, in obedience to the decorative
+instinct which calls for fine clothes in fine surroundings, had
+dressed rather with an eye to Mrs. Bry's background than to
+herself. The seated throng, filling the immense room without
+undue crowding, presented a surface of rich tissues and jewelled
+shoulders in harmony with the festooned and gilded walls, and the
+flushed splendours of the Venetian ceiling. At the farther end of
+the room a stage had been constructed behind a proscenium arch
+curtained with folds of old damask; but in the pause before the
+parting of the folds there was little thought of what they might
+reveal, for every woman who had accepted Mrs. Bry's invitation
+was engaged in trying to find out how many of her friends had
+done the same.
+
+Gerty Farish, seated next to Selden, was lost in that
+indiscriminate and uncritical enjoyment so irritating to Miss
+Bart's finer perceptions. It may be that Selden's nearness had
+something to do with the quality of his cousin's pleasure; but
+Miss Farish was so little accustomed to refer her enjoyment of
+such scenes to her own share in them, that she was merely
+conscious of a deeper sense of contentment.
+
+"Wasn't it dear of Lily to get me an invitation? Of course
+it would never have occurred to Carry Fisher to put me on
+the list, and I should have been so sorry to miss seeing it
+all--and especially Lily herself. Some one told me the ceiling was
+by Veronese--you would know, of course, Lawrence. I suppose it's
+very beautiful, but his women are so dreadfully fat. Goddesses?
+Well, I can only say that if they'd been mortals and had to wear
+corsets, it would have been better for them. I think our women
+are much handsomer. And this room is wonderfully becoming--every
+one looks so well! Did you ever see such jewels? Do look at Mrs.
+George Dorset's pearls--I suppose the smallest of them would pay
+the rent of our Girls' Club for a year. Not that I ought to
+complain about the club; every one has been so wonderfully kind.
+Did I tell you that Lily had given us three hundred dollars?
+Wasn't it splendid of her? And then she collected a lot of money
+from her friends--Mrs. Bry gave us five hundred, and Mr. Rosedale
+a thousand. I wish Lily were not so nice to Mr. Rosedale, but she
+says it's no use being rude to him, because he doesn't see the
+difference. She really can't bear to hurt people's feelings--it
+makes me so angry when I hear her called cold and conceited! The
+girls at the club don't call her that. Do you know she has been
+there with me twice?--yes, Lily! And you should have seen their
+eyes! One of them said it was as good as a day in the country
+just to look at her. And she sat there, and laughed and talked
+with them--not a bit as if she were being CHARITABLE, you know,
+but as if she liked it as much as they did. They've been asking
+ever since when she's coming back; and she's promised me---oh!"
+
+Miss Farish's confidences were cut short by the parting of the
+curtain on the first TABLEAU--a group of nymphs dancing across
+flower-strewn sward in the rhythmic postures of Botticelli's
+Spring. TABLEAUX VIVANTS depend for their effect not only on the
+happy disposal of lights and the delusive-interposition of layers
+of gauze, but on a corresponding adjustment of the mental vision.
+To unfurnished minds they remain, in spite of every enhancement
+of art, only a superior kind of wax-works; but to the responsive
+fancy they may give magic glimpses of the boundary world between
+fact and imagination. Selden's mind was of this order: he could
+yield to vision-making influences as completely as a child to the
+spell of a fairy-tale. Mrs. Bry's TABLEAUX wanted none of
+the qualities which go to the producing of such illusions, and
+under Morpeth's organizing hand the pictures succeeded each other
+with the rhythmic march of some splendid frieze, in which the
+fugitive curves of living flesh and the wandering light of young
+eyes have been subdued to plastic harmony without losing the
+charm of life.
+
+The scenes were taken from old pictures, and the participators
+had been cleverly fitted with characters suited to their types.
+No one, for instance, could have made a more typical Goya than
+Carry Fisher, with her short dark-skinned face, the exaggerated
+glow of her eyes, the provocation of her frankly-painted smile. A
+brilliant Miss Smedden from Brooklyn showed to perfection the
+sumptuous curves of Titian's Daughter, lifting her gold salver
+laden with grapes above the harmonizing gold of rippled hair and
+rich brocade, and a young Mrs. Van Alstyne, who showed the
+frailer Dutch type, with high blue-veined forehead and pale eyes
+and lashes, made a characteristic Vandyck, in black satin,
+against a curtained archway. Then there were Kauffmann nymphs
+garlanding the altar of Love; a Veronese supper, all sheeny
+textures, pearl-woven heads and marble architecture; and a
+Watteau group of lute-playing comedians, lounging by a fountain
+in a sunlit glade.
+
+Each evanescent picture touched the vision-building faculty in
+Selden, leading him so far down the vistas of fancy that even
+Gerty Farish's running commentary--"Oh, how lovely Lulu Melson
+looks!" or: "That must be Kate Corby, to the right there, in
+purple"--did not break the spell of the illusion. Indeed, so
+skilfully had the personality of the actors been subdued to the
+scenes they figured in that even the least imaginative of the
+audience must have felt a thrill of contrast when the curtain
+suddenly parted on a picture which was simply and undisguisedly
+the portrait of Miss Bart.
+
+Here there could be no mistaking the predominance of
+personality--the unanimous "Oh!" of the spectators was a tribute,
+not to the brush-work of Reynolds's "Mrs. Lloyd" but to the flesh
+and blood loveliness of Lily Bart. She had shown her artistic
+intelligence in selecting a type so like her own that she could
+embody the person represented without ceasing to be
+herself. It was as though she had stepped, not out of, but into,
+Reynolds's canvas, banishing the phantom of his dead beauty by
+the beams of her living grace. The impulse to show herself in a
+splendid setting--she had thought for a moment of representing
+Tiepolo's Cleopatra--had yielded to the truer instinct of
+trusting to her unassisted beauty, and she had purposely chosen a
+picture without distracting accessories of dress or surroundings.
+Her pale draperies, and the background of foliage against which
+she stood, served only to relieve the long dryad-like curves that
+swept upward from her poised foot to her lifted arm. The noble
+buoyancy of her attitude, its suggestion of soaring grace,
+revealed the touch of poetry in her beauty that Selden always
+felt in her presence, yet lost the sense of when he was not with
+her. Its expression was now so vivid that for the first time he
+seemed to see before him the real Lily Bart, divested of the
+trivialities of her little world, and catching for a moment a
+note of that eternal harmony of which her beauty was a part.
+
+"Deuced bold thing to show herself in that get-up; but, gad,
+there isn't a break in the lines anywhere, and I suppose she
+wanted us to know it!"
+
+These words, uttered by that experienced connoisseur, Mr. Ned Van
+Alstyne, whose scented white moustache had brushed Selden's
+shoulder whenever the parting of the curtains presented any
+exceptional opportunity for the study of the female outline,
+affected their hearer in an unexpected way. It was not the first
+time that Selden had heard Lily's beauty lightly remarked on, and
+hitherto the tone of the comments had imperceptibly coloured his
+view of her. But now it woke only a motion of indignant contempt.
+This was the world she lived in, these were the standards by
+which she was fated to be measured! Does one go to Caliban for a
+judgment on Miranda?
+
+In the long moment before the curtain fell, he had time to feel
+the whole tragedy of her life. It was as though her beauty, thus
+detached from all that cheapened and vulgarized it, had held out
+suppliant hands to him from the world in which he and she had
+once met for a moment, and where he felt an overmastering longing
+to be with her again.
+
+He was roused by the pressure of ecstatic fingers. "Wasn't she
+too beautiful, Lawrence? Don't you like her best in that simple
+dress? It makes her look like the real Lily--the Lily I know."
+
+He met Gerty Farish's brimming gaze. "The Lily we know," he
+corrected; and his cousin, beaming at the implied understanding,
+exclaimed joyfully: "I'll tell her that! She always says you
+dislike her."
+
+The performance over, Selden's first impulse was to seek Miss
+Bart. During the interlude of music which succeeded the TABLEAUX,
+the actors had seated themselves here and there in the audience,
+diversifying its conventional appearance by the varied
+picturesqueness of their dress. Lily, however, was not among
+them, and her absence served to protract the effect she had
+produced on Selden: it would have broken the spell to see her too
+soon in the surroundings from which accident had so happily
+detached her. They had not met since the day of the Van Osburgh
+wedding, and on his side the avoidance had been intentional.
+Tonight, however, he knew that, sooner or later, he should find
+himself at her side; and though he let the dispersing crowd drift
+him whither it would, without making an immediate effort to reach
+her, his procrastination was not due to any lingering resistance,
+but to the desire to luxuriate a moment in the sense of complete
+surrender.
+
+Lily had not an instant's doubt as to the meaning of the murmur
+greeting her appearance. No other tableau had been received with
+that precise note of approval: it had obviously been called forth
+by herself, and not by the picture she impersonated. She had
+feared at the last moment that she was risking too much in
+dispensing with the advantages of a more sumptuous setting, and
+the completeness of her triumph gave her an intoxicating sense of
+recovered power. Not caring to diminish the impression she had
+produced, she held herself aloof from the audience till the
+movement of dispersal before supper, and thus had a second
+opportunity of showing herself to advantage, as the throng poured
+slowly into the empty drawing-room where she was standing.
+
+She was soon the centre of a group which increased and renewed
+itself as the circulation became general, and the individual
+comments on her success were a delightful prolongation of
+the collective applause. At such moments she lost something of
+her natural fastidiousness, and cared less for the quality of the
+admiration received than for its quantity. Differences of
+personality were merged in a warm atmosphere of praise, in which
+her beauty expanded like a flower in sunlight; and if Selden had
+approached a moment or two sooner he would have seen her turning
+on Ned Van Alstyne and George Dorset the look he had dreamed of
+capturing for himself.
+
+Fortune willed, however, that the hurried approach of Mrs.
+Fisher, as whose aide-de-camp Van Alstyne was acting, should
+break up the group before Selden reached the threshold of the
+room. One or two of the men wandered off in search of their
+partners for supper, and the others, noticing Selden's approach,
+gave way to him in accordance with the tacit freemasonry of the
+ball-room. Lily was therefore standing alone when he reached her;
+and finding the expected look in her eye, he had the satisfaction
+of supposing he had kindled it. The look did indeed deepen as it
+rested on him, for even in that moment of self-intoxication Lily
+felt the quicker beat of life that his nearness always produced.
+She read, too, in his answering gaze the delicious confirmation
+of her triumph, and for the moment it seemed to her that it was
+for him only she cared to be beautiful.
+
+Selden had given her his arm without speaking. She took it in
+silence, and they moved away, not toward the supper-room, but
+against the tide which was setting thither. The faces about her
+flowed by like the streaming images of sleep: she hardly noticed
+where Selden was leading her, till they passed through a glass
+doorway at the end of the long suite of rooms and stood suddenly
+in the fragrant hush of a garden. Gravel grated beneath their
+feet, and about them was the transparent dimness of a midsummer
+night. Hanging lights made emerald caverns in the depths of
+foliage, and whitened the spray of a fountain falling among
+lilies. The magic place was deserted: there was no sound but the
+splash of the water on the lily-pads, and a distant drift of
+music that might have been blown across a sleeping lake.
+
+Selden and Lily stood still, accepting the unreality of the scene
+as a part of their own dream-like sensations. It would not have
+surprised them to feel a summer breeze on their faces, or
+to see the lights among the boughs reduplicated in the arch of a
+starry sky. The strange solitude about them was no stranger than
+the sweetness of being alone in it together. At length Lily
+withdrew her hand, and moved away a step, so that her white-robed
+slimness was outlined against the dusk of the branches. Selden
+followed her, and still without speaking they seated themselves
+on a bench beside the fountain.
+
+Suddenly she raised her eyes with the beseeching earnestness of a
+child. "You never speak to me--you think hard things of me," she
+murmured.
+
+"I think of you at any rate, God knows!" he said.
+
+"Then why do we never see each other? Why can't we be friends?
+You promised once to help me," she continued in the same tone, as
+though the words were drawn from her unwillingly.
+
+"The only way I can help you is by loving you," Selden said in a
+low voice.
+
+She made no reply, but her face turned to him with the soft
+motion of a flower. His own met it slowly, and their lips
+touched. She drew back and rose from her seat. Selden rose too,
+and they stood facing each other. Suddenly she caught his hand
+and pressed it a moment against her cheek.
+
+"Ah, love me, love me--but don't tell me so!" she sighed with her
+eyes in his; and before he could speak she had turned and slipped
+through the arch of boughs, disappearing in the brightness of the
+room beyond.
+
+Selden stood where she had left him. He knew too well the
+transiency of exquisite moments to attempt to follow her; but
+presently he reentered the house and made his way through the
+deserted rooms to the door. A few sumptuously-cloaked ladies were
+already gathered in the marble vestibule, and in the coat-room he
+found Van Alstyne and Gus Trenor.
+
+The former, at Selden's approach, paused in the careful selection
+of a cigar from one of the silver boxes invitingly set out near
+the door.
+
+"Hallo, Selden, going too? You're an Epicurean like myself, I
+see: you don't want to see all those goddesses gobbling terrapin.
+Gad, what a show of good-looking women; but not one of
+'em could touch that little cousin of mine. Talk of
+jewels--what's a woman want with jewels when she's got herself to
+show? The trouble is that all these fal-bals they wear cover up
+their figures when they've got 'em. I never knew till tonight
+what an outline Lily has."
+
+"It's not her fault if everybody don't know it now," growled
+Trenor, flushed with the struggle of getting into his fur-lined
+coat. "Damned bad taste, I call it--no, no cigar for me. You
+can't tell what you're smoking in one of these new houses--likely
+as not the CHEF buys the cigars. Stay for supper? Not if I know
+it! When people crowd their rooms so that you can't get near any
+one you want to speak to, I'd as soon sup in the elevated at the
+rush hour. My wife was dead right to stay away: she says life's
+too short to spend it in breaking in new people."
+
+
+
+Chapter 13
+
+Lily woke from happy dreams to find two notes at her bedside.
+
+One was from Mrs. Trenor, who announced that she was coming to
+town that afternoon for a flying visit, and hoped Miss Bart would
+be able to dine with her. The other was from Selden. He wrote
+briefly that an important case called him to Albany, whence he
+would be unable to return till the evening, and asked Lily to let
+him know at what hour on the following day she would see him.
+
+Lily, leaning back among her pillows, gazed musingly at his
+letter. The scene in the Brys' conservatory had been like a part
+of her dreams; she had not expected to wake to such evidence of
+its reality. Her first movement was one of annoyance: this
+unforeseen act of Selden's added another complication to life. It
+was so unlike him to yield to such an irrational impulse! Did he
+really mean to ask her to marry him? She had once shown him the
+impossibility of such a hope, and his subsequent behaviour seemed
+to prove that he had accepted the situation with a reasonableness
+somewhat mortifying to her vanity. It was all the more agreeable
+to find that this reasonableness was maintained only at the cost
+of not seeing her; but, though nothing in life was as sweet as
+the sense of her power over him, she saw the danger of allowing
+the episode of the previous night to have a sequel. Since she
+could not marry him, it would be kinder to him, as well as easier
+for herself, to write a line amicably evading his request to see
+her: he was not the man to mistake such a hint, and when next
+they met it would be on their usual friendly footing.
+
+Lily sprang out of bed, and went straight to her desk. She wanted
+to write at once, while she could trust to the strength of her
+resolve. She was still languid from her brief sleep and the
+exhilaration of the evening, and the sight of Selden's writing
+brought back the culminating moment of her triumph: the moment
+when she had read in his eyes that no philosophy was proof
+against her power. It would be pleasant to have that sensation
+again . . . no one else could give it to her in its fulness; and
+she could not bear to mar her mood of luxurious retrospection
+by an act of definite refusal. She took up her pen and wrote hastily:
+"TOMORROW AT FOUR;" murmuring to herself, as she slipped the sheet
+into its envelope: "I can easily put him off when tomorrow comes."
+
+
+
+Judy Trenor's summons was very welcome to Lily. It was the first
+time she had received a direct communication from Bellomont since
+the close of her last visit there, and she was still visited by
+the dread of having incurred Judy's displeasure. But this
+characteristic command seemed to reestablish their former
+relations; and Lily smiled at the thought that her friend had
+probably summoned her in order to hear about the Brys'
+entertainment. Mrs. Trenor had absented herself from the feast,
+perhaps for the reason so frankly enunciated by her husband,
+perhaps because, as Mrs. Fisher somewhat differently put it, she
+"couldn't bear new people when she hadn't discovered them
+herself." At any rate, though she remained haughtily at
+Bellomont, Lily suspected in her a devouring eagerness to hear of
+what she had missed, and to learn exactly in what measure Mrs.
+Wellington Bry had surpassed all previous competitors for social
+recognition. Lily was quite ready to gratify this curiosity, but
+it happened that she was dining out. She determined, however, to
+see Mrs. Trenor for a few moments, and ringing for her maid she
+despatched a telegram to say that she would be with her friend
+that evening at ten.
+
+She was dining with Mrs. Fisher, who had gathered at an informal
+feast a few of the performers of the previous evening. There was
+to be plantation music in the studio after dinner--for Mrs. Fisher,
+despairing of the republic, had taken up modelling, and annexed to
+her small crowded house a spacious apartment, which, whatever its
+uses in her hours of plastic inspiration, served at other times
+for the exercise of an indefatigable hospitality. Lily was
+reluctant to leave, for the dinner was amusing, and she would have
+liked to lounge over a cigarette and hear a few songs; but she
+could not break her engagement with Judy, and shortly after ten
+she asked her hostess to ring for a hansom, and drove up Fifth
+Avenue to the Trenors'.
+
+She waited long enough on the doorstep to wonder that
+Judy's presence in town was not signalized by a greater
+promptness in admitting her; and her surprise was increased when,
+instead of the expected footman, pushing his shoulders into a
+tardy coat, a shabby care-taking person in calico let her into
+the shrouded hall. Trenor, however, appeared at once on the
+threshold of the drawing-room, welcoming her with unusual
+volubility while he relieved her of her cloak and drew her into
+the room.
+
+"Come along to the den; it's the only comfortable place in the
+house. Doesn't this room look as if it was waiting for the body
+to be brought down? Can't see why Judy keeps the house wrapped up
+in this awful slippery white stuff--it's enough to give a fellow
+pneumonia to walk through these rooms on a cold day. You look a
+little pinched yourself, by the way: it's rather a sharp night
+out. I noticed it walking up from the club. Come along, and I'll
+give you a nip of brandy, and you can toast yourself over the
+fire and try some of my new Egyptians--that little Turkish chap
+at the Embassy put me on to a brand that I want you to try, and
+if you like 'em I'll get out a lot for you: they don't have 'em
+here yet, but I'll cable."
+
+He led her through the house to the large room at the back, where
+Mrs. Trenor usually sat, and where, even in her absence, there
+was an air of occupancy. Here, as usual, were flowers,
+newspapers, a littered writing-table, and a general aspect of
+lamp-lit familiarity, so that it was a surprise not to see Judy's
+energetic figure start up from the arm-chair near the fire.
+
+It was apparently Trenor himself who had been occupying the seat
+in question, for it was overhung by a cloud of cigar smoke, and
+near it stood one of those intricate folding tables which British
+ingenuity has devised to facilitate the circulation of tobacco
+and spirits. The sight of such appliances in a drawing-room was
+not unusual in Lily's set, where smoking and drinking were
+unrestricted by considerations of time and place, and her first
+movement was to help herself to one of the cigarettes recommended
+by Trenor, while she checked his loquacity by asking, with a
+surprised glance: "Where's Judy?"
+
+Trenor, a little heated by his unusual flow of words, and
+perhaps by prolonged propinquity with the decanters, was bending
+over the latter to decipher their silver labels.
+
+"Here, now, Lily, just a drop of cognac in a little fizzy
+water--you do look pinched, you know: I swear the end of your
+nose is red. I'll take another glass to keep you
+company--Judy?--Why, you see, Judy's got a devil of a head
+ache--quite knocked out with it, poor thing--she asked me to
+explain--make it all right, you know--Do come up to the fire,
+though; you look dead-beat, really. Now do let me make you
+comfortable, there's a good girl."
+
+He had taken her hand, half-banteringly, and was drawing her
+toward a low seat by the hearth; but she stopped and freed
+herself quietly.
+
+"Do you mean to say that Judy's not well enough to see me?
+Doesn't she want me to go upstairs?"
+
+Trenor drained the glass he had filled for himself, and paused to
+set it down before he answered.
+
+"Why, no--the fact is, she's not up to seeing anybody. It came on
+suddenly, you know, and she asked me to tell you how awfully
+sorry she was--if she'd known where you were dining she'd have
+sent you word."
+
+"She did know where I was dining; I mentioned it in my telegram.
+But it doesn't matter, of course. I suppose if she's so poorly
+she won't go back to Bellomont in the morning, and I can come and
+see her then."
+
+"Yes: exactly--that's capital. I'll tell her you'll pop in 
+tomorrow morning. And now do sit down a minute, there's a dear,
+and let's have a nice quiet jaw together. You won't take a drop,
+just for sociability? Tell me what you think of that cigarette.
+Why, don't you like it? What are you chucking it away for?"
+
+"I am chucking it away because I must go, if you'll have the
+goodness to call a cab for me," Lily returned with a smile.
+
+She did not like Trenor's unusual excitability, with its too
+evident explanation, and the thought of being alone with him,
+with her friend out of reach upstairs, at the other end of the
+great empty house, did not conduce to a desire to prolong their
+TETE-A-TETE.
+
+But Trenor, with a promptness which did not escape her, had moved
+between herself and the door.
+
+"Why must you go, I should like to know? If Judy'd been here
+you'd have sat gossiping till all hours--and you can't even give
+me five minutes! It's always the same story. Last night I
+couldn't get near you--I went to that damned vulgar party just to
+see you, and there was everybody talking about you, and asking me
+if I'd ever seen anything so stunning, and when I tried to come
+up and say a word, you never took any notice, but just went on
+laughing and joking with a lot of asses who only wanted to be
+able to swagger about afterward, and look knowing when you were
+mentioned."
+
+He paused, flushed by his diatribe, and fixing on her a look in
+which resentment was the ingredient she least disliked. But she
+had regained her presence of mind, and stood composedly in the
+middle of the room, while her slight smile seemed to put an ever
+increasing distance between herself and Trenor.
+
+Across it she said: "Don't be absurd, Gus. It's past eleven, and
+I must really ask you to ring for a cab."
+
+He remained immovable, with the lowering forehead she had grown
+to detest.
+
+"And supposing I won't ring for one--what'll you do then?"
+
+"I shall go upstairs to Judy if you force me to disturb her."
+
+Trenor drew a step nearer and laid his hand on her arm. "Look
+here, Lily: won't you give me five minutes of your own accord?"
+
+"Not tonight, Gus: you---"
+
+"Very good, then: I'll take 'em. And as many more as I want." He
+had squared himself on the threshold, his hands thrust deep in
+his pockets. He nodded toward the chair on the hearth.
+
+"Go and sit down there, please: I've got a word to say to you."
+
+Lily's quick temper was getting the better of her fears. She drew
+herself up and moved toward the door.
+
+"If you have anything to say to me, you must say it another time.
+I shall go up to Judy unless you call a cab for me at once."
+
+He burst into a laugh. "Go upstairs and welcome, my dear; but you
+won't find Judy. She ain't there."
+
+Lily cast a startled look upon him. "Do you mean that Judy is not
+in the house--not in town?" she exclaimed.
+
+"That's just what I do mean," returned Trenor, his bluster
+sinking to sullenness under her look.
+
+"Nonsense--I don't believe you. I am going upstairs," she said
+impatiently.
+
+He drew unexpectedly aside, letting her reach the threshold
+unimpeded.
+
+"Go up and welcome; but my wife is at Bellomont."
+
+But Lily had a flash of reassurance. "If she hadn't come she
+would have sent me word---"
+
+"She did; she telephoned me this afternoon to let you know."
+
+"I received no message."
+
+"I didn't send any."
+
+The two measured each other for a moment, but Lily still saw her
+opponent through a blur of scorn that made all other
+considerations indistinct.
+
+"I can't imagine your object in playing such a stupid trick on
+me; but if you have fully gratified your peculiar sense of humour
+I must again ask you to send for a cab."
+
+It was the wrong note, and she knew it as she spoke. To be stung
+by irony it is not necessary to understand it, and the angry
+streaks on Trenor's face might have been raised by an actual
+lash.
+
+"Look here, Lily, don't take that high and mighty tone with me."
+He had again moved toward the door, and in her instinctive
+shrinking from him she let him regain command of the threshold.
+"I DID play a trick on you; I own up to it; but if you think I'm
+ashamed you're mistaken. Lord knows I've been patient
+enough--I've hung round and looked like an ass. And all the while
+you were letting a lot of other fellows make up to you . . .
+letting 'em make fun of me, I daresay . . . I'm not sharp, and
+can't dress my friends up to look funny, as you do . . . but I
+can tell when it's being done to me . . . I can tell fast enough
+when I'm made a fool of . . ."
+
+"Ah, I shouldn't have thought that!" flashed from Lily; but her
+laugh dropped to silence under his look.
+
+"No; you wouldn't have thought it; but you'll know better
+now. That's what you're here for tonight. I've been waiting for a
+quiet time to talk things over, and now I've got it I mean to
+make you hear me out."
+
+His first rush of inarticulate resentment had been followed by a
+steadiness and concentration of tone more disconcerting to Lily
+than the excitement preceding it. For a moment her presence of
+mind forsook her. She had more than once been in situations where
+a quick sword-play of wit had been needful to cover her retreat;
+but her frightened heart-throbs told her that here such skill
+would not avail.
+
+To gain time she repeated: "I don't understand what you want."
+
+Trenor had pushed a chair between herself and the door. He threw
+himself in it, and leaned back, looking up at her.
+
+"I'll tell you what I want: I want to know just where you and I
+stand. Hang it, the man who pays for the dinner is generally
+allowed to have a seat at table."
+
+She flamed with anger and abasement, and the sickening need of
+having to conciliate where she longed to humble.
+
+"I don't know what you mean--but you must see, Gus, that I can't
+stay here talking to you at this hour---"
+
+"Gad, you go to men's houses fast enough in broad day
+light--strikes me you're not always so deuced careful of
+appearances."
+
+The brutality of the thrust gave her the sense of dizziness that
+follows on a physical blow. Rosedale had spoken then--this was
+the way men talked of her--She felt suddenly weak and
+defenceless: there was a throb of self-pity in her throat. But
+all the while another self was sharpening her to vigilance,
+whispering the terrified warning that every word and gesture must
+be measured.
+
+"If you have brought me here to say insulting things---" she
+began.
+
+Trenor laughed. "Don't talk stage-rot. I don't want to insult
+you. But a man's got his feelings--and you've played with mine
+too long. I didn't begin this business--kept out of the way, and
+left the track clear for the other chaps, till you rummaged me
+out and set to work to make an ass of me--and an easy job you had
+of it, too. That's the trouble--it was too easy for
+you--you got reckless--thought you could turn me inside out, and
+chuck me in the gutter like an empty purse. But, by gad, that
+ain't playing fair: that's dodging the rules of the game. Of
+course I know now what you wanted--it wasn't my beautiful eyes
+you were after--but I tell you what, Miss Lily, you've got to pay
+up for making me think so---"
+
+He rose, squaring his shoulders aggressively, and stepped toward
+her with a reddening brow; but she held her footing, though every
+nerve tore at her to retreat as he advanced.
+
+"Pay up?" she faltered. "Do you mean that I owe you money?"
+
+He laughed again. "Oh, I'm not asking for payment in kind. But
+there's such a thing as fair play--and interest on one's
+money--and hang me if I've had as much as a look from you---"
+
+"Your money? What have I to do with your money? You advised me
+how to invest mine . . . you must have seen I knew nothing of
+business . . . you told me it was all right---"
+
+"It WAS all right--it is, Lily: you're welcome to all of it, and
+ten times more. I'm only asking for a word of thanks from you."
+He was closer still, with a hand that grew formidable; and the
+frightened self in her was dragging the other down.
+
+"I HAVE thanked you; I've shown I was grateful. What more have
+you done than any friend might do, or any one accept from a
+friend?"
+
+Trenor caught her up with a sneer. "I don't doubt you've accepted
+as much before--and chucked the other chaps as you'd like to
+chuck me. I don't care how you settled your score with them--if
+you fooled 'em I'm that much to the good. Don't stare at me like
+that--I know I'm not talking the way a man is supposed to talk to
+a girl--but, hang it, if you don't like it you can stop me quick
+enough--you know I'm mad about you--damn the money, there's
+plenty more of it--if THAT bothers you . . . I was a brute,
+Lily--Lily!--just look at me---"
+
+Over and over her the sea of humiliation broke--wave crashing on
+wave so close that the moral shame was one with the physical
+dread. It seemed to her that self-esteem would have made
+her invulnerable--that it was her own dishonour which put a
+fearful solitude about her.
+
+His touch was a shock to her drowning consciousness. She drew
+back from him with a desperate assumption of scorn.
+
+"I've told you I don't understand--but if I owe you money you
+shall be paid---"
+
+Trenor's face darkened to rage: her recoil of abhorrence had
+called out the primitive man.
+
+"Ah--you'll borrow from Selden or Rosedale--and take your chances
+of fooling them as you've fooled me! Unless--unless you've
+settled your other scores already--and I'm the only one left out
+in the cold!"
+
+She stood silent, frozen to her place. The words--the words were
+worse than the touch! Her heart was beating all over her body--in
+her throat, her limbs, her helpless useless hands. Her eyes
+travelled despairingly about the room--they lit on the bell, and
+she remembered that help was in call. Yes, but scandal with it--a
+hideous mustering of tongues. No, she must fight her way out
+alone. It was enough that the servants knew her to be in the
+house with Trenor--there must be nothing to excite conjecture in
+her way of leaving it.
+
+She raised her head, and achieved a last clear look at him.
+
+"I am here alone with you," she said. "What more have you to
+say?"
+
+To her surprise, Trenor answered the look with a speechless
+stare. With his last gust of words the flame had died out,
+leaving him chill and humbled. It was as though a cold air had
+dispersed the fumes of his libations, and the situation loomed
+before him black and naked as the ruins of a fire. Old habits,
+old restraints, the hand of inherited order, plucked back the
+bewildered mind which passion had jolted from its ruts. Trenor's
+eye had the haggard look of the sleep-walker waked on a deathly
+ledge.
+
+"Go home! Go away from here"---he stammered, and turning his back
+on her walked toward the hearth.
+
+The sharp release from her fears restored Lily to immediate
+lucidity. The collapse of Trenor's will left her in control, and
+she heard herself, in a voice that was her own yet outside
+herself, bidding him ring for the servant, bidding him give the
+order for a hansom, directing him to put her in it when
+it came. Whence the strength came to her she knew not; but an
+insistent voice warned her that she must leave the house openly,
+and nerved her, in the hall before the hovering care taker, to
+exchange light words with Trenor, and charge him with the usual
+messages for Judy, while all the while she shook with inward
+loathing. On the doorstep, with the street before her, she felt a
+mad throb of liberation, intoxicating as the prisoner's first
+draught of free air; but the clearness of brain continued, and
+she noted the mute aspect of Fifth Avenue, guessed at the
+lateness of the hour, and even observed a man's figure--was there
+something half-familiar in its outline?--which, as she entered
+the hansom, turned from the opposite corner and vanished in the
+obscurity of the side street.
+
+But with the turn of the wheels reaction came, and shuddering
+darkness closed on her. "I can't think--I can't think," she
+moaned, and leaned her head against the rattling side of the cab.
+She seemed a stranger to herself, or rather there were two selves
+in her, the one she had always known, and a new abhorrent being
+to which it found itself chained. She had once picked up, in a
+house where she was staying, a translation of the EUMENIDES, and
+her imagination had been seized by the high terror of the scene
+where Orestes, in the cave of the oracle, finds his implacable
+huntresses asleep, and snatches an hour's repose. Yes, the Furies
+might sometimes sleep, but they were there, always there in the
+dark corners, and now they were awake and the iron clang of their
+wings was in her brain . . . She opened her eyes and saw the
+streets passing--the familiar alien streets. All she looked on
+was the same and yet changed. There was a great gulf fixed
+between today and yesterday. Everything in the past seemed
+simple, natural, full of daylight--and she was alone in a place
+of darkness and pollution.--Alone! It was the loneliness that
+frightened her. Her eyes fell on an illuminated clock at a street
+corner, and she saw that the hands marked the half hour after
+eleven. Only half-past eleven--there were hours and hours left of
+the night! And she must spend them alone, shuddering sleepless on
+her bed. Her soft nature recoiled from this ordeal, which had
+none of the stimulus of conflict to goad her through it. Oh, the
+slow cold drip of the minutes on her head! She had a
+vision of herself lying on the black walnut bed--and the darkness
+would frighten her, and if she left the light burning the dreary
+details of the room would brand themselves forever on her brain.
+She had always hated her room at Mrs. Peniston's--its ugliness,
+its impersonality, the fact that nothing in it was really hers.
+To a torn heart uncomforted by human nearness a room may open
+almost human arms, and the being to whom no four walls mean more
+than any others, is, at such hours, expatriate everywhere.
+
+Lily had no heart to lean on. Her relation with her aunt was as
+superficial as that of chance lodgers who pass on the stairs. But
+even had the two been in closer contact, it was impossible to
+think of Mrs. Peniston's mind as offering shelter or
+comprehension to such misery as Lily's. As the pain that can be
+told is but half a pain, so the pity that questions has little
+healing in its touch. What Lily craved was the darkness made by
+enfolding arms, the silence which is not solitude, but compassion
+holding its breath.
+
+She started up and looked forth on the passing streets.
+Gerty!--they were nearing Gerty's corner. If only she could reach
+there before this labouring anguish burst from her breast to her
+lips--if only she could feel the hold of Gerty's arms while she
+shook in the ague-fit of fear that was coming upon her! She
+pushed up the door in the roof and called the address to the
+driver. It was not so late--Gerty might still be waking. And even
+if she were not, the sound of the bell would penetrate every
+recess of her tiny apartment, and rouse her to answer her
+friend's call.
+
+
+
+Chapter 14
+
+Gerty Farish, the morning after the Wellington Brys'
+entertainment, woke from dreams as happy as Lily's. If they were
+less vivid in hue, more subdued to the half-tints of her
+personality and her experience, they were for that very reason
+better suited to her mental vision. Such flashes of joy as Lily
+moved in would have blinded Miss Farish, who was accustomed, in
+the way of happiness, to such scant light as shone through the
+cracks of other people's lives.
+
+Now she was the centre of a little illumination of her own: a
+mild but unmistakable beam, compounded of Lawrence Selden's
+growing kindness to herself and the discovery that he extended
+his liking to Lily Bart. If these two factors seem incompatible
+to the student of feminine psychology, it must be remembered that
+Gerty had always been a parasite in the moral order, living on
+the crumbs of other tables, and content to look through the
+window at the banquet spread for her friends. Now that she was
+enjoying a little private feast of her own, it would have seemed
+incredibly selfish not to lay a plate for a friend; and there was
+no one with whom she would rather have shared her enjoyment than
+Miss Bart.
+
+As to the nature of Selden's growing kindness, Gerty would no
+more have dared to define it than she would have tried to learn a
+butterfly's colours by knocking the dust from its wings. To seize
+on the wonder would be to brush off its bloom, and perhaps see it
+fade and stiffen in her hand: better the sense of beauty
+palpitating out of reach, while she held her breath and watched
+where it would alight. Yet Selden's manner at the Brys' had
+brought the flutter of wings so close that they seemed to be
+beating in her own heart. She had never seen him so alert, so
+responsive, so attentive to what she had to say. His habitual
+manner had an absent-minded kindliness which she accepted, and
+was grateful for, as the liveliest sentiment her presence was
+likely to inspire; but she was quick to feel in him a change
+implying that for once she could give pleasure as well as receive
+it.
+
+And it was so delightful that this higher degree of sympathy
+should be reached through their interest in Lily Bart!
+
+Gerty's affection for her friend--a sentiment that had learned to
+keep itself alive on the scantiest diet--had grown to active
+adoration since Lily's restless curiosity had drawn her into the
+circle of Miss Farish's work. Lily's taste of beneficence had
+wakened in her a momentary appetite for well-doing. Her visit to
+the Girls' Club had first brought her in contact with the
+dramatic contrasts of life. She had always accepted with
+philosophic calm the fact that such existences as hers were
+pedestalled on foundations of obscure humanity. The dreary limbo
+of dinginess lay all around and beneath that little illuminated
+circle in which life reached its finest efflorescence, as the mud
+and sleet of a winter night enclose a hot-house filled with
+tropical flowers. All this was in the natural order of things,
+and the orchid basking in its artificially created atmosphere
+could round the delicate curves of its petals undisturbed by the
+ice on the panes.
+
+But it is one thing to live comfortably with the abstract
+conception of poverty, another to be brought in contact with its
+human embodiments. Lily had never conceived of these victims of
+fate otherwise than in the mass. That the mass was composed of
+individual lives, innumerable separate centres of sensation, with
+her own eager reachings for pleasure, her own fierce revulsions
+from pain--that some of these bundles of feeling were clothed in
+shapes not so unlike her own, with eyes meant to look on
+gladness, and young lips shaped for love--this discovery gave
+Lily one of those sudden shocks of pity that sometimes
+decentralize a life. Lily's nature was incapable of such renewal:
+she could feel other demands only through her own, and no pain
+was long vivid which did not press on an answering nerve. But for
+the moment she was drawn out of herself by the interest of her
+direct relation with a world so unlike her own. She had
+supplemented her first gift by personal assistance to one or two
+of Miss Farish's most appealing subjects, and the admiration and
+interest her presence excited among the tired workers at the club
+ministered in a new form to her insatiable desire to please.
+
+Gerty Farish was not a close enough reader of character to
+disentangle the mixed threads of which Lily's philanthropy was
+woven. She supposed her beautiful friend to be actuated by the
+same motive as herself--that sharpening of the moral
+vision which makes all human suffering so near and insistent that
+the other aspects of life fade into remoteness. Gerty lived by
+such simple formulas that she did not hesitate to class her
+friend's state with the emotional "change of heart" to which her
+dealings with the poor had accustomed her; and she rejoiced in
+the thought that she had been the humble instrument of this
+renewal. Now she had an answer to all criticisms of Lily's
+conduct: as she had said, she knew "the real Lily," and the
+discovery that Selden shared her knowledge raised her placid
+acceptance of life to a dazzled sense of its possibilities--a
+sense farther enlarged, in the course of the afternoon, by the
+receipt of a telegram from Selden asking if he might dine with
+her that evening.
+
+While Gerty was lost in the happy bustle which this announcement
+produced in her small household, Selden was at one with her in
+thinking with intensity of Lily Bart. The case which had called
+him to Albany was not complicated enough to absorb all his
+attention, and he had the professional faculty of keeping a part
+of his mind free when its services were not needed. This
+part--which at the moment seemed dangerously like the whole--was
+filled to the brim with the sensations of the previous evening.
+Selden understood the symptoms: he recognized the fact that he
+was paying up, as there had always been a chance of his having to
+pay up, for the voluntary exclusions of his past. He had meant to
+keep free from permanent ties, not from any poverty of feeling,
+but because, in a different way, he was, as much as Lily, the
+victim of his environment. There had been a germ of truth in his
+declaration to Gerty Farish that he had never wanted to marry a
+"nice" girl: the adjective connoting, in his cousin's vocabulary,
+certain utilitarian qualities which are apt to preclude the
+luxury of charm. Now it had been Selden's fate to have a charming
+mother: her graceful portrait, all smiles and Cashmere, still
+emitted a faded scent of the undefinable quality. His father was
+the kind of man who delights in a charming woman: who quotes her,
+stimulates her, and keeps her perennially charming. Neither one
+of the couple cared for money, but their disdain of it took the
+form of always spending a little more than was prudent. If their
+house was shabby, it was exquisitely kept; if there were good
+books on the shelves there were also good dishes on the
+table. Selden senior had an eye for a picture, his wife an
+understanding of old lace; and both were so conscious of
+restraint and discrimination in buying that they never quite knew
+how it was that the bills mounted up.
+
+Though many of Selden's friends would have called his parents
+poor, he had grown up in an atmosphere where restricted means
+were felt only as a check on aimless profusion: where the few
+possessions were so good that their rarity gave them a merited
+relief, and abstinence was combined with elegance in a way
+exemplified by Mrs. Selden's knack of wearing her old velvet as
+if it were new. A man has the advantage of being delivered early
+from the home point of view, and before Selden left college he
+had learned that there are as many different ways of going
+without money as of spending it. Unfortunately, he found no way
+as agreeable as that practised at home; and his views of
+womankind in especial were tinged by the remembrance of the one
+woman who had given him his sense of "values." It was from her
+that he inherited his detachment from the sumptuary side of life:
+the stoic's carelessness of material things, combined with the
+Epicurean's pleasure in them. Life shorn of either feeling
+appeared to him a diminished thing; and nowhere was the blending
+of the two ingredients so essential as in the character of a
+pretty woman.
+
+It had always seemed to Selden that experience offered a great
+deal besides the sentimental adventure, yet he could vividly
+conceive of a love which should broaden and deepen till it became
+the central fact of life. What he could not accept, in his own
+case, was the makeshift alternative of a relation that should be
+less than this: that should leave some portions of his nature
+unsatisfied, while it put an undue strain on others. He would
+not, in other words, yield to the growth of an affection which
+might appeal to pity yet leave the understanding untouched:
+sympathy should no more delude him than a trick of the eyes, the
+grace of helplessness than a curve of the cheek.
+
+But now--that little BUT passed like a sponge over all his vows.
+His reasoned-out resistances seemed for the moment so much less
+important than the question as to when Lily would receive his
+note! He yielded himself to the charm of trivial
+preoccupations, wondering at what hour her reply would be sent,
+with what words it would begin. As to its import he had no
+doubt--he was as sure of her surrender as of his own. And so he
+had leisure to muse on all its exquisite details, as a hard
+worker, on a holiday morning, might lie still and watch the beam
+of light travel gradually across his room. But if the new light
+dazzled, it did not blind him. He could still discern the outline
+of facts, though his own relation to them had changed. He was no
+less conscious than before of what was said of Lily Bart, but he
+could separate the woman he knew from the vulgar estimate of her.
+His mind turned to Gerty Farish's words, and the wisdom of the
+world seemed a groping thing beside the insight of innocence.
+BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART, FOR THEY SHALL SEE GOD--even the
+hidden god in their neighbour's breast! Selden was in the state
+of impassioned self-absorption that the first surrender to love
+produces. His craving was for the companionship of one whose
+point of view should justify his own, who should confirm, by
+deliberate observation, the truth to which his intuitions had
+leaped. He could not wait for the midday recess, but seized a
+moment's leisure in court to scribble his telegram to Gerty
+Farish.
+
+Reaching town, he was driven direct to his club, where he hoped a
+note from Miss Bart might await him. But his box contained only a
+line of rapturous assent from Gerty, and he was turning away
+disappointed when he was hailed by a voice from the smoking room.
+
+"Hallo, Lawrence! Dining here? Take a bite with me--I've ordered a
+canvas-back."
+
+He discovered Trenor, in his day clothes, sitting, with a tall
+glass at his elbow, behind the folds of a sporting journal.
+
+Selden thanked him, but pleaded an engagement.
+
+"Hang it, I believe every man in town has an engagement tonight.
+I shall have the club to myself. You know how I'm living this
+winter, rattling round in that empty house. My wife meant to come
+to town today, but she's put it off again, and how is a fellow to
+dine alone in a room with the looking-glasses covered, and
+nothing but a bottle of Harvey sauce on the side-board? I say,
+Lawrence, chuck your engagement and take pity on me--it gives me
+the blue devils to dine alone, and there's nobody but
+that canting ass Wetherall in the club."
+
+"Sorry, Gus--I can't do it."
+
+As Selden turned away, he noticed the dark flush on Trenor's
+face, the unpleasant moisture of his intensely white forehead,
+the way his jewelled rings were wedged in the creases of his fat
+red fingers. Certainly the beast was predominating--the beast at
+the bottom of the glass. And he had heard this man's name coupled
+with Lily's! Bah--the thought sickened him; all the way back to
+his rooms he was haunted by the sight of Trenor's fat creased
+hands---
+
+On his table lay the note: Lily had sent it to his rooms. He knew
+what was in it before he broke the seal--a grey seal with BEYOND!
+beneath a flying ship. Ah, he would take her beyond--beyond the
+ugliness, the pettiness, the attrition and corrosion of the
+soul---
+
+
+
+Gerty's little sitting-room sparkled with welcome when Selden
+entered it. Its modest "effects," compact of enamel paint and
+ingenuity, spoke to him in the language just then sweetest to his
+ear. It is surprising how little narrow walls and a low ceiling
+matter, when the roof of the soul has suddenly been raised. Gerty
+sparkled too; or at least shone with a tempered radiance. He had
+never before noticed that she had "points"--really, some good
+fellow might do worse . . . Over the little dinner (and here,
+again, the effects were wonderful) he told her she ought to
+marry--he was in a mood to pair off the whole world. She had made
+the caramel custard with her own hands? It was sinful to keep
+such gifts to herself. He reflected with a throb of pride that
+Lily could trim her own hats--she had told him so the day of
+their walk at Bellomont.
+
+He did not speak of Lily till after dinner. During the little
+repast he kept the talk on his hostess, who, fluttered at being
+the centre of observation, shone as rosy as the candle-shades she
+had manufactured for the occasion. Selden evinced an
+extraordinary interest in her household arrangements:
+complimented her on the ingenuity with which she had utilized
+every inch of her small quarters, asked how her servant managed
+about afternoons out, learned that one may improvise
+delicious dinners in a chafing-dish, and uttered thoughtful
+generalizations on the burden of a large establishment.
+
+When they were in the sitting-room again, where they fitted as
+snugly as bits in a puzzle, and she had brewed the coffee, and
+poured it into her grandmother's egg-shell cups, his eye, as he
+leaned back, basking in the warm fragrance, lighted on a recent
+photograph of Miss Bart, and the desired transition was effected
+without an effort. The photograph was well enough--but to catch
+her as she had looked last night! Gerty agreed with him--never
+had she been so radiant. But could photography capture that
+light? There had been a new look in her face--something
+different; yes, Selden agreed there had been something different.
+The coffee was so exquisite that he asked for a second cup: such
+a contrast to the watery stuff at the club! Ah, your poor
+bachelor with his impersonal club fare, alternating with the
+equally impersonal CUISINE of the dinner-party! A man who lived
+in lodgings missed the best part of life--he pictured the
+flavourless solitude of Trenor's repast, and felt a moment's
+compassion for the man . . . But to return to Lily--and again and
+again he returned, questioning, conjecturing, leading Gerty on,
+draining her inmost thoughts of their stored tenderness for her
+friend.
+
+At first she poured herself out unstintingly, happy in this
+perfect communion of their sympathies. His understanding of Lily
+helped to confirm her own belief in her friend. They dwelt
+together on the fact that Lily had had no chance. Gerty instanced
+her generous impulses--her restlessness and discontent. The fact
+that her life had never satisfied her proved that she was made
+for better things. She might have married more than once--the
+conventional rich marriage which she had been taught to consider
+the sole end of existence--but when the opportunity came she had
+always shrunk from it. Percy Gryce, for instance, had been in
+love with her--every one at Bellomont had supposed them to be
+engaged, and her dismissal of him was thought inexplicable. This
+view of the Gryce incident chimed too well with Selden's mood not
+to be instantly adopted by him, with a flash of retrospective
+contempt for what had once seemed the obvious solution. If
+rejection there had been--and he wondered now that he had
+ever doubted it!--then he held the key to the secret, and the
+hillsides of Bellomont were lit up, not with sunset, but with
+dawn. It was he who had wavered and disowned the face of
+opportunity--and the joy now warming his breast might have been a
+familiar inmate if he had captured it in its first flight.
+
+It was at this point, perhaps, that a joy just trying its wings
+in Gerty's heart dropped to earth and lay still. She sat facing
+Selden, repeating mechanically: "No, she has never been
+understood---" and all the while she herself seemed to be sitting
+in the centre of a great glare of comprehension. The little
+confidential room, where a moment ago their thoughts had touched
+elbows like their chairs, grew to unfriendly vastness, separating
+her from Selden by all the length of her new vision of the
+future--and that future stretched out interminably, with her
+lonely figure toiling down it, a mere speck on the solitude.
+
+"She is herself with a few people only; and you are one of them,"
+she heard Selden saying. And again: "Be good to her, Gerty, won't
+you?" and: "She has it in her to become whatever she is believed
+to be--you'll help her by believing the best of her?"
+
+The words beat on Gerty's brain like the sound of a language
+which has seemed familiar at a distance, but on approaching is
+found to be unintelligible. He had come to talk to her of
+Lily--that was all! There had been a third at the feast she had
+spread for him, and that third had taken her own place. She tried
+to follow what he was saying, to cling to her own part in the
+talk--but it was all as meaningless as the boom of waves in a
+drowning head, and she felt, as the drowning may feel, that to
+sink would be nothing beside the pain of struggling to keep up.
+
+Selden rose, and she drew a deep breath, feeling that soon she
+could yield to the blessed waves.
+
+"Mrs. Fisher's? You say she was dining there? There's music
+afterward; I believe I had a card from her." He glanced at the
+foolish pink-faced clock that was drumming out this hideous
+hour. "A quarter past ten? I might look in there now; the Fisher
+evenings are amusing. I haven't kept you up too late, Gerty? You
+look tired--I've rambled on and bored you." And in the
+unwonted overflow of his feelings, he left a cousinly kiss upon
+her cheek.
+
+
+
+At Mrs. Fisher's, through the cigar-smoke of the studio, a dozen
+voices greeted Selden. A song was pending as he entered, and he
+dropped into a seat near his hostess, his eyes roaming in search
+of Miss Bart. But she was not there, and the discovery gave him a
+pang out of all proportion to its seriousness; since the note in
+his breast-pocket assured him that at four the next day they
+would meet. To his impatience it seemed immeasurably long to
+wait, and half-ashamed of the impulse, he leaned to Mrs. Fisher
+to ask, as the music ceased, if Miss Bart had not dined with her.
+
+"Lily? She's just gone. She had to run off, I forget where.
+Wasn't she wonderful last night?"
+
+"Who's that? Lily?" asked Jack Stepney, from the depths of a
+neighbouring arm-chair. "Really, you know, I'm no prude, but when
+it comes to a girl standing there as if she was up at auction--I
+thought seriously of speaking to cousin Julia."
+
+"You didn't know Jack had become our social censor?" Mrs. Fisher
+said to Selden with a laugh; and Stepney spluttered, amid the
+general derision: "But she's a cousin, hang it, and when a man's
+married--TOWN TALK was full of her this morning."
+
+"Yes: lively reading that was," said Mr. Ned Van Alstyne,
+stroking his moustache to hide the smile behind it. "Buy the
+dirty sheet? No, of course not; some fellow showed it to me--but
+I'd heard the stories before. When a girl's as good-looking as
+that she'd better marry; then no questions are asked. In our
+imperfectly organized society there is no provision as yet for
+the young woman who claims the privileges of marriage without
+assuming its obligations."
+
+"Well, I understand Lily is about to assume them in the shape of
+Mr. Rosedale," Mrs. Fisher said with a laugh.
+
+"Rosedale--good heavens!" exclaimed Van Alstyne, dropping his
+eye-glass. "Stepney, that's your fault for foisting the brute on
+us."
+
+"Oh, confound it, you know, we don't MARRY Rosedale in our
+family," Stepney languidly protested; but his wife, who
+sat in oppressive bridal finery at the other side of the room,
+quelled him with the judicial reflection: "In Lily's
+circumstances it's a mistake to have too high a standard."
+
+"I hear even Rosedale has been scared by the talk lately," Mrs.
+Fisher rejoined; "but the sight of her last night sent him off
+his head. What do you think he said to me after her TABLEAU?
+'My God, Mrs. Fisher, if I could get Paul Morpeth to paint her
+like that, the picture'd appreciate a hundred per cent in ten
+years.'"
+
+"By Jove,--but isn't she about somewhere?" exclaimed Van Alstyne,
+restoring his glass with an uneasy glance.
+
+"No; she ran off while you were all mixing the punch down stairs.
+Where was she going, by the way? What's on tonight? I hadn't
+heard of anything."
+
+"Oh, not a party, I think," said an inexperienced young Farish
+who had arrived late. "I put her in her cab as I was coming in,
+and she gave the driver the Trenors' address."
+
+"The Trenors'?" exclaimed Mrs. Jack Stepney. "Why, the house is
+closed--Judy telephoned me from Bellomont this evening."
+
+"Did she? That's queer. I'm sure I'm not mistaken. Well, come
+now, Trenor's there, anyhow--I--oh, well--the fact is, I've no
+head for numbers," he broke off, admonished by the nudge of an
+adjoining foot, and the smile that circled the room.
+
+In its unpleasant light Selden had risen and was shaking hands
+with his hostess. The air of the place stifled him, and he
+wondered why he had stayed in it so long.
+
+On the doorstep he stood still, remembering a phrase of Lily's:
+"It seems to me you spend a good deal of time in the element you
+disapprove of."
+
+Well--what had brought him there but the quest of her? It was her
+element, not his. But he would lift her out of it, take her
+beyond! That BEYOND! on her letter was like a cry for rescue. He
+knew that Perseus's task is not done when he has loosed
+Andromeda's chains, for her limbs are numb with bondage, and she
+cannot rise and walk, but clings to him with dragging arms as he
+beats back to land with his burden. Well, he had strength for
+both--it was her weakness which had put the strength in him. It
+was not, alas, a clean rush of waves they had to win
+through, but a clogging morass of old associations and habits,
+and for the moment its vapours were in his throat. But he would
+see clearer, breathe freer in her presence: she was at once the
+dead weight at his breast and the spar which should float them to
+safety. He smiled at the whirl of metaphor with which he was
+trying to build up a defence against the influences of the last
+hour. It was pitiable that he, who knew the mixed motives on
+which social judgments depend, should still feel himself so
+swayed by them. How could he lift Lily to a freer vision of life,
+if his own view of her was to be coloured by any mind in which he
+saw her reflected?
+
+The moral oppression had produced a physical craving for air, and
+he strode on, opening his lungs to the reverberating coldness of
+the night. At the corner of Fifth Avenue Van Alstyne hailed him
+with an offer of company.
+
+"Walking? A good thing to blow the smoke out of one's head. Now
+that women have taken to tobacco we live in a bath of nicotine.
+It would be a curious thing to study the effect of cigarettes on
+the relation of the sexes. Smoke is almost as great a solvent as
+divorce: both tend to obscure the moral issue."
+
+Nothing could have been less consonant with Selden's mood than
+Van Alstyne's after-dinner aphorisms, but as long as the latter
+confined himself to generalities his listener's nerves were in
+control. Happily Van Alstyne prided himself on his summing up of
+social aspects, and with Selden for audience was eager to show
+the sureness of his touch. Mrs. Fisher lived in an East side
+street near the Park, and as the two men walked down Fifth Avenue
+the new architectural developments of that versatile thoroughfare
+invited Van Alstyne's comment.
+
+"That Greiner house, now--a typical rung in the social ladder!
+The man who built it came from a MILIEU where all the dishes are
+put on the table at once. His facade is a complete architectural
+meal; if he had omitted a style his friends might have thought
+the money had given out. Not a bad purchase for Rosedale, though:
+attracts attention, and awes the Western sight-seer. By and bye
+he'll get out of that phase, and want something that the crowd
+will pass and the few pause before. Especially if he marries my
+clever cousin---"
+
+Selden dashed in with the query: "And the Wellington Brys'?
+Rather clever of its kind, don't you think?"
+
+They were just beneath the wide white facade, with its rich
+restraint of line, which suggested the clever corseting of a
+redundant figure.
+
+"That's the next stage: the desire to imply that one has been to
+Europe, and has a standard. I'm sure Mrs. Bry thinks her house a
+copy of the TRIANON; in America every marble house with gilt
+furniture is thought to be a copy of the TRIANON. What a clever
+chap that architect is, though--how he takes his client's
+measure! He has put the whole of Mrs. Bry in his use of the
+composite order. Now for the Trenors, you remember, he chose the
+Corinthian: exuberant, but based on the best precedent. The
+Trenor house is one of his best things--doesn't look like a
+banqueting-hall turned inside out. I hear Mrs. Trenor wants to
+build out a new ball-room, and that divergence from Gus on that
+point keeps her at Bellomont. The dimensions of the Brys'
+ball-room must rankle: you may be sure she knows 'em as well as
+if she'd been there last night with a yard-measure. Who said she
+was in town, by the way? That Farish boy? She isn't, I know; Mrs.
+Stepney was right; the house is dark, you see: I suppose Gus
+lives in the back."
+
+He had halted opposite the Trenors' corner, and Selden perforce
+stayed his steps also. The house loomed obscure and uninhabited;
+only an oblong gleam above the door spoke of provisional
+occupancy.
+
+"They've bought the house at the back: it gives them a hundred
+and fifty feet in the side street. There's where the ball-room's
+to be, with a gallery connecting it: billiard-room and so on
+above. I suggested changing the entrance, and carrying the
+drawing-room across the whole Fifth Avenue front; you see the
+front door corresponds with the windows---"
+
+The walking-stick which Van Alstyne swung in demonstration
+dropped to a startled "Hallo!" as the door opened and two figures
+were seen silhouetted against the hall-light. At the same moment
+a hansom halted at the curb-stone, and one of the figures floated
+down to it in a haze of evening draperies; while the other, black
+and bulky, remained persistently projected against the light.
+
+For an immeasurable second the two spectators of the incident
+were silent; then the house-door closed, the hansom rolled off,
+and the whole scene slipped by as if with the turn of a
+stereopticon.
+
+Van Alstyne dropped his eye-glass with a low whistle.
+
+"A--hem--nothing of this, eh, Selden? As one of the family, I
+know I may count on you--appearances are deceptive--and Fifth
+Avenue is so imperfectly lighted---"
+
+"Goodnight," said Selden, turning sharply down the side street
+without seeing the other's extended hand.
+
+
+
+Alone with her cousin's kiss, Gerty stared upon her thoughts. He
+had kissed her before--but not with another woman on his lips. If
+he had spared her that she could have drowned quietly, welcoming
+the dark flood as it submerged her. But now the flood was shot
+through with glory, and it was harder to drown at sunrise than in
+darkness. Gerty hid her face from the light, but it pierced to
+the crannies of her soul. She had been so contented, life had
+seemed so simple and sufficient--why had he come to trouble her
+with new hopes? And Lily--Lily, her best friend! Woman-like, she
+accused the woman. Perhaps, had it not been for Lily, her fond
+imagining might have become truth. Selden had always liked
+her--had understood and sympathized with the modest independence
+of her life. He, who had the reputation of weighing all things in
+the nice balance of fastidious perceptions, had been uncritical
+and simple in his view of her: his cleverness had never overawed
+her because she had felt at home in his heart. And now she was
+thrust out, and the door barred against her by Lily's hand! Lily,
+for whose admission there she herself had pleaded! The situation
+was lighted up by a dreary flash of irony. She knew Selden--she
+saw how the force of her faith in Lily must have helped to dispel
+his hesitations. She remembered, too, how Lily had talked of
+him--she saw herself bringing the two together, making them known
+to each other. On Selden's part, no doubt, the wound inflicted
+was inconscient; he had never guessed her foolish secret; but
+Lily--Lily must have known! When, in such matters, are a woman's
+perceptions at fault? And if she knew, then she had deliberately
+despoiled her friend, and in mere wantonness of power,
+since, even to Gerty's suddenly flaming jealousy, it seemed
+incredible that Lily should wish to be Selden's wife. Lily might
+be incapable of marrying for money, but she was equally incapable
+of living without it, and Selden's eager investigations into the
+small economies of house-keeping made him appear to Gerty as
+tragically duped as herself.
+
+She remained long in her sitting-room, where the embers were
+crumbling to cold grey, and the lamp paled under its gay shade.
+Just beneath it stood the photograph of Lily Bart, looking out
+imperially on the cheap gimcracks, the cramped furniture of the
+little room. Could Selden picture her in such an interior? Gerty
+felt the poverty, the insignificance of her surroundings: she
+beheld her life as it must appear to Lily. And the cruelty of
+Lily's judgments smote upon her memory. She saw that she had
+dressed her idol with attributes of her own making. When had Lily
+ever really felt, or pitied, or understood? All she wanted was
+the taste of new experiences: she seemed like some cruel creature
+experimenting in a laboratory.
+
+The pink-faced clock drummed out another hour, and Gerty rose
+with a start. She had an appointment early the next morning with
+a district visitor on the East side. She put out her lamp,
+covered the fire, and went into her bedroom to undress. In the
+little glass above her dressing-table she saw her face reflected
+against the shadows of the room, and tears blotted the
+reflection. What right had she to dream the dreams of loveliness?
+A dull face invited a dull fate. She cried quietly as she
+undressed, laying aside her clothes with her habitual precision,
+setting everything in order for the next day, when the old life
+must be taken up as though there had been no break in its
+routine. Her servant did not come till eight o'clock, and she
+prepared her own tea-tray and placed it beside the bed. Then she
+locked the door of the flat, extinguished her light and lay down.
+But on her bed sleep would not come, and she lay face to face
+with the fact that she hated Lily Bart. It closed with her in the
+darkness like some formless evil to be blindly grappled with.
+Reason, judgment, renunciation, all the sane daylight forces,
+were beaten back in the sharp struggle for self-preservation. She
+wanted happiness--wanted it as fiercely and unscrupulously as Lily
+did, but without Lily's power of obtaining it. And in her conscious
+impotence she lay shivering, and hated her friend---
+
+A ring at the door-bell caught her to her feet. She struck a
+light and stood startled, listening. For a moment her heart beat
+incoherently, then she felt the sobering touch of fact, and
+remembered that such calls were not unknown in her charitable
+work. She flung on her dressing-gown to answer the summons, and
+unlocking her door, confronted the shining vision of Lily Bart.
+
+Gerty's first movement was one of revulsion. She shrank back as
+though Lily's presence flashed too sudden a light upon her
+misery. Then she heard her name in a cry, had a glimpse of her
+friend's face, and felt herself caught and clung to.
+
+"Lily--what is it?" she exclaimed.
+
+Miss Bart released her, and stood breathing brokenly, like one
+who has gained shelter after a long flight.
+
+"I was so cold--I couldn't go home. Have you a fire?"
+
+Gerty's compassionate instincts, responding to the swift call of
+habit, swept aside all her reluctances. Lily was simply some one
+who needed help--for what reason, there was no time to pause and
+conjecture: disciplined sympathy checked the wonder on Gerty's
+lips, and made her draw her friend silently into the sitting-room
+and seat her by the darkened hearth.
+
+"There is kindling wood here: the fire will burn in a minute."
+
+She knelt down, and the flame leapt under her rapid hands. It
+flashed strangely through the tears which still blurred her eyes,
+and smote on the white ruin of Lily's face. The girls looked at
+each other in silence; then Lily repeated: "I couldn't go home."
+
+"No--no--you came here, dear! You're cold and tired--sit quiet,
+and I'll make you some tea."
+
+Gerty had unconsciously adopted the soothing note of her trade:
+all personal feeling was merged in the sense of ministry, and
+experience had taught her that the bleeding must be stayed before
+the wound is probed.
+
+Lily sat quiet, leaning to the fire: the clatter of cups behind
+her soothed her as familiar noises hush a child whom silence has
+kept wakeful. But when Gerty stood at her side with the tea she
+pushed it away, and turned an estranged eye on the familiar room.
+
+"I came here because I couldn't bear to be alone," she said.
+
+Gerty set down the cup and knelt beside her.
+
+"Lily! Something has happened--can't you tell me?"
+
+"I couldn't bear to lie awake in my room till morning. I hate my
+room at Aunt Julia's--so I came here---"
+
+She stirred suddenly, broke from her apathy, and clung to Gerty
+in a fresh burst of fear.
+
+"Oh, Gerty, the furies . . . you know the noise of their
+wings--alone, at night, in the dark? But you don't know--there is
+nothing to make the dark dreadful to you---"
+
+The words, flashing back on Gerty's last hours, struck from her a
+faint derisive murmur; but Lily, in the blaze of her own misery,
+was blinded to everything outside it.
+
+"You'll let me stay? I shan't mind when daylight comes--Is it
+late? Is the night nearly over? It must be awful to be
+sleepless--everything stands by the bed and stares---"
+
+Miss Farish caught her straying hands. "Lily, look at me!
+Something has happened--an accident? You have been
+frightened--what has frightened you? Tell me if you can--a word
+or two--so that I can help you."
+
+Lily shook her head.
+
+"I am not frightened: that's not the word. Can you imagine
+looking into your glass some morning and seeing a
+disfigurement--some hideous change that has come to you while you
+slept? Well, I seem to myself like that--I can't bear to see
+myself in my own thoughts--I hate ugliness, you know--I've always
+turned from it--but I can't explain to you--you wouldn't
+understand."
+
+She lifted her head and her eyes fell on the clock.
+
+"How long the night is! And I know I shan't sleep tomorrow. Some
+one told me my father used to lie sleepless and think of horrors.
+And he was not wicked, only unfortunate--and I see now how he
+must have suffered, lying alone with his thoughts! But I am
+bad--a bad girl--all my thoughts are bad--I have always had bad
+people about me. Is that any excuse? I thought I could
+manage my own life--I was proud--proud! but now I'm on their
+level---"
+
+Sobs shook her, and she bowed to them like a tree in a dry storm.
+
+Gerty knelt beside her, waiting, with the patience born of
+experience, till this gust of misery should loosen fresh speech.
+She had first imagined some physical shock, some peril of the
+crowded streets, since Lily was presumably on her way home from
+Carry Fisher's; but she now saw that other nerve-centres were
+smitten, and her mind trembled back from conjecture.
+
+Lily's sobs ceased, and she lifted her head.
+
+"There are bad girls in your slums. Tell me--do they ever pick
+themselves up? Ever forget, and feel as they did before?"
+
+"Lily! you mustn't speak so--you're dreaming."
+
+"Don't they always go from bad to worse? There's no turning
+back--your old self rejects you, and shuts you out."
+
+She rose, stretching her arms as if in utter physical weariness.
+"Go to bed, dear! You work hard and get up early. I'll watch here
+by the fire, and you'll leave the light, and your door open. All
+I want is to feel that you are near me." She laid both hands on
+Gerty's shoulders, with a smile that was like sunrise on a sea
+strewn with wreckage.
+
+"I can't leave you, Lily. Come and lie on my bed. Your hands are
+frozen--you must undress and be made warm." Gerty paused with
+sudden compunction. "But Mrs. Peniston--it's past midnight! What
+will she think?"
+
+"She goes to bed. I have a latch-key. It doesn't matter--I can't
+go back there."
+
+"There's no need to: you shall stay here. But you must tell me
+where you have been. Listen, Lily--it will help you to speak!"
+She regained Miss Bart's hands, and pressed them against her.
+"Try to tell me--it will clear your poor head. Listen--you were
+dining at Carry Fisher's." Gerty paused and added with a flash of
+heroism: "Lawrence Selden went from here to find you."
+
+At the word, Lily's face melted from locked anguish to the open
+misery of a child. Her lips trembled and her gaze widened with
+tears.
+
+"He went to find me? And I missed him! Oh, Gerty, he
+tried to help me. He told me--he warned me long ago--he foresaw
+that I should grow hateful to myself!"
+
+The name, as Gerty saw with a clutch at the heart, had loosened
+the springs of self-pity in her friend's dry breast, and tear by
+tear Lily poured out the measure of her anguish. She had dropped
+sideways in Gerty's big arm-chair, her head buried where lately
+Selden's had leaned, in a beauty of abandonment that drove home
+to Gerty's aching senses the inevitableness of her own defeat.
+Ah, it needed no deliberate purpose on Lily's part to rob her of
+her dream! To look on that prone loveliness was to see in it a
+natural force, to recognize that love and power belong to such as
+Lily, as renunciation and service are the lot of those they
+despoil. But if Selden's infatuation seemed a fatal necessity,
+the effect that his name produced shook Gerty's steadfastness
+with a last pang. Men pass through such superhuman loves and
+outlive them: they are the probation subduing the heart to human
+joys. How gladly Gerty would have welcomed the ministry of
+healing: how willingly have soothed the sufferer back to
+tolerance of life! But Lily's self-betrayal took this last hope
+from her. The mortal maid on the shore is helpless against the
+siren who loves her prey: such victims are floated back dead
+from their adventure.
+
+Lily sprang up and caught her with strong hands. "Gerty, you know
+him--you understand him--tell me; if I went to him, if I told
+him everything--if I said: 'I am bad through and through--I want
+admiration, I want excitement, I want money--' yes, MONEY!
+That's my shame, Gerty--and it's known, it's said of me--it's
+what men think of me--If I said it all to him--told him the
+whole story--said plainly: 'I've sunk lower than the lowest, for
+I've taken what they take, and not paid as they pay'--oh, Gerty,
+you know him, you can speak for him: if I told him everything
+would he loathe me? Or would he pity me, and understand me, and
+save me from loathing myself?"
+
+Gerty stood cold and passive. She knew the hour of her probation
+had come, and her poor heart beat wildly against its destiny. As
+a dark river sweeps by under a lightning flash, she saw her
+chance of happiness surge past under a flash of temptation. What
+prevented her from saying: "He is like other men?" She
+was not so sure of him, after all! But to do so would have been
+like blaspheming her love. She could not put him before herself
+in any light but the noblest: she must trust him to the height of
+her own passion.
+
+"Yes: I know him; he will help you," she said; and in a moment
+Lily's passion was weeping itself out against her breast.
+
+There was but one bed in the little flat, and the two girls lay
+down on it side by side when Gerty had unlaced Lily's dress and
+persuaded her to put her lips to the warm tea. The light
+extinguished, they lay still in the darkness, Gerty shrinking to
+the outer edge of the narrow couch to avoid contact with her
+bed-fellow. Knowing that Lily disliked to be caressed, she had
+long ago learned to check her demonstrative impulses toward her
+friend. But tonight every fibre in her body shrank from Lily's
+nearness: it was torture to listen to her breathing, and feel the
+sheet stir with it. As Lily turned, and settled to completer
+rest, a strand of her hair swept Gerty's cheek with its
+fragrance. Everything about her was warm and soft and scented:
+even the stains of her grief became her as rain-drops do the
+beaten rose. But as Gerty lay with arms drawn down her side, in
+the motionless narrowness of an effigy, she felt a stir of sobs
+from the breathing warmth beside her, and Lily flung out her
+hand, groped for her friend's, and held it fast.
+
+"Hold me, Gerty, hold me, or I shall think of things," she
+moaned; and Gerty silently slipped an arm under her, pillowing
+her head in its hollow as a mother makes a nest for a tossing
+child. In the warm hollow Lily lay still and her breathing grew
+low and regular. Her hand still dung to Gerty's as if to ward off
+evil dreams, but the hold of her fingers relaxed, her head sank
+deeper into its shelter, and Gerty felt that she slept.
+
+
+
+Chapter 15
+
+When lily woke she had the bed to herself, and the winter light
+was in the room.
+
+She sat up, bewildered by the strangeness of her surroundings;
+then memory returned, and she looked about her with a shiver. In
+the cold slant of light reflected from the back wall of a
+neighbouring building, she saw her evening dress and opera cloak
+lying in a tawdry heap on a chair. Finery laid off is as
+unappetizing as the remains of a feast, and it occurred to Lily
+that, at home, her maid's vigilance had always spared her the
+sight of such incongruities. Her body ached with fatigue, and
+with the constriction of her attitude in Gerty's bed. All through
+her troubled sleep she had been conscious of having no space to
+toss in, and the long effort to remain motionless made her feel
+as if she had spent her night in a train.
+
+This sense of physical discomfort was the first to assert itself;
+then she perceived, beneath it, a corresponding mental
+prostration, a languor of horror more insufferable than the first
+rush of her disgust. The thought of having to wake every morning
+with this weight on her breast roused her tired mind to fresh
+effort. She must find some way out of the slough into which she
+had stumbled: it was not so much compunction as the dread of her
+morning thoughts that pressed on her the need of action. But she
+was unutterably tired; it was weariness to think connectedly. She
+lay back, looking about the poor slit of a room with a renewal of
+physical distaste. The outer air, penned between high buildings,
+brought no freshness through the window; steam-heat was beginning
+to sing in a coil of dingy pipes, and a smell of cooking
+penetrated the crack of the door.
+
+The door opened, and Gerty, dressed and hatted, entered with a
+cup of tea. Her face looked sallow and swollen in the dreary
+light, and her dull hair shaded imperceptibly into the tones of
+her skin.
+
+She glanced shyly at Lily, asking in an embarrassed tone how she
+felt; Lily answered with the same constraint, and raised herself
+up to drink the tea.
+
+"I must have been over-tired last night; I think I had a
+nervous attack in the carriage," she said, as the drink brought
+clearness to her sluggish thoughts.
+
+"You were not well; I am so glad you came here," Gerty returned.
+
+"But how am I to get home? And Aunt Julia--?"
+
+"She knows; I telephoned early, and your maid has brought your
+things. But won't you eat something? I scrambled the eggs
+myself."
+
+Lily could not eat; but the tea strengthened her to rise and
+dress under her maid's searching gaze. It was a relief to her
+that Gerty was obliged to hasten away: the two kissed silently,
+but without a trace of the previous night's emotion.
+
+Lily found Mrs. Peniston in a state of agitation. She had sent
+for Grace Stepney and was taking digitalis. Lily breasted the
+storm of enquiries as best she could, explaining that she had had
+an attack of faintness on her way back from Carry Fisher's; that,
+fearing she would not have strength to reach home, she had gone
+to Miss Farish's instead; but that a quiet night had restored
+her, and that she had no need of a doctor.
+
+This was a relief to Mrs. Peniston, who could give herself up to
+her own symptoms, and Lily was advised to go and lie down, her
+aunt's panacea for all physical and moral disorders. In the
+solitude of her own room she was brought back to a sharp
+contemplation of facts. Her daylight view of them necessarily
+differed from the cloudy vision of the night. The winged furies
+were now prowling gossips who dropped in on each other for tea.
+But her fears seemed the uglier, thus shorn of their vagueness;
+and besides, she had to act, not rave. For the first time she
+forced herself to reckon up the exact amount of her debt to
+Trenor; and the result of this hateful computation was the
+discovery that she had, in all, received nine thousand dollars
+from him. The flimsy pretext on which it had been given and
+received shrivelled up in the blaze of her shame: she knew that
+not a penny of it was her own, and that to restore her
+self-respect she must at once repay the whole amount. The
+inability thus to solace her outraged feelings gave her a
+paralyzing sense of insignificance. She was realizing for the
+first time that a woman's dignity may cost more to keep up than
+her carriage; and that the maintenance of a moral
+attribute should be dependent on dollars and cents, made the
+world appear a more sordid place than she had conceived it.
+
+After luncheon, when Grace Stepney's prying eyes had been
+removed, Lily asked for a word with her aunt. The two ladies went
+upstairs to the sitting-room, where Mrs. Peniston seated herself
+in her black satin arm-chair tufted with yellow buttons, beside a
+bead-work table bearing a bronze box with a miniature of Beatrice
+Cenci in the lid. Lily felt for these objects the same distaste
+which the prisoner may entertain for the fittings of the
+court-room. It was here that her aunt received her rare
+confidences, and the pink-eyed smirk of the turbaned Beatrice was
+associated in her mind with the gradual fading of the smile from
+Mrs. Peniston's lips. That lady's dread of a scene gave her an
+inexorableness which the greatest strength of character could not
+have produced, since it was independent of all considerations of
+right or wrong; and knowing this, Lily seldom ventured to assail
+it. She had never felt less like making the attempt than on the
+present occasion; but she had sought in vain for any other means
+of escape from an intolerable situation.
+
+Mrs. Peniston examined her critically. "You're a bad colour,
+Lily: this incessant rushing about is beginning to tell on you,"
+she said.
+
+Miss Bart saw an opening. "I don't think it's that, Aunt Julia;
+I've had worries," she replied.
+
+"Ah," said Mrs. Peniston, shutting her lips with the snap of a
+purse closing against a beggar.
+
+"I'm sorry to bother you with them," Lily continued, "but I
+really believe my faintness last night was brought on partly by
+anxious thoughts--"
+
+"I should have said Carry Fisher's cook was enough to account for
+it. She has a woman who was with Maria Melson in 1891--the spring
+of the year we went to Aix--and I remember dining there two days
+before we sailed, and feeling SURE the coppers hadn't been
+scoured."
+
+"I don't think I ate much; I can't eat or sleep." Lily paused,
+and then said abruptly: "The fact is, Aunt Julia, I owe some
+money."
+
+Mrs. Peniston's face clouded perceptibly, but did not
+express the astonishment her niece had expected. She was silent,
+and Lily was forced to continue: "I have been foolish---"
+
+"No doubt you have: extremely foolish," Mrs. Peniston interposed.
+"I fail to see how any one with your income, and no expenses--not
+to mention the handsome presents I've always given you---"
+
+"Oh, you've been most generous, Aunt Julia; I shall never forget
+your kindness. But perhaps you don't quite realize the expense a
+girl is put to nowadays---"
+
+"I don't realize that YOU are put to any expense except for your
+clothes and your railway fares. I expect you to be handsomely
+dressed; but I paid Celeste's bill for you last October."
+
+Lily hesitated: her aunt's implacable memory had never been more
+inconvenient. "You were as kind as possible; but I have had to
+get a few things since---"
+
+"What kind of things? Clothes? How much have you spent? Let me
+see the bill--I daresay the woman is swindling you."
+
+"Oh, no, I think not: clothes have grown so frightfully
+expensive; and one needs so many different kinds, with country
+visits, and golf and skating, and Aiken and Tuxedo---"
+
+"Let me see the bill," Mrs. Peniston repeated.
+
+Lily hesitated again. In the first place, Mme. Celeste had not
+yet sent in her account, and secondly, the amount it represented
+was only a fraction of the sum that Lily needed.
+
+"She hasn't sent in the bill for my winter things, but I KNOW
+it's large; and there are one or two other things; I've been
+careless and imprudent--I'm frightened to think of what I owe---"
+
+She raised the troubled loveliness of her face to Mrs. Peniston,
+vainly hoping that a sight so moving to the other sex might not
+be without effect upon her own. But the effect produced was that
+of making Mrs. Peniston shrink back apprehensively.
+
+"Really, Lily, you are old enough to manage your own affairs, and
+after frightening me to death by your performance of last night
+you might at least choose a better time to worry me with such
+matters." Mrs. Peniston glanced at the clock, and swallowed a
+tablet of digitalis. "If you owe Celeste another
+thousand, she may send me her account," she added, as though to
+end the discussion at any cost.
+
+"I am very sorry, Aunt Julia; I hate to trouble you at such a
+time; but I have really no choice--I ought to have spoken
+sooner--I owe a great deal more than a thousand dollars."
+
+"A great deal more? Do you owe two? She must have robbed you!"
+
+"I told you it was not only Celeste. I--there are other
+bills--more pressing--that must be settled."
+
+"What on earth have you been buying? Jewelry? You must have gone
+off your head," said Mrs. Peniston with asperity. "But if you
+have run into debt, you must suffer the consequences, and put
+aside your monthly income till your bills are paid. If you stay
+quietly here until next spring, instead of racing about all over
+the country, you will have no expenses at all, and surely in four
+or five months you can settle the rest of your bills if I pay the
+dress-maker now."
+
+Lily was again silent. She knew she could not hope to extract
+even a thousand dollars from Mrs. Peniston on the mere plea of
+paying Celeste's bill: Mrs. Peniston would expect to go over the
+dress-maker's account, and would make out the cheque to her and
+not to Lily. And yet the money must be obtained before the day
+was over!
+
+"The debts I speak of are--different--not like tradesmen's
+bills," she began confusedly; but Mrs. Peniston's look made her
+almost afraid to continue. Could it be that her aunt suspected
+anything? The idea precipitated Lily's avowal.
+
+"The fact is, I've played cards a good deal--bridge; the women
+all do it; girls too--it's expected. Sometimes I've won--won a
+good deal--but lately I've been unlucky--and of course such debts
+can't be paid off gradually---"
+
+She paused: Mrs. Peniston's face seemed to be petrifying as she
+listened.
+
+"Cards--you've played cards for money? It's true, then: when I
+was told so I wouldn't believe it. I won't ask if the other
+horrors I was told were true too; I've heard enough for the state
+of my nerves. When I think of the example you've had in this
+house! But I suppose it's your foreign bringing-up--no one knew
+where your mother picked up her friends. And her Sundays were a
+scandal--that I know."
+
+Mrs. Peniston wheeled round suddenly. "You play cards on Sunday?"
+
+Lily flushed with the recollection of certain rainy Sundays at
+Bellomont and with the Dorsets.
+
+"You're hard on me, Aunt Julia: I have never really cared for
+cards, but a girl hates to be thought priggish and superior, and
+one drifts into doing what the others do. I've had a dreadful
+lesson, and if you'll help me out this time I promise you--"
+
+Mrs. Peniston raised her hand warningly. "You needn't make any
+promises: it's unnecessary. When I offered you a home I didn't
+undertake to pay your gambling debts."
+
+"Aunt Julia! You don't mean that you won't help me?"
+
+"I shall certainly not do anything to give the impression that I
+countenance your behaviour. If you really owe your dress-maker, I
+will settle with her--beyond that I recognize no obligation to
+assume your debts."
+
+Lily had risen, and stood pale and quivering before her aunt.
+Pride stormed in her, but humiliation forced the cry from her
+lips: "Aunt Julia, I shall be disgraced--I--" But she could go no
+farther. If her aunt turned such a stony ear to the fiction of
+the gambling debts, in what spirit would she receive the terrible
+avowal of the truth?
+
+"I consider that you ARE disgraced, Lily: disgraced by your
+conduct far more than by its results. You say your friends have
+persuaded you to play cards with them; well, they may as well
+learn a lesson too. They can probably afford to lose a little
+money--and at any rate, I am not going to waste any of mine in
+paying them. And now I must ask you to leave me--this scene has
+been extremely painful, and I have my own health to consider.
+Draw down the blinds, please; and tell Jennings I will see no one
+this afternoon but Grace Stepney."
+
+Lily went up to her own room and bolted the door. She was
+trembling with fear and anger--the rush of the furies' wings was
+in her ears. She walked up and down the room with blind irregular
+steps. The last door of escape was closed--she felt herself shut
+in with her dishonour.
+
+Suddenly her wild pacing brought her before the clock on the
+chimney-piece. Its hands stood at half-past three, and she
+remembered that Selden was to come to her at four. She had
+meant to put him off with a word--but now her heart leaped at the
+thought of seeing him. Was there not a promise of rescue in his
+love? As she had lain at Gerty's side the night before, she had
+thought of his coming, and of the sweetness of weeping out her
+pain upon his breast. Of course she had meant to clear herself of
+its consequences before she met him--she had never really doubted
+that Mrs. Peniston would come to her aid. And she had felt, even
+in the full storm of her misery, that Selden's love could not be
+her ultimate refuge; only it would be so sweet to take a moment's
+shelter there, while she gathered fresh strength to go on.
+
+But now his love was her only hope, and as she sat alone with her
+wretchedness the thought of confiding in him became as seductive
+as the river's flow to the suicide. The first plunge would be
+terrible--but afterward, what blessedness might come! She
+remembered Gerty's words: "I know him--he will help you"; and her
+mind clung to them as a sick person might cling to a healing
+relic. Oh, if he really understood--if he would help her to
+gather up her broken life, and put it together in some new
+semblance in which no trace of the past should remain! He had
+always made her feel that she was worthy of better things, and
+she had never been in greater need of such solace. Once and again
+she shrank at the thought of imperilling his love by her
+confession: for love was what she needed--it would take the glow
+of passion to weld together the shattered fragments of her
+self-esteem. But she recurred to Gerty's words and held fast to
+them. She was sure that Gerty knew Selden's feeling for her, and
+it had never dawned upon her blindness that Gerty's own judgment
+of him was coloured by emotions far more ardent than her own.
+
+Four o'clock found her in the drawing-room: she was sure that
+Selden would be punctual. But the hour came and passed--it moved
+on feverishly, measured by her impatient heart-beats. She had
+time to take a fresh survey of her wretchedness, and to fluctuate
+anew between the impulse to confide in Selden and the dread of
+destroying his illusions. But as the minutes passed the need of
+throwing herself on his comprehension became more urgent: she
+could not bear the weight of her misery alone. There would be a
+perilous moment, perhaps: but could she not trust to her
+beauty to bridge it over, to land her safe in the shelter of his
+devotion?
+
+But the hour sped on and Selden did not come. Doubtless he had
+been detained, or had misread her hurriedly scrawled note, taking
+the four for a five. The ringing of the door-bell a few minutes
+after five confirmed this supposition, and made Lily hastily
+resolve to write more legibly in future. The sound of steps in
+the hall, and of the butler's voice preceding them, poured fresh
+energy into her veins. She felt herself once more the alert and
+competent moulder of emergencies, and the remembrance of her
+power over Selden flushed her with sudden confidence. But when
+the drawing-room door opened it was Rosedale who came in.
+
+The reaction caused her a sharp pang, but after a passing
+movement of irritation at the clumsiness of fate, and at her own
+carelessness in not denying the door to all but Selden, she
+controlled herself and greeted Rosedale amicably. It was annoying
+that Selden, when he came, should find that particular visitor in
+possession, but Lily was mistress of the art of ridding herself
+of superfluous company, and to her present mood Rosedale seemed
+distinctly negligible.
+
+His own view of the situation forced itself upon her after a few
+moments' conversation. She had caught at the Brys' entertainment
+as an easy impersonal subject, likely to tide them over the
+interval till Selden appeared, but Mr. Rosedale, tenaciously
+planted beside the tea-table, his hands in his pockets, his legs
+a little too freely extended, at once gave the topic a personal
+turn.
+
+"Pretty well done--well, yes, I suppose it was: Welly Bry's got
+his back up and don't mean to let go till he's got the hang of
+the thing. Of course, there were things here and there--things
+Mrs. Fisher couldn't be expected to see to--the champagne wasn't
+cold, and the coats got mixed in the coat-room. I would have
+spent more money on the music. But that's my character: if I want
+a thing I'm willing to pay: I don't go up to the counter, and
+then wonder if the article's worth the price. I wouldn't be
+satisfied to entertain like the Welly Brys; I'd want something
+that would look more easy and natural, more as if I took it in my
+stride. And it takes just two things to do that, Miss
+Bart: money, and the right woman to spend it."
+
+He paused, and examined her attentively while she affected to
+rearrange the tea-cups.
+
+"I've got the money," he continued, clearing his throat, "and
+what I want is the woman--and I mean to have her too."
+
+He leaned forward a little, resting his hands on the head of his
+walking-stick. He had seen men of Ned Van Alstyne's type bring
+their hats and sticks into a drawing-room, and he thought it
+added a touch of elegant familiarity to their appearance.
+
+Lily was silent, smiling faintly, with her eyes absently resting
+on his face. She was in reality reflecting that a declaration
+would take some time to make, and that Selden must surely appear
+before the moment of refusal had been reached. Her brooding look,
+as of a mind withdrawn yet not averted, seemed to Mr. Rosedale
+full of a subtle encouragement. He would not have liked any
+evidence of eagerness.
+
+"I mean to have her too," he repeated, with a laugh intended to
+strengthen his self-assurance. "I generally HAVE got what I
+wanted in life, Miss Bart. I wanted money, and I've got more than
+I know how to invest; and now the money doesn't seem to be of any
+account unless I can spend it on the right woman. That's what I
+want to do with it: I want my wife to make all the other women
+feel small. I'd never grudge a dollar that was spent on that. But
+it isn't every woman can do it, no matter how much you spend on
+her. There was a girl in some history book who wanted gold
+shields, or something, and the fellows threw 'em at her, and she
+was crushed under 'em: they killed her. Well, that's true enough:
+some women looked buried under their jewelry. What I want is a
+woman who'll hold her head higher the more diamonds I put on it.
+And when I looked at you the other night at the Brys', in that
+plain white dress, looking as if you had a crown on, I said to
+myself: 'By gad, if she had one she'd wear it as if it grew on
+her.'"
+
+Still Lily did not speak, and he continued, warming with his
+theme: "Tell you what it is, though, that kind of woman costs
+more than all the rest of 'em put together. If a woman's
+going to ignore her pearls, they want to be better than anybody
+else's--and so it is with everything else. You know what I
+mean--you know it's only the showy things that are cheap. Well, I
+should want my wife to be able to take the earth for granted if
+she wanted to. I know there's one thing vulgar about money, and
+that's the thinking about it; and my wife would never have to
+demean herself in that way." He paused, and then added, with an
+unfortunate lapse to an earlier manner: "I guess you know the
+lady I've got in view, Miss Bart."
+
+Lily raised her head, brightening a little under the challenge.
+Even through the dark tumult of her thoughts, the clink of Mr.
+Rosedale's millions had a faintly seductive note. Oh, for enough
+of them to cancel her one miserable debt! But the man behind them
+grew increasingly repugnant in the light of Selden's expected
+coming. The contrast was too grotesque: she could scarcely
+suppress the smile it provoked. She decided that directness would
+be best.
+
+"If you mean me, Mr. Rosedale, I am very grateful--very much
+flattered; but I don't know what I have ever done to make you
+think--"
+
+"Oh, if you mean you're not dead in love with me, I've got sense
+enough left to see that. And I ain't talking to you as if you
+were--I presume I know the kind of talk that's expected under
+those circumstances. I'm confoundedly gone on you--that's about
+the size of it--and I'm just giving you a plain business
+statement of the consequences. You're not very fond of
+me--YET--but you're fond of luxury, and style, and amusement, and
+of not having to worry about cash. You like to have a good time,
+and not have to settle for it; and what I propose to do is to
+provide for the good time and do the settling."
+
+He paused, and she returned with a chilling smile: "You are
+mistaken in one point, Mr. Rosedale: whatever I enjoy I am
+prepared to settle for."
+
+She spoke with the intention of making him see that, if his words
+implied a tentative allusion to her private affairs, she was
+prepared to meet and repudiate it. But if he recognized her
+meaning it failed to abash him, and he went on in the same tone:
+"I didn't mean to give offence; excuse me if I've spoken too
+plainly. But why ain't you straight with me--why do you
+put up that kind of bluff? You know there've been times when you
+were bothered--damned bothered--and as a girl gets older, and
+things keep moving along, why, before she knows it, the things
+she wants are liable to move past her and not come back. I don't
+say it's anywhere near that with you yet; but you've had a taste
+of bothers that a girl like yourself ought never to have known
+about, and what I'm offering you is the chance to turn your back
+on them once for all."
+
+The colour burned in Lily's face as he ended; there was no
+mistaking the point he meant to make, and to permit it to pass
+unheeded was a fatal confession of weakness, while to resent it
+too openly was to risk offending him at a perilous moment.
+Indignation quivered on her lip; but it was quelled by the secret
+voice which warned her that she must not quarrel with him. He
+knew too much about her, and even at the moment when it was
+essential that he should show himself at his best, he did not
+scruple to let her see how much he knew. How then would he use
+his power when her expression of contempt had dispelled his one
+motive for restraint? Her whole future might hinge on her way
+of answering him: she had to stop and consider that, in the
+stress of her other anxieties, as a breathless fugitive may have
+to pause at the cross-roads and try to decide coolly which turn
+to take.
+
+"You are quite right, Mr. Rosedale. I HAVE had bothers; and
+I am grateful to you for wanting to relieve me of them. It is
+not always easy to be quite independent and self-respecting
+when one is poor and lives among rich people; I have been
+careless about money, and have worried about my bills. But I
+should be selfish and ungrateful if I made that a reason for
+accepting all you offer, with no better return to make than
+the desire to be free from my anxieties. You must give me
+time--time to think of your kindness--and of what I could
+give you in return for it---"
+
+She held out her hand with a charming gesture in which
+dismissal was shorn of its rigour. Its hint of future leniency
+made Rosedale rise in obedience to it, a little flushed with his
+unhoped-for success, and disciplined by the tradition of his
+blood to accept what was conceded, without undue haste to
+press for more. Something in his prompt acquiescence frightened
+her; she felt behind it the stored force of a patience that
+might subdue the strongest will. But at least they had parted
+amicably, and he was out of the house without meeting
+Selden--Selden, whose continued absence now smote her with
+a new alarm. Rosedale had remained over an hour, and she
+understood that it was now too late to hope for Selden. He
+would write explaining his absence, of course; there would be
+a note from him by the late post. But her confession would
+have to be postponed; and the chill of the delay settled heavily
+on her fagged spirit.
+
+It lay heavier when the postman's last ring brought no note
+for her, and she had to go upstairs to a lonely night--a night
+as grim and sleepless as her tortured fancy had pictured it to
+Gerty. She had never learned to live with her own thoughts,
+and to be confronted with them through such hours of lucid
+misery made the confused wretchedness of her previous vigil
+seem easily bearable.
+
+Daylight disbanded the phantom crew, and made it clear
+to her that she would hear from Selden before noon; but the
+day passed without his writing or coming. Lily remained at
+home, lunching and dining alone with her aunt, who complained of
+flutterings of the heart, and talked icily on general
+topics. Mrs. Peniston went to bed early, and when she had
+gone Lily sat down and wrote a note to Selden. She was
+about to ring for a messenger to despatch it when her eye fell
+on a paragraph in the evening paper which lay at her elbow:
+"Mr. Lawrence Selden was among the passengers sailing this
+afternoon for Havana and the West Indies on the Windward
+Liner Antilles."
+
+She laid down the paper and sat motionless, staring at her
+note. She understood now that he was never coming--that
+he had gone away because he was afraid that he might come.
+She rose, and walking across the floor stood gazing at herself
+for a long time in the brightly-lit mirror above the mantel-
+piece. The lines in her face came out terribly--she looked
+old; and when a girl looks old to herself, how does she look
+to other people? She moved away, and began to wander
+aimlessly about the room, fitting her steps with mechanical
+precision between the monstrous roses of Mrs. Peniston's
+Axminster. Suddenly she noticed that the pen with which she
+had written to Selden still rested against the uncovered
+inkstand. She seated herself again, and taking out an envelope,
+addressed it rapidly to Rosedale. Then she laid out a sheet of
+paper, and sat over it with suspended pen. It had been easy
+enough to write the date, and "Dear Mr. Rosedale"--but after that
+her inspiration flagged. She meant to tell him to come
+to her, but the words refused to shape themselves. At length
+she began: "I have been thinking---" then she laid the pen
+down, and sat with her elbows on the table and her face hidden in
+her hands.
+
+Suddenly she started up at the sound of the door-bell. It
+was not late--barely ten o'clock--and there might still be a
+note from Selden, or a message--or he might be there himself, on
+the other side of the door! The announcement of his
+sailing might have been a mistake--it might be another Lawrence
+Selden who had gone to Havana--all these possibilities
+had time to flash through her mind, and build up the conviction
+that she was after all to see or hear from him, before the
+drawing-room door opened to admit a servant carrying a
+telegram.
+
+Lily tore it open with shaking hands, and read Bertha Dorset's
+name below the message: "Sailing unexpectedly tomorrow. Will you
+join us on a cruise in Mediterranean?"
+
+
+
+
+                        BOOK TWO
+
+
+Chapter 1
+
+It came vividly to Selden on the Casino steps that Monte Carlo
+had, more than any other place he knew, the gift of accommodating
+itself to each man's humour. His own, at the moment, lent it a
+festive readiness of welcome that might well, in a disenchanted
+eye, have turned to paint and facility. So frank an appeal for
+participation--so outspoken a recognition of the holiday vein in
+human nature--struck refreshingly on a mind jaded by prolonged
+hard work in surroundings made for the discipline of the senses.
+As he surveyed the white square set in an exotic coquetry of
+architecture, the studied tropicality of the gardens, the groups
+loitering in the foreground against mauve mountains which
+suggested a sublime stage-setting forgotten in a hurried shifting
+of scenes--as he took in the whole outspread effect of light and
+leisure, he felt a movement of revulsion from the last few months
+of his life.
+
+The New York winter had presented an interminable perspective of
+snow-burdened days, reaching toward a spring of raw sunshine and
+furious air, when the ugliness of things rasped the eye as the
+gritty wind ground into the skin. Selden, immersed in his work,
+had told himself that external conditions did not matter to a man
+in his state, and that cold and ugliness were a good tonic for
+relaxed sensibilities. When an urgent case summoned him abroad to
+confer with a client in Paris, he broke reluctantly with the
+routine of the office; and it was only now that, having
+despatched his business, and slipped away for a week in the
+south, he began to feel the renewed zest of spectatorship that is
+the solace of those who take an objective interest in life.
+
+The multiplicity of its appeals--the perpetual surprise of its
+contrasts and resemblances! All these tricks and turns of the
+show were upon him with a spring as he descended the Casino steps
+and paused on the pavement at its doors. He had not been abroad
+for seven years--and what changes the renewed contact produced!
+If the central depths were untouched, hardly a pin-point of
+surface remained the same. And this was the very place to
+bring out the completeness of the renewal. The sublimities, the
+perpetuities, might have left him as he was: but this tent
+pitched for a day's revelry spread a roof of oblivion between
+himself and his fixed sky.
+
+It was mid-April, and one felt that the revelry had reached its
+climax and that the desultory groups in the square and gardens
+would soon dissolve and re-form in other scenes. Meanwhile the
+last moments of the performance seemed to gain an added
+brightness from the hovering threat of the curtain. The quality
+of the air, the exuberance of the flowers, the blue intensity of
+sea and sky, produced the effect of a closing TABLEAU, when all
+the lights are turned on at once. This impression was presently
+heightened by the way in which a consciously conspicuous group of
+people advanced to the middle front, and stood before Selden with
+the air of the chief performers gathered together by the
+exigencies of the final effect. Their appearance confirmed the
+impression that the show had been staged regardless of expense,
+and emphasized its resemblance to one of those "costume-plays" in
+which the protagonists walk through the passions without
+displacing a drapery. The ladies stood in unrelated attitudes
+calculated to isolate their effects, and the men hung about them
+as irrelevantly as stage heroes whose tailors are named in the
+programme. It was Selden himself who unwittingly fused the group
+by arresting the attention of one of its members.
+
+"Why, Mr. Selden!" Mrs. Fisher exclaimed in surprise; and with a
+gesture toward Mrs. Jack Stepney and Mrs. Wellington Bry, she
+added plaintively: "We're starving to death because we can't
+decide where to lunch."
+
+Welcomed into their group, and made the confidant of their
+difficulty, Selden learned with amusement that there were several
+places where one might miss something by not lunching, or forfeit
+something by lunching; so that eating actually became a minor
+consideration on the very spot consecrated to its rites.
+
+"Of course one gets the best things at the TERRASSE--but that
+looks as if one hadn't any other reason for being there: the
+Americans who don't know any one always rush for the best food.
+And the Duchess of Beltshire has taken up Becassin's lately,"
+Mrs. Bry earnestly summed up.
+
+Mrs. Bry, to Mrs. Fisher's despair, had not progressed beyond the
+point of weighing her social alternatives in public. She could
+not acquire the air of doing things because she wanted to, and
+making her choice the final seal of their fitness.
+
+Mr. Bry, a short pale man, with a business face and leisure
+clothes, met the dilemma hilariously.
+
+"I guess the Duchess goes where it's cheapest, unless she can get
+her meal paid for. If you offered to blow her off at the TERRASSE
+she'd turn up fast enough."
+
+But Mrs. Jack Stepney interposed. "The Grand Dukes go to that
+little place at the Condamine. Lord Hubert says it's the only
+restaurant in Europe where they can cook peas."
+
+Lord Hubert Dacey, a slender shabby-looking man, with a charming
+worn smile, and the air of having spent his best years in
+piloting the wealthy to the right restaurant, assented with
+gentle emphasis: "It's quite that."
+
+"PEAS?" said Mr. Bry contemptuously. "Can they cook terrapin? It
+just shows," he continued, "what these European markets are, when
+a fellow can make a reputation cooking peas!"
+
+Jack Stepney intervened with authority. "I don't know that I
+quite agree with Dacey: there's a little hole in Paris, off the
+Quai Voltaire--but in any case, I can't advise the Condamine
+GARGOTE; at least not with ladies."
+
+Stepney, since his marriage, had thickened and grown prudish, as
+the Van Osburgh husbands were apt to do; but his wife, to his
+surprise and discomfiture, had developed an earth-shaking
+fastness of gait which left him trailing breathlessly in her
+wake.
+
+"That's where we'll go then!" she declared, with a heavy toss of
+her plumage. "I'm so tired of the TERRASSE: it's as dull as one
+of mother's dinners. And Lord Hubert has promised to tell us who
+all the awful people are at the other place--hasn't he, Carry?
+Now, Jack, don't look so solemn!"
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Bry, "all I want to know is who their
+dress-makers are."
+
+"No doubt Dacey can tell you that too," remarked Stepney, with an
+ironic intention which the other received with the light murmur,
+"I can at least FIND OUT, my dear fellow"; and Mrs. Bry
+having declared that she couldn't walk another step, the party
+hailed two or three of the light phaetons which hover attentively
+on the confines of the gardens, and rattled off in procession
+toward the Condamine.
+
+Their destination was one of the little restaurants overhanging
+the boulevard which dips steeply down from Monte Carlo to the low
+intermediate quarter along the quay. From the window in which
+they presently found themselves installed, they overlooked the
+intense blue curve of the harbour, set between the verdure of
+twin promontories: to the right, the cliff of Monaco, topped by
+the mediaeval silhouette of its church and castle, to the left
+the terraces and pinnacles of the gambling-house. Between the
+two, the waters of the bay were furrowed by a light coming and
+going of pleasure-craft, through which, just at the culminating
+moment of luncheon, the majestic advance of a great steam-yacht
+drew the company's attention from the peas.
+
+"By Jove, I believe that's the Dorsets back!" Stepney exclaimed;
+and Lord Hubert, dropping his single eye-glass, corroborated:
+"It's the Sabrina--yes."
+
+"So soon? They were to spend a month in Sicily," Mrs. Fisher
+observed.
+
+"I guess they feel as if they had: there's only one up-to-date
+hotel in the whole place," said Mr. Bry disparagingly.
+
+"It was Ned Silverton's idea--but poor Dorset and Lily Bart must
+have been horribly bored." Mrs. Fisher added in an undertone to
+Selden: "I do hope there hasn't been a row."
+
+"It's most awfully jolly having Miss Bart back," said Lord
+Hubert, in his mild deliberate voice; and Mrs. Bry added
+ingenuously: "I daresay the Duchess will dine with us, now that
+Lily's here."
+
+"The Duchess admires her immensely: I'm sure she'd be charmed to
+have it arranged," Lord Hubert agreed, with the professional
+promptness of the man accustomed to draw his profit from
+facilitating social contacts: Selden was struck by the
+businesslike change in his manner.
+
+"Lily has been a tremendous success here," Mrs. Fisher continued,
+still addressing herself confidentially to Selden. "She looks ten
+years younger--I never saw her so handsome. Lady Skiddaw took her
+everywhere in Cannes, and the Crown Princess of Macedonia
+had her to stop for a week at Cimiez. People say that was one
+reason why Bertha whisked the yacht off to Sicily: the Crown
+Princess didn't take much notice of her, and she couldn't bear to
+look on at Lily's triumph."
+
+Selden made no reply. He was vaguely aware that Miss Bart was
+cruising in the Mediterranean with the Dorsets, but it had not
+occurred to him that there was any chance of running across her
+on the Riviera, where the season was virtually at an end. As he
+leaned back, silently contemplating his filigree cup of Turkish
+coffee, he was trying to put some order in his thoughts, to tell
+himself how the news of her nearness was really affecting him. He
+had a personal detachment enabling him, even in moments of
+emotional high-pressure, to get a fairly clear view of his
+feelings, and he was sincerely surprised by the disturbance which
+the sight of the Sabrina had produced in him. He had reason to
+think that his three months of engrossing professional work,
+following on the sharp shock of his disillusionment, had cleared
+his mind of its sentimental vapours. The feeling he had nourished
+and given prominence to was one of thankfulness for his escape:
+he was like a traveller so grateful for rescue from a dangerous
+accident that at first he is hardly conscious of his bruises. Now
+he suddenly felt the latent ache, and realized that after all he
+had not come off unhurt.
+
+An hour later, at Mrs. Fisher's side in the Casino gardens, he
+was trying to find fresh reasons for forgetting the injury
+received in the contemplation of the peril avoided. The party had
+dispersed with the loitering indecision characteristic of social
+movements at Monte Carlo, where the whole place, and the long
+gilded hours of the day, seem to offer an infinity of ways of
+being idle. Lord Hubert Dacey had finally gone off in quest of
+the Duchess of Beltshire, charged by Mrs. Bry with the delicate
+negotiation of securing that lady's presence at dinner, the
+Stepneys had left for Nice in their motor-car, and Mr. Bry had
+departed to take his place in the pigeon shooting match which was
+at the moment engaging his highest faculties.
+
+Mrs. Bry, who had a tendency to grow red and stertorous after
+luncheon, had been judiciously prevailed upon by Carry
+Fisher to withdraw to her hotel for an hour's repose; and Selden
+and his companion were thus left to a stroll propitious to
+confidences. The stroll soon resolved itself into a tranquil
+session on a bench overhung with laurel and Banksian roses, from
+which they caught a dazzle of blue sea between marble balusters,
+and the fiery shafts of cactus-blossoms shooting meteor-like from
+the rock. The soft shade of their niche, and the adjacent glitter
+of the air, were conducive to an easy lounging mood, and to the
+smoking of many cigarettes; and Selden, yielding to these
+influences, suffered Mrs. Fisher to unfold to him the history of
+her recent experiences. She had come abroad with the Welly Brys
+at the moment when fashion flees the inclemency of the New York
+spring. The Brys, intoxicated by their first success, already
+thirsted for new kingdoms, and Mrs. Fisher, viewing the Riviera
+as an easy introduction to London society, had guided their
+course thither. She had affiliations of her own in every capital,
+and a facility for picking them up again after long absences; and
+the carefully disseminated rumour of the Brys' wealth had at once
+gathered about them a group of cosmopolitan pleasure-seekers.
+
+"But things are not going as well as I expected," Mrs. Fisher
+frankly admitted. "It's all very well to say that every body with
+money can get into society; but it would be truer to say that
+NEARLY everybody can. And the London market is so glutted with
+new Americans that, to succeed there now, they must be either
+very clever or awfully queer. The Brys are neither. HE would get
+on well enough if she'd let him alone; they like his slang and
+his brag and his blunders. But Louisa spoils it all by trying to
+repress him and put herself forward. If she'd be natural
+herself--fat and vulgar and bouncing--it would be all right; but
+as soon as she meets anybody smart she tries to be slender and
+queenly. She tried it with the Duchess of Beltshire and Lady
+Skiddaw, and they fled. I've done my best to make her see her
+mistake--I've said to her again and again: 'Just let yourself go,
+Louisa'; but she keeps up the humbug even with me--I believe she
+keeps on being queenly in her own room, with the door shut.
+
+"The worst of it is," Mrs. Fisher went on, "that she thinks it's
+all MY fault. When the Dorsets turned up here six weeks ago, and
+everybody began to make a fuss about Lily Bart, I could
+see Louisa thought that if she'd had Lily in tow instead of me
+she would have been hob-nobbing with all the royalties by this
+time. She doesn't realize that it's Lily's beauty that does it:
+Lord Hubert tells me Lily is thought even handsomer than when he
+knew her at Aix ten years ago. It seems she was tremendously
+admired there. An Italian Prince, rich and the real thing, wanted
+to marry her; but just at the critical moment a good-looking
+step-son turned up, and Lily was silly enough to flirt with him
+while her marriage-settlements with the step-father were being
+drawn up. Some people said the young man did it on purpose. You
+can fancy the scandal: there was an awful row between the men,
+and people began to look at Lily so queerly that Mrs. Peniston
+had to pack up and finish her cure elsewhere. Not that SHE ever
+understood: to this day she thinks that Aix didn't suit her, and
+mentions her having been sent there as proof of the incompetence
+of French doctors. That's Lily all over, you know: she works like
+a slave preparing the ground and sowing her seed; but the day she
+ought to be reaping the harvest she over-sleeps herself or goes
+off on a picnic."
+
+Mrs. Fisher paused and looked reflectively at the deep shimmer of
+sea between the cactus-flowers. "Sometimes," she added, "I think
+it's just flightiness--and sometimes I think it's because, at
+heart, she despises the things she's trying for. And it's the
+difficulty of deciding that makes her such an interesting study."
+She glanced tentatively at Selden's motionless profile, and
+resumed with a slight sigh: "Well, all I can say is, I wish she'd
+give ME some of her discarded opportunities. I wish we could
+change places now, for instance. She could make a very good thing
+out of the Brys if she managed them properly, and I should know
+just how to look after George Dorset while Bertha is reading
+Verlaine with Neddy Silverton."
+
+She met Selden's sound of protest with a sharp derisive glance.
+"Well, what's the use of mincing matters? We all know that's what
+Bertha brought her abroad for. When Bertha wants to have a good
+time she has to provide occupation for George. At first I thought
+Lily was going to play her cards well THIS time, but there are
+rumours that Bertha is jealous of her success here and at Cannes,
+and I shouldn't be surprised if there were a break any
+day. Lily's only safeguard is that Bertha needs her badly--oh,
+very badly. The Silverton affair is in the acute stage: it's
+necessary that George's attention should be pretty continuously
+distracted. And I'm bound to say Lily DOES distract it: I believe
+he'd marry her tomorrow if he found out there was anything wrong
+with Bertha. But you know him--he's as blind as he's jealous; and
+of course Lily's present business is to keep him blind. A clever
+woman might know just the right moment to tear off the bandage:
+but Lily isn't clever in that way, and when George does open his
+eyes she'll probably contrive not to be in his line of vision."
+
+Selden tossed away his cigarette. "By Jove--it's time for my
+train," he exclaimed, with a glance at his watch; adding, in
+reply to Mrs. Fisher's surprised comment--"Why, I thought of
+course you were at Monte!"--a murmured word to the effect that he
+was making Nice his head-quarters.
+
+"The worst of it is, she snubs the Brys now," he heard
+irrelevantly flung after him.
+
+Ten minutes later, in the high-perched bedroom of an hotel
+overlooking the Casino, he was tossing his effects into a couple
+of gaping portmanteaux, while the porter waited outside to
+transport them to the cab at the door. It took but a brief plunge
+down the steep white road to the station to land him safely in
+the afternoon express for Nice; and not till he was installed in
+the corner of an empty carriage, did he exclaim to himself, with
+a reaction of self-contempt: "What the deuce am I running away
+from?"
+
+The pertinence of the question checked Selden's fugitive impulse
+before the train had started. It was ridiculous to be flying like
+an emotional coward from an infatuation his reason had conquered.
+He had instructed his bankers to forward some important business
+letters to Nice, and at Nice he would quietly await them. He was
+already annoyed with himself for having left Monte Carlo, where
+he had intended to pass the week which remained to him before
+sailing; but it would now be difficult to return on his steps
+without an appearance of inconsistency from which his pride
+recoiled. In his inmost heart he was not sorry to put himself
+beyond the probability of meeting Miss Bart. Completely as he had
+detached himself from her, he could not yet regard her merely as a
+social instance; and viewed in a more personal ways she was not
+likely to be a reassuring object of study. Chance encounters, or
+even the repeated mention of her name, would send his thoughts
+back into grooves from which he had resolutely detached them;
+whereas, if she could be entirely excluded from his life, the
+pressure of new and varied impressions, with which no thought of
+her was connected, would soon complete the work of separation.
+Mrs. Fisher's conversation had, indeed, operated to that end; but
+the treatment was too painful to be voluntarily chosen while
+milder remedies were untried; and Selden thought he could trust
+himself to return gradually to a reasonable view of Miss Bart, if
+only he did not see her.
+
+Having reached the station early, he had arrived at this point in
+his reflections before the increasing throng on the platform
+warned him that he could not hope to preserve his privacy; the
+next moment there was a hand on the door, and he turned to
+confront the very face he was fleeing.
+
+Miss Bart, glowing with the haste of a precipitate descent upon
+the train, headed a group composed of the Dorsets, young
+Silverton and Lord Hubert Dacey, who had barely time to spring
+into the carriage, and envelop Selden in ejaculations of surprise
+and welcome, before the whistle of departure sounded. The party,
+it appeared, were hastening to Nice in response to a sudden
+summons to dine with the Duchess of Beltshire and to see the
+water-fete in the bay; a plan evidently improvised--in spite of
+Lord Hubert's protesting "Oh, I say, you know,"--for the express
+purpose of defeating Mrs. Bry's endeavour to capture the Duchess.
+
+During the laughing relation of this manoeuvre, Selden had time
+for a rapid impression of Miss Bart, who had seated herself
+opposite to him in the golden afternoon light. Scarcely three
+months had elapsed since he had parted from her on the threshold
+of the Brys' conservatory; but a subtle change had passed over
+the quality of her beauty. Then it had had a transparency through
+which the fluctuations of the spirit were sometimes tragically
+visible; now its impenetrable surface suggested a process of
+crystallization which had fused her whole being into one hard
+brilliant substance. The change had struck Mrs. Fisher as
+a rejuvenation: to Selden it seemed like that moment of pause and
+arrest when the warm fluidity of youth is chilled into its final
+shape.
+
+He felt it in the way she smiled on him, and in the readiness and
+competence with which, flung unexpectedly into his presence, she
+took up the thread of their intercourse as though that thread had
+not been snapped with a violence from which he still reeled. Such
+facility sickened him--but he told himself that it was with the
+pang which precedes recovery. Now he would really get well--would
+eject the last drop of poison from his blood. Already he felt
+himself calmer in her presence than he had learned to be in the
+thought of her. Her assumptions and elisions, her short-cuts and
+long DETOURS, the skill with which she contrived to meet him at a
+point from which no inconvenient glimpses of the past were
+visible, suggested what opportunities she had had for practising
+such arts since their last meeting. He felt that she had at last
+arrived at an understanding with herself: had made a pact with
+her rebellious impulses, and achieved a uniform system of
+self-government, under which all vagrant tendencies were either
+held captive or forced into the service of the state.
+
+And he saw other things too in her manner: saw how it had
+adjusted itself to the hidden intricacies of a situation in
+which, even after Mrs. Fisher's elucidating flashes, he still
+felt himself agrope. Surely Mrs. Fisher could no longer charge
+Miss Bart with neglecting her opportunities! To Selden's
+exasperated observation she was only too completely alive to
+them. She was "perfect" to every one: subservient to Bertha's
+anxious predominance, good-naturedly watchful of Dorset's moods,
+brightly companionable to Silverton and Dacey, the latter of whom
+met her on an evident footing of old admiration, while young
+Silverton, portentously self-absorbed, seemed conscious of her
+only as of something vaguely obstructive. And suddenly, as Selden
+noted the fine shades of manner by which she harmonized herself
+with her surroundings, it flashed on him that, to need such
+adroit handling, the situation must indeed be desperate. She was
+on the edge of something--that was the impression left with him.
+He seemed to see her poised on the brink of a chasm, with one
+graceful foot advanced to assert her unconsciousness that
+the ground was failing her.
+
+On the Promenade des Anglais, where Ned Silverton hung on him for
+the half hour before dinner, he received a deeper impression of
+the general insecurity. Silverton was in a mood of Titanic
+pessimism. How any one could come to such a damned hole as the
+Riviera--any one with a grain of imagination--with the whole
+Mediterranean to choose from: but then, if one's estimate of a
+place depended on the way they broiled a spring chicken! Gad!
+what a study might be made of the tyranny of the stomach--the way
+a sluggish liver or insufficient gastric juices might affect the
+whole course of the universe, overshadow everything in
+reach--chronic dyspepsia ought to be among the "statutory
+causes"; a woman's life might be ruined by a man's inability to
+digest fresh bread. Grotesque? Yes--and tragic--like most
+absurdities. There's nothing grimmer than the tragedy that wears
+a comic mask.... Where was he? Oh--the reason they chucked Sicily
+and rushed back? Well--partly, no doubt, Miss Bart's desire to
+get back to bridge and smartness. Dead as a stone to art and
+poetry--the light never WAS on sea or land for her! And of course
+she persuaded Dorset that the Italian food was bad for him. Oh,
+she could make him believe anything--ANYTHING! Mrs. Dorset was
+aware of it--oh, perfectly: nothing SHE didn't see! But she could
+hold her tongue--she'd had to, often enough. Miss Bart was an
+intimate friend--she wouldn't hear a word against her. Only it
+hurts a woman's pride--there are some things one doesn't get used
+to . . . All this in confidence, of course? Ah--and there were
+the ladies signalling from the balcony of the hotel.... He
+plunged across the Promenade, leaving Selden to a meditative
+cigar.
+
+The conclusions it led him to were fortified, later in the
+evening, by some of those faint corroborative hints that generate
+a light of their own in the dusk of a doubting mind. Selden,
+stumbling on a chance acquaintance, had dined with him, and
+adjourned, still in his company, to the brightly lit Promenade,
+where a line of crowded stands commanded the glittering darkness
+of the waters. The night was soft and persuasive. Overhead hung
+a summer sky furrowed with the rush of rockets; and from
+the east a late moon, pushing up beyond the lofty bend of the
+coast, sent across the bay a shaft of brightness which paled to
+ashes in the red glitter of the illuminated boats. Down the
+lantern-hung Promenade, snatches of band-music floated above the
+hum of the crowd and the soft tossing of boughs in dusky gardens;
+and between these gardens and the backs of the stands there
+flowed a stream of people in whom the vociferous carnival mood
+seemed tempered by the growing languor of the season.
+
+Selden and his companion, unable to get seats on one of the
+stands facing the bay, had wandered for a while with the throng,
+and then found a point of vantage on a high garden-parapet above
+the Promenade. Thence they caught but a triangular glimpse of
+the water, and of the flashing play of boats across its surface;
+but the crowd in the street was under their immediate view, and
+seemed to Selden, on the whole, of more interest than the show
+itself. After a while, however, he wearied of his perch and,
+dropping alone to the pavement, pushed his way to the first
+corner and turned into the moonlit silence of a side street. Long
+garden-walls overhung by trees made a dark boundary to the
+pavement; an empty cab trailed along the deserted thoroughfare,
+and presently Selden saw two persons emerge from the opposite
+shadows, signal to the cab, and drive off in it toward the centre
+of the town. The moonlight touched them as they paused to enter
+the carriage, and he recognized Mrs. Dorset and young Silverton.
+
+Beneath the nearest lamp-post he glanced at his watch and saw
+that the time was close on eleven. He took another cross street,
+and without breasting the throng on the Promenade, made his way
+to the fashionable club which overlooks that thoroughfare. Here,
+amid the blaze of crowded baccarat tables, he caught sight of
+Lord Hubert Dacey, seated with his habitual worn smile behind a
+rapidly dwindling heap of gold. The heap being in due course
+wiped out, Lord Hubert rose with a shrug, and joining Selden,
+adjourned with him to the deserted terrace of the club. It was
+now past midnight, and the throng on the stands was dispersing,
+while the long trails of red-lit boats scattered and faded
+beneath a sky repossessed by the tranquil splendour of the moon.
+
+Lord Hubert looked at his watch. "By Jove, I promised to
+join the Duchess for supper at the LONDON HOUSE; but it's past
+twelve, and I suppose they've all scattered. The fact is, I lost
+them in the crowd soon after dinner, and took refuge here, for my
+sins. They had seats on one of the stands, but of course they
+couldn't stop quiet: the Duchess never can. She and Miss Bart
+went off in quest of what they call adventures--gad, it ain't
+their fault if they don't have some queer ones!" He added
+tentatively, after pausing to grope for a cigarette: "Miss Bart's
+an old friend of yours, I believe? So she told me.--Ah, thanks--I
+don't seem to have one left." He lit Selden's proffered
+cigarette, and continued, in his high-pitched drawling tone:
+"None of my business, of course, but I didn't introduce her to
+the Duchess. Charming woman, the Duchess, you understand; and a
+very good friend of mine; but RATHER a liberal education."
+
+Selden received this in silence, and after a few puffs Lord
+Hubert broke out again: "Sort of thing one can't communicate to
+the young lady--though young ladies nowadays are so competent to
+judge for themselves; but in this case--I'm an old friend too,
+you know . . . and there seemed no one else to speak to. The
+whole situation's a little mixed, as I see it--but there used to
+be an aunt somewhere, a diffuse and innocent person, who was
+great at bridging over chasms she didn't see . . . Ah, in New
+York, is she? Pity New York's such a long way off!"
+
+
+
+Chapter 2
+
+Miss Bart, emerging late the next morning from her cabin, found
+herself alone on the deck of the Sabrina. The cushioned chairs,
+disposed expectantly under the wide awning, showed no signs of
+recent occupancy, and she presently learned from a steward that
+Mrs. Dorset had not yet appeared, and that the
+gentlemen--separately--had gone ashore as soon as they had
+breakfasted. Supplied with these facts, Lily leaned awhile over
+the side, giving herself up to a leisurely enjoyment of the
+spectacle before her. Unclouded sunlight enveloped sea and shore
+in a bath of purest radiancy. The purpling waters drew a sharp
+white line of foam at the base of the shore; against its
+irregular eminences, hotels and villas flashed from the greyish
+verdure of olive and eucalyptus; and the background of bare and
+finely-pencilled mountains quivered in a pale intensity of light.
+
+
+How beautiful it was--and how she loved beauty! She had always
+felt that her sensibility in this direction made up for certain
+obtusenesses of feeling of which she was less proud; and during
+the last three months she had indulged it passionately. The
+Dorsets' invitation to go abroad with them had come as an almost
+miraculous release from crushing difficulties; and her faculty
+for renewing herself in new scenes, and casting off problems of
+conduct as easily as the surroundings in which they had arisen,
+made the mere change from one place to another seem, not merely a
+postponement, but a solution of her troubles. Moral complications
+existed for her only in the environment that had produced them;
+she did not mean to slight or ignore them, but they lost their
+reality when they changed their background. She could not have
+remained in New York without repaying the money she owed to
+Trenor; to acquit herself of that odious debt she might even have
+faced a marriage with Rosedale; but the accident of placing the
+Atlantic between herself and her obligations made them dwindle
+out of sight as if they had been milestones and she had travelled
+past them.
+
+Her two months on the Sabrina had been especially calculated to
+aid this illusion of distance. She had been plunged into
+new scenes, and had found in them a renewal of old hopes and
+ambitions. The cruise itself charmed her as a romantic adventure.
+She was vaguely touched by the names and scenes amid which she
+moved, and had listened to Ned Silverton reading Theocritus by
+moonlight, as the yacht rounded the Sicilian promontories, with a
+thrill of the nerves that confirmed her belief in her
+intellectual superiority. But the weeks at Cannes and Nice had
+really given her more pleasure. The gratification of being
+welcomed in high company, and of making her own ascendency felt
+there, so that she found herself figuring once more as the
+"beautiful Miss Bart" in the interesting journal devoted to
+recording the least movements of her cosmopolitan companions--all
+these experiences tended to throw into the extreme background of
+memory the prosaic and sordid difficulties from which she had
+escaped.
+
+If she was faintly aware of fresh difficulties ahead, she was
+sure of her ability to meet them: it was characteristic of her to
+feel that the only problems she could not solve were those with
+which she was familiar. Meanwhile she could honestly be proud of
+the skill with which she had adapted herself to somewhat delicate
+conditions. She had reason to think that she had made herself
+equally necessary to her host and hostess; and if only she had
+seen any perfectly irreproachable means of drawing a financial
+profit from the situation, there would have been no cloud on her
+horizon. The truth was that her funds, as usual, were
+inconveniently low; and to neither Dorset nor his wife could this
+vulgar embarrassment be safely hinted. Still, the need was not a
+pressing one; she could worry along, as she had so often done
+before, with the hope of some happy change of fortune to sustain
+her; and meanwhile life was gay and beautiful and easy, and she
+was conscious of figuring not unworthily in such a setting.
+
+She was engaged to breakfast that morning with the Duchess of
+Beltshire, and at twelve o'clock she asked to be set ashore in
+the gig. Before this she had sent her maid to enquire if she
+might see Mrs. Dorset; but the reply came back that the latter
+was tired, and trying to sleep. Lily thought she understood the
+reason of the rebuff. Her hostess had not been included in the
+Duchess's invitation, though she herself had made the
+most loyal efforts in that direction. But her grace was
+impervious to hints, and invited or omitted as she chose. It was
+not Lily's fault if Mrs. Dorset's complicated attitudes did not
+fall in with the Duchess's easy gait. The Duchess, who seldom
+explained herself, had not formulated her objection beyond
+saying: "She's rather a bore, you know. The only one of your
+friends I like is that little Mr. Bry--HE'S funny--" but Lily
+knew enough not to press the point, and was not altogether sorry
+to be thus distinguished at her friend's expense. Bertha
+certainly HAD grown tiresome since she had taken to poetry and
+Ned Silverton.
+
+On the whole, it was a relief to break away now and then from the
+Sabrina; and the Duchess's little breakfast, organized by Lord
+Hubert with all his usual virtuosity, was the pleasanter to Lily
+for not including her travelling-companions. Dorset, of late, had
+grown more than usually morose and incalculable, and Ned
+Silverton went about with an air that seemed to challenge the
+universe. The freedom and lightness of the ducal intercourse made
+an agreeable change from these complications, and Lily was
+tempted, after luncheon, to adjourn in the wake of her companions
+to the hectic atmosphere of the Casino. She did not mean to play;
+her diminished pocket-money offered small scope for the
+adventure; but it amused her to sit on a divan, under the
+doubtful protection of the Duchess's back, while the latter hung
+above her stakes at a neighbouring table.
+
+The rooms were packed with the gazing throng which, in the
+afternoon hours, trickles heavily between the tables, like the
+Sunday crowd in a lion-house. In the stagnant flow of the mass,
+identities were hardly distinguishable; but Lily presently saw
+Mrs. Bry cleaving her determined way through the doors, and, in
+the broad wake she left, the light figure of Mrs. Fisher bobbing
+after her like a row-boat at the stern of a tug. Mrs. Bry pressed
+on, evidently animated by the resolve to reach a certain point in
+the rooms; but Mrs. Fisher, as she passed Lily, broke from her
+towing-line, and let herself float to the girl's side.
+
+"Lose her?" she echoed the latter's query, with an indifferent
+glance at Mrs. Bry's retreating back. "I daresay--it doesn't
+matter: I HAVE lost her already." And, as Lily exclaimed,
+she added: "We had an awful row this morning. You know, of
+course, that the Duchess chucked her at dinner last night, and
+she thinks it was my fault--my want of management. The worst of
+it is, the message--just a mere word by telephone--came so late
+that the dinner HAD to be paid for; and Becassin HAD run it
+up--it had been so drummed into him that the Duchess was coming!"
+Mrs. Fisher indulged in a faint laugh at the remembrance. "Paying
+for what she doesn't get rankles so dreadfully with Louisa: I
+can't make her see that it's one of the preliminary steps to
+getting what you haven't paid for--and as I was the nearest thing
+to smash, she smashed me to atoms, poor dear!"
+
+Lily murmured her commiseration. Impulses of sympathy came
+naturally to her, and it was instinctive to proffer her help to
+Mrs. Fisher.
+
+"If there's anything I can do--if it's only a question of meeting
+the Duchess! I heard her say she thought Mr. Bry amusing---"
+
+But Mrs. Fisher interposed with a decisive gesture. "My dear, I
+have my pride: the pride of my trade. I couldn't manage the
+Duchess, and I can't palm off your arts on Louisa Bry as mine.
+I've taken the final step: I go to Paris tonight with the Sam
+Gormers. THEY'RE still in the elementary stage; an Italian Prince
+is a great deal more than a Prince to them, and they're always on
+the brink of taking a courier for one. To save them from that is
+my present mission." She laughed again at the picture. "But
+before I go I want to make my last will and testament--I want to
+leave you the Brys."
+
+"Me?" Miss Bart joined in her amusement. "It's charming of you to
+remember me, dear; but really---"
+
+"You're already so well provided for?" Mrs. Fisher flashed a
+sharp glance at her. "ARE you, though, Lily--to the point of
+rejecting my offer?"
+
+Miss Bart coloured slowly. "What I really meant was, that the
+Brys wouldn't in the least care to be so disposed of."
+
+Mrs. Fisher continued to probe her embarrassment with an
+unflinching eye. "What you really meant was that you've snubbed
+the Brys horribly; and you know that they know---"
+
+"Carry!"
+
+"Oh, on certain sides Louisa bristles with perceptions. If you'd
+even managed to have them asked once on the Sabrina--especially
+when royalties were coming! But it's not too late," she ended
+earnestly, "it's not too late for either of you."
+
+Lily smiled. "Stay over, and I'll get the Duchess to dine with
+them."
+
+"I shan't stay over--the Gormers have paid for my SALON-LIT,"
+said Mrs. Fisher with simplicity. "But get the Duchess to dine
+with them all the same."
+
+Lily's smile again flowed into a slight laugh: her friend's
+importunity was beginning to strike her as irrelevant. "I'm sorry
+I have been negligent about the Brys---" she began.
+
+"Oh, as to the Brys--it's you I'm thinking of," said Mrs. Fisher
+abruptly. She paused, and then, bending forward, with a lowered
+voice: "You know we all went on to Nice last night when the
+Duchess chucked us. It was Louisa's idea--I told her what I
+thought of it."
+
+Miss Bart assented. "Yes--I caught sight of you on the way back,
+at the station."
+
+"Well, the man who was in the carriage with you and George
+Dorset--that horrid little Dabham who does 'Society Notes from
+the Riviera'--had been dining with us at Nice. And he's telling
+everybody that you and Dorset came back alone after midnight."
+
+"Alone--? When he was with us?" Lily laughed, but her laugh faded
+into gravity under the prolonged implication of Mrs. Fisher's
+look. "We DID come back alone--if that's so very dreadful! But
+whose fault was it? The Duchess was spending the night at Cimiez
+with the Crown Princess; Bertha got bored with the show, and went
+off early, promising to meet us at the station. We turned up on
+time, but she didn't--she didn't turn up at all!"
+
+Miss Bart made this announcement in the tone of one who presents,
+with careless assurance, a complete vindication; but Mrs. Fisher
+received it in a manner almost inconsequent. She seemed to have
+lost sight of her friend's part in the incident: her inward
+vision had taken another slant.
+
+"Bertha never turned up at all? Then how on earth did she get
+back?"
+
+"Oh, by the next train, I suppose; there were two extra ones for
+the FETE. At any rate, I know she's safe on the yacht, though I
+haven't yet seen her; but you see it was not my fault," Lily
+summed up.
+
+"Not your fault that Bertha didn't turn up? My poor child, if
+only you don't have to pay for it!" Mrs. Fisher rose--she had
+seen Mrs. Bry surging back in her direction. "There's Louisa, and
+I must be off--oh, we're on the best of terms externally; we're
+lunching together; but at heart it's ME she's lunching on," she
+explained; and with a last hand-clasp and a last look, she added:
+"Remember, I leave her to you; she's hovering now, ready to take
+you in."
+
+
+
+Lily carried the impression of Mrs. Fisher's leave-taking away
+with her from the Casino doors. She had accomplished, before
+leaving, the first step toward her reinstatement in Mrs. Bry's
+good graces. An affable advance--a vague murmur that they must
+see more of each other--an allusive glance to a near future that
+was felt to include the Duchess as well as the Sabrina--how
+easily it was all done, if one possessed the knack of doing it!
+She wondered at herself, as she had so often wondered, that,
+possessing the knack, she did not more consistently exercise it.
+But sometimes she was forgetful--and sometimes, could it be that
+she was proud? Today, at any rate, she had been vaguely conscious
+of a reason for sinking her pride, had in fact even sunk it to
+the point of suggesting to Lord Hubert Dacey, whom she ran across
+on the Casino steps, that he might really get the Duchess to dine
+with the Brys, if SHE undertook to have them asked on the
+Sabrina. Lord Hubert had promised his help, with the readiness on
+which she could always count: it was his only way of ever
+reminding her that he had once been ready to do so much more for
+her. Her path, in short, seemed to smooth itself before her as
+she advanced; yet the faint stir of uneasiness persisted. Had it
+been produced, she wondered, by her chance meeting with Selden?
+She thought not--time and change seemed so completely to have
+relegated him to his proper distance. The sudden and exquisite
+reaction from her anxieties had had the effect of throwing the
+recent past so far back that even Selden, as part of it, retained
+a certain air of unreality. And he had made it so clear
+that they were not to meet again; that he had merely dropped down
+to Nice for a day or two, and had almost his foot on the next
+steamer. No--that part of the past had merely surged up for a
+moment on the fleeing surface of events; and now that it was
+submerged again, the uncertainty, the apprehension persisted.
+
+They grew to sudden acuteness as she caught sight of George
+Dorset descending the steps of the Hotel de Paris and making for
+her across the square. She had meant to drive down to the quay
+and regain the yacht; but she now had the immediate impression
+that something more was to happen first.
+
+"Which way are you going? Shall we walk a bit?" he began, putting
+the second question before the first was answered, and not
+waiting for a reply to either before he directed her silently
+toward the comparative seclusion of the lower gardens.
+
+She detected in him at once all the signs of extreme nervous
+tension. The skin was puffed out under his sunken eyes, and its
+sallowness had paled to a leaden white against which his
+irregular eyebrows and long reddish moustache were relieved with
+a saturnine effect. His appearance, in short, presented an odd
+mixture of the bedraggled and the ferocious.
+
+He walked beside her in silence, with quick precipitate steps,
+till they reached the embowered slopes to the east of the Casino;
+then, pulling up abruptly, he said: "Have you seen Bertha?"
+
+"No--when I left the yacht she was not yet up."
+
+He received this with a laugh like the whirring sound in a
+disabled clock. "Not yet up? Had she gone to bed? Do you know at
+what time she came on board? This morning at seven!" he
+exclaimed.
+
+"At seven?" Lily started. "What happened--an accident to the
+train?"
+
+He laughed again. "They missed the train--all the trains--they
+had to drive back."
+
+"Well---?" She hesitated, feeling at once how little even this
+necessity accounted for the fatal lapse of hours.
+
+"Well, they couldn't get a carriage at once--at that time of
+night, you know--" the explanatory note made it almost
+seem as though he were putting the case for his wife--"and when
+they finally did, it was only a one-horse cab, and the horse was
+lame!"
+
+"How tiresome! I see," she affirmed, with the more earnestness
+because she was so nervously conscious that she did not; and
+after a pause she added: "I'm so sorry--but ought we to have
+waited?"
+
+"Waited for the one-horse cab? It would scarcely have carried the
+four of us, do you think?"
+
+She took this in what seemed the only possible way, with a laugh
+intended to sink the question itself in his humorous treatment of
+it. "Well, it would have been difficult; we should have had to
+walk by turns. But it would have been jolly to see the sunrise."
+
+"Yes: the sunrise WAS jolly," he agreed.
+
+"Was it? You saw it, then?"
+
+"I saw it, yes; from the deck. I waited up for them."
+
+"Naturally--I suppose you were worried. Why didn't you call on me
+to share your vigil?"
+
+He stood still, dragging at his moustache with a lean weak hand.
+"I don't think you would have cared for its DENOUEMENT," he said
+with sudden grimness.
+
+Again she was disconcerted by the abrupt change in his tone, and
+as in one flash she saw the peril of the moment, and the need of
+keeping her sense of it out of her eyes.
+
+"DENOUEMENT--isn't that too big a word for such a small incident?
+The worst of it, after all, is the fatigue which Bertha has
+probably slept off by this time."
+
+She clung to the note bravely, though its futility was now plain
+to her in the glare of his miserable eyes.
+
+"Don't--don't---!" he broke out, with the hurt cry of a child;
+and while she tried to merge her sympathy, and her resolve to
+ignore any cause for it, in one ambiguous murmur of deprecation,
+he dropped down on the bench near which they had paused, and
+poured out the wretchedness of his soul.
+
+It was a dreadful hour--an hour from which she emerged shrinking
+and seared, as though her lids had been scorched by its actual
+glare. It was not that she had never had premonitory glimpses of
+such an outbreak; but rather because, here and there
+throughout the three months, the surface of life had shown such
+ominous cracks and vapours that her fears had always been on the
+alert for an upheaval. There had been moments when the situation
+had presented itself under a homelier yet more vivid image--that
+of a shaky vehicle, dashed by unbroken steeds over a bumping
+road, while she cowered within, aware that the harness wanted
+mending, and wondering what would give way first.
+Well--everything had given way now; and the wonder was that the
+crazy outfit had held together so long. Her sense of being
+involved in the crash, instead of merely witnessing it from the
+road, was intensified by the way in which Dorset, through his
+furies of denunciation and wild reactions of self-contempt, made
+her feel the need he had of her, the place she had taken in his
+life. But for her, what ear would have been open to his cries?
+And what hand but hers could drag him up again to a footing of
+sanity and self-respect? All through the stress of the struggle
+with him, she had been conscious of something faintly maternal in
+her efforts to guide and uplift him. But for the present, if he
+clung to her, it was not in order to be dragged up, but to feel
+some one floundering in the depths with him: he wanted her to
+suffer with him, not to help him to suffer less.
+
+Happily for both, there was little physical strength to sustain
+his frenzy. It left him, collapsed and breathing heavily, to an
+apathy so deep and prolonged that Lily almost feared the
+passers-by would think it the result of a seizure, and stop to
+offer their aid. But Monte Carlo is, of all places, the one where
+the human bond is least close, and odd sights are the least
+arresting. If a glance or two lingered on the couple, no
+intrusive sympathy disturbed them; and it was Lily herself who
+broke the silence by rising from her seat. With the clearing of
+her vision the sweep of peril had extended, and she saw that the
+post of danger was no longer at Dorset's side.
+
+"If you won't go back, I must--don't make me leave you!" she
+urged.
+
+But he remained mutely resistant, and she added: "What are you
+going to do? You really can't sit here all night."
+
+"I can go to an hotel. I can telegraph my lawyers." He sat up,
+roused by a new thought. "By Jove, Selden's at Nice--I'll send
+for Selden!"
+
+Lily, at this, reseated herself with a cry of alarm. "No, no, NO!"
+she protested.
+
+He swung round on her distrustfully. "Why not Selden? He's a
+lawyer isn't he? One will do as well as another in a case like
+this."
+
+"As badly as another, you mean. I thought you relied on ME to
+help you."
+
+"You do--by being so sweet and patient with me. If it hadn't been
+for you I'd have ended the thing long ago. But now it's got to
+end." He rose suddenly, straightening himself with an effort.
+"You can't want to see me ridiculous."
+
+She looked at him kindly. "That's just it." Then, after a
+moment's pondering, almost to her own surprise she broke out with
+a flash of inspiration: "Well, go over and see Mr. Selden. You'll
+have time to do it before dinner."
+
+"Oh, DINNER---" he mocked her; but she left him with the smiling
+rejoinder: "Dinner on board, remember; we'll put it off till nine
+if you like."
+
+It was past four already; and when a cab had dropped her at the
+quay, and she stood waiting for the gig to put off for her, she
+began to wonder what had been happening on the yacht. Of
+Silverton's whereabouts there had been no mention. Had he
+returned to the Sabrina? Or could Bertha--the dread alternative
+sprang on her suddenly--could Bertha, left to herself, have gone
+ashore to rejoin him? Lily's heart stood still at the thought.
+All her concern had hitherto been for young Silverton, not only
+because, in such affairs, the woman's instinct is to side with
+the man, but because his case made a peculiar appeal to her
+sympathies. He was so desperately in earnest, poor youth, and his
+earnestness was of so different a quality from Bertha's, though
+hers too was desperate enough. The difference was that Bertha was
+in earnest only about herself, while he was in earnest about her.
+But now, at the actual crisis, this difference seemed to throw
+the weight of destitution on Bertha's side, since at least he had
+her to suffer for, and she had only herself. At any rate, viewed
+less ideally, all the disadvantages of such a situation were for
+the woman; and it was to Bertha that Lily's sympathies now went
+out. She was not fond of Bertha Dorset, but neither was she
+without a sense of obligation, the heavier for having so little
+personal liking to sustain it. Bertha had been kind to her, they
+had lived together, during the last months, on terms of easy
+friendship, and the sense of friction of which Lily had recently
+become aware seemed to make it the more urgent that she should
+work undividedly in her friend's interest.
+
+It was in Bertha's interest, certainly, that she had despatched
+Dorset to consult with Lawrence Selden. Once the grotesqueness of
+the situation accepted, she had seen at a glance that it was the
+safest in which Dorset could find himself. Who but Selden could
+thus miraculously combine the skill to save Bertha with the
+obligation of doing so? The consciousness that much skill would
+be required made Lily rest thankfully in the greatness of the
+obligation. Since he would HAVE to pull Bertha through she could
+trust him to find a way; and she put the fulness of her trust in
+the telegram she managed to send him on her way to the quay.
+
+Thus far, then, Lily felt that she had done well; and the
+conviction strengthened her for the task that remained. She and
+Bertha had never been on confidential terms, but at such a crisis
+the barriers of reserve must surely fall: Dorset's wild allusions
+to the scene of the morning made Lily feel that they were down
+already, and that any attempt to rebuild them would be beyond
+Bertha's strength. She pictured the poor creature shivering
+behind her fallen defences and awaiting with suspense the moment
+when she could take refuge in the first shelter that offered. If
+only that shelter had not already offered itself elsewhere! As
+the gig traversed the short distance between the quay and the
+yacht, Lily grew more than ever alarmed at the possible
+consequences of her long absence. What if the wretched Bertha,
+finding in all the long hours no soul to turn to--but by this
+time Lily's eager foot was on the side-ladder, and her first step
+on the Sabrina showed the worst of her apprehensions to be
+unfounded; for there, in the luxurious shade of the after-deck,
+the wretched Bertha, in full command of her usual attenuated
+elegance, sat dispensing tea to the Duchess of Beltshire and Lord
+Hubert.
+
+The sight filled Lily with such surprise that she felt that
+Bertha, at least, must read its meaning in her look, and she was
+proportionately disconcerted by the blankness of the look
+returned. But in an instant she saw that Mrs. Dorset had, of
+necessity, to look blank before the others, and that, to mitigate
+the effect of her own surprise, she must at once produce some
+simple reason for it. The long habit of rapid transitions made it
+easy for her to exclaim to the Duchess: "Why, I thought you'd
+gone back to the Princess!" and this sufficed for the lady she
+addressed, if it was hardly enough for Lord Hubert.
+
+At least it opened the way to a lively explanation of how the
+Duchess was, in fact, going back the next moment, but had first
+rushed out to the yacht for a word with Mrs. Dorset on the
+subject of tomorrow's dinner--the dinner with the Brys, to which
+Lord Hubert had finally insisted on dragging them.
+
+"To save my neck, you know!" he explained, with a glance that
+appealed to Lily for some recognition of his promptness; and the
+Duchess added, with her noble candour: "Mr. Bry has promised him
+a tip, and he says if we go he'll pass it onto us."
+
+This led to some final pleasantries, in which, as it seemed to
+Lily, Mrs. Dorset bore her part with astounding bravery, and at
+the close of which Lord Hubert, from half way down the
+side-ladder, called back, with an air of numbering heads: "And of
+course we may count on Dorset too?"
+
+"Oh, count on him," his wife assented gaily. She was keeping up
+well to the last--but as she turned back from waving her adieux
+over the side, Lily said to herself that the mask must drop and
+the soul of fear look out.
+
+Mrs. Dorset turned back slowly; perhaps she wanted time to steady
+her muscles; at any rate, they were still under perfect control
+when, dropping once more into her seat behind the tea-table, she
+remarked to Miss Bart with a faint touch of irony: "I suppose I
+ought to say good morning."
+
+If it was a cue, Lily was ready to take it, though with only the
+vaguest sense of what was expected of her in return. There was
+something unnerving in the contemplation of Mrs. Dorset's
+composure, and she had to force the light tone in which she
+answered: "I tried to see you this morning, but you were not yet
+up."
+
+"No--I got to bed late. After we missed you at the station
+I thought we ought to wait for you till the last train."
+She spoke very gently, but with just the least tinge of reproach.
+
+"You missed us? You waited for us at the station?" Now indeed
+Lily was too far adrift in bewilderment to measure the other's
+words or keep watch on her own. "But I thought you didn't get to
+the station till after the last train had left!"
+
+Mrs. Dorset, examining her between lowered lids, met this with
+the immediate query: "Who told you that?"
+
+"George--I saw him just now in the gardens."
+
+"Ah, is that George's version? Poor George--he was in no state to
+remember what I told him. He had one of his worst attacks this
+morning, and I packed him off to see the doctor. Do you know if
+he found him?"
+
+Lily, still lost in conjecture, made no reply, and Mrs. Dorset
+settled herself indolently in her seat. "He'll wait to see him;
+he was horribly frightened about himself. It's very bad for him
+to be worried, and whenever anything upsetting happens, it always
+brings on an attack."
+
+This time Lily felt sure that a cue was being pressed on her; but
+it was put forth with such startling suddenness, and with so
+incredible an air of ignoring what it led up to, that she could
+only falter out doubtfully: "Anything upsetting?"
+
+"Yes--such as having you so conspicuously on his hands in the
+small hours. You know, my dear, you're rather a big
+responsibility in such a scandalous place after midnight."
+
+At that--at the complete unexpectedness and the inconceivable
+audacity of it--Lily could not restrain the tribute of an
+astonished laugh.
+
+"Well, really--considering it was you who burdened him with the
+responsibility!"
+
+Mrs. Dorset took this with an exquisite mildness. "By not having
+the superhuman cleverness to discover you in that frightful rush
+for the train? Or the imagination to believe that you'd take it
+without us--you and he all alone--instead of waiting quietly in
+the station till we DID manage to meet you?"
+
+Lily's colour rose: it was growing clear to her that Bertha was
+pursuing an object, following a line she had marked out for
+herself. Only, with such a doom impending, why waste time in
+these childish efforts to avert it? The puerility of the
+attempt disarmed Lily's indignation: did it not prove how
+horribly the poor creature was frightened?
+
+"No; by our simply all keeping together at Nice," she returned.
+
+"Keeping together? When it was you who seized the first
+opportunity to rush off with the Duchess and her friends? My dear
+Lily, you are not a child to be led by the hand!"
+
+"No--nor to be lectured, Bertha, really; if that's what you are
+doing to me now."
+
+Mrs. Dorset smiled on her reproachfully. "Lecture you--I? Heaven
+forbid! I was merely trying to give you a friendly hint. But it's
+usually the other way round, isn't it? I'm expected to take
+hints, not to give them: I've positively lived on them all these
+last months."
+
+"Hints--from me to you?" Lily repeated.
+
+"Oh, negative ones merely--what not to be and to do and to see.
+And I think I've taken them to admiration. Only, my dear, if
+you'll let me say so, I didn't understand that one of my negative
+duties was NOT to warn you when you carried your imprudence too
+far."
+
+A chill of fear passed over Miss Bart: a sense of remembered
+treachery that was like the gleam of a knife in the dusk. But
+compassion, in a moment, got the better of her instinctive
+recoil. What was this outpouring of senseless bitterness but the
+tracked creature's attempt to cloud the medium through which it
+was fleeing? It was on Lily's lips to exclaim: "You poor soul,
+don't double and turn--come straight back to me, and we'll find a
+way out!" But the words died under the impenetrable insolence of
+Bertha's smile. Lily sat silent, taking the brunt of it quietly,
+letting it spend itself on her to the last drop of its
+accumulated falseness; then, without a word, she rose and went
+down to her cabin.
+
+
+
+Chapter 3
+
+Miss Bart's telegram caught Lawrence Selden at the door of his
+hotel; and having read it, he turned back to wait for Dorset. The
+message necessarily left large gaps for conjecture; but all that
+he had recently heard and seen made these but too easy to fill
+in. On the whole he was surprised; for though he had perceived
+that the situation contained all the elements of an explosion, he
+had often enough, in the range of his personal experience, seen
+just such combinations subside into harmlessness. Still, Dorset's
+spasmodic temper, and his wife's reckless disregard of
+appearances, gave the situation a peculiar insecurity; and it was
+less from the sense of any special relation to the case than from
+a purely professional zeal, that Selden resolved to guide the
+pair to safety. Whether, in the present instance, safety for
+either lay in repairing so damaged a tie, it was no business of
+his to consider: he had only, on general principles, to think of
+averting a scandal, and his desire to avert it was increased by
+his fear of its involving Miss Bart. There was nothing specific
+in this apprehension; he merely wished to spare her the
+embarrassment of being ever so remotely connected with the public
+washing of the Dorset linen.
+
+How exhaustive and unpleasant such a process would be, he saw
+even more vividly after his two hours' talk with poor Dorset. If
+anything came out at all, it would be such a vast unpacking of
+accumulated moral rags as left him, after his visitor had gone,
+with the feeling that he must fling open the windows and have his
+room swept out. But nothing should come out; and happily for his
+side of the case, the dirty rags, however pieced together, could
+not, without considerable difficulty, be turned into a
+homogeneous grievance. The torn edges did not always fit--there
+were missing bits, there were disparities of size and colour, all
+of which it was naturally Selden's business to make the most of
+in putting them under his client's eye. But to a man in Dorset's
+mood the completest demonstration could not carry conviction, and
+Selden saw that for the moment all he could do was to soothe and
+temporize, to offer sympathy and to counsel prudence. He let
+Dorset depart charged to the brim with the sense that, till
+their next meeting, he must maintain a strictly noncommittal
+attitude; that, in short, his share in the game consisted for the
+present in looking on. Selden knew, however, that he could not
+long keep such violences in equilibrium; and he promised to meet
+Dorset, the next morning, at an hotel in Monte Carlo. Meanwhile
+he counted not a little on the reaction of weakness and
+self-distrust that, in such natures, follows on every unwonted
+expenditure of moral force; and his telegraphic reply to Miss
+Bart consisted simply in the injunction: "Assume that everything
+is as usual."
+
+On this assumption, in fact, the early part of the following day
+was lived through. Dorset, as if in obedience to Lily's
+imperative bidding, had actually returned in time for a late
+dinner on the yacht. The repast had been the most difficult
+moment of the day. Dorset was sunk in one of the abysmal silences
+which so commonly followed on what his wife called his "attacks"
+that it was easy, before the servants, to refer it to this cause;
+but Bertha herself seemed, perversely enough, little disposed to
+make use of this obvious means of protection. She simply left the
+brunt of the situation on her husband's hands, as if too absorbed
+in a grievance of her own to suspect that she might be the object
+of one herself. To Lily this attitude was the most ominous,
+because the most perplexing, element in the situation. As she
+tried to fan the weak flicker of talk, to build up, again and
+again, the crumbling structure of "appearances," her own
+attention was perpetually distracted by the question: "What on
+earth can she be driving at?" There was something positively
+exasperating in Bertha's attitude of isolated defiance. If only
+she would have given her friend a hint they might still have
+worked together successfully; but how could Lily be of use, while
+she was thus obstinately shut out from participation? To be of
+use was what she honestly wanted; and not for her own sake but
+for the Dorsets'. She had not thought of her own situation at
+all: she was simply engrossed in trying to put a little order in
+theirs. But the close of the short dreary evening left her with a
+sense of effort hopelessly wasted. She had not tried to see
+Dorset alone: she had positively shrunk from a renewal of his
+confidences. It was Bertha whose confidence she sought, and who
+should as eagerly have invited her own; and Bertha, as if in the
+infatuation of self-destruction, was actually pushing away her
+rescuing hand.
+
+Lily, going to bed early, had left the couple to themselves; and
+it seemed part of the general mystery in which she moved that
+more than an hour should elapse before she heard Bertha walk down
+the silent passage and regain her room. The morrow, rising on an
+apparent continuance of the same conditions, revealed nothing of
+what had occurred between the confronted pair. One fact alone
+outwardly proclaimed the change they were all conspiring to
+ignore; and that was the non-appearance of Ned Silverton. No one
+referred to it, and this tacit avoidance of the subject kept it
+in the immediate foreground of consciousness. But there was
+another change, perceptible only to Lily; and that was that
+Dorset now avoided her almost as pointedly as his wife. Perhaps
+he was repenting his rash outpourings of the previous day;
+perhaps only trying, in his clumsy way, to conform to Selden's
+counsel to behave "as usual." Such instructions no more make for
+easiness of attitude than the photographer's behest to "look
+natural"; and in a creature as unconscious as poor Dorset of the
+appearance he habitually presented, the struggle to maintain a
+pose was sure to result in queer contortions.
+
+It resulted, at any rate, in throwing Lily strangely on her own
+resources. She had learned, on leaving her room, that Mrs. Dorset
+was still invisible, and that Dorset had left the yacht early;
+and feeling too restless to remain alone, she too had herself
+ferried ashore. Straying toward the Casino, she attached herself
+to a group of acquaintances from Nice, with whom she lunched, and
+in whose company she was returning to the rooms when she
+encountered Selden crossing the square. She could not, at the
+moment, separate herself definitely from her party, who had
+hospitably assumed that she would remain with them till they took
+their departure; but she found time for a momentary pause of
+enquiry, to which he promptly returned: "I've seen him
+again--he's just left me."
+
+She waited before him anxiously. "Well? what has happened? What
+WILL happen?"
+
+"Nothing as yet--and nothing in the future, I think."
+
+"It's over, then? It's settled? You're sure?"
+
+He smiled. "Give me time. I'm not sure--but I'm a good deal
+surer." And with that she had to content herself, and hasten on
+to the expectant group on the steps.
+
+Selden had in fact given her the utmost measure of his sureness,
+had even stretched it a shade to meet the anxiety in her eyes.
+And now, as he turned away, strolling down the hill toward the
+station, that anxiety remained with him as the visible
+justification of his own. It was not, indeed, anything specific
+that he feared: there had been a literal truth in his declaration
+that he did not think anything would happen. What troubled him
+was that, though Dorset's attitude had perceptibly changed, the
+change was not clearly to be accounted for. It had certainly not
+been produced by Selden's arguments, or by the action of his own
+soberer reason. Five minutes' talk sufficed to show that some
+alien influence had been at work, and that it had not so much
+subdued his resentment as weakened his will, so that he moved
+under it in a state of apathy, like a dangerous lunatic who has
+been drugged. Temporarily, no doubt, however exerted, it worked
+for the general safety: the question was how long it would last,
+and by what kind of reaction it was likely to be followed. On
+these points Selden could gain no light; for he saw that one
+effect of the transformation had been to shut him off from free
+communion with Dorset. The latter, indeed, was still moved by the
+irresistible desire to discuss his wrong; but, though he revolved
+about it with the same forlorn tenacity, Selden was aware that
+something always restrained him from full expression. His state
+was one to produce first weariness and then impatience in his
+hearer; and when their talk was over, Selden began to feel that
+he had done his utmost, and might justifiably wash his hands of
+the sequel.
+
+It was in this mind that he had been making his way back to the
+station when Miss Bart crossed his path; but though, after his
+brief word with her, he kept mechanically on his course, he was
+conscious of a gradual change in his purpose. The change had been
+produced by the look in her eyes; and in his eagerness to define
+the nature of that look, he dropped into a seat in the gardens,
+and sat brooding upon the question. It was natural enough, in all
+conscience, that she should appear anxious: a young woman
+placed, in the close intimacy of a yachting-cruise, between a
+couple on the verge of disaster, could hardly, aside from her
+concern for her friends, be insensible to the awkwardness of her
+own position. The worst of it was that, in interpreting Miss
+Bart's state of mind, so many alternative readings were possible;
+and one of these, in Selden's troubled mind, took the ugly form
+suggested by Mrs. Fisher. If the girl was afraid, was she afraid
+for herself or for her friends? And to what degree was her dread
+of a catastrophe intensified by the sense of being fatally
+involved in it? The burden of offence lying manifestly with Mrs.
+Dorset, this conjecture seemed on the face of it gratuitously
+unkind; but Selden knew that in the most one-sided matrimonial
+quarrel there are generally counter-charges to be brought, and
+that they are brought with the greater audacity where the
+original grievance is so emphatic. Mrs. Fisher had not hesitated
+to suggest the likelihood of Dorset's marrying Miss Bart if
+"anything happened"; and though Mrs. Fisher's conclusions were
+notoriously rash, she was shrewd enough in reading the signs from
+which they were drawn. Dorset had apparently shown marked
+interest in the girl, and this interest might be used to cruel
+advantage in his wife's struggle for rehabilitation. Selden knew
+that Bertha would fight to the last round of powder: the rashness
+of her conduct was illogically combined with a cold determination
+to escape its consequences. She could be as unscrupulous in
+fighting for herself as she was reckless in courting danger, and
+whatever came to her hand at such moments was likely to be used
+as a defensive missile. He did not, as yet, see clearly just what
+course she was likely to take, but his perplexity increased his
+apprehension, and with it the sense that, before leaving, he must
+speak again with Miss Bart. Whatever her share in the
+situation--and he had always honestly tried to resist judging her
+by her surroundings--however free she might be from any personal
+connection with it, she would be better out of the way of a
+possible crash; and since she had appealed to him for help, it
+was clearly his business to tell her so.
+
+This decision at last brought him to his feet, and carried him
+back to the gambling rooms, within whose doors he had seen her
+disappearing; but a prolonged exploration of the crowd
+failed to put him on her traces. He saw instead, to his surprise,
+Ned Silverton loitering somewhat ostentatiously about the tables;
+and the discovery that this actor in the drama was not only
+hovering in the wings, but actually inviting the exposure of the
+footlights, though it might have seemed to imply that all peril
+was over, served rather to deepen Selden's sense of foreboding.
+Charged with this impression he returned to the square, hoping to
+see Miss Bart move across it, as every one in Monte Carlo seemed
+inevitably to do at least a dozen times a day; but here again he
+waited vainly for a glimpse of her, and the conclusion was slowly
+forced on him that she had gone back to the Sabrina. It would be
+difficult to follow her there, and still more difficult, should
+he do so, to contrive the opportunity for a private word; and he
+had almost decided on the unsatisfactory alternative of writing,
+when the ceaseless diorama of the square suddenly unrolled before
+him the figures of Lord Hubert and Mrs. Bry.
+
+Hailing them at once with his question, he learned from Lord
+Hubert that Miss Bart had just returned to the Sabrina in
+Dorset's company; an announcement so evidently disconcerting to
+him that Mrs. Bry, after a glance from her companion, which
+seemed to act like the pressure on a spring, brought forth the
+prompt proposal that he should come and meet his friends at
+dinner that evening--"At Becassin's--a little dinner to the
+Duchess," she flashed out before Lord Hubert had time to remove
+the pressure.
+
+Selden's sense of the privilege of being included in such company
+brought him early in the evening to the door of the restaurant,
+where he paused to scan the ranks of diners approaching down the
+brightly lit terrace. There, while the Brys hovered within over
+the last agitating alternatives of the MENU, he kept watch for
+the guests from the Sabrina, who at length rose on the horizon in
+company with the Duchess, Lord and Lady Skiddaw and the Stepneys.
+From this group it was easy for him to detach Miss Bart on the
+pretext of a moment's glance into one of the brilliant shops
+along the terrace, and to say to her, while they lingered
+together in the white dazzle of a jeweller's window: "I stopped
+over to see you--to beg of you to leave the yacht."
+
+The eyes she turned on him showed a quick gleam of her former
+fear. "To leave--? What do you mean? What has happened?"
+
+"Nothing. But if anything should, why be in the way of it?"
+
+The glare from the jeweller's window, deepening the pallour of
+her face, gave to its delicate lines the sharpness of a tragic
+mask. "Nothing will, I am sure; but while there's even a doubt
+left, how can you think I would leave Bertha?"
+
+The words rang out on a note of contempt--was it possibly of
+contempt for himself? Well, he was willing to risk its renewal to
+the extent of insisting, with an undeniable throb of added
+interest: "You have yourself to think of, you know--" to which,
+with a strange fall of sadness in her voice, she answered,
+meeting his eyes: "If you knew how little difference that makes!"
+
+"Oh, well, nothing WILL happen," he said, more for his own
+reassurance than for hers; and "Nothing, nothing, of course!" she
+valiantly assented, as they turned to overtake their companions.
+
+In the thronged restaurant, taking their places about Mrs. Bry's
+illuminated board, their confidence seemed to gain support from
+the familiarity of their surroundings. Here were Dorset and his
+wife once more presenting their customary faces to the world, she
+engrossed in establishing her relation with an intensely new
+gown, he shrinking with dyspeptic dread from the multiplied
+solicitations of the MENU. The mere fact that they thus showed
+themselves together, with the utmost openness the place afforded,
+seemed to declare beyond a doubt that their differences were
+composed. How this end had been attained was still matter for
+wonder, but it was clear that for the moment Miss Bart rested
+confidently in the result; and Selden tried to achieve the same
+view by telling himself that her opportunities for observation
+had been ampler than his own.
+
+Meanwhile, as the dinner advanced through a labyrinth of courses,
+in which it became clear that Mrs. Bry had occasionally broken
+away from Lord Hubert's restraining hand, Selden's general
+watchfulness began to lose itself in a particular study of Miss
+Bart. It was one of the days when she was so handsome
+that to be handsome was enough, and all the rest--her grace, her
+quickness, her social felicities--seemed the overflow of a
+bounteous nature. But what especially struck him was the way in
+which she detached herself, by a hundred undefinable shades, from
+the persons who most abounded in her own style. It was in just
+such company, the fine flower and complete expression of the
+state she aspired to, that the differences came out with special
+poignancy, her grace cheapening the other women's smartness as
+her finely-discriminated silences made their chatter dull. The
+strain of the last hours had restored to her face the deeper
+eloquence which Selden had lately missed in it, and the bravery
+of her words to him still fluttered in her voice and eyes. Yes,
+she was matchless--it was the one word for her; and he could give
+his admiration the freer play because so little personal feeling
+remained in it. His real detachment from her had taken place, not
+at the lurid moment of disenchantment, but now, in the sober
+after-light of discrimination, where he saw her definitely
+divided from him by the crudeness of a choice which seemed to
+deny the very differences he felt in her. It was before him again
+in its completeness--the choice in which she was content to rest:
+in the stupid costliness of the food and the showy dulness of the
+talk, in the freedom of speech which never arrived at wit and the
+freedom of act which never made for romance. The strident setting
+of the restaurant, in which their table seemed set apart in a
+special glare of publicity, and the presence at it of little
+Dabham of the "Riviera Notes," emphasized the ideals of a world
+where conspicuousness passed for distinction, and the society
+column had become the roll of fame.
+
+It was as the immortalizer of such occasions that little Dabham,
+wedged in modest watchfulness between two brilliant neighbours,
+suddenly became the centre of Selden's scrutiny. How much did he
+know of what was going on, and how much, for his purpose, was
+still worth finding out? His little eyes were like tentacles
+thrown out to catch the floating intimations with which, to
+Selden, the air at moments seemed thick; then again it cleared to
+its normal emptiness, and he could see nothing in it for the
+journalist but leisure to note the elegance of the ladies' gowns.
+Mrs. Dorset's, in particular, challenged all the wealth
+of Mr. Dabham's vocabulary: it had surprises and subtleties
+worthy of what he would have called "the literary style." At
+first, as Selden had noticed, it had been almost too preoccupying
+to its wearer; but now she was in full command of it, and was
+even producing her effects with unwonted freedom. Was she not,
+indeed, too free, too fluent, for perfect naturalness? And was
+not Dorset, to whom his glance had passed by a natural
+transition, too jerkily wavering between the same extremes?
+Dorset indeed was always jerky; but it seemed to Selden that
+tonight each vibration swung him farther from his centre.
+
+The dinner, meanwhile, was moving to its triumphant close, to the
+evident satisfaction of Mrs. Bry, who, throned in apoplectic
+majesty between Lord Skiddaw and Lord Hubert, seemed in spirit to
+be calling on Mrs. Fisher to witness her achievement. Short of
+Mrs. Fisher her audience might have been called complete; for the
+restaurant was crowded with persons mainly gathered there for the
+purpose of spectatorship, and accurately posted as to the names
+and faces of the celebrities they had come to see. Mrs. Bry,
+conscious that all her feminine guests came under that heading,
+and that each one looked her part to admiration, shone on Lily
+with all the pent-up gratitude that Mrs. Fisher had failed to
+deserve. Selden, catching the glance, wondered what part Miss
+Bart had played in organizing the entertainment. She did, at
+least, a great deal to adorn it; and as he watched the bright
+security with which she bore herself, he smiled to think that he
+should have fancied her in need of help. Never had she appeared
+more serenely mistress of the situation than when, at the moment
+of dispersal, detaching herself a little from the group about the
+table, she turned with a smile and a graceful slant of the
+shoulders to receive her cloak from Dorset.
+
+The dinner had been protracted over Mr. Bry's exceptional cigars
+and a bewildering array of liqueurs, and many of the other tables
+were empty; but a sufficient number of diners still lingered to
+give relief to the leave-taking of Mrs. Bry's distinguished
+guests. This ceremony was drawn out and complicated by the fact
+that it involved, on the part of the Duchess and Lady Skiddaw,
+definite farewells, and pledges of speedy reunion in Paris, where
+they were to pause and replenish their wardrobes on the way to
+England. The quality of Mrs. Bry's hospitality, and of the tips
+her husband had presumably imparted, lent to the manner of the
+English ladies a general effusiveness which shed the rosiest
+light over their hostess's future. In its glow Mrs. Dorset and
+the Stepneys were also visibly included, and the whole scene had
+touches of intimacy worth their weight in gold to the watchful
+pen of Mr. Dabham.
+
+A glance at her watch caused the Duchess to exclaim to her sister
+that they had just time to dash for their train, and the flurry
+of this departure over, the Stepneys, who had their motor at the
+door, offered to convey the Dorsets and Miss Bart to the quay.
+The offer was accepted, and Mrs. Dorset moved away with her
+husband in attendance. Miss Bart had lingered for a last word
+with Lord Hubert, and Stepney, on whom Mr. Bry was pressing a
+final, and still more expensive, cigar, called out: "Come on,
+Lily, if you're going back to the yacht."
+
+Lily turned to obey; but as she did so, Mrs. Dorset, who had
+paused on her way out, moved a few steps back toward the table.
+
+"Miss Bart is not going back to the yacht," she said in a voice
+of singular distinctness.
+
+A startled look ran from eye to eye; Mrs. Bry crimsoned to the
+verge of congestion, Mrs. Stepney slipped nervously behind her
+husband, and Selden, in the general turmoil of his sensations,
+was mainly conscious of a longing to grip Dabham by the collar
+and fling him out into the street.
+
+Dorset, meanwhile, had stepped back to his wife's side. His face
+was white, and he looked about him with cowed angry eyes.
+"Bertha!--Miss Bart . . . this is some misunderstanding . . .
+some mistake . . ."
+
+"Miss Bart remains here," his wife rejoined incisively. "And, I
+think, George, we had better not detain Mrs. Stepney any longer."
+
+Miss Bart, during this brief exchange of words, remained in
+admirable erectness, slightly isolated from the embarrassed group
+about her. She had paled a little under the shock of the insult,
+but the discomposure of the surrounding faces was not reflected
+in her own. The faint disdain of her smile seemed to lift
+her high above her antagonist's reach, and it was not till she
+had given Mrs. Dorset the full measure of the distance between
+them that she turned and extended her hand to her hostess.
+
+"I am joining the Duchess tomorrow," she explained, "and it
+seemed easier for me to remain on shore for the night."
+
+She held firmly to Mrs. Bry's wavering eye while she gave this
+explanation, but when it was over Selden saw her send a tentative
+glance from one to another of the women's faces. She read their
+incredulity in their averted looks, and in the mute wretchedness
+of the men behind them, and for a miserable half-second he
+thought she quivered on the brink of failure. Then, turning to
+him with an easy gesture, and the pale bravery of her recovered
+smile--"Dear Mr. Selden," she said, "you promised to see me to my
+cab."
+
+
+
+Outside, the sky was gusty and overcast, and as Lily and Selden
+moved toward the deserted gardens below the restaurant, spurts of
+warm rain blew fitfully against their faces. The fiction of the
+cab had been tacitly abandoned; they walked on in silence, her
+hand on his arm, till the deeper shade of the gardens received
+them, and pausing beside a bench, he said: "Sit down a moment."
+
+She dropped to the seat without answering, but the electric lamp
+at the bend of the path shed a gleam on the struggling misery of
+her face. Selden sat down beside her, waiting for her to speak,
+fearful lest any word he chose should touch too roughly on her
+wound, and kept also from free utterance by the wretched doubt
+which had slowly renewed itself within him. What had brought her
+to this pass? What weakness had placed her so abominably at her
+enemy's mercy? And why should Bertha Dorset have turned into an
+enemy at the very moment when she so obviously needed the support
+of her sex? Even while his nerves raged at the subjection of husbands
+to their wives, and at the cruelty of women to their kind,
+reason obstinately harped on the proverbial relation between
+smoke and fire. The memory of Mrs. Fisher's hints, and the
+corroboration of his own impressions, while they deepened his pity
+also increased his constraint, since, whichever way he sought a free
+outlet for sympathy, it was blocked by the fear of committing a blunder.
+
+Suddenly it struck him that his silence must seem almost as
+accusatory as that of the men he had despised for turning from
+her; but before he could find the fitting word she had cut him
+short with a question.
+
+"Do you know of a quiet hotel? I can send for my maid in the
+morning."
+
+"An hotel--HERE--that you can go to alone? It's not possible."
+
+She met this with a pale gleam of her old playfulness. "What IS,
+then? It's too wet to sleep in the gardens."
+
+"But there must be some one---"
+
+"Some one to whom I can go? Of course--any number--but at THIS
+hour? You see my change of plan was rather sudden---"
+
+"Good God--if you'd listened to me!" he cried, venting his
+helplessness in a burst of anger.
+
+She still held him off with the gentle mockery of her smile. "But
+haven't I?" she rejoined. "You advised me to leave the yacht, and
+I'm leaving it."
+
+He saw then, with a pang of self-reproach, that she meant neither
+to explain nor to defend herself; that by his miserable silence
+he had forfeited all chance of helping her, and that the decisive
+hour was past.
+
+She had risen, and stood before him in a kind of clouded majesty,
+like some deposed princess moving tranquilly to exile.
+
+"Lily!" he exclaimed, with a note of despairing appeal; but--"Oh,
+not now," she gently admonished him; and then, in all the
+sweetness of her recovered composure: "Since I must find shelter
+somewhere, and since you're so kindly here to help me---"
+
+He gathered himself up at the challenge. "You will do as I tell
+you? There's but one thing, then; you must go straight to your
+cousins, the Stepneys."
+
+"Oh--" broke from her with a movement of instinctive resistance;
+but he insisted: "Come--it's late, and you must appear to have
+gone there directly."
+
+He had drawn her hand into his arm, but she held him back with a
+last gesture of protest. "I can't--I can't--not that--you don't
+know Gwen: you mustn't ask me!"
+
+"I MUST ask you--you must obey me," he persisted, though infected
+at heart by her own fear.
+
+Her voice sank to a whisper: "And if she refuses?"--but, "Oh,
+trust me--trust me!" he could only insist in return; and yielding
+to his touch, she let him lead her back in silence to the edge of
+the square.
+
+In the cab they continued to remain silent through the brief
+drive which carried them to the illuminated portals of the
+Stepneys' hotel. Here he left her outside, in the darkness of the
+raised hood, while his name was sent up to Stepney, and he paced
+the showy hall, awaiting the latter's descent. Ten minutes later
+the two men passed out together between the gold-laced custodians
+of the threshold; but in the vestibule Stepney drew up with a
+last flare of reluctance.
+
+"It's understood, then?" he stipulated nervously, with his hand
+on Selden's arm. "She leaves tomorrow by the early train--and my
+wife's asleep, and can't be disturbed."
+
+
+
+Chapter 4
+
+The blinds of Mrs. Peniston's drawing-room were drawn down
+against the oppressive June sun, and in the sultry twilight the
+faces of her assembled relatives took on a fitting shadow of
+bereavement. They were all there: Van Alstynes, Stepneys and
+Melsons--even a stray Peniston or two, indicating, by a greater
+latitude in dress and manner, the fact of remoter relationship
+and more settled hopes. The Peniston side was, in fact, secure in
+the knowledge that the bulk of Mr. Peniston's property "went
+back"; while the direct connection hung suspended on the disposal
+of his widow's private fortune and on the uncertainty of its
+extent. Jack Stepney, in his new character as the richest nephew,
+tacitly took the lead, emphasizing his importance by the deeper
+gloss of his mourning and the subdued authority of his manner;
+while his wife's bored attitude and frivolous gown proclaimed the
+heiress's disregard of the insignificant interests at stake. Old
+Ned Van Alstyne, seated next to her in a coat that made
+affliction dapper, twirled his white moustache to conceal the
+eager twitch of his lips; and Grace Stepney, red-nosed and
+smelling of crape, whispered emotionally to Mrs. Herbert Melson:
+"I couldn't BEAR to see the Niagara anywhere else!"
+
+A rustle of weeds and quick turning of heads hailed the opening
+of the door, and Lily Bart appeared, tall and noble in her black
+dress, with Gerty Farish at her side. The women's faces, as she
+paused interrogatively on the threshold, were a study in
+hesitation. One or two made faint motions of recognition, which
+might have been subdued either by the solemnity of the scene, or
+by the doubt as to how far the others meant to go; Mrs. Jack
+Stepney gave a careless nod, and Grace Stepney, with a sepulchral
+gesture, indicated a seat at her side. But Lily, ignoring the
+invitation, as well as Jack Stepney's official attempt to direct
+her, moved across the room with her smooth free gait, and seated
+herself in a chair which seemed to have been purposely placed
+apart from the others.
+
+It was the first time that she had faced her family since her
+return from Europe, two weeks earlier; but if she perceived
+any uncertainty in their welcome, it served only to add a tinge
+of irony to the usual composure of her bearing. The shock of
+dismay with which, on the dock, she had heard from Gerty Farish
+of Mrs. Peniston's sudden death, had been mitigated, almost at
+once, by the irrepressible thought that now, at last, she would
+be able to pay her debts. She had looked forward with
+considerable uneasiness to her first encounter with her aunt.
+Mrs. Peniston had vehemently opposed her niece's departure with
+the Dorsets, and had marked her continued disapproval by not
+writing during Lily's absence. The certainty that she had heard
+of the rupture with the Dorsets made the prospect of the meeting
+more formidable; and how should Lily have repressed a quick sense
+of relief at the thought that, instead of undergoing the
+anticipated ordeal, she had only to enter gracefully on a
+long-assured inheritance? It had been, in the consecrated phrase,
+"always understood" that Mrs. Peniston was to provide handsomely
+for her niece; and in the latter's mind the understanding had
+long since crystallized into fact.
+
+"She gets everything, of course--I don't see what we're here
+for," Mrs. Jack Stepney remarked with careless loudness to Ned
+Van Alstyne; and the latter's deprecating murmur--"Julia was
+always a just woman"--might have been interpreted as signifying
+either acquiescence or doubt.
+
+"Well, it's only about four hundred thousand," Mrs. Stepney
+rejoined with a yawn; and Grace Stepney, in the silence produced
+by the lawyer's preliminary cough, was heard to sob out: "They
+won't find a towel missing--I went over them with her the very
+day---"
+
+Lily, oppressed by the close atmosphere, and the stifling odour
+of fresh mourning, felt her attention straying as Mrs. Peniston's
+lawyer, solemnly erect behind the Buhl table at the end of the
+room, began to rattle through the preamble of the will.
+
+"It's like being in church," she reflected, wondering vaguely
+where Gwen Stepney had got such an awful hat. Then she noticed
+how stout Jack had grown--he would soon be almost as plethoric as
+Herbert Melson, who sat a few feet off, breathing puffily as he
+leaned his black-gloved hands on his stick.
+
+"I wonder why rich people always grow fat--I suppose it's because
+there's nothing to worry them. If I inherit, I shall have to be
+careful of my figure," she mused, while the lawyer droned on
+through a labyrinth of legacies. The servants came first, then a
+few charitable institutions, then several remoter Melsons and
+Stepneys, who stirred consciously as their names rang out, and
+then subsided into a state of impassiveness befitting the
+solemnity of the occasion. Ned Van Alstyne, Jack Stepney, and a
+cousin or two followed, each coupled with the mention of a few
+thousands: Lily wondered that Grace Stepney was not among them.
+Then she heard her own name--"to my niece Lily Bart ten thousand
+dollars--" and after that the lawyer again lost himself in a coil
+of unintelligible periods, from which the concluding phrase
+flashed out with startling distinctness: "and the residue of my
+estate to my dear cousin and name-sake, Grace Julia Stepney."
+
+There was a subdued gasp of surprise, a rapid turning of heads,
+and a surging of sable figures toward the corner in which Miss
+Stepney wailed out her sense of unworthiness through the crumpled
+ball of a black-edged handkerchief.
+
+Lily stood apart from the general movement, feeling herself for
+the first time utterly alone. No one looked at her, no one seemed
+aware of her presence; she was probing the very depths of
+insignificance. And under her sense of the collective
+indifference came the acuter pang of hopes deceived.
+Disinherited--she had been disinherited--and for Grace Stepney!
+She met Gerty's lamentable eyes, fixed on her in a despairing
+effort at consolation, and the look brought her to herself. There
+was something to be done before she left the house: to be done
+with all the nobility she knew how to put into such gestures. She
+advanced to the group about Miss Stepney, and holding out her
+hand said simply: "Dear Grace, I am so glad."
+
+The other ladies had fallen back at her approach, and a space
+created itself about her. It widened as she turned to go, and no
+one advanced to fill it up. She paused a moment, glancing about
+her, calmly taking the measure of her situation. She heard some
+one ask a question about the date of the will; she caught a
+fragment of the lawyer's answer--something about a sudden
+summons, and an "earlier instrument." Then the tide of dispersal
+began to drift past her; Mrs. Jack Stepney and Mrs. Herbert Melson
+stood on the doorstep awaiting their motor; a sympathizing group
+escorted Grace Stepney to the cab it was felt to be fitting she
+should take, though she lived but a street or two away; and
+Miss Bart and Gerty found themselves almost alone in the purple
+drawing-room, which more than ever, in its stuffy dimness,
+resembled a well-kept family vault, in which the last corpse had
+just been decently deposited.
+
+
+
+In Gerty Farish's sitting-room, whither a hansom had carried the
+two friends, Lily dropped into a chair with a faint sound of
+laughter: it struck her as a humorous coincidence that her aunt's
+legacy should so nearly represent the amount of her debt to
+Trenor. The need of discharging that debt had reasserted itself
+with increased urgency since her return to America, and she spoke
+her first thought in saying to the anxiously hovering Gerty: "I
+wonder when the legacies will be paid."
+
+But Miss Farish could not pause over the legacies; she broke into
+a larger indignation. "Oh, Lily, it's unjust; it's cruel--Grace
+Stepney must FEEL she has no right to all that money!"
+
+"Any one who knew how to please Aunt Julia has a right to her
+money," Miss Bart rejoined philosophically.
+
+"But she was devoted to you--she led every one to think--" Gerty
+checked herself in evident embarrassment, and Miss Bart turned to
+her with a direct look. "Gerty, be honest: this will was made
+only six weeks ago. She had heard of my break with the Dorsets?"
+
+"Every one heard, of course, that there had been some
+disagreement--some misunderstanding---"
+
+"Did she hear that Bertha turned me off the yacht?"
+
+"Lily!"
+
+"That was what happened, you know. She said I was trying to marry
+George Dorset. She did it to make him think she was jealous.
+Isn't that what she told Gwen Stepney?"
+
+"I don't know--I don't listen to such horrors."
+
+"I MUST listen to them--I must know where I stand." She paused,
+and again sounded a faint note of derision. "Did you
+notice the women? They were afraid to snub me while they thought
+I was going to get the money--afterward they scuttled off as if I
+had the plague." Gerty remained silent, and she continued: "I
+stayed on to see what would happen. They took their cue from Gwen
+Stepney and Lulu Melson--I saw them watching to see what Gwen
+would do.--Gerty, I must know just what is being said of me."
+
+"I tell you I don't listen---"
+
+"One hears such things without listening." She rose and laid her
+resolute hands on Miss Farish's shoulders. "Gerty, are people
+going to cut me?"
+
+"Your FRIENDS, Lily--how can you think it?"
+
+"Who are one's friends at such a time? Who, but you, you poor
+trustful darling? And heaven knows what YOU suspect me of!" She
+kissed Gerty with a whimsical murmur. "You'd never let it make
+any difference--but then you're fond of criminals, Gerty! How
+about the irreclaimable ones, though? For I'm absolutely
+impenitent, you know."
+
+She drew herself up to the full height of her slender majesty,
+towering like some dark angel of defiance above the troubled
+Gerty, who could only falter out: "Lily, Lily--how can you laugh
+about such things?"
+
+"So as not to weep, perhaps. But no--I'm not of the tearful
+order. I discovered early that crying makes my nose red, and the
+knowledge has helped me through several painful episodes." She
+took a restless turn about the room, and then, reseating herself,
+lifted the bright mockery of her eyes to Gerty's anxious
+countenance.
+
+"I shouldn't have minded, you know, if I'd got the money--" and
+at Miss Farish's protesting "Oh!" she repeated calmly: "Not a
+straw, my dear; for, in the first place, they wouldn't have quite
+dared to ignore me; and if they had, it wouldn't have mattered,
+because I should have been independent of them. But now--!" The
+irony faded from her eyes, and she bent a clouded face upon her
+friend.
+
+"How can you talk so, Lily? Of course the money ought to have
+been yours, but after all that makes no difference. The important
+thing---" Gerty paused, and then continued firmly: "The important
+thing is that you should clear yourself--should tell your friends
+the whole truth."
+
+"The whole truth?" Miss Bart laughed. "What is truth? Where a
+woman is concerned, it's the story that's easiest to believe. In
+this case it's a great deal easier to believe Bertha Dorset's
+story than mine, because she has a big house and an opera box,
+and it's convenient to be on good terms with her."
+
+Miss Farish still fixed her with an anxious gaze. "But what IS
+your story, Lily? I don't believe any one knows it yet."
+
+"My story?--I don't believe I know it myself. You see I never
+thought of preparing a version in advance as Bertha did--and if I
+had, I don't think I should take the trouble to use it now."
+
+But Gerty continued with her quiet reasonableness: "I don't want
+a version prepared in advance--but I want you to tell me exactly
+what happened from the beginning."
+
+"From the beginning?" Miss Bart gently mimicked her. "Dear Gerty,
+how little imagination you good people have! Why, the beginning
+was in my cradle, I suppose--in the way I was brought up, and the
+things I was taught to care for. Or no--I won't blame anybody for
+my faults: I'll say it was in my blood, that I got it from some
+wicked pleasure-loving ancestress, who reacted against the homely
+virtues of New Amsterdam, and wanted to be back at the court of
+the Charleses!" And as Miss Farish continued to press her with
+troubled eyes, she went on impatiently: "You asked me just now
+for the truth--well, the truth about any girl is that once she's
+talked about she's done for; and the more she explains her case
+the worse it looks.--My good Gerty, you don't happen to have a
+cigarette about you?"
+
+
+
+In her stuffy room at the hotel to which she had gone on landing,
+Lily Bart that evening reviewed her situation. It was the last
+week in June, and none of her friends were in town. The few
+relatives who had stayed on, or returned, for the reading of Mrs.
+Peniston's will, had taken flight again that afternoon to Newport
+or Long Island; and not one of them had made any proffer of
+hospitality to Lily. For the first time in her life she found
+herself utterly alone except for Gerty Farish. Even at the actual
+moment of her break with the Dorsets she had not had so keen a
+sense of its consequences, for the Duchess of Beltshire,
+hearing of the catastrophe from Lord Hubert, had instantly
+offered her protection, and under her sheltering wing Lily had
+made an almost triumphant progress to London. There she had been
+sorely tempted to linger on in a society which asked of her only
+to amuse and charm it, without enquiring too curiously how she
+had acquired her gift for doing so; but Selden, before they
+parted, had pressed on her the urgent need of returning at once
+to her aunt, and Lord Hubert, when he presently reappeared in
+London, abounded in the same counsel. Lily did not need to be
+told that the Duchess's championship was not the best road to
+social rehabilitation, and as she was besides aware that her
+noble defender might at any moment drop her in favour of a new
+PROTEGEE, she reluctantly decided to return to America. But she
+had not been ten minutes on her native shore before she realized
+that she had delayed too long to regain it. The Dorsets, the
+Stepneys, the Brys--all the actors and witnesses in the miserable
+drama--had preceded her with their version of the case; and, even
+had she seen the least chance of gaining a hearing for her own,
+some obscure disdain and reluctance would have restrained her.
+She knew it was not by explanations and counter-charges that she
+could ever hope to recover her lost standing; but even had she
+felt the least trust in their efficacy, she would still have been
+held back by the feeling which had kept her from defending
+herself to Gerty Farish--a feeling that was half pride and half
+humiliation. For though she knew she had been ruthlessly
+sacrificed to Bertha Dorset's determination to win back her
+husband, and though her own relation to Dorset had been that of
+the merest good-fellowship, yet she had been perfectly aware from
+the outset that her part in the affair was, as Carry Fisher
+brutally put it, to distract Dorset's attention from his wife.
+That was what she was "there for": it was the price she had
+chosen to pay for three months of luxury and freedom from care.
+Her habit of resolutely facing the facts, in her rare moments of
+introspection, did not now allow her to put any false gloss on
+the situation. She had suffered for the very faithfulness with
+which she had carried out her part of the tacit compact, but the
+part was not a handsome one at best, and she saw it now in all
+the ugliness of failure.
+
+She saw, too, in the same uncompromising light, the train of
+consequences resulting from that failure; and these became
+clearer to her with every day of her weary lingering in town. She
+stayed on partly for the comfort of Gerty Farish's nearness, and
+partly for lack of knowing where to go. She understood well
+enough the nature of the task before her. She must set out to
+regain, little by little, the position she had lost; and the
+first step in the tedious task was to find out, as soon as
+possible, on how many of her friends she could count. Her hopes
+were mainly centred on Mrs. Trenor, who had treasures of
+easy-going tolerance for those who were amusing or useful to her,
+and in the noisy rush of whose existence the still small voice of
+detraction was slow to make itself heard. But Judy, though she
+must have been apprised of Miss Bart's return, had not even
+recognized it by the formal note of condolence which her friend's
+bereavement demanded. Any advance on Lily's side might have been
+perilous: there was nothing to do but to trust to the happy
+chance of an accidental meeting, and Lily knew that, even so late
+in the season, there was always a hope of running across her
+friends in their frequent passages through town.
+
+To this end she assiduously showed herself at the restaurants
+they frequented, where, attended by the troubled Gerty, she
+lunched luxuriously, as she said, on her expectations.
+
+"My dear Gerty, you wouldn't have me let the head-waiter see that
+I've nothing to live on but Aunt Julia's legacy? Think of Grace
+Stepney's satisfaction if she came in and found us lunching on
+cold mutton and tea! What sweet shall we have today, dear--COUPE
+JACQUES or PECHES A LA MELBA?"
+
+She dropped the MENU abruptly, with a quick heightening of
+colour, and Gerty, following her glance, was aware of the
+advance, from an inner room, of a party headed by Mrs. Trenor and
+Carry Fisher. It was impossible for these ladies and their
+companions--among whom Lily had at once distinguished both Trenor
+and Rosedale--not to pass, in going out, the table at which the
+two girls were seated; and Gerty's sense of the fact betrayed
+itself in the helpless trepidation of her manner. Miss Bart, on
+the contrary, borne forward on the wave of her buoyant grace, and
+neither shrinking from her friends nor appearing to lie in wait
+for them, gave to the encounter the touch of naturalness
+which she could impart to the most strained situations. Such
+embarrassment as was shown was on Mrs. Trenor's side, and
+manifested itself in the mingling of exaggerated warmth with
+imperceptible reservations. Her loudly affirmed pleasure at
+seeing Miss Bart took the form of a nebulous generalization,
+which included neither enquiries as to her future nor the
+expression of a definite wish to see her again. Lily, well-versed
+in the language of these omissions, knew that they were equally
+intelligible to the other members of the party: even Rosedale,
+flushed as he was with the importance of keeping such company, at
+once took the temperature of Mrs. Trenor's cordiality, and
+reflected it in his off-hand greeting of Miss Bart. Trenor, red
+and uncomfortable, had cut short his salutations on the pretext
+of a word to say to the head-waiter; and the rest of the group
+soon melted away in Mrs. Trenor's wake.
+
+It was over in a moment--the waiter, MENU in hand, still hung on
+the result of the choice between COUPE JACQUES and PECHES A LA
+MELBA--but Miss Bart, in the interval, had taken the measure of
+her fate. Where Judy Trenor led, all the world would follow; and
+Lily had the doomed sense of the castaway who has signalled in
+vain to fleeing sails.
+
+In a flash she remembered Mrs. Trenor's complaints of Carry
+Fisher's rapacity, and saw that they denoted an unexpected
+acquaintance with her husband's private affairs. In the large
+tumultuous disorder of the life at Bellomont, where no one seemed
+to have time to observe any one else, and private aims and
+personal interests were swept along unheeded in the rush of
+collective activities, Lily had fancied herself sheltered from
+inconvenient scrutiny; but if Judy knew when Mrs. Fisher borrowed
+money of her husband, was she likely to ignore the same
+transaction on Lily's part? If she was careless of his affections
+she was plainly jealous of his pocket; and in that fact Lily read
+the explanation of her rebuff. The immediate result of these
+conclusions was the passionate resolve to pay back her debt to
+Trenor. That obligation discharged, she would have but a thousand
+dollars of Mrs. Peniston's legacy left, and nothing to live on
+but her own small income, which was considerably less than Gerty
+Farish's wretched pittance; but this consideration gave way to
+the imperative claim of her wounded pride. She must be
+quits with the Trenors first; after that she would take thought
+for the future.
+
+In her ignorance of legal procrastinations she had supposed that
+her legacy would be paid over within a few days of the reading of
+her aunt's will; and after an interval of anxious suspense, she
+wrote to enquire the cause of the delay. There was another
+interval before Mrs. Peniston's lawyer, who was also one of the
+executors, replied to the effect that, some questions having
+arisen relative to the interpretation of the will, he and his
+associates might not be in a position to pay the legacies till
+the close of the twelvemonth legally allotted for their
+settlement. Bewildered and indignant, Lily resolved to try the
+effect of a personal appeal; but she returned from her expedition
+with a sense of the powerlessness of beauty and charm against the
+unfeeling processes of the law. It seemed intolerable to live on
+for another year under the weight of her debt; and in her
+extremity she decided to turn to Miss Stepney, who still lingered
+in town, immersed in the delectable duty of "going over" her
+benefactress's effects. It was bitter enough for Lily to ask a
+favour of Grace Stepney, but the alternative was bitterer still;
+and one morning she presented herself at Mrs. Peniston's, where
+Grace, for the facilitation of her pious task, had taken up a
+provisional abode.
+
+The strangeness of entering as a suppliant the house where she
+had so long commanded, increased Lily's desire to shorten the
+ordeal; and when Miss Stepney entered the darkened drawing-room,
+rustling with the best quality of crape, her visitor went
+straight to the point: would she be willing to advance the amount
+of the expected legacy?
+
+Grace, in reply, wept and wondered at the request, bemoaned the
+inexorableness of the law, and was astonished that Lily had not
+realized the exact similarity of their positions. Did she think
+that only the payment of the legacies had been delayed? Why, Miss
+Stepney herself had not received a penny of her inheritance, and
+was paying rent--yes, actually!--for the privilege of living in a
+house that belonged to her. She was sure it was not what poor
+dear cousin Julia would have wished--she had told the executors
+so to their faces; but they were inaccessible to reason, and
+there was nothing to do but to wait. Let Lily take example by
+her, and be patient--let them both remember how
+beautifully patient cousin Julia had always been.
+
+Lily made a movement which showed her imperfect assimilation of
+this example. "But you will have everything, Grace--it would be
+easy for you to borrow ten times the amount I am asking for."
+
+"Borrow--easy for me to borrow?" Grace Stepney rose up before her
+in sable wrath. "Do you imagine for a moment that I would raise
+money on my expectations from cousin Julia, when I know so well
+her unspeakable horror of every transaction of the sort? Why,
+Lily, if you must know the truth, it was the idea of your being
+in debt that brought on her illness--you remember she had a
+slight attack before you sailed. Oh, I don't know the
+particulars, of course--I don't WANT to know them--but there were
+rumours about your affairs that made her most unhappy--no one
+could be with her without seeing that. I can't help it if you are
+offended by my telling you this now--if I can do anything to make
+you realize the folly of your course, and how deeply SHE
+disapproved of it, I shall feel it is the truest way of making up
+to you for her loss."
+
+
+
+Chapter 5
+
+It seemed to Lily, as Mrs. Peniston's door closed on her, that
+she was taking a final leave of her old life. The future
+stretched before her dull and bare as the deserted length of
+Fifth Avenue, and opportunities showed as meagrely as the few
+cabs trailing in quest of fares that did not come. The
+completeness of the analogy was, however, disturbed as she
+reached the sidewalk by the rapid approach of a hansom which
+pulled up at sight of her.
+
+From beneath its luggage-laden top, she caught the wave of a
+signalling hand; and the next moment Mrs. Fisher, springing to
+the street, had folded her in a demonstrative embrace.
+
+"My dear, you don't mean to say you're still in town? When I saw
+you the other day at Sherry's I didn't have time to ask---" She
+broke off, and added with a burst of frankness: "The truth is I
+was HORRID, Lily, and I've wanted to tell you so ever since."
+
+"Oh---" Miss Bart protested, drawing back from her penitent
+clasp; but Mrs. Fisher went on with her usual directness: "Look
+here, Lily, don't let's beat about the bush: half the trouble in
+life is caused by pretending there isn't any. That's not my way,
+and I can only say I'm thoroughly ashamed of myself for following
+the other women's lead. But we'll talk of that by and bye--tell
+me now where you're staying and what your plans are. I don't
+suppose you're keeping house in there with Grace Stepney,
+eh?--and it struck me you might be rather at loose ends."
+
+In Lily's present mood there was no resisting the honest
+friendliness of this appeal, and she said with a smile: "I am at
+loose ends for the moment, but Gerty Farish is still in town, and
+she's good enough to let me be with her whenever she can spare
+the time."
+
+Mrs. Fisher made a slight grimace. "H'm--that's a temperate joy.
+Oh, I know--Gerty's a trump, and worth all the rest of us put
+together; but A LA LONGUE you're used to a little higher
+seasoning, aren't you, dear? And besides, I suppose she'll be off
+herself before long--the first of August, you say? Well,
+look here, you can't spend your summer in town; we'll talk of
+that later too. But meanwhile, what do you say to putting a few
+things in a trunk and coming down with me to the Sam Gormers'
+tonight?"
+
+And as Lily stared at the breathless suddenness of the
+suggestion, she continued with her easy laugh: "You don't know
+them and they don't know you; but that don't make a rap of
+difference. They've taken the Van Alstyne place at Roslyn, and
+I've got CARTE BLANCHE to bring my friends down there--the more
+the merrier. They do things awfully well, and there's to be
+rather a jolly party there this week---" she broke off, checked
+by an undefinable change in Miss Bart's expression. "Oh, I don't
+mean YOUR particular set, you know: rather a different crowd, but
+very good fun. The fact is, the Gormers have struck out on a line
+of their own: what they want is to have a good time, and to have
+it in their own way. They gave the other thing a few months'
+trial, under my distinguished auspices, and they were really
+doing extremely well--getting on a good deal faster than the
+Brys, just because they didn't care as much--but suddenly they
+decided that the whole business bored them, and that what they
+wanted was a crowd they could really feel at home with. Rather
+original of them, don't you think so? Mattie Gormer HAS got
+aspirations still; women always have; but she's awfully
+easy-going, and Sam won't be bothered, and they both like to be
+the most important people in sight, so they've started a sort of
+continuous performance of their own, a kind of social Coney
+Island, where everybody is welcome who can make noise enough and
+doesn't put on airs. I think it's awfully good fun myself--some
+of the artistic set, you know, any pretty actress that's going,
+and so on. This week, for instance, they have Audrey Anstell, who
+made such a hit last spring in 'The Winning of Winny'; and Paul
+Morpeth--he's painting Mattie Gormer--and the Dick Bellingers,
+and Kate Corby--well, every one you can think of who's jolly and
+makes a row. Now don't stand there with your nose in the air, my
+dear--it will be a good deal better than a broiling Sunday in
+town, and you'll find clever people as well as noisy
+ones--Morpeth, who admires Mattie enormously, always brings one
+or two of his set."
+
+Mrs. Fisher drew Lily toward the hansom with friendly authority.
+"Jump in now, there's a dear, and we'll drive round to your hotel
+and have your things packed, and then we'll have tea, and the two
+maids can meet us at the train."
+
+
+
+It was a good deal better than a broiling Sunday in town--of
+that no doubt remained to Lily as, reclining in the shade of a
+leafy verandah, she looked seaward across a stretch of greensward
+picturesquely dotted with groups of ladies in lace raiment and
+men in tennis flannels. The huge Van Alstyne house and its
+rambling dependencies were packed to their fullest capacity with
+the Gormers' week-end guests, who now, in the radiance of the
+Sunday forenoon, were dispersing themselves over the grounds in
+quest of the various distractions the place afforded:
+distractions ranging from tennis-courts to shooting-galleries,
+from bridge and whiskey within doors to motors and steam-launches
+without. Lily had the odd sense of having been caught up into the
+crowd as carelessly as a passenger is gathered in by an express
+train. The blonde and genial Mrs. Gormer might, indeed, have
+figured the conductor, calmly assigning seats to the rush of
+travellers, while Carry Fisher represented the porter pushing
+their bags into place, giving them their numbers for the
+dining-car, and warning them when their station was at hand. The
+train, meanwhile, had scarcely slackened speed--life whizzed on
+with a deafening' rattle and roar, in which one traveller at
+least found a welcome refuge from the sound of her own thoughts.
+The Gormer MILIEU represented a social out-skirt which Lily had
+always fastidiously avoided; but it struck her, now that she was
+in it, as only a flamboyant copy of her own world, a caricature
+approximating the real thing as the "society play" approaches the
+manners of the drawing-room. The people about her were doing the
+same things as the Trenors, the Van Osburghs and the Dorsets: the
+difference lay in a hundred shades of aspect and manner, from the
+pattern of the men's waistcoats to the inflexion of the women's
+voices. Everything was pitched in a higher key, and there was
+more of each thing: more noise, more colour, more champagne, more
+familiarity--but also greater good-nature, less rivalry, and a
+fresher capacity for enjoyment.
+
+Miss Bart's arrival had been welcomed with an uncritical
+friendliness that first irritated her pride and then brought her
+to a sharp sense of her own situation--of the place in life
+which, for the moment, she must accept and make the best of.
+These people knew her story--of that her first long talk with
+Carry Fisher had left no doubt: she was publicly branded as the
+heroine of a "queer" episode--but instead of shrinking from her
+as her own friends had done, they received her without question
+into the easy promiscuity of their lives. They swallowed her past
+as easily as they did Miss Anstell's, and with no apparent sense
+of any difference in the size of the mouthful: all they asked was
+that she should--in her own way, for they recognized a diversity
+of gifts--contribute as much to the general amusement as that
+graceful actress, whose talents, when off the stage, were of the
+most varied order. Lily felt at once that any tendency to be
+"stuck-up," to mark a sense of differences and distinctions,
+would be fatal to her continuance in the Gormer set. To be taken
+in on such terms--and into such a world!--was hard enough to the
+lingering pride in her; but she realized, with a pang of
+self-contempt, that to be excluded from it would, after all, be
+harder still. For, almost at once, she had felt the insidious
+charm of slipping back into a life where every material
+difficulty was smoothed away. The sudden escape from a stifling
+hotel in a dusty deserted city to the space and luxury of a great
+country-house fanned by sea breezes, had produced a state of
+moral lassitude agreeable enough after the nervous tension and
+physical discomfort of the past weeks. For the moment she must
+yield to the refreshment her senses craved--after that she would
+reconsider her situation, and take counsel with her dignity. Her
+enjoyment of her surroundings was, indeed, tinged by the
+unpleasant consideration that she was accepting the hospitality
+and courting the approval of people she had disdained under other
+conditions. But she was growing less sensitive on such points: a
+hard glaze of indifference was fast forming over her delicacies
+and susceptibilities, and each concession to expediency hardened
+the surface a little more.
+
+On the Monday, when the party disbanded with uproarious adieux,
+the return to town threw into stronger relief the charms of the
+life she was leaving. The other guests were dispersing to take up
+the same existence in a different setting: some at Newport, some
+at Bar Harbour, some in the elaborate rusticity of an Adirondack
+camp. Even Gerty Farish, who welcomed Lily's return with tender
+solicitude, would soon be preparing to join the aunt with whom she
+spent her summers on Lake George: only Lily herself remained
+without plan or purpose, stranded in a backwater of the great
+current of pleasure. But Carry Fisher, who had insisted on
+transporting her to her own house, where she herself was to perch
+for a day or two on the way to the Brys' camp, came to the rescue
+with a new suggestion.
+
+"Look here, Lily--I'll tell you what it is: I want you to take my
+place with Mattie Gormer this summer. They're taking a party out
+to Alaska next month in their private car, and Mattie, who is the
+laziest woman alive, wants me to go with them, and relieve her of
+the bother of arranging things; but the Brys want me too--oh,
+yes, we've made it up: didn't I tell you?--and, to put it
+frankly, though I like the Gormers best, there's more profit for
+me in the Brys. The fact is, they want to try Newport this
+summer, and if I can make it a success for them they--well,
+they'll make it a success for me." Mrs. Fisher clasped her hands
+enthusiastically. "Do you know, Lily, the more I think of my idea
+the better I like it--quite as much for you as for myself. The
+Gormers have both taken a tremendous fancy to you, and the trip
+to Alaska is--well--the very thing I should want for you just at
+present."
+
+Miss Bart lifted her eyes with a keen glance. "To take me out of
+my friends' way, you mean?" she said quietly; and Mrs. Fisher
+responded with a deprecating kiss: "To keep you out of their
+sight till they realize how much they miss you."
+
+
+
+Miss Bart went with the Gormers to Alaska; and the expedition, if
+it did not produce the effect anticipated by her friend, had at
+least the negative advantage of removing her from the fiery
+centre of criticism and discussion. Gerty Farish had opposed the
+plan with all the energy of her somewhat inarticulate nature. She
+had even offered to give up her visit to Lake George, and remain
+in town with Miss Bart, if the latter would renounce her journey;
+but Lily could disguise her real distaste for this plan under a
+sufficiently valid reason.
+
+"You dear innocent, don't you see," she protested, "that Carry is
+quite right, and that I must take up my usual life, and go about
+among people as much as possible? If my old friends choose to
+believe lies about me I shall have to make new ones, that's all;
+and you know beggars mustn't be choosers. Not that I don't like
+Mattie Gormer--I DO like her: she's kind and honest and
+unaffected; and don't you suppose I feel grateful to her for
+making me welcome at a time when, as you've yourself seen, my own
+family have unanimously washed their hands of me?"
+
+Gerty shook her head, mutely unconvinced. She felt not only that
+Lily was cheapening herself by making use of an intimacy she
+would never have cultivated from choice, but that, in drifting
+back now to her former manner of life, she was forfeiting her
+last chance of ever escaping from it. Gerty had but an obscure
+conception of what Lily's actual experience had been: but its
+consequences had established a lasting hold on her pity since the
+memorable night when she had offered up her own secret hope to
+her friend's extremity. To characters like Gerty's such a
+sacrifice constitutes a moral claim on the part of the person in
+whose behalf it has been made. Having once helped Lily, she must
+continue to help her; and helping her, must believe in her,
+because faith is the main-spring of such natures. But even if
+Miss Bart, after her renewed taste of the amenities of life,
+could have returned to the barrenness of a New York August,
+mitigated only by poor Gerty's presence, her worldly wisdom would
+have counselled her against such an act of abnegation. She knew
+that Carry Fisher was right: that an opportune absence might be
+the first step toward rehabilitation, and that, at any rate, to
+linger on in town out of season was a fatal admission of defeat.
+From the Gormers' tumultuous progress across their native
+continent, she returned with an altered view of her situation.
+The renewed habit of luxury--the daily waking to an assured
+absence of care and presence of material ease--gradually blunted
+her appreciation of these values, and left her more conscious of
+the void they could not fill. Mattie Gormer's undiscriminating
+good-nature, and the slap-dash sociability of her friends, who
+treated Lily precisely as they treated each other--all these
+characteristic notes of difference began to wear upon her
+endurance; and the more she saw to criticize in her companions,
+the less justification she found for making use of them. The
+longing to get back to her former surroundings hardened to a
+fixed idea; but with the strengthening of her purpose came the
+inevitable perception that, to attain it, she must exact fresh
+concessions from her pride. These, for the moment, took the
+unpleasant form of continuing to cling to her hosts after their
+return from Alaska. Little as she was in the key of their MILIEU,
+her immense social facility, her long habit of adapting herself
+to others without suffering her own outline to be blurred, the
+skilled manipulation of all the polished implements of her craft,
+had won for her an important place in the Gormer group. If their
+resonant hilarity could never be hers, she contributed a note of
+easy elegance more valuable to Mattie Gormer than the louder
+passages of the band. Sam Gormer and his special cronies stood
+indeed a little in awe of her; but Mattie's following, headed by
+Paul Morpeth, made her feel that they prized her for the very
+qualities they most conspicuously lacked. If Morpeth, whose
+social indolence was as great as his artistic activity, had
+abandoned himself to the easy current of the Gormer existence,
+where the minor exactions of politeness were unknown or ignored,
+and a man could either break his engagements, or keep them in a
+painting-jacket and slippers, he still preserved his sense of
+differences, and his appreciation of graces he had no time to
+cultivate. During the preparations for the Brys' TABLEAUX he had
+been immensely struck by Lily's plastic possibilities--"not the
+face: too self-controlled for expression; but the rest of
+her--gad, what a model she'd make!"--and though his abhorrence of
+the world in which he had seen her was too great for him to think
+of seeking her there, he was fully alive to the privilege of
+having her to look at and listen to while he lounged in Mattie
+Gormer's dishevelled drawing-room.
+
+Lily had thus formed, in the tumult of her surroundings, a little
+nucleus of friendly relations which mitigated the crudeness of
+her course in lingering with the Gormers after their return. Nor
+was she without pale glimpses of her own world, especially since
+the breaking-up of the Newport season had set the social current
+once more toward Long Island. Kate Corby, whose tastes
+made her as promiscuous as Carry Fisher was rendered by her
+necessities, occasionally descended on the Gormers, where, after
+a first stare of surprise, she took Lily's presence almost too
+much as a matter of course. Mrs. Fisher, too, appearing
+frequently in the neighbourhood, drove over to impart her
+experiences and give Lily what she called the latest report from
+the weather-bureau; and the latter, who had never directly
+invited her confidence, could yet talk with her more freely than
+with Gerty Farish, in whose presence it was impossible even to
+admit the existence of much that Mrs. Fisher conveniently took
+for granted.
+
+Mrs. Fisher, moreover, had no embarrassing curiosity. She did not
+wish to probe the inwardness of Lily's situation, but simply to
+view it from the outside, and draw her conclusions accordingly;
+and these conclusions, at the end of a confidential talk, she
+summed up to her friend in the succinct remark: "You must marry
+as soon as you can."
+
+Lily uttered a faint laugh--for once Mrs. Fisher lacked
+originality. "Do you mean, like Gerty Farish, to recommend the
+unfailing panacea of 'a good man's love'?"
+
+"No--I don't think either of my candidates would answer to that
+description," said Mrs. Fisher after a pause of reflection.
+
+"Either? Are there actually two?"
+
+"Well, perhaps I ought to say one and a half--for the moment."
+
+Miss Bart received this with increasing amusement. "Other things
+being equal, I think I should prefer a half-husband: who is he?"
+
+"Don't fly out at me till you hear my reasons--George Dorset."
+
+"Oh---" Lily murmured reproachfully; but Mrs. Fisher pressed on
+unrebuffed. "Well, why not? They had a few weeks' honeymoon when
+they first got back from Europe, but now things are going badly
+with them again. Bertha has been behaving more than ever like a
+madwoman, and George's powers of credulity are very nearly
+exhausted. They're at their place here, you know, and I spent
+last Sunday with them. It was a ghastly party--no one else but
+poor Neddy Silverton, who looks like a galley-slave (they used to
+talk of my making that poor boy unhappy!)--and after
+luncheon George carried me off on a long walk, and told me the
+end would have to come soon."
+
+Miss Bart made an incredulous gesture. "As far as that goes, the
+end will never come--Bertha will always know how to get him back
+when she wants him."
+
+Mrs. Fisher continued to observe her tentatively. "Not if he has
+any one else to turn to! Yes--that's just what it comes to: the
+poor creature can't stand alone. And I remember him such a good
+fellow, full of life and enthusiasm." She paused, and went on,
+dropping her glance from Lily's: "He wouldn't stay with her ten
+minutes if he KNEW---"
+
+"Knew---?" Miss Bart repeated.
+
+"What YOU must, for instance--with the opportunities you've had!
+If he had positive proof, I mean---"
+
+Lily interrupted her with a deep blush of displeasure. "Please
+let us drop the subject, Carry: it's too odious to me." And to
+divert her companion's attention she added, with an attempt at
+lightness: "And your second candidate? We must not forget him."
+
+Mrs. Fisher echoed her laugh. "I wonder if you'll cry out just as
+loud if I say--Sim Rosedale?"
+
+Miss Bart did not cry out: she sat silent, gazing thoughtfully at
+her friend. The suggestion, in truth, gave expression to a
+possibility which, in the last weeks, had more than once recurred
+to her; but after a moment she said carelessly: "Mr. Rosedale
+wants a wife who can establish him in the bosom of the Van
+Osburghs and Trenors."
+
+Mrs. Fisher caught her up eagerly. "And so YOU could--with his
+money! Don't you see how beautifully it would work out for you
+both?"
+
+"I don't see any way of making him see it," Lily returned, with a
+laugh intended to dismiss the subject.
+
+But in reality it lingered with her long after Mrs. Fisher had
+taken leave. She had seen very little of Rosedale since her
+annexation by the Gormers, for he was still steadily bent on
+penetrating to the inner Paradise from which she was now
+excluded; but once or twice, when nothing better offered, he had
+turned up for a Sunday, and on these occasions he had left her in
+no doubt as to his view of her situation. That he still
+admired her was, more than ever, offensively evident; for in the
+Gormer circle, where he expanded as in his native element, there
+were no puzzling conventions to check the full expression of his
+approval. But it was in the quality of his admiration that she
+read his shrewd estimate of her case. He enjoyed letting the
+Gormers see that he had known "Miss Lily"--she was "Miss Lily" to
+him now--before they had had the faintest social existence:
+enjoyed more especially impressing Paul Morpeth with the distance
+to which their intimacy dated back. But he let it be felt that
+that intimacy was a mere ripple on the surface of a rushing
+social current, the kind of relaxation which a man of large
+interests and manifold preoccupations permits himself in his
+hours of ease.
+
+The necessity of accepting this view of their past relation, and
+of meeting it in the key of pleasantry prevalent among her new
+friends, was deeply humiliating to Lily. But she dared less than
+ever to quarrel with Rosedale. She suspected that her rejection
+rankled among the most unforgettable of his rebuffs, and the fact
+that he knew something of her wretched transaction with Trenor,
+and was sure to put the basest construction on it, seemed to
+place her hopelessly in his power. Yet at Carry Fisher's
+suggestion a new hope had stirred in her. Much as she disliked
+Rosedale, she no longer absolutely despised him. For he was
+gradually attaining his object in life, and that, to Lily, was
+always less despicable than to miss it. With the slow unalterable
+persistency which she had always felt in him, he was making his
+way through the dense mass of social antagonisms. Already his
+wealth, and the masterly use he had made of it, were giving him
+an enviable prominence in the world of affairs, and placing Wall
+Street under obligations which only Fifth Avenue could repay. In
+response to these claims, his name began to figure on municipal
+committees and charitable boards; he appeared at banquets to
+distinguished strangers, and his candidacy at one of the
+fashionable clubs was discussed with diminishing opposition. He
+had figured once or twice at the Trenor dinners, and had learned
+to speak with just the right note of disdain of the big Van
+Osburgh crushes; and all he now needed was a wife whose
+affiliations would shorten the last tedious steps of his ascent.
+It was with that object that, a year earlier, he had fixed
+his affections on Miss Bart; but in the interval he had
+mounted nearer to the goal, while she had lost the power to
+abbreviate the remaining steps of the way. All this she saw with
+the clearness of vision that came to her in moments of
+despondency. It was success that dazzled her--she could
+distinguish facts plainly enough in the twilight of failure. And
+the twilight, as she now sought to pierce it, was gradually
+lighted by a faint spark of reassurance. Under the utilitarian
+motive of Rosedale's wooing she had felt, clearly enough, the
+heat of personal inclination. She would not have detested him so
+heartily had she not known that he dared to admire her. What,
+then, if the passion persisted, though the other motive had
+ceased to sustain it? She had never even tried to please him--he
+had been drawn to her in spite of her manifest disdain. What if
+she now chose to exert the power which, even in its passive
+state, he had felt so strongly? What if she made him marry her
+for love, now that he had no other reason for marrying her?
+
+
+
+Chapter 6
+
+As became persons of their rising consequence, the Gormers were
+engaged in building a country-house on Long Island; and it was a
+part of Miss Bart's duty to attend her hostess on frequent visits
+of inspection to the new estate. There, while Mrs. Gormer plunged
+into problems of lighting and sanitation, Lily had leisure to
+wander, in the bright autumn air, along the tree-fringed bay to
+which the land declined. Little as she was addicted to solitude,
+there had come to be moments when it seemed a welcome escape from
+the empty noises of her life. She was weary of being swept
+passively along a current of pleasure and business in which she
+had no share; weary of seeing other people pursue amusement and
+squander money, while she felt herself of no more account among
+them than an expensive toy in the hands of a spoiled child.
+
+It was in this frame of mind that, striking back from the shore
+one morning into the windings of an unfamiliar lane, she came
+suddenly upon the figure of George Dorset. The Dorset place was
+in the immediate neighbourhood of the Gormers' newly-acquired
+estate, and in her motor-flights thither with Mrs. Gormer, Lily
+had caught one or two passing glimpses of the couple; but they
+moved in so different an orbit that she had not considered the
+possibility of a direct encounter.
+
+Dorset, swinging along with bent head, in moody abstraction, did
+not see Miss Bart till he was close upon her; but the sight,
+instead of bringing him to a halt, as she had half-expected, sent
+him toward her with an eagerness which found expression in his
+opening words.
+
+"Miss Bart!--You'll shake hands, won't you? I've been hoping to
+meet you--I should have written to you if I'd dared." His face,
+with its tossed red hair and straggling moustache, had a driven
+uneasy look, as though life had become an unceasing race between
+himself and the thoughts at his heels.
+
+The look drew a word of compassionate greeting from Lily, and he
+pressed on, as if encouraged by her tone: "I wanted to
+apologize--to ask you to forgive me for the miserable part I
+played---"
+
+She checked him with a quick gesture. "Don't let us speak of it:
+I was very sorry for you," she said, with a tinge of disdain
+which, as she instantly perceived, was not lost on him.
+
+He flushed to his haggard eyes, flushed so cruelly that she
+repented the thrust. "You might well be; you don't know--you must
+let me explain. I was deceived: abominably deceived---"
+
+"I am still more sorry for you, then," she interposed, without
+irony; "but you must see that I am not exactly the person with
+whom the subject can be discussed."
+
+He met this with a look of genuine wonder. "Why not? Isn't it to
+you, of all people, that I owe an explanation---"
+
+"No explanation is necessary: the situation was perfectly clear
+to me."
+
+"Ah---" he murmured, his head drooping again, and his irresolute
+hand switching at the underbrush along the lane. But as Lily made
+a movement to pass on, he broke out with fresh vehemence: "Miss
+Bart, for God's sake don't turn from me! We used to be good
+friends--you were always kind to me--and you don't know how I
+need a friend now."
+
+The lamentable weakness of the words roused a motion of pity in
+Lily's breast. She too needed friends--she had tasted the pang of
+loneliness; and her resentment of Bertha Dorset's cruelty
+softened her heart to the poor wretch who was after all the chief
+of Bertha's victims.
+
+"I still wish to be kind; I feel no ill-will toward you," she
+said. "But you must understand that after what has happened we
+can't be friends again--we can't see each other."
+
+"Ah, you ARE kind--you're merciful--you always were!" He fixed
+his miserable gaze on her. "But why can't we be friends--why not,
+when I've repented in dust and ashes? Isn't it hard that you
+should condemn me to suffer for the falseness, the treachery of
+others? I was punished enough at the time--is there to be no
+respite for me?"
+
+"I should have thought you had found complete respite in the
+reconciliation which was effected at my expense," Lily began,
+with renewed impatience; but he broke in imploringly: "Don't put
+it in that way--when that's been the worst of my
+punishment. My God! what could I do--wasn't I powerless? You were
+singled out as a sacrifice: any word I might have said would have
+been turned against you---"
+
+"I have told you I don't blame you; all I ask you to understand
+is that, after the use Bertha chose to make of me--after all that
+her behaviour has since implied--it's impossible that you and I
+should meet."
+
+He continued to stand before her, in his dogged weakness. "Is
+it--need it be? Mightn't there be circumstances---?" he checked
+himself, slashing at the wayside weeds in a wider radius. Then he
+began again: "Miss Bart, listen--give me a minute. If we're not
+to meet again, at least let me have a hearing now. You say we
+can't be friends after--after what has happened. But can't I at
+least appeal to your pity? Can't I move you if I ask you to think
+of me as a prisoner--a prisoner you alone can set free?"
+
+Lily's inward start betrayed itself in a quick blush: was it
+possible that this was really the sense of Carry Fisher's
+adumbrations?
+
+"I can't see how I can possibly be of any help to you," she
+murmured, drawing back a little from the mounting excitement of
+his look.
+
+Her tone seemed to sober him, as it had so often done in his
+stormiest moments. The stubborn lines of his face relaxed, and he
+said, with an abrupt drop to docility: "You WOULD see, if you'd
+be as merciful as you used to be: and heaven knows I've never
+needed it more!"
+
+She paused a moment, moved in spite of herself by this reminder
+of her influence over him. Her fibres had been softened by
+suffering, and the sudden glimpse into his mocked and broken life
+disarmed her contempt for his weakness.
+
+"I am very sorry for you--I would help you willingly; but you
+must have other friends, other advisers."
+
+"I never had a friend like you," he answered simply. "And
+besides--can't you see?--you're the only person"--his voice
+dropped to a whisper--"the only person who knows."
+
+Again she felt her colour change; again her heart rose in
+precipitate throbs to meet what she felt was coming. He lifted
+his eyes to her entreatingly. "You do see, don't you? You
+understand? I'm desperate--I'm at the end of my tether. I
+want to be free, and you can free me. I know you can. You don't
+want to keep me bound fast in hell, do you? You can't want to
+take such a vengeance as that. You were always kind--your eyes
+are kind now. You say you're sorry for me. Well, it rests with
+you to show it; and heaven knows there's nothing to keep you
+back. You understand, of course--there wouldn't be a hint of
+publicity--not a sound or a syllable to connect you with the
+thing. It would never come to that, you know: all I need is to be
+able to say definitely: 'I know this--and this--and this'--and the
+fight would drop, and the way be cleared, and the whole
+abominable business swept out of sight in a second."
+
+He spoke pantingly, like a tired runner, with breaks of
+exhaustion between his words; and through the breaks she caught,
+as through the shifting rents of a fog, great golden vistas of
+peace and safety. For there was no mistaking the definite
+intention behind his vague appeal; she could have filled up the
+blanks without the help of Mrs. Fisher's insinuations. Here was a
+man who turned to her in the extremity of his loneliness and his
+humiliation: if she came to him at such a moment he would be hers
+with all the force of his deluded faith. And the power to make
+him so lay in her hand--lay there in a completeness he could not
+even remotely conjecture. Revenge and rehabilitation might be
+hers at a stroke--there was something dazzling in the
+completeness of the opportunity.
+
+She stood silent, gazing away from him down the autumnal stretch
+of the deserted lane. And suddenly fear possessed her--fear of
+herself, and of the terrible force of the temptation. All her
+past weaknesses were like so many eager accomplices drawing her
+toward the path their feet had already smoothed. She turned
+quickly, and held out her hand to Dorset.
+
+"Goodbye--I'm sorry; there's nothing in the world that I can do."
+
+"Nothing? Ah, don't say that," he cried; "say what's true: that
+you abandon me like the others. You, the only creature who could
+have saved me!"
+
+"Goodbye--goodbye," she repeated hurriedly; and as she
+moved away she heard him cry out on a last note of entreaty: "At
+least you'll let me see you once more?"
+
+
+
+Lily, on regaining the Gormer grounds, struck rapidly across the
+lawn toward the unfinished house, where she fancied that her
+hostess might be speculating, not too resignedly, on the cause of
+her delay; for, like many unpunctual persons, Mrs. Gormer
+disliked to be kept waiting.
+
+As Miss Bart reached the avenue, however, she saw a smart phaeton
+with a high-stepping pair disappear behind the shrubbery in the
+direction of the gate; and on the doorstep stood Mrs. Gormer,
+with a glow of retrospective pleasure on her open countenance. At
+sight of Lily the glow deepened to an embarrassed red, and she
+said with a slight laugh: "Did you see my visitor? Oh, I thought
+you came back by the avenue. It was Mrs. George Dorset--she said
+she'd dropped in to make a neighbourly call."
+
+Lily met the announcement with her usual composure, though her
+experience of Bertha's idiosyncrasies would not have led her to
+include the neighbourly instinct among them; and Mrs. Gormer,
+relieved to see that she gave no sign of surprise, went on with a
+deprecating laugh: "Of course what really brought her was
+curiosity--she made me take her all over the house. But no one
+could have been nicer--no airs, you know, and so good-natured: I
+can quite see why people think her so fascinating."
+
+This surprising event, coinciding too completely with her meeting
+with Dorset to be regarded as contingent upon it, had yet
+immediately struck Lily with a vague sense of foreboding. It was
+not in Bertha's habits to be neighbourly, much less to make
+advances to any one outside the immediate circle of her
+affinities. She had always consistently ignored the world of
+outer aspirants, or had recognized its individual members only
+when prompted by motives of self-interest; and the very
+capriciousness of her condescensions had, as Lily was aware,
+given them special value in the eyes of the persons she
+distinguished. Lily saw this now in Mrs. Gormer's unconcealable
+complacency, and in the happy irrelevance with which, for the
+next day or two, she quoted Bertha's opinions and
+speculated on the origin of her gown. All the secret ambitions
+which Mrs. Gormer's native indolence, and the attitude of her
+companions, kept in habitual abeyance, were now germinating
+afresh in the glow of Bertha's advances; and whatever the cause
+of the latter, Lily saw that, if they were followed up, they were
+likely to have a disturbing effect upon her own future.
+
+She had arranged to break the length of her stay with her new
+friends by one or two visits to other acquaintances as recent;
+and on her return from this somewhat depressing excursion she was
+immediately conscious that Mrs. Dorset's influence was still in
+the air. There had been another exchange of visits, a tea at a
+country-club, an encounter at a hunt ball; there was even a
+rumour of an approaching dinner, which Mattie Gormer, with an
+unnatural effort at discretion, tried to smuggle out of the
+conversation whenever Miss Bart took part in it.
+
+The latter had already planned to return to town after a farewell
+Sunday with her friends; and, with Gerty Farish's aid, had
+discovered a small private hotel where she might establish
+herself for the winter. The hotel being on the edge of a
+fashionable neighbourhood, the price of the few square feet she
+was to occupy was considerably in excess of her means; but she
+found a justification for her dislike of poorer quarters in the
+argument that, at this particular juncture, it was of the utmost
+importance to keep up a show of prosperity. In reality, it was
+impossible for her, while she had the means to pay her way for a
+week ahead, to lapse into a form of existence like Gerty
+Farish's. She had never been so near the brink of insolvency; but
+she could at least manage to meet her weekly hotel bill, and
+having settled the heaviest of her previous debts out of the
+money she had received from Trenor, she had a still fair margin
+of credit to go upon. The situation, however, was not agreeable
+enough to lull her to complete unconsciousness of its insecurity.
+Her rooms, with their cramped outlook down a sallow vista of
+brick walls and fire-escapes, her lonely meals in the dark
+restaurant with its surcharged ceiling and haunting smell of
+coffee--all these material discomforts, which were yet to be
+accounted as so many privileges soon to be withdrawn, kept
+constantly before her the disadvantages of her state; and
+her mind reverted the more insistently to Mrs. Fisher's counsels.
+Beat about the question as she would, she knew the outcome of it
+was that she must try to marry Rosedale; and in this conviction
+she was fortified by an unexpected visit from George Dorset.
+
+She found him, on the first Sunday after her return to town,
+pacing her narrow sitting-room to the imminent peril of the few
+knick-knacks with which she had tried to disguise its plush
+exuberances; but the sight of her seemed to quiet him, and he
+said meekly that he hadn't come to bother her--that he asked
+only to be allowed to sit for half an hour and talk of anything
+she liked. In reality, as she knew, he had but one subject:
+himself and his wretchedness; and it was the need of her sympathy
+that had drawn him back. But he began with a pretence of
+questioning her about herself, and as she replied, she saw that,
+for the first time, a faint realization of her plight penetrated
+the dense surface of his self-absorption. Was it possible that
+her old beast of an aunt had actually cut her off? That she was
+living alone like this because there was no one else for her to
+go to, and that she really hadn't more than enough to keep alive
+on till the wretched little legacy was paid? The fibres of
+sympathy were nearly atrophied in him, but he was suffering so
+intensely that he had a faint glimpse of what other sufferings
+might mean--and, as she perceived, an almost simultaneous
+perception of the way in which her particular misfortunes might
+serve him.
+
+When at length she dismissed him, on the pretext that she must
+dress for dinner, he lingered entreatingly on the threshold to
+blurt out: "It's been such a comfort--do say you'll let me see
+you again--" But to this direct appeal it was impossible to give
+an assent; and she said with friendly decisiveness: "I'm
+sorry--but you know why I can't."
+
+He coloured to the eyes, pushed the door shut, and stood before
+her embarrassed but insistent. "I know how you might, if you
+would--if things were different--and it lies with you to make
+them so. It's just a word to say, and you put me out of my
+misery!"
+
+Their eyes met, and for a second she trembled again with the
+nearness of the temptation. "You're mistaken; I know nothing; I
+saw nothing," she exclaimed, striving, by sheer force of
+reiteration, to build a barrier between herself and her peril;
+and as he turned away, groaning out "You sacrifice us both," she
+continued to repeat, as if it were a charm: "I know
+nothing--absolutely nothing."
+
+
+
+Lily had seen little of Rosedale since her illuminating talk with
+Mrs. Fisher, but on the two or three occasions when they had met
+she was conscious of having distinctly advanced in his favour.
+There could be no doubt that he admired her as much as ever, and
+she believed it rested with herself to raise his admiration to
+the point where it should bear down the lingering counsels of
+expediency. The task was not an easy one; but neither was it
+easy, in her long sleepless nights, to face the thought of what
+George Dorset was so clearly ready to offer. Baseness for
+baseness, she hated the other least: there were even moments when
+a marriage with Rosedale seemed the only honourable solution of
+her difficulties. She did not indeed let her imagination range
+beyond the day of plighting: after that everything faded into a
+haze of material well-being, in which the personality of her
+benefactor remained mercifully vague. She had learned, in her
+long vigils, that there were certain things not good to think of,
+certain midnight images that must at any cost be exorcised--and
+one of these was the image of herself as Rosedale's wife.
+
+Carry Fisher, on the strength, as she frankly owned, of the Brys'
+Newport success, had taken for the autumn months a small house at
+Tuxedo; and thither Lily was bound on the Sunday after Dorset's
+visit. Though it was nearly dinner-time when she arrived, her
+hostess was still out, and the firelit quiet of the small silent
+house descended on her spirit with a sense of peace and
+familiarity. It may be doubted if such an emotion had ever before
+been evoked by Carry Fisher's surroundings; but, contrasted to
+the world in which Lily had lately lived, there was an air of
+repose and stability in the very placing of the furniture, and in
+the quiet competence of the parlour-maid who led her up to her
+room. Mrs. Fisher's unconventionality was, after all, a merely
+superficial divergence from an inherited social creed, while the
+manners of the Gormer circle represented their first attempt to
+formulate such a creed for themselves.
+
+It was the first time since her return from Europe that Lily had
+found herself in a congenial atmosphere, and the stirring of
+familiar associations had almost prepared her, as she descended
+the stairs before dinner, to enter upon a group of her old
+acquaintances. But this expectation was instantly checked by the
+reflection that the friends who remained loyal were precisely
+those who would be least willing to expose her to such
+encounters; and it was hardly with surprise that she found,
+instead, Mr. Rosedale kneeling domestically on the drawing-room
+hearth before his hostess's little girl.
+
+Rosedale in the paternal role was hardly a figure to soften Lily;
+yet she could not but notice a quality of homely goodness in his
+advances to the child. They were not, at any rate, the
+premeditated and perfunctory endearments of the guest under his
+hostess's eye, for he and the little girl had the room to
+themselves; and something in his attitude made him seem a simple
+and kindly being compared to the small critical creature who
+endured his homage. Yes, he would be kind--Lily, from the
+threshold, had time to feel--kind in his gross, unscrupulous,
+rapacious way, the way of the predatory creature with his mate.
+She had but a moment in which to consider whether this glimpse of
+the fireside man mitigated her repugnance, or gave it, rather, a
+more concrete and intimate form; for at sight of her he was
+immediately on his feet again, the florid and dominant Rosedale
+of Mattie Gormer's drawing-room.
+
+It was no surprise to Lily to find that he had been selected as
+her only fellow-guest. Though she and her hostess had not met
+since the latter's tentative discussion of her future, Lily knew
+that the acuteness which enabled Mrs. Fisher to lay a safe and
+pleasant course through a world of antagonistic forces was not
+infrequently exercised for the benefit of her friends. It was, in
+fact, characteristic of Carry that, while she actively gleaned
+her own stores from the fields of affluence, her real sympathies
+were on the other side--with the unlucky, the unpopular, the
+unsuccessful, with all her hungry fellow-toilers in the shorn
+stubble of success.
+
+Mrs. Fisher's experience guarded her against the mistake of
+exposing Lily, for the first evening, to the unmitigated
+impression of Rosedale's personality. Kate Corby and two
+or three men dropped in to dinner, and Lily, alive to every
+detail of her friend's method, saw that such opportunities as had
+been contrived for her were to be deferred till she had, as it
+were, gained courage to make effectual use of them. She had a
+sense of acquiescing in this plan with the passiveness of a
+sufferer resigned to the surgeon's touch; and this feeling of
+almost lethargic helplessness continued when, after the departure
+of the guests, Mrs. Fisher followed her upstairs.
+
+"May I come in and smoke a cigarette over your fire? If we talk
+in my room we shall disturb the child." Mrs. Fisher looked about
+her with the eye of the solicitous hostess. "I hope you've
+managed to make yourself comfortable, dear? Isn't it a jolly
+little house? It's such a blessing to have a few quiet weeks with
+the baby."
+
+Carry, in her rare moments of prosperity, became so expansively
+maternal that Miss Bart sometimes wondered whether, if she could
+ever get time and money enough, she would not end by devoting
+them both to her daughter.
+
+"It's a well-earned rest: I'll say that for myself," she
+continued, sinking down with a sigh of content on the pillowed
+lounge near the fire. "Louisa Bry is a stern task-master: I often
+used to wish myself back with the Gormers. Talk of love making
+people jealous and suspicious--it's nothing to social ambition!
+Louisa used to lie awake at night wondering whether the women who
+called on us called on ME because I was with her, or on HER
+because she was with me; and she was always laying traps to find
+out what I thought. Of course I had to disown my oldest friends,
+rather than let her suspect she owed me the chance of making a
+single acquaintance--when, all the while, that was what she had
+me there for, and what she wrote me a handsome cheque for when
+the season was over!"
+
+Mrs. Fisher was not a woman who talked of herself without cause,
+and the practice of direct speech, far from precluding in her an
+occasional resort to circuitous methods, served rather, at
+crucial moments, the purpose of the juggler's chatter while he
+shifts the contents of his sleeves. Through the haze of her
+cigarette smoke she continued to gaze meditatively at Miss Bart,
+who, having dismissed her maid, sat before the
+toilet-table shaking out over her shoulders the loosened
+undulations of her hair.
+
+"Your hair's wonderful, Lily. Thinner--? What does that matter,
+when it's so light and alive? So many women's worries seem to go
+straight to their hair--but yours looks as if there had never
+been an anxious thought under it. I never saw you look better
+than you did this evening. Mattie Gormer told me that Morpeth
+wanted to paint you--why don't you let him?"
+
+Miss Bart's immediate answer was to address a critical glance to
+the reflection of the countenance under discussion. Then she
+said, with a slight touch of irritation: "I don't care to accept
+a portrait from Paul Morpeth."
+
+Mrs. Fisher mused. "N--no. And just now, especially--well, he
+can do you after you're married." She waited a moment, and then
+went on: "By the way, I had a visit from Mattie the other day.
+She turned up here last Sunday--and with Bertha Dorset, of all
+people in the world!"
+
+She paused again to measure the effect of this announcement on
+her hearer, but the brush in Miss Bart's lifted hand maintained
+its unwavering stroke from brow to nape.
+
+"I never was more astonished," Mrs. Fisher pursued. "I don't know
+two women less predestined to intimacy--from Bertha's standpoint,
+that is; for of course poor Mattie thinks it natural enough that
+she should be singled out--I've no doubt the rabbit always thinks
+it is fascinating the anaconda. Well, you know I've always told
+you that Mattie secretly longed to bore herself with the really
+fashionable; and now that the chance has come, I see that she's
+capable of sacrificing all her old friends to it."
+
+Lily laid aside her brush and turned a penetrating glance upon
+her friend. "Including ME?" she suggested.
+
+"Ah, my dear," murmured Mrs. Fisher, rising to push back a log
+from the hearth.
+
+"That's what Bertha means, isn't it?" Miss Bart went on steadily.
+"For of course she always means something; and before I left Long
+Island I saw that she was beginning to lay her toils for Mattie."
+
+Mrs. Fisher sighed evasively. "She has her fast now, at any rate.
+To think of that loud independence of Mattie's being only
+a subtler form of snobbishness! Bertha can already make her
+believe anything she pleases--and I'm afraid she's begun, my poor
+child, by insinuating horrors about you."
+
+Lily flushed under the shadow of her drooping hair. "The world is
+too vile," she murmured, averting herself from Mrs. Fisher's
+anxious scrutiny.
+
+"It's not a pretty place; and the only way to keep a footing in
+it is to fight it on its own terms--and above all, my dear, not
+alone!" Mrs. Fisher gathered up her floating implications in a
+resolute grasp. "You've told me so little that I can only guess
+what has been happening; but in the rush we all live in there's
+no time to keep on hating any one without a cause, and if Bertha
+is still nasty enough to want to injure you with other people it
+must be because she's still afraid of you. From her standpoint
+there's only one reason for being afraid of you; and my own idea
+is that, if you want to punish her, you hold the means in your
+hand. I believe you can marry George Dorset tomorrow; but if you
+don't care for that particular form of retaliation, the only
+thing to save you from Bertha is to marry somebody else."
+
+
+
+Chapter 7
+
+The light projected on the situation by Mrs. Fisher had the
+cheerless distinctness of a winter dawn. It outlined the facts
+with a cold precision unmodified by shade or colour, and
+refracted, as it were, from the blank walls of the surrounding
+limitations: she had opened windows from which no sky was ever
+visible. But the idealist subdued to vulgar necessities must
+employ vulgar minds to draw the inferences to which he cannot
+stoop; and it was easier for Lily to let Mrs. Fisher formulate
+her case than to put it plainly to herself. Once confronted with
+it, however, she went the full length of its consequences; and
+these had never been more clearly present to her than when, the
+next afternoon, she set out for a walk with Rosedale.
+
+It was one of those still November days when the air is haunted
+with the light of summer, and something in the lines of the
+landscape, and in the golden haze which bathed them, recalled to
+Miss Bart the September afternoon when she had climbed the slopes
+of Bellomont with Selden. The importunate memory was kept before
+her by its ironic contrast to her present situation, since her
+walk with Selden had represented an irresistible flight from just
+such a climax as the present excursion was designed to bring
+about. But other memories importuned her also; the recollection
+of similar situations, as skillfully led up to, but through some
+malice of fortune, or her own unsteadiness of purpose, always
+failing of the intended result. Well, her purpose was steady
+enough now. She saw that the whole weary work of rehabilitation
+must begin again, and against far greater odds, if Bertha Dorset
+should succeed in breaking up her friendship with the Gormers;
+and her longing for shelter and security was intensified by the
+passionate desire to triumph over Bertha, as only wealth and
+predominance could triumph over her. As the wife of Rosedale--the
+Rosedale she felt it in her power to create--she would at least
+present an invulnerable front to her enemy.
+
+She had to draw upon this thought, as upon some fiery stimulant,
+to keep up her part in the scene toward which Rosedale
+was too frankly tending. As she walked beside him, shrinking in
+every nerve from the way in which his look and tone made free of
+her, yet telling herself that this momentary endurance of his
+mood was the price she must pay for her ultimate power over him,
+she tried to calculate the exact point at which concession must
+turn to resistance, and the price HE would have to pay be made
+equally clear to him. But his dapper self-confidence seemed
+impenetrable to such hints, and she had a sense of something hard
+and self-contained behind the superficial warmth of his manner.
+
+They had been seated for some time in the seclusion of a rocky
+glen above the lake, when she suddenly cut short the culmination
+of an impassioned period by turning upon him the grave loveliness
+of her gaze.
+
+"I DO believe what you say, Mr. Rosedale," she said quietly; "and
+I am ready to marry you whenever you wish."
+
+Rosedale, reddening to the roots of his glossy hair, received
+this announcement with a recoil which carried him to his feet,
+where he halted before her in an attitude of almost comic
+discomfiture.
+
+"For I suppose that is what you do wish," she continued, in the
+same quiet tone. "And, though I was unable to consent when you
+spoke to me in this way before, I am ready, now that I know you
+so much better, to trust my happiness to your hands."
+
+She spoke with the noble directness which she could command on
+such occasions, and which was like a large steady light thrown
+across the tortuous darkness of the situation. In its
+inconvenient brightness Rosedale seemed to waver a moment, as
+though conscious that every avenue of escape was unpleasantly
+illuminated.
+
+Then he gave a short laugh, and drew out a gold cigarette-case,
+in which, with plump jewelled fingers, he groped for a
+gold-tipped cigarette. Selecting one, he paused to contemplate it
+a moment before saying: "My dear Miss Lily, I'm sorry if there's
+been any little misapprehension between us-but you made me feel
+my suit was so hopeless that I had really no intention of
+renewing it."
+
+Lily's blood tingled with the grossness of the rebuff; but she checked
+the first leap of her anger, and said in a tone of gentle dignity:
+"I have no one but myself to blame if I gave you the impression
+that my decision was final."
+
+Her word-play was always too quick for him, and this reply held
+him in puzzled silence while she extended her hand and added,
+with the faintest inflection of sadness in her voice: "Before we
+bid each other goodbye, I want at least to thank you for having
+once thought of me as you did."
+
+The touch of her hand, the moving softness of her look, thrilled
+a vulnerable fibre in Rosedale. It was her exquisite
+inaccessibleness, the sense of distance she could convey without
+a hint of disdain, that made it most difficult for him to give
+her up.
+
+"Why do you talk of saying goodbye? Ain't we going to be good
+friends all the same?" he urged, without releasing her hand.
+
+She drew it away quietly. "What is your idea of being good
+friends?" she returned with a slight smile. "Making love to me
+without asking me to marry you?" Rosedale laughed with a
+recovered sense of ease.
+
+"Well, that's about the size of it, I suppose. I can't help
+making love to you--I don't see how any man could; but I don't
+mean to ask you to marry me as long as I can keep out of it."
+
+She continued to smile. "I like your frankness; but I am afraid
+our friendship can hardly continue on those terms." She turned
+away, as though to mark that its final term had in fact been
+reached, and he followed her for a few steps with a baffled sense
+of her having after all kept the game in her own hands.
+
+"Miss Lily---" he began impulsively; but she walked on without
+seeming to hear him.
+
+He overtook her in a few quick strides, and laid an entreating
+hand on her arm. "Miss Lily--don't hurry away like that. You're
+beastly hard on a fellow; but if you don't mind speaking the
+truth I don't see why you shouldn't allow me to do the same."
+
+She had paused a moment with raised brows, drawing away
+instinctively from his touch, though she made no effort to evade
+his words.
+
+"I was under the impression," she rejoined, "that you had done so
+without waiting for my permission."
+
+"Well--why shouldn't you hear my reasons for doing it, then?
+We're neither of us such new hands that a little plain speaking
+is going to hurt us. I'm all broken up on you: there's nothing
+new in that. I'm more in love with you than I was this time last
+year; but I've got to face the fact that the situation is
+changed."
+
+She continued to confront him with the same air of ironic
+composure. "You mean to say that I'm not as desirable a match as
+you thought me?"
+
+"Yes; that's what I do mean," he answered resolutely. "I won't go
+into what's happened. I don't believe the stories about you--I
+don't WANT to believe them. But they're there, and my not
+believing them ain't going to alter the situation."
+
+She flushed to her temples, but the extremity of her need checked
+the retort on her lip and she continued to face him composedly.
+"If they are not true," she said, "doesn't THAT alter the
+situation?"
+
+He met this with a steady gaze of his small stock-taking eyes,
+which made her feel herself no more than some superfine human
+merchandise. "I believe it does in novels; but I'm certain it
+don't in real life. You know that as well as I do: if we're
+speaking the truth, let's speak the whole truth. Last year I was
+wild to marry you, and you wouldn't look at me: this year--well,
+you appear to be willing. Now, what has changed in the interval?
+Your situation, that's all. Then you thought you could do better;
+now---"
+
+"You think you can?" broke from her ironically.
+
+"Why, yes, I do: in one way, that is." He stood before her, his
+hands in his pockets, his chest sturdily expanded under its vivid
+waistcoat. "It's this way, you see: I've had a pretty steady
+grind of it these last years, working up my social position.
+Think it's funny I should say that? Why should I mind saying I
+want to get into society? A man ain't ashamed to say he wants to
+own a racing stable or a picture gallery. Well, a taste for
+society's just another kind of hobby. Perhaps I want to get even
+with some of the people who cold-shouldered me last year--put it
+that way if it sounds better. Anyhow, I want to have the run of
+the best houses; and I'm getting it too, little by little. But I
+know the quickest way to queer yourself with the right
+people is to be seen with the wrong ones; and that's the reason I
+want to avoid mistakes."
+
+Miss Bart continued to stand before him in a silence that might
+have expressed either mockery or a half-reluctant respect for his
+candour, and after a moment's pause he went on: "There it is, you
+see. I'm more in love with you than ever, but if I married you
+now I'd queer myself for good and all, and everything I've worked
+for all these years would be wasted."
+
+She received this with a look from which all tinge of resentment
+had faded. After the tissue of social falsehoods in which she had
+so long moved it was refreshing to step into the open daylight of
+an avowed expediency.
+
+"I understand you," she said. "A year ago I should have been of
+use to you, and now I should be an encumbrance; and I like you
+for telling me so quite honestly." She extended her hand with a
+smile.
+
+Again the gesture had a disturbing effect upon Mr. Rosedale's
+self-command. "By George, you're a dead game sport, you are!" he
+exclaimed; and as she began once more to move away, he broke out
+suddenly--"Miss Lily--stop. You know I don't believe those
+stories--I believe they were all got up by a woman who didn't
+hesitate to sacrifice you to her own convenience---"
+
+Lily drew away with a movement of quick disdain: it was easier to
+endure his insolence than his commiseration.
+
+"You are very kind; but I don't think we need discuss the matter
+farther."
+
+But Rosedale's natural imperviousness to hints made it easy for
+him to brush such resistance aside. "I don't want to discuss
+anything; I just want to put a plain case before you," he
+persisted.
+
+She paused in spite of herself, held by the note of a new purpose
+in his look and tone; and he went on, keeping his eyes firmly
+upon her: "The wonder to me is that you've waited so long to get
+square with that woman, when you've had the power in your hands."
+She continued silent under the rush of astonishment that his
+words produced, and he moved a step closer to ask with low-toned
+directness: "Why don't you use those letters of hers you bought
+last year?"
+
+Lily stood speechless under the shock of the interrogation. In
+the words preceding it she had conjectured, at most, an allusion
+to her supposed influence over George Dorset; nor did the
+astonishing indelicacy of the reference diminish the likelihood
+of Rosedale's resorting to it. But now she saw how far short of
+the mark she had fallen; and the surprise of learning that he had
+discovered the secret of the letters left her, for the moment,
+unconscious of the special use to which he was in the act of
+putting his knowledge.
+
+Her temporary loss of self-possession gave him time to press his
+point; and he went on quickly, as though to secure completer
+control of the situation: "You see I know where you stand--I know
+how completely she's in your power. That sounds like stage-talk,
+don't it?--but there's a lot of truth in some of those old gags;
+and I don't suppose you bought those letters simply because
+you're collecting autographs."
+
+She continued to look at him with a deepening bewilderment: her
+only clear impression resolved itself into a scared sense of his
+power.
+
+"You're wondering how I found out about 'em?" he went on,
+answering her look with a note of conscious pride. "Perhaps
+you've forgotten that I'm the owner of the Benedick-but never
+mind about that now. Getting on to things is a mighty useful
+accomplishment in business, and I've simply extended it to my
+private affairs. For this IS partly my affair, you see--at least,
+it depends on you to make it so. Let's look the situation
+straight in the eye. Mrs. Dorset, for reasons we needn't go into,
+did you a beastly bad turn last spring. Everybody knows what Mrs.
+Dorset is, and her best friends wouldn't believe her on oath
+where their own interests were concerned; but as long as they're
+out of the row it's much easier to follow her lead than to set
+themselves against it, and you've simply been sacrificed to their
+laziness and selfishness. Isn't that a pretty fair statement of
+the case?--Well, some people say you've got the neatest kind of
+an answer in your hands: that George Dorset would marry you
+tomorrow, if you'd tell him all you know, and give him the chance
+to show the lady the door. I daresay he would; but you don't seem
+to care for that particular form of getting even, and,
+taking a purely business view of the question, I think you're
+right. In a deal like that, nobody comes out with perfectly clean
+hands, and the only way for you to start fresh is to get Bertha
+Dorset to back you up, instead of trying to fight her."
+
+He paused long enough to draw breath, but not to give her time
+for the expression of her gathering resistance; and as he pressed
+on, expounding and elucidating his idea with the directness of
+the man who has no doubts of his cause, she found the indignation
+gradually freezing on her lip, found herself held fast in the
+grasp of his argument by the mere cold strength of its
+presentation. There was no time now to wonder how he had heard of
+her obtaining the letters: all her world was dark outside the
+monstrous glare of his scheme for using them. And it was not,
+after the first moment, the horror of the idea that held her
+spell-bound, subdued to his will; it was rather its subtle
+affinity to her own inmost cravings. He would marry her tomorrow
+if she could regain Bertha Dorset's friendship; and to induce the
+open resumption of that friendship, and the tacit retractation of
+all that had caused its withdrawal, she had only to put to the
+lady the latent menace contained in the packet so miraculously
+delivered into her hands. Lily saw in a flash the advantage of
+this course over that which poor Dorset had pressed upon her. The
+other plan depended for its success on the infliction of an open
+injury, while this reduced the transaction to a private
+understanding, of which no third person need have the remotest
+hint. Put by Rosedale in terms of business-like give-and-take,
+this understanding took on the harmless air of a mutual
+accommodation, like a transfer of property or a revision of
+boundary lines. It certainly simplified life to view it as a
+perpetual adjustment, a play of party politics, in which every
+concession had its recognized equivalent: Lily's tired mind was
+fascinated by this escape from fluctuating ethical estimates into
+a region of concrete weights and measures.
+
+Rosedale, as she listened, seemed to read in her silence not only
+a gradual acquiescence in his plan, but a dangerously far-
+reaching perception of the chances it offered; for as she
+continued to stand before him without speaking, he broke out,
+with a quick return upon himself: "You see how simple it is,
+don't you? Well, don't be carried away by the idea that it's TOO simple.
+It isn't exactly as if you'd started in with a clean
+bill of health. Now we're talking let's call things by
+their right names, and clear the whole business up. You know well
+enough that Bertha Dorset couldn't have touched you if there
+hadn't been--well--questions asked before--little points of
+interrogation, eh? Bound to happen to a good-looking girl with
+stingy relatives, I suppose; anyhow, they DID happen, and she
+found the ground prepared for her. Do you see where I'm coming
+out? You don't want these little questions cropping up again.
+It's one thing to get Bertha Dorset into line--but what you want
+is to keep her there. You can frighten her fast enough--but how
+are you going to keep her frightened? By showing her that you're
+as powerful as she is. All the letters in the world won't do that
+for you as you are now; but with a big backing behind you, you'll
+keep her just where you want her to be. That's MY share in the
+business--that's what I'm offering you. You can't put the thing
+through without me--don't run away with any idea that you can. In
+six months you'd be back again among your old worries, or worse
+ones; and here I am, ready to lift you out of 'em tomorrow if you
+say so. DO you say so, Miss Lily?" he added, moving suddenly
+nearer.
+
+The words, and the movement which accompanied them, combined to
+startle Lily out of the state of tranced subservience into which
+she had insensibly slipped. Light comes in devious ways to the
+groping consciousness, and it came to her now through the
+disgusted perception that her would-be accomplice assumed, as a
+matter of course, the likelihood of her distrusting him and
+perhaps trying to cheat him of his share of the spoils. This
+glimpse of his inner mind seemed to present the whole transaction
+in a new aspect, and she saw that the essential baseness of the
+act lay in its freedom from risk.
+
+She drew back with a quick gesture of rejection, saying, in a
+voice that was a surprise to her own ears: "You are
+mistaken--quite mistaken--both in the facts and in what you infer
+from them."
+
+Rosedale stared a moment, puzzled by her sudden dash in a
+direction so different from that toward which she had appeared to
+be letting him guide her.
+
+"Now what on earth does that mean? I thought we understood each
+other!" he exclaimed; and to her murmur of "Ah, we do NOW," he
+retorted with a sudden burst of violence: "I suppose it's because
+the letters are to HIM, then? Well, I'll be damned if I see what
+thanks you've got from him!"
+
+
+
+Chapter 8
+
+The autumn days declined to winter. Once more the leisure world
+was in transition between country and town, and Fifth Avenue,
+still deserted at the week-end, showed from Monday to Friday a
+broadening stream of carriages between house-fronts gradually
+restored to consciousness.
+
+The Horse Show, some two weeks earlier, had produced a passing
+semblance of reanimation, filling the theatres and restaurants
+with a human display of the same costly and high-stepping kind as
+circled daily about its ring. In Miss Bart's world the Horse
+Show, and the public it attracted, had ostensibly come to be
+classed among the spectacles disdained of the elect; but, as the
+feudal lord might sally forth to join in the dance on his village
+green, so society, unofficially and incidentally, still
+condescended to look in upon the scene. Mrs. Gormer, among the
+rest, was not above seizing such an occasion for the display of
+herself and her horses; and Lily was given one or two
+opportunities of appearing at her friend's side in the most
+conspicuous box the house afforded. But this lingering semblance
+of intimacy made her only the more conscious of a change in the
+relation between Mattie and herself, of a dawning discrimination,
+a gradually formed social standard, emerging from Mrs. Gormer's
+chaotic view of life. It was inevitable that Lily herself should
+constitute the first sacrifice to this new ideal, and she knew
+that, once the Gormers were established in town, the whole drift
+of fashionable life would facilitate Mattie's detachment from
+her. She had, in short, failed to make herself indispensable; or
+rather, her attempt to do so had been thwarted by an influence
+stronger than any she could exert. That influence, in its last
+analysis, was simply the power of money: Bertha Dorset's social
+credit was based on an impregnable bank-account.
+
+Lily knew that Rosedale had overstated neither the difficulty of
+her own position nor the completeness of the vindication he
+offered: once Bertha's match in material resources, her superior
+gifts would make it easy for her to dominate her adversary. An
+understanding of what such domination would mean, and of the
+disadvantages accruing from her rejection of it, was
+brought home to Lily with increasing clearness during the early
+weeks of the winter. Hitherto, she had kept up a semblance of
+movement outside the main flow of the social current; but with
+the return to town, and the concentrating of scattered
+activities, the mere fact of not slipping back naturally into her
+old habits of life marked her as being unmistakably excluded from
+them. If one were not a part of the season's fixed routine, one
+swung unsphered in a void of social non-existence. Lily, for all
+her dissatisfied dreaming, had never really conceived the
+possibility of revolving about a different centre: it was easy
+enough to despise the world, but decidedly difficult to find any
+other habitable region. Her sense of irony never quite deserted
+her, and she could still note, with self-directed derision, the
+abnormal value suddenly acquired by the most tiresome and
+insignificant details of her former life. Its very drudgeries had
+a charm now that she was involuntarily released from them:
+card-leaving, note-writing, enforced civilities to the dull and
+elderly, and the smiling endurance of tedious dinners--how
+pleasantly such obligations would have filled the emptiness of
+her days! She did indeed leave cards in plenty; she kept herself,
+with a smiling and valiant persistence, well in the eye of her
+world; nor did she suffer any of those gross rebuffs which
+sometimes produce a wholesome reaction of contempt in their
+victim. Society did not turn away from her, it simply drifted by,
+preoccupied and inattentive, letting her feel, to the full
+measure of her humbled pride, how completely she had been the
+creature of its favour.
+
+She had rejected Rosedale's suggestion with a promptness of scorn
+almost surprising to herself: she had not lost her capacity for
+high flashes of indignation. But she could not breathe long on
+the heights; there had been nothing in her training to develop
+any continuity of moral strength: what she craved, and really
+felt herself entitled to, was a situation in which the noblest
+attitude should also be the easiest. Hitherto her intermittent
+impulses of resistance had sufficed to maintain her self-respect.
+If she slipped she recovered her footing, and it was only
+afterward that she was aware of having recovered it each time on
+a slightly lower level. She had rejected Rosedale's offer without
+conscious effort; her whole being had risen against it;
+and she did not yet perceive that, by the mere act of listening
+to him, she had learned to live with ideas which would once have
+been intolerable to her.
+
+
+
+
+To Gerty Farish, keeping watch over her with a tenderer if less
+discerning eye than Mrs. Fisher's, the results of the struggle
+were already distinctly visible. She did not, indeed, know what
+hostages Lily had already given to expediency; but she saw her
+passionately and irretrievably pledged to the ruinous policy of
+"keeping up." Gerty could smile now at her own early dream of her
+friend's renovation through adversity: she understood clearly
+enough that Lily was not of those to whom privation teaches the
+unimportance of what they have lost. But this very fact, to
+Gerty, made her friend the more piteously in want of aid, the
+more exposed to the claims of a tenderness she was so little
+conscious of needing.
+
+Lily, since her return to town, had not often climbed Miss
+Farish's stairs. There was something irritating to her in the
+mute interrogation of Gerty's sympathy: she felt the real
+difficulties of her situation to be incommunicable to any one
+whose theory of values was so different from her own, and the
+restrictions of Gerty's life, which had once had the charm of
+contrast, now reminded her too painfully of the limits to which
+her own existence was shrinking. When at length, one afternoon,
+she put into execution the belated resolve to visit her friend,
+this sense of shrunken opportunities possessed her with unusual
+intensity. The walk up Fifth Avenue, unfolding before her, in the
+brilliance of the hard winter sunlight, an interminable
+procession of fastidiously-equipped carriages--giving her,
+through the little squares of brougham-windows, peeps of familiar
+profiles bent above visiting-lists, of hurried hands dispensing
+notes and cards to attendant footmen--this glimpse of the
+ever-revolving wheels of the great social machine made Lily more
+than ever conscious of the steepness and narrowness of Gerty's
+stairs, and of the cramped blind alley of life to which they led.
+Dull stairs destined to be mounted by dull people: how many
+thousands of insignificant figures were going up and down such
+stairs all over the world at that very moment--figures as shabby
+and uninteresting as that of the middle-aged lady in limp
+black who descended Gerty's flight as Lily climbed to it!
+
+"That was poor Miss Jane Silverton--she came to talk things over
+with me: she and her sister want to do something to support
+themselves," Gerty explained, as Lily followed her into the
+sitting-room.
+
+"To support themselves? Are they so hard up?" Miss Bart asked
+with a touch of irritation: she had not come to listen to the
+woes of other people.
+
+"I'm afraid they have nothing left: Ned's debts have swallowed up
+everything. They had such hopes, you know, when he broke away
+from Carry Fisher; they thought Bertha Dorset would be such a
+good influence, because she doesn't care for cards, and--well,
+she talked quite beautifully to poor Miss Jane about feeling as
+if Ned were her younger brother, and wanting to carry him off on
+the yacht, so that he might have a chance to drop cards and
+racing, and take up his literary work again."
+
+Miss Farish paused with a sigh which reflected the perplexity of
+her departing visitor. "But that isn't all; it isn't even the
+worst. It seems that Ned has quarrelled with the Dorsets; or at
+least Bertha won't allow him to see her, and he is so unhappy
+about it that he has taken to gambling again, and going about
+with all sorts of queer people. And cousin Grace Van Osburgh
+accuses him of having had a very bad influence on Freddy, who
+left Harvard last spring, and has been a great deal with Ned ever
+since. She sent for Miss Jane, and made a dreadful scene; and
+Jack Stepney and Herbert Melson, who were there too, told Miss
+Jane that Freddy was threatening to marry some dreadful woman to
+whom Ned had introduced him, and that they could do nothing with
+him because now he's of age he has his own money. You can fancy
+how poor Miss Jane felt--she came to me at once, and seemed to
+think that if I could get her something to do she could earn
+enough to pay Ned's debts and send him away--I'm afraid she has
+no idea how long it would take her to pay for one of his evenings
+at bridge. And he was horribly in debt when he came back from the
+cruise--I can't see why he should have spent so much more money
+under Bertha's influence than Carry's: can you?"
+
+Lily met this query with an impatient gesture. "My dear Gerty, I
+always understand how people can spend much more money--never how
+they can spend any less!"
+
+She loosened her furs and settled herself in Gerty's easy-chair,
+while her friend busied herself with the tea-cups.
+
+"But what can they do--the Miss Silvertons? How do they mean to
+support themselves?" she asked, conscious that the note of
+irritation still persisted in her voice. It was the very last
+topic she had meant to discuss--it really did not interest her in
+the least--but she was seized by a sudden perverse curiosity to
+know how the two colourless shrinking victims of young
+Silverton's sentimental experiments meant to cope with the grim
+necessity which lurked so close to her own threshold.
+
+"I don't know--I am trying to find something for them. Miss Jane
+reads aloud very nicely--but it's so hard to find any one who is
+willing to be read to. And Miss Annie paints a little---"
+
+"Oh, I know--apple-blossoms on blotting-paper; just the kind of
+thing I shall be doing myself before long!" exclaimed Lily,
+starting up with a vehemence of movement that threatened
+destruction to Miss Farish's fragile tea-table.
+
+Lily bent over to steady the cups; then she sank back into her
+seat. "I'd forgotten there was no room to dash about in--how
+beautifully one does have to behave in a small flat! Oh, Gerty, I
+wasn't meant to be good," she sighed out incoherently.
+
+Gerty lifted an apprehensive look to her pale face, in which the
+eyes shone with a peculiar sleepless lustre.
+
+"You look horribly tired, Lily; take your tea, and let me give
+you this cushion to lean against."
+
+Miss Bart accepted the cup of tea, but put back the cushion with
+an impatient hand.
+
+"Don't give me that! I don't want to lean back--I shall go to
+sleep if I do."
+
+"Well, why not, dear? I'll be as quiet as a mouse," Gerty urged
+affectionately.
+
+"No--no; don't be quiet; talk to me--keep me awake! I don't sleep
+at night, and in the afternoon a dreadful drowsiness creeps over
+me."
+
+"You don't sleep at night? Since when?"
+
+"I don't know--I can't remember." She rose and put the empty cup
+on the tea-tray. "Another, and stronger, please; if I don't keep
+awake now I shall see horrors tonight--perfect horrors!"
+
+"But they'll be worse if you drink too much tea."
+
+"No, no--give it to me; and don't preach, please," Lily returned
+imperiously. Her voice had a dangerous edge, and Gerty noticed
+that her hand shook as she held it out to receive the second cup.
+
+"But you look so tired: I'm sure you must be ill---"
+
+Miss Bart set down her cup with a start. "Do I look ill? Does my
+face show it?" She rose and walked quickly toward the little
+mirror above the writing-table. "What a horrid
+looking-glass--it's all blotched and discoloured. Any one would
+look ghastly in it!" She turned back, fixing her plaintive eyes
+on Gerty. "You stupid dear, why do you say such odious things to
+me? It's enough to make one ill to be told one looks so! And
+looking ill means looking ugly." She caught Gerty's wrists, and
+drew her close to the window. "After all, I'd rather know the
+truth. Look me straight in the face, Gerty, and tell me: am I
+perfectly frightful?"
+
+"You're perfectly beautiful now, Lily: your eyes are shining, and
+your cheeks have grown so pink all of a sudden---"
+
+"Ah, they WERE pale, then--ghastly pale, when I came in? Why
+don't you tell me frankly that I'm a wreck? My eyes are bright
+now because I'm so nervous--but in the mornings they look like
+lead. And I can see the lines coming in my face--the lines of
+worry and disappointment and failure! Every sleepless night
+leaves a new one--and how can I sleep, when I have such dreadful
+things to think about?"
+
+"Dreadful things--what things?" asked Gerty, gently detaching her
+wrists from her friend's feverish fingers.
+
+"What things? Well, poverty, for one--and I don't know any that's
+more dreadful." Lily turned away and sank with sudden weariness
+into the easy-chair near the tea-table. "You asked me just now if
+I could understand why Ned Silverton spent so much money. Of
+course I understand--he spends it on living with the rich. You
+think we live ON the rich, rather than with them: and so we do,
+in a sense--but it's a privilege we have to pay for! We eat their
+dinners, and drink their wine, and smoke their cigarettes, and use
+their carriages and their opera-boxes and their private cars--yes,
+but there's a tax to pay on every one of those luxuries. The man
+pays it by big tips to the servants, by playing cards beyond his
+means, by flowers and presents--and--and--lots of other things
+that cost; the girl pays it by tips and cards too--oh, yes, I've
+had to take up bridge again--and by going to the best dress-makers,
+and having just the right dress for every occasion, and always
+keeping herself fresh and exquisite and amusing!"
+
+She leaned back for a moment, closing her eyes, and as she sat
+there, her pale lips slightly parted, and the lids dropped above
+her fagged brilliant gaze, Gerty had a startled perception of the
+change in her face--of the way in which an ashen daylight seemed
+suddenly to extinguish its artificial brightness. She looked up,
+and the vision vanished.
+
+"It doesn't sound very amusing, does it? And it isn't--I'm sick
+to death of it! And yet the thought of giving it all up nearly
+kills me--it's what keeps me awake at night, and makes me so
+crazy for your strong tea. For I can't go on in this way much
+longer, you know--I'm nearly at the end of my tether. And then
+what can I do--how on earth am I to keep myself alive? I see
+myself reduced to the fate of that poor Silverton woman--slinking
+about to employment agencies, and trying to sell painted
+blotting-pads to Women's Exchanges! And there are thousands and
+thousands of women trying to do the same thing already, and not
+one of the number who has less idea how to earn a dollar than I
+have!"
+
+She rose again with a hurried glance at the clock. "It's late,
+and I must be off--I have an appointment with Carry Fisher. Don't
+look so worried, you dear thing--don't think too much about the
+nonsense I've been talking." She was before the mirror again,
+adjusting her hair with a light hand, drawing down her veil, and
+giving a dexterous touch to her furs. "Of course, you know, it
+hasn't come to the employment agencies and the painted
+blotting-pads yet; but I'm rather hard-up just for the moment,
+and if I could find something to do--notes to write and
+visiting-lists to make up, or that kind of thing--it would tide
+me over till the legacy is paid. And Carry has promised to find
+somebody who wants a kind of social secretary--you know she makes
+a specialty of the helpless rich."
+
+
+
+
+Miss Bart had not revealed to Gerty the full extent of her
+anxiety. She was in fact in urgent and immediate need of money:
+money to meet the vulgar weekly claims which could neither be
+deferred nor evaded. To give up her apartment, and shrink to the
+obscurity of a boarding-house, or the provisional hospitality of
+a bed in Gerty Farish's sitting-room, was an expedient which
+could only postpone the problem confronting her; and it seemed
+wiser as well as more agreeable to remain where she was and find
+some means of earning her living. The possibility of having to do
+this was one which she had never before seriously considered, and
+the discovery that, as a bread-winner, she was likely to prove as
+helpless and ineffectual as poor Miss Silverton, was a severe
+shock to her self-confidence.
+
+Having been accustomed to take herself at the popular valuation,
+as a person of energy and resource, naturally fitted to dominate
+any situation in which she found herself, she vaguely imagined
+that such gifts would be of value to seekers after social
+guidance; but there was unfortunately no specific head under
+which the art of saying and doing the right thing could be
+offered in the market, and even Mrs. Fisher's resourcefulness
+failed before the difficulty of discovering a workable vein in
+the vague wealth of Lily's graces. Mrs. Fisher was full of
+indirect expedients for enabling her friends to earn a living,
+and could conscientiously assert that she had put several
+opportunities of this kind before Lily; but more legitimate
+methods of bread-winning were as much out of her line as they
+were beyond the capacity of the sufferers she was generally
+called upon to assist. Lily's failure to profit by the chances
+already afforded her might, moreover, have justified the
+abandonment of farther effort on her behalf; but Mrs. Fisher's
+inexhaustible good-nature made her an adept at creating
+artificial demands in response to an actual supply. In the
+pursuance of this end she at once started on a voyage of
+discovery in Miss Bart's behalf; and as the result of her
+explorations she now summoned the latter with the announcement
+that she had "found something."
+
+
+
+
+Left to herself, Gerty mused distressfully upon her friend's
+plight, and her own inability to relieve it. It was clear to her
+that Lily, for the present, had no wish for the kind of help she
+could give. Miss Farish could see no hope for her friend but in a
+life completely reorganized and detached from its old
+associations; whereas all Lily's energies were centred in the
+determined effort to hold fast to those associations, to keep
+herself visibly identified with them, as long as the illusion
+could be maintained. Pitiable as such an attitude seemed to
+Gerty, she could not judge it as harshly as Selden, for instance,
+might have done. She had not forgotten the night of emotion when
+she and Lily had lain in each other's arms, and she had seemed to
+feel her very heart's blood passing into her friend. The
+sacrifice she had made had seemed unavailing enough; no trace
+remained in Lily of the subduing influences of that hour; but
+Gerty's tenderness, disciplined by long years of contact with
+obscure and inarticulate suffering, could wait on its object with
+a silent forbearance which took no account of time. She could
+not, however, deny herself the solace of taking anxious counsel
+with Lawrence Selden, with whom, since his return from Europe,
+she had renewed her old relation of cousinly confidence.
+
+Selden himself had never been aware of any change in their
+relation. He found Gerty as he had left her, simple, undemanding
+and devoted, but with a quickened intelligence of the heart which
+he recognized without seeking to explain it. To Gerty herself it
+would once have seemed impossible that she should ever again talk
+freely with him of Lily Bart; but what had passed in the secrecy
+of her own breast seemed to resolve itself, when the mist of the
+struggle cleared, into a breaking down of the bounds of self, a
+deflecting of the wasted personal emotion into the general
+current of human understanding.
+
+It was not till some two weeks after her visit from Lily that
+Gerty had the opportunity of communicating her fears to Selden.
+The latter, having presented himself on a Sunday afternoon, had
+lingered on through the dowdy animation of his cousin's
+tea-hour, conscious of something in her voice and eye which
+solicited a word apart; and as soon as the last visitor was gone
+Gerty opened her case by asking how lately he had seen Miss Bart.
+
+Selden's perceptible pause gave her time for a slight stir of
+surprise.
+
+"I haven't seen her at all--I've perpetually missed seeing her
+since she came back."
+
+This unexpected admission made Gerty pause too; and she was still
+hesitating on the brink of her subject when he relieved her by
+adding: "I've wanted to see her--but she seems to have been
+absorbed by the Gormer set since her return from Europe."
+
+"That's all the more reason: she's been very unhappy."
+
+"Unhappy at being with the Gormers?"
+
+"Oh, I don't defend her intimacy with the Gormers; but that too
+is at an end now, I think. You know people have been very unkind
+since Bertha Dorset quarrelled with her."
+
+"Ah---" Selden exclaimed, rising abruptly to walk to the window,
+where he remained with his eyes on the darkening street while his
+cousin continued to explain: "Judy Trenor and her own family have
+deserted her too--and all because Bertha Dorset has said such
+horrible things. And she is very poor--you know Mrs. Peniston cut
+her off with a small legacy, after giving her to understand that
+she was to have everything."
+
+"Yes--I know," Selden assented curtly, turning back into the
+room, but only to stir about with restless steps in the
+circumscribed space between door and window. "Yes--she's been
+abominably treated; but it's unfortunately the precise thing that
+a man who wants to show his sympathy can't say to her."
+
+His words caused Gerty a slight chill of disappointment. "There
+would be other ways of showing your sympathy," she suggested.
+
+Selden, with a slight laugh, sat down beside her on the little
+sofa which projected from the hearth. "What are you thinking of,
+you incorrigible missionary?" he asked.
+
+Gerty's colour rose, and her blush was for a moment her only
+answer. Then she made it more explicit by saying: "I am
+thinking of the fact that you and she used to be great
+friends--that she used to care immensely for what you thought of
+her--and that, if she takes your staying away as a sign of what
+you think now, I can imagine its adding a great deal to her
+unhappiness."
+
+"My dear child, don't add to it still more--at least to your
+conception of it--by attributing to her all sorts of
+susceptibilities of your own." Selden, for his life, could not
+keep a note of dryness out of his voice; but he met Gerty's look
+of perplexity by saying more mildly: "But, though you immensely
+exaggerate the importance of anything I could do for Miss Bart,
+you can't exaggerate my readiness to do it--if you ask me to." He
+laid his hand for a moment on hers, and there passed between
+them, on the current of the rare contact, one of those exchanges
+of meaning which fill the hidden reservoirs of affection. Gerty
+had the feeling that he measured the cost of her request as
+plainly as she read the significance of his reply; and the sense
+of all that was suddenly clear between them made her next words
+easier to find.
+
+"I do ask you, then; I ask you because she once told me that you
+had been a help to her, and because she needs help now as she has
+never needed it before. You know how dependent she has always
+been on ease and luxury--how she has hated what was shabby and
+ugly and uncomfortable. She can't help it--she was brought up
+with those ideas, and has never been able to find her way out of
+them. But now all the things she cared for have been taken from
+her, and the people who taught her to care for them have
+abandoned her too; and it seems to me that if some one could
+reach out a hand and show her the other side--show her how much
+is left in life and in herself---" Gerty broke off, abashed at
+the sound of her own eloquence, and impeded by the difficulty of
+giving precise expression to her vague yearning for her friend's
+retrieval. "I can't help her myself: she's passed out of my
+reach," she continued. "I think she's afraid of being a burden to
+me. When she was last here, two weeks ago, she seemed dreadfully
+worried about her future: she said Carry Fisher was trying to
+find something for her to do. A few days later she wrote me that
+she had taken a position as private secretary, and that I was not
+to be anxious, for everything was all right, and she
+would come in and tell me about it when she had time; but she has
+never come, and I don't like to go to her, because I am afraid of
+forcing myself on her when I'm not wanted. Once, when we were
+children, and I had rushed up after a long separation, and thrown
+my arms about her, she said: 'Please don't kiss me unless I ask
+you to, Gerty'--and she DID ask me, a minute later; but since
+then I've always waited to be asked."
+
+Selden had listened in silence, with the concentrated look which
+his thin dark face could assume when he wished to guard it
+against any involuntary change of expression. When his cousin
+ended, he said with a slight smile: "Since you've learned the
+wisdom of waiting, I don't see why you urge me to rush in--" but
+the troubled appeal of her eyes made him add, as he rose to take
+leave: "Still, I'll do what you wish, and not hold you
+responsible for my failure."
+
+Selden's avoidance of Miss Bart had not been as unintentional as
+he had allowed his cousin to think. At first, indeed, while the
+memory of their last hour at Monte Carlo still held the full heat
+of his indignation, he had anxiously watched for her return; but
+she had disappointed him by lingering in England, and when she
+finally reappeared it happened that business had called him to the
+West, whence he came back only to learn that she was starting for
+Alaska with the Gormers. The revelation of this suddenly-established
+intimacy effectually chilled his desire to see her. If, at a
+moment when her whole life seemed to be breaking up, she could
+cheerfully commit its reconstruction to the Gormers, there was no
+reason why such accidents should ever strike her as irreparable.
+Every step she took seemed in fact to carry her farther from the
+region where, once or twice, he and she had met for an illumined
+moment; and the recognition of this fact, when its first pang had
+been surmounted, produced in him a sense of negative relief. It was
+much simpler for him to judge Miss Bart by her habitual conduct
+than by the rare deviations from it which had thrown her so
+disturbingly in his way; and every act of hers which made the
+recurrence of such deviations more unlikely, confirmed the sense
+of relief with which he returned to the conventional view of her.
+
+But Gerty Farish's words had sufficed to make him see how
+little this view was really his, and how impossible it was for
+him to live quietly with the thought of Lily Bart. To hear that
+she was in need of help--even such vague help as he could
+offer--was to be at once repossessed by that thought; and by the
+time he reached the street he had sufficiently convinced himself
+of the urgency of his cousin's appeal to turn his steps directly
+toward Lily's hotel.
+
+There his zeal met a check in the unforeseen news that Miss Bart
+had moved away; but, on his pressing his enquiries, the clerk
+remembered that she had left an address, for which he presently
+began to search through his books.
+
+It was certainly strange that she should have taken this step
+without letting Gerty Farish know of her decision; and Selden
+waited with a vague sense of uneasiness while the address was
+sought for. The process lasted long enough for uneasiness to turn
+to apprehension; but when at length a slip of paper was handed
+him, and he read on it: "Care of Mrs. Norma Hatch, Emporium
+Hotel," his apprehension passed into an incredulous stare, and
+this into the gesture of disgust with which he tore the paper in
+two, and turned to walk quickly homeward.
+
+
+
+Chapter 9
+
+When Lily woke on the morning after her translation to the
+Emporium Hotel, her first feeling was one of purely physical
+satisfaction. The force of contrast gave an added keenness to the
+luxury of lying once more in a soft-pillowed bed, and looking
+across a spacious sunlit room at a breakfast-table set invitingly
+near the fire. Analysis and introspection might come later; but
+for the moment she was not even troubled by the excesses of the
+upholstery or the restless convolutions of the furniture. The
+sense of being once more lapped and folded in ease, as in some
+dense mild medium impenetrable to discomfort, effectually stilled
+the faintest note of criticism.
+
+When, the afternoon before, she had presented herself to the lady
+to whom Carry Fisher had directed her, she had been conscious of
+entering a new world. Carry's vague presentment of Mrs. Norma
+Hatch (whose reversion to her Christian name was explained as the
+result of her latest divorce), left her under the implication of
+coming "from the West," with the not unusual extenuation of
+having brought a great deal of money with her. She was, in short,
+rich, helpless, unplaced: the very subject for Lily's hand. Mrs.
+Fisher had not specified the line her friend was to take; she
+owned herself unacquainted with Mrs. Hatch, whom she "knew about"
+through Melville Stancy, a lawyer in his leisure moments, and the
+Falstaff of a certain section of festive dub life. Socially, Mr.
+Stancy might have been said to form a connecting link between the
+Gormer world and the more dimly-lit region on which Miss Bart now
+found herself entering. It was, however, only figuratively that
+the illumination of Mrs. Hatch's world could be described as dim:
+in actual fact, Lily found her seated in a blaze of electric
+light, impartially projected from various ornamental excrescences
+on a vast concavity of pink damask and gilding, from which she
+rose like Venus from her shell. The analogy was justified by the
+appearance of the lady, whose large-eyed prettiness had the
+fixity of something impaled and shown under glass. This did not
+preclude the immediate discovery that she was some years younger
+than her visitor, and that under her showiness, her ease,
+the aggression of her dress and voice, there persisted that
+ineradicable innocence which, in ladies of her nationality, so
+curiously coexists with startling extremes of experience.
+
+The environment in which Lily found herself was as strange to her
+as its inhabitants. She was unacquainted with the world of the
+fashionable New York hotel--a world over-heated,
+over-upholstered, and over-fitted with mechanical appliances for
+the gratification of fantastic requirements, while the comforts
+of a civilized life were as unattainable as in a desert. Through
+this atmosphere of torrid splendour moved wan beings as richly
+upholstered as the furniture, beings without definite pursuits or
+permanent relations, who drifted on a languid tide of curiosity
+from restaurant to concert-hall, from palm-garden to music-room,
+from "art exhibit" to dress-maker's opening. High-stepping horses
+or elaborately equipped motors waited to carry these ladies into
+vague metropolitan distances, whence they returned, still more
+wan from the weight of their sables, to be sucked back into the
+stifling inertia of the hotel routine. Somewhere behind them, in
+the background of their lives, there was doubtless a real past,
+peopled by real human activities: they themselves were probably
+the product of strong ambitions, persistent energies, diversified
+contacts with the wholesome roughness of life; yet they had no
+more real existence than the poet's shades in limbo.
+
+Lily had not been long in this pallid world without discovering
+that Mrs. Hatch was its most substantial figure. That lady,
+though still floating in the void, showed faint symptoms of
+developing an outline; and in this endeavour she was actively
+seconded by Mr. Melville Stancy. It was Mr. Stancy, a man of
+large resounding presence, suggestive of convivial occasions and
+of a chivalry finding expression in "first-night" boxes and
+thousand dollar bonbonnieres, who had transplanted Mrs. Hatch
+from the scene of her first development to the higher stage of
+hotel life in the metropolis. It was he who had selected the
+horses with which she had taken the blue ribbon at the Show, had
+introduced her to the photographer whose portraits of her formed
+the recurring ornament of "Sunday Supplements," and had got
+together the group which constituted her social world. It was a
+small group still, with heterogeneous figures suspended
+in large unpeopled spaces; but Lily did not take long to learn
+that its regulation was no longer in Mr. Stancy's hands. As often
+happens, the pupil had outstripped the teacher, and Mrs. Hatch
+was already aware of heights of elegance as well as depths of
+luxury beyond the world of the Emporium. This discovery at once
+produced in her a craving for higher guidance, for the adroit
+feminine hand which should give the right turn to her
+correspondence, the right "look" to her hats, the right
+succession to the items of her MENUS. It was, in short, as the
+regulator of a germinating social life that Miss Bart's guidance
+was required; her ostensible duties as secretary being restricted
+by the fact that Mrs. Hatch, as yet, knew hardly any one to write
+to.
+
+The daily details of Mrs. Hatch's existence were as strange to
+Lily as its general tenor. The lady's habits were marked by an
+Oriental indolence and disorder peculiarly trying to her
+companion. Mrs. Hatch and her friends seemed to float together
+outside the bounds of time and space. No definite hours were
+kept; no fixed obligations existed: night and day flowed into one
+another in a blur of confused and retarded engagements, so that
+one had the impression of lunching at the tea-hour, while dinner
+was often merged in the noisy after-theatre supper which
+prolonged Mrs. Hatch's vigil till daylight.
+
+Through this jumble of futile activities came and went a strange
+throng of hangers-on--manicures, beauty-doctors, hair-dressers,
+teachers of bridge, of French, of "physical development": figures
+sometimes indistinguishable, by their appearance, or by Mrs.
+Hatch's relation to them, from the visitors constituting her
+recognized society. But strangest of all to Lily was the
+encounter, in this latter group, of several of her acquaintances.
+She had supposed, and not without relief, that she was passing,
+for the moment, completely out of her own circle; but she found
+that Mr. Stancy, one side of whose sprawling existence overlapped
+the edge of Mrs. Fisher's world, had drawn several of its
+brightest ornaments into the circle of the Emporium. To find Ned
+Silverton among the habitual frequenters of Mrs. Hatch's
+drawing-room was one of Lily's first astonishments; but she soon
+discovered that he was not Mr. Stancy's most important
+recruit. It was on little Freddy Van Osburgh, the small slim heir
+of the Van Osburgh millions, that the attention of Mrs. Hatch's
+group was centred. Freddy, barely out of college, had risen above
+the horizon since Lily's eclipse, and she now saw with surprise
+what an effulgence he shed on the outer twilight of Mrs. Hatch's
+existence. This, then, was one of the things that young men "went
+in" for when released from the official social routine; this
+was the kind of "previous engagement" that so frequently caused
+them to disappoint the hopes of anxious hostesses. Lily had an
+odd sense of being behind the social tapestry, on the side where
+the threads were knotted and the loose ends hung. For a moment
+she found a certain amusement in the show, and in her own share
+of it: the situation had an ease and unconventionality distinctly
+refreshing after her experience of the irony of conventions. But
+these flashes of amusement were but brief reactions from the long
+disgust of her days. Compared with the vast gilded void of Mrs.
+Hatch's existence, the life of Lily's former friends seemed
+packed with ordered activities. Even the most irresponsible
+pretty woman of her acquaintance had her inherited obligations,
+her conventional benevolences, her share in the working of the
+great civic machine; and all hung together in the solidarity of
+these traditional functions. The performance of specific duties
+would have simplified Miss Bart's position; but the vague
+attendance on Mrs. Hatch was not without its perplexities.
+
+It was not her employer who created these perplexities. Mrs.
+Hatch showed from the first an almost touching desire for Lily's
+approval. Far from asserting the superiority of wealth, her
+beautiful eyes seemed to urge the plea of inexperience: she
+wanted to do what was "nice," to be taught how to be "lovely."
+The difficulty was to find any point of contact between her
+ideals and Lily's.
+
+Mrs. Hatch swam in a haze of indeterminate enthusiasms, of
+aspirations culled from the stage, the newspapers, the fashion
+journals, and a gaudy world of sport still more completely beyond
+her companion's ken. To separate from these confused conceptions
+those most likely to advance the lady on her way, was Lily's
+obvious duty; but its performance was hampered by
+rapidly-growing doubts. Lily was in fact becoming more and more
+aware of a certain ambiguity in her situation. It was not that
+she had, in the conventional sense, any doubt of Mrs. Hatch's
+irreproachableness. The lady's offences were always against taste
+rather than conduct; her divorce record seemed due to
+geographical rather than ethical conditions; and her worst
+laxities were likely to proceed from a wandering and extravagant
+good-nature. But if Lily did not mind her detaining her manicure
+for luncheon, or offering the "Beauty-Doctor" a seat in Freddy
+Van Osburgh's box at the play, she was not equally at ease in
+regard to some less apparent lapses from convention. Ned
+Silverton's relation to Stancy seemed, for instance, closer and
+less clear than any natural affinities would warrant; and both
+appeared united in the effort to cultivate Freddy Van Osburgh's
+growing taste for Mrs. Hatch. There was as yet nothing definable
+in the situation, which might well resolve itself into a huge
+joke on the part of the other two; but Lily had a vague sense
+that the subject of their experiment was too young, too rich and
+too credulous. Her embarrassment was increased by the fact that
+Freddy seemed to regard her as cooperating with himself in the
+social development of Mrs. Hatch: a view that suggested, on his
+part, a permanent interest in the lady's future. There were
+moments when Lily found an ironic amusement in this aspect of the
+case. The thought of launching such a missile as Mrs. Hatch at
+the perfidious bosom of society was not without its charm: Miss
+Bart had even beguiled her leisure with visions of the fair Norma
+introduced for the first time to a family banquet at the Van
+Osburghs'. But the thought of being personally connected with the
+transaction was less agreeable; and her momentary flashes of
+amusement were followed by increasing periods of doubt.
+
+The sense of these doubts was uppermost when, late one afternoon,
+she was surprised by a visit from Lawrence Selden. He found her
+alone in the wilderness of pink damask, for in Mrs. Hatch's world
+the tea-hour was not dedicated to social rites, and the lady was
+in the hands of her masseuse.
+
+Selden's entrance had caused Lily an inward start of
+embarrassment; but his air of constraint had the effect of
+restoring her self-possession, and she took at once the tone of
+surprise and pleasure, wondering frankly that he should
+have traced her to so unlikely a place, and asking what had
+inspired him to make the search.
+
+Selden met this with an unusual seriousness: she had never seen
+him so little master of the situation, so plainly at the mercy of
+any obstructions she might put in his way. "I wanted to see you,"
+he said; and she could not resist observing in reply that he had
+kept his wishes under remarkable control. She had in truth felt
+his long absence as one of the chief bitternesses of the last
+months: his desertion had wounded sensibilities far below the
+surface of her pride.
+
+Selden met the challenge with directness. "Why should I have
+come, unless I thought I could be of use to you? It is my only
+excuse for imagining you could want me."
+
+This struck her as a clumsy evasion, and the thought gave a flash
+of keenness to her answer. "Then you have come now because you
+think you can be of use to me?"
+
+He hesitated again. "Yes: in the modest capacity of a person to
+talk things over with."
+
+For a clever man it was certainly a stupid beginning; and the
+idea that his awkwardness was due to the fear of her attaching a
+personal significance to his visit, chilled her pleasure in
+seeing him. Even under the most adverse conditions, that pleasure
+always made itself felt: she might hate him, but she had never
+been able to wish him out of the room. She was very near hating
+him now; yet the sound of his voice, the way the light fell on
+his thin dark hair, the way he sat and moved and wore his
+clothes--she was conscious that even these trivial things were
+inwoven with her deepest life. In his presence a sudden stillness
+came upon her, and the turmoil of her spirit ceased; but an
+impulse of resistance to this stealing influence now prompted her
+to say: "It's very good of you to present yourself in that
+capacity; but what makes you think I have anything particular to
+talk about?"
+
+Though she kept the even tone of light intercourse, the question
+was framed in a way to remind him that his good offices were
+unsought; and for a moment Selden was checked by it. The
+situation between them was one which could have been cleared up
+only by a sudden explosion of feeling; and their whole training
+and habit of mind were against the chances of such an
+explosion. Selden's calmness seemed rather to harden into
+resistance, and Miss Bart's into a surface of glittering irony,
+as they faced each other from the opposite corners of one of Mrs.
+Hatch's elephantine sofas. The sofa in question, and the
+apartment peopled by its monstrous mates, served at length to
+suggest the turn of Selden's reply.
+
+"Gerty told me that you were acting as Mrs. Hatch's secretary;
+and I knew she was anxious to hear how you were getting on."
+
+Miss Bart received this explanation without perceptible
+softening. "Why didn't she look me up herself, then?" she asked.
+
+"Because, as you didn't send her your address, she was afraid of
+being importunate." Selden continued with a smile: "You see no
+such scruples restrained me; but then I haven't as much to risk
+if I incur your displeasure."
+
+Lily answered his smile. "You haven't incurred it as yet; but I
+have an idea that you are going to."
+
+"That rests with you, doesn't it? You see my initiative doesn't
+go beyond putting myself at your disposal."
+
+"But in what capacity? What am I to do with you?" she asked in
+the same light tone.
+
+Selden again glanced about Mrs. Hatch's drawing-room; then he
+said, with a decision which he seemed to have gathered from this
+final inspection: "You are to let me take you away from here."
+
+Lily flushed at the suddenness of the attack; then she stiffened
+under it and said coldly: "And may I ask where you mean me to
+go?"
+
+"Back to Gerty in the first place, if you will; the essential
+thing is that it should be away from here."
+
+The unusual harshness of his tone might have shown her how much
+the words cost him; but she was in no state to measure his
+feelings while her own were in a flame of revolt. To neglect her,
+perhaps even to avoid her, at a time when she had most need of
+her friends, and then suddenly and unwarrantably to break into
+her life with this strange assumption of authority, was to rouse
+in her every instinct of pride and self-defence.
+
+"I am very much obliged to you," she said, "for taking such
+an interest in my plans; but I am quite contented where I am,
+and have no intention of leaving."
+
+Selden had risen, and was standing before her in an attitude of
+uncontrollable expectancy.
+
+"That simply means that you don't know where you are!" he
+exclaimed.
+
+Lily rose also, with a quick flash of anger. "If you have come
+here to say disagreeable things about Mrs. Hatch---"
+
+"It is only with your relation to Mrs. Hatch that I am
+concerned."
+
+"My relation to Mrs. Hatch is one I have no reason to be ashamed
+of. She has helped me to earn a living when my old friends were
+quite resigned to seeing me starve."
+
+"Nonsense! Starvation is not the only alternative. You know you
+can always find a home with Gerty till you are independent
+again."
+
+"You show such an intimate acquaintance with my affairs that I
+suppose you mean--till my aunt's legacy is paid?"
+
+"I do mean that; Gerty told me of it," Selden acknowledged
+without embarrassment. He was too much in earnest now to feel any
+false constraint in speaking his mind.
+
+"But Gerty does not happen to know," Miss Bart rejoined, "that I
+owe every penny of that legacy."
+
+"Good God!" Selden exclaimed, startled out of his composure by
+the abruptness of the statement.
+
+"Every penny of it, and more too," Lily repeated; "and you now
+perhaps see why I prefer to remain with Mrs. Hatch rather than
+take advantage of Gerty's kindness. I have no money left, except
+my small income, and I must earn something more to keep myself
+alive."
+
+Selden hesitated a moment; then he rejoined in a quieter tone:
+"But with your income and Gerty's--since you allow me to go so
+far into the details of the situation--you and she could surely
+contrive a life together which would put you beyond the need of
+having to support yourself. Gerty, I know, is eager to make such
+an arrangement, and would be quite happy in it---"
+
+"But I should not," Miss Bart interposed. "There are many reasons
+why it would be neither kind to Gerty nor wise for myself." She
+paused a moment, and as he seemed to await a farther
+explanation, added with a quick lift of her head: "You will
+perhaps excuse me from giving you these reasons."
+
+"I have no claim to know them," Selden answered, ignoring her
+tone; "no claim to offer any comment or suggestion beyond the one
+I have already made. And my right to make that is simply the
+universal right of a man to enlighten a woman when he sees her
+unconsciously placed in a false position."
+
+Lily smiled. "I suppose," she rejoined, "that by a false position
+you mean one outside of what we call society; but you must
+remember that I had been excluded from those sacred precincts
+long before I met Mrs. Hatch. As far as I can see, there is very
+little real difference in being inside or out, and I remember
+your once telling me that it was only those inside who took the
+difference seriously."
+
+She had not been without intention in making this allusion to
+their memorable talk at Bellomont, and she waited with an odd
+tremor of the nerves to see what response it would bring; but the
+result of the experiment was disappointing. Selden did not allow
+the allusion to deflect him from his point; he merely said with
+completer fulness of emphasis: "The question of being inside or
+out is, as you say, a small one, and it happens to have nothing
+to do with the case, except in so far as Mrs. Hatch's desire to
+be inside may put you in the position I call false."
+
+In spite of the moderation of his tone, each word he spoke had
+the effect of confirming Lily's resistance. The very
+apprehensions he aroused hardened her against him: she had been
+on the alert for the note of personal sympathy, for any sign of
+recovered power over him; and his attitude of sober impartiality,
+the absence of all response to her appeal, turned her hurt pride
+to blind resentment of his interference. The conviction that he
+had been sent by Gerty, and that, whatever straits he conceived
+her to be in, he would never voluntarily have come to her aid,
+strengthened her resolve not to admit him a hair's breadth
+farther into her confidence. However doubtful she might feel her
+situation to be, she would rather persist in darkness than owe
+her enlightenment to Selden.
+
+"I don't know," she said, when he had ceased to speak, "why you
+imagine me to be situated as you describe; but as you
+have always told me that the sole object of a bringing-up like
+mine was to teach a girl to get what she wants, why not assume
+that that is precisely what I am doing?"
+
+The smile with which she summed up her case was like a clear
+barrier raised against farther confidences: its brightness held
+him at such a distance that he had a sense of being almost out of
+hearing as he rejoined: "I am not sure that I have ever called
+you a successful example of that kind of bringing-up."
+
+Her colour rose a little at the implication, but she steeled
+herself with a light laugh. "Ah, wait a little longer--give me a
+little more time before you decide!" And as he wavered before
+her, still watching for a break in the impenetrable front she
+presented: "Don't give me up; I may still do credit to my
+training!" she affirmed.
+
+
+
+Chapter 10
+
+"Look at those spangles, Miss Bart--every one of 'em sewed on
+crooked."
+
+The tall forewoman, a pinched perpendicular figure, dropped the
+condemned structure of wire and net on the table at Lily's side,
+and passed on to the next figure in the line.
+
+There were twenty of them in the work-room, their fagged
+profiles, under exaggerated hair, bowed in the harsh north light
+above the utensils of their art; for it was something more than
+an industry, surely, this creation of ever-varied settings for
+the face of fortunate womanhood. Their own faces were sallow with
+the unwholesomeness of hot air and sedentary toil, rather than
+with any actual signs of want: they were employed in a
+fashionable millinery establishment, and were fairly well clothed
+and well paid; but the youngest among them was as dull and
+colourless as the middle-aged. In the whole work-room there was
+only one skin beneath which the blood still visibly played; and
+that now burned with vexation as Miss Bart, under the lash of the
+forewoman's comment, began to strip the hat-frame of its
+over-lapping spangles.
+
+To Gerty Farish's hopeful spirit a solution appeared to have been
+reached when she remembered how beautifully Lily could trim hats.
+Instances of young lady-milliners establishing themselves under
+fashionable patronage, and imparting to their "creations" that
+indefinable touch which the professional hand can never give, had
+flattered Gerty's visions of the future, and convinced even Lily
+that her separation from Mrs. Norma Hatch need not reduce her to
+dependence on her friends.
+
+The parting had occurred a few weeks after Selden's visit, and
+would have taken place sooner had it not been for the resistance
+set up in Lily by his ill-starred offer of advice. The sense of
+being involved in a transaction she would not have cared to
+examine too closely had soon afterward defined itself in the
+light of a hint from Mr. Stancy that, if she "saw them through,"
+she would have no reason to be sorry. The implication that such
+loyalty would meet with a direct reward had hastened her flight,
+and flung her back, ashamed and penitent, on the broad bosom of
+Gerty's sympathy. She did not, however, propose to lie there
+prone, and Gerty's inspiration about the hats at once revived her
+hopes of profitable activity. Here was, after all, something that
+her charming listless hands could really do; she had no doubt of
+their capacity for knotting a ribbon or placing a flower to
+advantage. And of course only these finishing touches would be
+expected of her: subordinate fingers, blunt, grey, needle-pricked
+fingers, would prepare the shapes and stitch the linings, while
+she presided over the charming little front shop--a shop all white
+panels, mirrors, and moss-green hangings--where her finished
+creations, hats, wreaths, aigrettes and the rest, perched on their
+stands like birds just poising for flight.
+
+But at the very outset of Gerty's campaign this vision of the
+green-and-white shop had been dispelled. Other young ladies of
+fashion had been thus "set-up," selling their hats by the mere
+attraction of a name and the reputed knack of tying a bow; but
+these privileged beings could command a faith in their powers
+materially expressed by the readiness to pay their shop-rent and
+advance a handsome sum for current expenses. Where was Lily to
+find such support? And even could it have been found, how were
+the ladies on whose approval she depended to be induced to give
+her their patronage? Gerty learned that whatever sympathy her
+friend's case might have excited a few months since had been
+imperilled, if not lost, by her association with Mrs. Hatch. Once
+again, Lily had withdrawn from an ambiguous situation in time to
+save her self-respect, but too late for public vindication.
+Freddy Van Osburgh was not to marry Mrs. Hatch; he had been
+rescued at the eleventh hour--some said by the efforts of Gus
+Trenor and Rosedale--and despatched to Europe with old Ned Van
+Alstyne; but the risk he had run would always be ascribed to Miss
+Bart's connivance, and would somehow serve as a summing-up and
+corroboration of the vague general distrust of her. It was a
+relief to those who had hung back from her to find themselves
+thus justified, and they were inclined to insist a little on her
+connection with the Hatch case in order to show that they had
+been right.
+
+Gerty's quest, at any rate, brought up against a solid wall of
+resistance; and even when Carry Fisher, momentarily penitent for
+her share in the Hatch affair, joined her efforts to Miss Farish's,
+they met with no better success. Gerty had tried to veil her
+failure in tender ambiguities; but Carry, always the soul of
+candour, put the case squarely to her friend.
+
+"I went straight to Judy Trenor; she has fewer prejudices than
+the others, and besides she's always hated Bertha Dorset. But
+what HAVE you done to her, Lily? At the very first word about
+giving you a start she flamed out about some money you'd got from
+Gus; I never knew her so hot before. You know she'll let him do
+anything but spend money on his friends: the only reason she's
+decent to me now is that she knows I'm not hard up.--He
+speculated for you, you say? Well, what's the harm? He had no
+business to lose. He DIDN'T lose? Then what on earth--but I never
+COULD understand you, Lily!"
+
+The end of it was that, after anxious enquiry and much
+deliberation, Mrs. Fisher and Gerty, for once oddly united in
+their effort to help their friend, decided on placing her in the
+work-room of Mme. Regina's renowned millinery establishment. Even
+this arrangement was not effected without considerable
+negotiation, for Mme. Regina had a strong prejudice against
+untrained assistance, and was induced to yield only by the fact
+that she owed the patronage of Mrs. Bry and Mrs. Gormer to Carry
+Fisher's influence. She had been willing from the first to employ
+Lily in the show-room: as a displayer of hats, a fashionable
+beauty might be a valuable asset. But to this suggestion Miss
+Bart opposed a negative which Gerty emphatically supported, while
+Mrs. Fisher, inwardly unconvinced, but resigned to this latest
+proof of Lily's unreason, agreed that perhaps in the end it would
+be more useful that she should learn the trade. To Regina's
+work-room Lily was therefore committed by her friends, and there
+Mrs. Fisher left her with a sigh of relief, while Gerty's
+watchfulness continued to hover over her at a distance.
+
+Lily had taken up her work early in January: it was now two
+months later, and she was still being rebuked for her inability
+to sew spangles on a hat-frame. As she returned to her work she
+heard a titter pass down the tables. She knew she was an object
+of criticism and amusement to the other work-women. They were,
+of course, aware of her history--the exact situation of
+every girl in the room was known and freely discussed by all the
+others--but the knowledge did not produce in them any awkward
+sense of class distinction: it merely explained why her untutored
+fingers were still blundering over the rudiments of the trade.
+Lily had no desire that they should recognize any social
+difference in her; but she had hoped to be received as their
+equal, and perhaps before long to show herself their superior by
+a special deftness of touch, and it was humiliating to find that,
+after two months of drudgery, she still betrayed her lack of
+early training. Remote was the day when she might aspire to
+exercise the talents she felt confident of possessing; only
+experienced workers were entrusted with the delicate art of
+shaping and trimming the hat, and the forewoman still held her
+inexorably to the routine of preparatory work.
+
+She began to rip the spangles from the frame, listening absently
+to the buzz of talk which rose and fell with the coming and going
+of Miss Haines's active figure. The air was closer than usual,
+because Miss Haines, who had a cold, had not allowed a window to
+be opened even during the noon recess; and Lily's head was so
+heavy with the weight of a sleepless night that the chatter of
+her companions had the incoherence of a dream.
+
+"I TOLD her he'd never look at her again; and he didn't. I
+wouldn't have, either--I think she acted real mean to him. He
+took her to the Arion Ball, and had a hack for her both ways....
+She's taken ten bottles, and her headaches don't seem no
+better--but she's written a testimonial to say the first bottle
+cured her, and she got five dollars and her picture in the
+paper.... Mrs. Trenor's hat? The one with the green Paradise?
+Here, Miss Haines--it'll be ready right off.... That was one of
+the Trenor girls here yesterday with Mrs. George Dorset. How'd I
+know? Why, Madam sent for me to alter the flower in that Virot
+hat--the blue tulle: she's tall and slight, with her hair fuzzed
+out--a good deal like Mamie Leach, on'y thinner...."
+
+On and on it flowed, a current of meaningless sound, on which,
+startlingly enough, a familiar name now and then floated to the
+surface. It was the strangest part of Lily's strange experience,
+the hearing of these names, the seeing the fragmentary
+and distorted image of the world she had lived in reflected in
+the mirror of the working-girls' minds. She had never before
+suspected the mixture of insatiable curiosity and contemptuous
+freedom with which she and her kind were discussed in this
+underworld of toilers who lived on their vanity and
+self-indulgence. Every girl in Mme. Regina's work-room knew to
+whom the headgear in her hands was destined, and had her opinion
+of its future wearer, and a definite knowledge of the latter's
+place in the social system. That Lily was a star fallen from that
+sky did not, after the first stir of curiosity had subsided,
+materially add to their interest in her. She had fallen, she had
+"gone under," and true to the ideal of their race, they were awed
+only by success--by the gross tangible image of material
+achievement. The consciousness of her different point of view
+merely kept them at a little distance from her, as though she
+were a foreigner with whom it was an effort to talk.
+
+"Miss Bart, if you can't sew those spangles on more regular I
+guess you'd better give the hat to Miss Kilroy."
+
+Lily looked down ruefully at her handiwork. The forewoman was
+right: the sewing on of the spangles was inexcusably bad. What
+made her so much more clumsy than usual? Was it a growing
+distaste for her task, or actual physical disability? She felt
+tired and confused: it was an effort to put her thoughts
+together. She rose and handed the hat to Miss Kilroy, who took it
+with a suppressed smile.
+
+"I'm sorry; I'm afraid I am not well," she said to the forewoman.
+
+Miss Haines offered no comment. From the first she had augured
+ill of Mme. Regina's consenting to include a fashionable
+apprentice among her workers. In that temple of art no raw
+beginners were wanted, and Miss Haines would have been more than
+human had she not taken a certain pleasure in seeing her
+forebodings confirmed.
+
+"You'd better go back to binding edges," she said drily. Lily
+slipped out last among the band of liberated work-women. She did
+not care to be mingled in their noisy dispersal: once in the
+street, she always felt an irresistible return to her old
+standpoint, an instinctive shrinking from all that was unpolished
+and promiscuous. In the days--how distant they now
+seemed!--when she had visited the Girls' Club with Gerty Farish,
+she had felt an enlightened interest in the working-classes; but
+that was because she looked down on them from above, from the
+happy altitude of her grace and her beneficence. Now that she was
+on a level with them, the point of view was less interesting.
+
+She felt a touch on her arm, and met the penitent eye of Miss
+Kilroy. "Miss Bart, I guess you can sew those spangles on as well
+as I can when you're feeling right. Miss Haines didn't act fair
+to you."
+
+Lily's colour rose at the unexpected advance: it was a long time
+since real kindness had looked at her from any eyes but Gerty's.
+
+"Oh, thank you: I'm not particularly well, but Miss Haines was
+right. I AM clumsy."
+
+"Well, it's mean work for anybody with a headache." Miss Kilroy
+paused irresolutely. "You ought to go right home and lay down.
+Ever try orangeine?"
+
+"Thank you." Lily held out her hand. "It's very kind of you--I
+mean to go home."
+
+She looked gratefully at Miss Kilroy, but neither knew what more
+to say. Lily was aware that the other was on the point of
+offering to go home with her, but she wanted to be alone and
+silent--even kindness, the sort of kindness that Miss Kilroy
+could give, would have jarred on her just then.
+
+"Thank you," she repeated as she turned away.
+
+She struck westward through the dreary March twilight, toward the
+street where her boarding-house stood. She had resolutely refused
+Gerty's offer of hospitality. Something of her mother's fierce
+shrinking from observation and sympathy was beginning to develop
+in her, and the promiscuity of small quarters and close intimacy
+seemed, on the whole, less endurable than the solitude of a hall
+bedroom in a house where she could come and go unremarked among
+other workers. For a while she had been sustained by this desire
+for privacy and independence; but now, perhaps from increasing
+physical weariness, the lassitude brought about by hours of
+unwonted confinement, she was beginning to feel acutely the
+ugliness and discomfort of her surroundings. The day's task done,
+she dreaded to return to her narrow room, with its
+blotched wallpaper and shabby paint; and she hated every step of
+the walk thither, through the degradation of a New York street in
+the last stages of decline from fashion to commerce.
+
+But what she dreaded most of all was having to pass the chemist's
+at the corner of Sixth Avenue. She had meant to take another
+street: she had usually done so of late. But today her steps were
+irresistibly drawn toward the flaring plate-glass corner; she
+tried to take the lower crossing, but a laden dray crowded her
+back, and she struck across the street obliquely, reaching the
+sidewalk just opposite the chemist's door.
+
+Over the counter she caught the eye of the clerk who had waited
+on her before, and slipped the prescription into his hand. There
+could be no question about the prescription: it was a copy of one
+of Mrs. Hatch's, obligingly furnished by that lady's chemist.
+Lily was confident that the clerk would fill it without
+hesitation; yet the nervous dread of a refusal, or even of an
+expression of doubt, communicated itself to her restless hands as
+she affected to examine the bottles of perfume stacked on the
+glass case before her.
+
+The clerk had read the prescription without comment; but in the
+act of handing out the bottle he paused.
+
+"You don't want to increase the dose, you know," he remarked.
+Lily's heart contracted.
+
+What did he mean by looking at her in that way?
+
+"Of course not," she murmured, holding out her hand.
+
+"That's all right: it's a queer-acting drug. A drop or two more,
+and off you go--the doctors don't know why."
+
+The dread lest he should question her, or keep the bottle back,
+choked the murmur of acquiescence in her throat; and when at
+length she emerged safely from the shop she was almost dizzy with
+the intensity of her relief. The mere touch of the packet
+thrilled her tired nerves with the delicious promise of a night
+of sleep, and in the reaction from her momentary fear she felt as
+if the first fumes of drowsiness were already stealing over her.
+
+In her confusion she stumbled against a man who was hurrying down
+the last steps of the elevated station. He drew back, and she
+heard her name uttered with surprise. It was Rosedale,
+fur-coated, glossy and prosperous--but why did she seem to see
+him so far off, and as if through a mist of splintered crystals?
+Before she could account for the phenomenon she found herself
+shaking hands with him. They had parted with scorn on her side
+and anger upon his; but all trace of these emotions seemed to
+vanish as their hands met, and she was only aware of a confused
+wish that she might continue to hold fast to him.
+
+"Why, what's the matter, Miss Lily? You're not well!" he
+exclaimed; and she forced her lips into a pallid smile of
+reassurance.
+
+"I'm a little tired--it's nothing. Stay with me a moment,
+please," she faltered. That she should be asking this service of
+Rosedale!
+
+He glanced at the dirty and unpropitious corner on which they
+stood, with the shriek of the "elevated" and the tumult of trams
+and waggons contending hideously in their ears.
+
+"We can't stay here; but let me take you somewhere for a cup of
+tea. The LONGWORTH is only a few yards off, and there'll be no
+one there at this hour."
+
+A cup of tea in quiet, somewhere out of the noise and ugliness,
+seemed for the moment the one solace she could bear. A few steps
+brought them to the ladies' door of the hotel he had named, and a
+moment later he was seated opposite to her, and the waiter had
+placed the tea-tray between them.
+
+"Not a drop of brandy or whiskey first? You look regularly done
+up, Miss Lily. Well, take your tea strong, then; and, waiter, get
+a cushion for the lady's back."
+
+Lily smiled faintly at the injunction to take her tea strong. It
+was the temptation she was always struggling to resist. Her
+craving for the keen stimulant was forever conflicting with that
+other craving for sleep--the midnight craving which only the
+little phial in her hand could still. But today, at any rate, the
+tea could hardly be too strong: she counted on it to pour warmth
+and resolution into her empty veins.
+
+As she leaned back before him, her lids drooping in utter
+lassitude, though the first warm draught already tinged her face
+with returning life, Rosedale was seized afresh by the poignant
+surprise of her beauty. The dark pencilling of fatigue under her
+eyes, the morbid blue-veined pallour of the temples,
+brought out the brightness of her hair and lips, as though all
+her ebbing vitality were centred there. Against the dull
+chocolate-coloured background of the restaurant, the purity of
+her head stood out as it had never done in the most brightly-lit
+ball-room. He looked at her with a startled uncomfortable
+feeling, as though her beauty were a forgotten enemy that had
+lain in ambush and now sprang out on him unawares.
+
+To clear the air he tried to take an easy tone with her. "Why,
+Miss Lily, I haven't seen you for an age. I didn't know what had
+become of you."
+
+As he spoke, he was checked by an embarrassing sense of the
+complications to which this might lead. Though he had not seen
+her he had heard of her; he knew of her connection with Mrs.
+Hatch, and of the talk resulting from it. Mrs. Hatch's MILIEU was
+one which he had once assiduously frequented, and now as devoutly
+shunned.
+
+Lily, to whom the tea had restored her usual clearness of mind,
+saw what was in his thoughts and said with a slight smile: "You
+would not be likely to know about me. I have joined the working
+classes."
+
+He stared in genuine wonder. "You don't mean--? Why, what on earth
+are you doing?"
+
+"Learning to be a milliner--at least TRYING to learn," she
+hastily qualified the statement.
+
+Rosedale suppressed a low whistle of surprise. "Come off--you
+ain't serious, are you?"
+
+"Perfectly serious. I'm obliged to work for my living."
+
+"But I understood--I thought you were with Norma Hatch."
+
+"You heard I had gone to her as her secretary?"
+
+"Something of the kind, I believe." He leaned forward to refill
+her cup.
+
+Lily guessed the possibilities of embarrassment which the topic
+held for him, and raising her eyes to his, she said suddenly: "I
+left her two months ago."
+
+Rosedale continued to fumble awkwardly with the tea-pot, and she
+felt sure that he had heard what had been said of her. But what
+was there that Rosedale did not hear?
+
+"Wasn't it a soft berth?" he enquired, with an attempt at
+lightness.
+
+"Too soft--one might have sunk in too deep." Lily rested one arm
+on the edge of the table, and sat looking at him more intently
+than she had ever looked before. An uncontrollable impulse was
+urging her to put her case to this man, from whose curiosity she
+had always so fiercely defended herself.
+
+"You know Mrs. Hatch, I think? Well, perhaps you can understand
+that she might make things too easy for one."
+
+Rosedale looked faintly puzzled, and she remembered that
+allusiveness was lost on him.
+
+"It was no place for you, anyhow," he agreed, so suffused and
+immersed in the light of her full gaze that he found himself
+being drawn into strange depths of intimacy. He who had had to
+subsist on mere fugitive glances, looks winged in flight and
+swiftly lost under covert, now found her eyes settling on him
+with a brooding intensity that fairly dazzled him.
+
+"I left," Lily continued, "lest people should say I was helping
+Mrs. Hatch to marry Freddy Van Osburgh--who is not in the least
+too good for her--and as they still continue to say it, I see
+that I might as well have stayed where I was."
+
+"Oh, Freddy---" Rosedale brushed aside the topic with an air of
+its unimportance which gave a sense of the immense perspective he
+had acquired. "Freddy don't count--but I knew YOU weren't mixed
+up in that. It ain't your style."
+
+Lily coloured slightly: she could not conceal from herself that
+the words gave her pleasure. She would have liked to sit there,
+drinking more tea, and continuing to talk of herself to Rosedale.
+But the old habit of observing the conventions reminded her that
+it was time to bring their colloquy to an end, and she made a
+faint motion to push back her chair.
+
+Rosedale stopped her with a protesting gesture. "Wait a
+minute--don't go yet; sit quiet and rest a little longer. You
+look thoroughly played out. And you haven't told me---" He broke
+off, conscious of going farther than he had meant. She saw the
+struggle and understood it; understood also the nature of the
+spell to which he yielded as, with his eyes on her face, he began
+again abruptly: "What on earth did you mean by saying just now
+that you were learning to be a milliner?"
+
+"Just what I said. I am an apprentice at Regina's."
+
+"Good Lord--YOU? But what for? I knew your aunt had
+turned you down: Mrs. Fisher told me about it. But I understood
+you got a legacy from her---"
+
+"I got ten thousand dollars; but the legacy is not to be paid
+till next summer."
+
+"Well, but--look here: you could BORROW on it any time you
+wanted."
+
+She shook her head gravely. "No; for I owe it already."
+
+"Owe it? The whole ten thousand?"
+
+"Every penny." She paused, and then continued abruptly, with her
+eyes on his face: "I think Gus Trenor spoke to you once about
+having made some money for me in stocks."
+
+She waited, and Rosedale, congested with embarrassment, muttered
+that he remembered something of the kind.
+
+"He made about nine thousand dollars," Lily pursued, in the same
+tone of eager communicativeness. "At the time, I understood that
+he was speculating with my own money: it was incredibly stupid of
+me, but I knew nothing of business. Afterward I found out that he
+had NOT used my money--that what he said he had made for me he
+had really given me. It was meant in kindness, of course; but it
+was not the sort of obligation one could remain under.
+Unfortunately I had spent the money before I discovered my
+mistake; and so my legacy will have to go to pay it back. That is
+the reason why I am trying to learn a trade."
+
+She made the statement clearly, deliberately, with pauses between
+the sentences, so that each should have time to sink deeply into
+her hearer's mind. She had a passionate desire that some one
+should know the truth about this transaction, and also that the
+rumour of her intention to repay the money should reach Judy
+Trenor's ears. And it had suddenly occurred to her that Rosedale,
+who had surprised Trenor's confidence, was the fitting person to
+receive and transmit her version of the facts. She had even felt
+a momentary exhilaration at the thought of thus relieving herself
+of her detested secret; but the sensation gradually faded in the
+telling, and as she ended her pallour was suffused with a deep
+blush of misery.
+
+Rosedale continued to stare at her in wonder; but the wonder took
+the turn she had least expected.
+
+"But see here--if that's the case, it cleans you out altogether?"
+
+He put it to her as if she had not grasped the consequences of
+her act; as if her incorrigible ignorance of business were about
+to precipitate her into a fresh act of folly.
+
+"Altogether--yes," she calmly agreed.
+
+He sat silent, his thick hands clasped on the table, his little
+puzzled eyes exploring the recesses of the deserted restaurant.
+
+"See here--that's fine," he exclaimed abruptly.
+
+Lily rose from her seat with a deprecating laugh. "Oh, no--it's
+merely a bore," she asserted, gathering together the ends of her
+feather scarf.
+
+Rosedale remained seated, too intent on his thoughts to notice
+her movement. "Miss Lily, if you want any backing--I like pluck---"
+broke from him disconnectedly.
+
+"Thank you." She held out her hand. "Your tea has given me a
+tremendous backing. I feel equal to anything now."
+
+Her gesture seemed to show a definite intention of dismissal, but
+her companion had tossed a bill to the waiter, and was slipping
+his short arms into his expensive overcoat.
+
+"Wait a minute--you've got to let me walk home with you," he
+said.
+
+Lily uttered no protest, and when he had paused to make sure of
+his change they emerged from the hotel and crossed Sixth Avenue
+again. As she led the way westward past a long line of areas
+which, through the distortion of their paintless rails, revealed
+with increasing candour the DISJECTA MEMBRA of bygone dinners,
+Lily felt that Rosedale was taking contemptuous note of the
+neighbourhood; and before the doorstep at which she finally
+paused he looked up with an air of incredulous disgust.
+
+"This isn't the place? Some one told me you were living with Miss
+Farish."
+
+"No: I am boarding here. I have lived too long on my friends."
+
+He continued to scan the blistered brown stone front, the windows
+draped with discoloured lace, and the Pompeian decoration of the
+muddy vestibule; then he looked back at her face and said with a
+visible effort: "You'll let me come and see you some day?"
+
+She smiled, recognizing the heroism of the offer to the point of
+being frankly touched by it. "Thank you--I shall be very
+glad," she made answer, in the first sincere words she had ever
+spoken to him.
+
+
+
+That evening in her own room Miss Bart--who had fled early from
+the heavy fumes of the basement dinner-table--sat musing upon the
+impulse which had led her to unbosom herself to Rosedale. Beneath
+it she discovered an increasing sense of loneliness--a dread of
+returning to the solitude of her room, while she could be
+anywhere else, or in any company but her own. Circumstances, of
+late, had combined to cut her off more and more from her few
+remaining friends. On Carry Fisher's part the withdrawal was
+perhaps not quite involuntary. Having made her final effort on
+Lily's behalf, and landed her safely in Mme. Regina's work-room,
+Mrs. Fisher seemed disposed to rest from her labours; and Lily,
+understanding the reason, could not condemn her. Carry had in
+fact come dangerously near to being involved in the episode of
+Mrs. Norma Hatch, and it had taken some verbal ingenuity to
+extricate herself. She frankly owned to having brought Lily and
+Mrs. Hatch together, but then she did not know Mrs. Hatch--she
+had expressly warned Lily that she did not know Mrs. Hatch--and
+besides, she was not Lily's keeper, and really the girl was old
+enough to take care of herself. Carry did not put her own case so
+brutally, but she allowed it to be thus put for her by her latest
+bosom friend, Mrs. Jack Stepney: Mrs. Stepney, trembling over the
+narrowness of her only brother's escape, but eager to vindicate
+Mrs. Fisher, at whose house she could count on the "jolly
+parties" which had become a necessity to her since marriage had
+emancipated her from the Van Osburgh point of view.
+
+Lily understood the situation and could make allowances for it.
+Carry had been a good friend to her in difficult days, and
+perhaps only a friendship like Gerty's could be proof against
+such an increasing strain. Gerty's friendship did indeed hold
+fast; yet Lily was beginning to avoid her also. For she could not
+go to Gerty's without risk of meeting Selden; and to meet him now
+would be pure pain. It was pain enough even to think of him,
+whether she considered him in the distinctness of her waking
+thoughts, or felt the obsession of his presence through the blur
+of her tormented nights. That was one of the reasons why
+she had turned again to Mrs. Hatch's prescription. In the uneasy
+snatches of her natural dreams he came to her sometimes in the
+old guise of fellowship and tenderness; and she would rise from
+the sweet delusion mocked and emptied of her courage. But in the
+sleep which the phial procured she sank far below such
+half-waking visitations, sank into depths of dreamless
+annihilation from which she woke each morning with an obliterated
+past.
+
+Gradually, to be sure, the stress of the old thoughts would
+return; but at least they did not importune her waking hour. The
+drug gave her a momentary illusion of complete renewal, from
+which she drew strength to take up her daily work. The strength
+was more and more needed as the perplexities of her future
+increased. She knew that to Gerty and Mrs. Fisher she was only
+passing through a temporary period of probation, since they
+believed that the apprenticeship she was serving at Mme. Regina's
+would enable her, when Mrs. Peniston's legacy was paid, to
+realize the vision of the green-and-white shop with the fuller
+competence acquired by her preliminary training. But to Lily
+herself, aware that the legacy could not be put to such a use,
+the preliminary training seemed a wasted effort. She understood
+clearly enough that, even if she could ever learn to compete with
+hands formed from childhood for their special work, the small pay
+she received would not be a sufficient addition to her income to
+compensate her for such drudgery. And the realization of this
+fact brought her recurringly face to face with the temptation to
+use the legacy in establishing her business. Once installed, and
+in command of her own work-women, she believed she had sufficient
+tact and ability to attract a fashionable CLIENTELE; and if the
+business succeeded she could gradually lay aside money enough to
+discharge her debt to Trenor. But the task might take years to
+accomplish, even if she continued to stint herself to the utmost;
+and meanwhile her pride would be crushed under the weight of an
+intolerable obligation.
+
+These were her superficial considerations; but under them lurked
+the secret dread that the obligation might not always remain
+intolerable. She knew she could not count on her continuity of
+purpose, and what really frightened her was the thought that she
+might gradually accommodate herself to remaining
+indefinitely in Trenor's debt, as she had accommodated herself to
+the part allotted her on the Sabrina, and as she had so nearly
+drifted into acquiescing with Stancy's scheme for the advancement
+of Mrs. Hatch. Her danger lay, as she knew, in her old incurable
+dread of discomfort and poverty; in the fear of that mounting
+tide of dinginess against which her mother had so passionately
+warned her. And now a new vista of peril opened before her. She
+understood that Rosedale was ready to lend her money; and the
+longing to take advantage of his offer began to haunt her
+insidiously. It was of course impossible to accept a loan from
+Rosedale; but proximate possibilities hovered temptingly before
+her. She was quite sure that he would come and see her again, and
+almost sure that, if he did, she could bring him to the point of
+offering to marry her on the terms she had previously rejected.
+Would she still reject them if they were offered? More and more,
+with every fresh mischance befalling her, did the pursuing furies
+seem to take the shape of Bertha Dorset; and close at hand,
+safely locked among her papers, lay the means of ending their
+pursuit. The temptation, which her scorn of Rosedale had once
+enabled her to reject, now insistently returned upon her; and how
+much strength was left her to oppose it?
+
+What little there was must at any rate be husbanded to the
+utmost; she could not trust herself again to the perils of a
+sleepless night. Through the long hours of silence the dark
+spirit of fatigue and loneliness crouched upon her breast,
+leaving her so drained of bodily strength that her morning
+thoughts swam in a haze of weakness. The only hope of renewal lay
+in the little bottle at her bed-side; and how much longer that
+hope would last she dared not conjecture.
+
+
+
+Chapter 11
+
+Lily, lingering for a moment on the corner, looked out on the
+afternoon spectacle of Fifth Avenue. It was a day in late April,
+and the sweetness of spring was in the air. It mitigated the
+ugliness of the long crowded thoroughfare, blurred the gaunt
+roof-lines, threw a mauve veil over the discouraging perspective
+of the side streets, and gave a touch of poetry to the delicate
+haze of green that marked the entrance to the Park.
+
+As Lily stood there, she recognized several familiar faces in the
+passing carriages. The season was over, and its ruling forces had
+disbanded; but a few still lingered, delaying their departure for
+Europe, or passing through town on their return from the South.
+Among them was Mrs. Van Osburgh, swaying majestically in her
+C-spring barouche, with Mrs. Percy Gryce at her side, and the new
+heir to the Gryce millions enthroned before them on his nurse's
+knees. They were succeeded by Mrs. Hatch's electric victoria, in
+which that lady reclined in the lonely splendour of a spring
+toilet obviously designed for company; and a moment or two later
+came Judy Trenor, accompanied by Lady Skiddaw, who had come over
+for her annual tarpon fishing and a dip into "the street."
+
+This fleeting glimpse of her past served to emphasize the sense
+of aimlessness with which Lily at length turned toward home. She
+had nothing to do for the rest of the day, nor for the days to
+come; for the season was over in millinery as well as in society,
+and a week earlier Mme. Regina had notified her that her services
+were no longer required. Mme. Regina always reduced her staff on
+the first of May, and Miss Bart's attendance had of late been so
+irregular--she had so often been unwell, and had done so little
+work when she came--that it was only as a favour that her
+dismissal had hitherto been deferred.
+
+Lily did not question the justice of the decision. She was
+conscious of having been forgetful, awkward and slow to learn. It
+was bitter to acknowledge her inferiority even to herself, but
+the fact had been brought home to her that as a
+bread-winner she could never compete with professional ability.
+Since she had been brought up to be ornamental, she could hardly
+blame herself for failing to serve any practical purpose; but the
+discovery put an end to her consoling sense of universal
+efficiency.
+
+As she turned homeward her thoughts shrank in anticipation from
+the fact that there would be nothing to get up for the next
+morning. The luxury of lying late in bed was a pleasure belonging
+to the life of ease; it had no part in the utilitarian existence
+of the boarding-house. She liked to leave her room early, and to
+return to it as late as possible; and she was walking slowly now
+in order to postpone the detested approach to her doorstep.
+
+But the doorstep, as she drew near it, acquired a sudden interest
+from the fact that it was occupied--and indeed filled--by the
+conspicuous figure of Mr. Rosedale, whose presence seemed to take
+on an added amplitude from the meanness of his surroundings.
+
+The sight stirred Lily with an irresistible sense of triumph.
+Rosedale, a day or two after their chance meeting, had called to
+enquire if she had recovered from her indisposition; but since
+then she had not seen or heard from him, and his absence seemed
+to betoken a struggle to keep away, to let her pass once more out
+of his life. If this were the case, his return showed that the
+struggle had been unsuccessful, for Lily knew he was not the man
+to waste his time in an ineffectual sentimental dalliance. He was
+too busy, too practical, and above all too much preoccupied with
+his own advancement, to indulge in such unprofitable asides.
+
+In the peacock-blue parlour, with its bunches of dried pampas
+grass, and discoloured steel engravings of sentimental episodes,
+he looked about him with unconcealed disgust, laying his hat
+distrustfully on the dusty console adorned with a Rogers
+statuette.
+
+Lily sat down on one of the plush and rosewood sofas, and he
+deposited himself in a rocking-chair draped with a starched
+antimacassar which scraped unpleasantly against the pink fold of
+skin above his collar.
+
+"My goodness--you can't go on living here!" he exclaimed.
+
+Lily smiled at his tone. "I am not sure that I can; but I have
+gone over my expenses very carefully, and I rather think I shall
+be able to manage it."
+
+"Be able to manage it? That's not what I mean--it's no place for
+you!"
+
+"It's what I mean; for I have been out of work for the last
+week."
+
+"Out of work--out of work! What a way for you to talk! The idea
+of your having to work--it's preposterous." He brought out his
+sentences in short violent jerks, as though they were forced up
+from a deep inner crater of indignation. "It's a farce--a crazy
+farce," he repeated, his eyes fixed on the long vista of the room
+reflected in the blotched glass between the windows.
+
+Lily continued to meet his expostulations with a smile. "I don't
+know why I should regard myself as an exception---" she began.
+
+"Because you ARE; that's why; and your being in a place like this
+is a damnable outrage. I can't talk of it calmly."
+
+She had in truth never seen him so shaken out of his usual
+glibness; and there was something almost moving to her in his
+inarticulate struggle with his emotions.
+
+He rose with a start which left the rocking-chair quivering on
+its beam ends, and placed himself squarely before her.
+
+"Look here, Miss Lily, I'm going to Europe next week: going over
+to Paris and London for a couple of months--and I can't leave you
+like this. I can't do it. I know it's none of my business--you've
+let me understand that often enough; but things are worse with
+you now than they have been before, and you must see that you've
+got to accept help from somebody. You spoke to me the other day
+about some debt to Trenor. I know what you mean--and I respect
+you for feeling as you do about it."
+
+A blush of surprise rose to Lily's pale face, but before she
+could interrupt him he had continued eagerly: "Well, I'll lend
+you the money to pay Trenor; and I won't--I--see here, don't take
+me up till I've finished. What I mean is, it'll be a plain
+business arrangement, such as one man would make with another.
+Now, what have you got to say against that?"
+
+Lily's blush deepened to a glow in which humiliation and
+gratitude were mingled; and both sentiments revealed themselves
+in the unexpected gentleness of her reply.
+
+"Only this: that it is exactly what Gus Trenor proposed; and that
+I can never again be sure of understanding the plainest business
+arrangement." Then, realizing that this answer contained a germ
+of injustice, she added, even more kindly: "Not that I don't
+appreciate your kindness--that I'm not grateful for it. But a
+business arrangement between us would in any case be impossible,
+because I shall have no security to give when my debt to Gus
+Trenor has been paid."
+
+Rosedale received this statement in silence: he seemed to feel the
+note of finality in her voice, yet to be unable to accept it as
+closing the question between them.
+
+In the silence Lily had a clear perception of what was passing
+through his mind. Whatever perplexity he felt as to the
+inexorableness of her course--however little he penetrated its
+motive--she saw that it unmistakably tended to strengthen her
+hold over him. It was as though the sense in her of unexplained
+scruples and resistances had the same attraction as the delicacy
+of feature, the fastidiousness of manner, which gave her an
+external rarity, an air of being impossible to match. As he
+advanced in social experience this uniqueness had acquired a
+greater value for him, as though he were a collector who had
+learned to distinguish minor differences of design and quality in
+some long-coveted object.
+
+Lily, perceiving all this, understood that he would marry her at
+once, on the sole condition of a reconciliation with Mrs. Dorset;
+and the temptation was the less easy to put aside because, little
+by little, circumstances were breaking down her dislike for
+Rosedale. The dislike, indeed, still subsisted; but it was
+penetrated here and there by the perception of mitigating
+qualities in him: of a certain gross kindliness, a rather
+helpless fidelity of sentiment, which seemed to be struggling
+through the hard surface of his material ambitions.
+
+Reading his dismissal in her eyes, he held out his hand with a
+gesture which conveyed something of this inarticulate conflict.
+
+"If you'd only let me, I'd set you up over them all--I'd put you
+where you could wipe your feet on 'em!" he declared; and
+it touched her oddly to see that his new passion had not altered
+his old standard of values.
+
+
+
+Lily took no sleeping-drops that night. She lay awake viewing her
+situation in the crude light which Rosedale's visit had shed on
+it. In fending off the offer he was so plainly ready to renew,
+had she not sacrificed to one of those abstract notions of honour
+that might be called the conventionalities of the moral life?
+What debt did she owe to a social order which had condemned and
+banished her without trial? She had never been heard in her own
+defence; she was innocent of the charge on which she had been
+found guilty; and the irregularity of her conviction might seem
+to justify the use of methods as irregular in recovering her lost
+rights. Bertha Dorset, to save herself, had not scrupled to ruin
+her by an open falsehood; why should she hesitate to make private
+use of the facts that chance had put in her way? After all, half
+the opprobrium of such an act lies in the name attached to it.
+Call it blackmail and it becomes unthinkable; but explain that it
+injures no one, and that the rights regained by it were unjustly
+forfeited, and he must be a formalist indeed who can find no plea
+in its defence.
+
+The arguments pleading for it with Lily were the old unanswerable
+ones of the personal situation: the sense of injury, the sense of
+failure, the passionate craving for a fair chance against the
+selfish despotism of society. She had learned by experience that
+she had neither the aptitude nor the moral constancy to remake
+her life on new lines; to become a worker among workers, and let
+the world of luxury and pleasure sweep by her unregarded. She
+could not hold herself much to blame for this ineffectiveness,
+and she was perhaps less to blame than she believed. Inherited
+tendencies had combined with early training to make her the
+highly specialized product she was: an organism as helpless out
+of its narrow range as the sea-anemone torn from the rock. She
+had been fashioned to adorn and delight; to what other end does
+nature round the rose-leaf and paint the humming-bird's breast?
+And was it her fault that the purely decorative mission is less
+easily and harmoniously fulfilled among social beings
+than in the world of nature? That it is apt to be hampered by
+material necessities or complicated by moral scruples?
+
+These last were the two antagonistic forces which fought out
+their battle in her breast during the long watches of the night;
+and when she rose the next morning she hardly knew where the
+victory lay. She was exhausted by the reaction of a night without
+sleep, coming after many nights of rest artificially obtained;
+and in the distorting light of fatigue the future stretched out
+before her grey, interminable and desolate.
+
+She lay late in bed, refusing the coffee and fried eggs which the
+friendly Irish servant thrust through her door, and hating the
+intimate domestic noises of the house and the cries and rumblings
+of the street. Her week of idleness had brought home to her with
+exaggerated force these small aggravations of the boarding-house
+world, and she yearned for that other luxurious world, whose
+machinery is so carefully concealed that one scene flows into
+another without perceptible agency.
+
+At length she rose and dressed. Since she had left Mme. Regina's
+she had spent her days in the streets, partly to escape from the
+uncongenial promiscuities of the boarding-house, and partly in
+the hope that physical fatigue would help her to sleep. But once
+out of the house, she could not decide where to go; for she had
+avoided Gerty since her dismissal from the milliner's, and she
+was not sure of a welcome anywhere else.
+
+The morning was in harsh contrast to the previous day. A cold
+grey sky threatened rain, and a high wind drove the dust in wild
+spirals up and down the streets. Lily walked up Fifth Avenue
+toward the Park, hoping to find a sheltered nook where she might
+sit; but the wind chilled her, and after an hour's wandering
+under the tossing boughs she yielded to her increasing weariness,
+and took refuge in a little restaurant in Fifty-ninth Street. She
+was not hungry, and had meant to go without luncheon; but she was
+too tired to return home, and the long perspective of white
+tables showed alluringly through the windows.
+
+The room was full of women and girls, all too much engaged in the
+rapid absorption of tea and pie to remark her entrance. A hum of
+shrill voices reverberated against the low ceiling, leaving Lily
+shut out in a little circle of silence. She felt a sudden pang of
+profound loneliness. She had lost the sense of time, and
+it seemed to her as though she had not spoken to any one for
+days. Her eyes sought the faces about her, craving a responsive
+glance, some sign of an intuition of her trouble. But the sallow
+preoccupied women, with their bags and note-books and rolls of
+music, were all engrossed in their own affairs, and even those
+who sat by themselves were busy running over proof-sheets or
+devouring magazines between their hurried gulps of tea. Lily
+alone was stranded in a great waste of disoccupation.
+
+She drank several cups of the tea which was served with her
+portion of stewed oysters, and her brain felt clearer and
+livelier when she emerged once more into the street. She realized
+now that, as she sat in the restaurant, she had unconsciously
+arrived at a final decision. The discovery gave her an immediate
+illusion of activity: it was exhilarating to think that she had
+actually a reason for hurrying home. To prolong her enjoyment of
+the sensation she decided to walk; but the distance was so great
+that she found herself glancing nervously at the clocks on the
+way. One of the surprises of her unoccupied state was the
+discovery that time, when it is left to itself and no definite
+demands are made on it, cannot be trusted to move at any
+recognized pace. Usually it loiters; but just when one has come
+to count upon its slowness, it may suddenly break into a wild
+irrational gallop.
+
+She found, however, on reaching home, that the hour was still
+early enough for her to sit down and rest a few minutes before
+putting her plan into execution. The delay did not perceptibly
+weaken her resolve. She was frightened and yet stimulated by the
+reserved force of resolution which she felt within herself: she
+saw it was going to be easier, a great deal easier, than she had
+imagined.
+
+At five o'clock she rose, unlocked her trunk, and took out a
+sealed packet which she slipped into the bosom of her dress. Even
+the contact with the packet did not shake her nerves as she had
+half-expected it would. She seemed encased in a strong armour of
+indifference, as though the vigorous exertion of her will had
+finally benumbed her finer sensibilities.
+
+She dressed herself once more for the street, locked her door and
+went out. When she emerged on the pavement, the day was still
+high, but a threat of rain darkened the sky and cold
+gusts shook the signs projecting from the basement shops along
+the street. She reached Fifth Avenue and began to walk slowly
+northward. She was sufficiently familiar with Mrs. Dorset's
+habits to know that she could always be found at home after five.
+She might not, indeed, be accessible to visitors, especially to a
+visitor so unwelcome, and against whom it was quite possible that
+she had guarded herself by special orders; but Lily had written a
+note which she meant to send up with her name, and which she
+thought would secure her admission.
+
+She had allowed herself time to walk to Mrs. Dorset's, thinking
+that the quick movement through the cold evening air would help
+to steady her nerves; but she really felt no need of being
+tranquillized. Her survey of the situation remained calm and
+unwavering.
+
+As she reached Fiftieth Street the clouds broke abruptly, and a
+rush of cold rain slanted into her face. She had no umbrella and
+the moisture quickly penetrated her thin spring dress. She was
+still half a mile from her destination, and she decided to walk
+across to Madison Avenue and take the electric car. As she turned
+into the side street, a vague memory stirred in her. The row of
+budding trees, the new brick and limestone house-fronts, the
+Georgian flat-house with flowerboxes on its balconies, were
+merged together into the setting of a familiar scene. It was down
+this street that she had walked with Selden, that September day
+two years ago; a few yards ahead was the doorway they had entered
+together. The recollection loosened a throng of benumbed
+sensations--longings, regrets, imaginings, the throbbing brood of
+the only spring her heart had ever known. It was strange to find
+herself passing his house on such an errand. She seemed suddenly
+to see her action as he would see it--and the fact of his own
+connection with it, the fact that, to attain her end, she must
+trade on his name, and profit by a secret of his past, chilled
+her blood with shame. What a long way she had travelled since the
+day of their first talk together! Even then her feet had been set
+in the path she was now following--even then she had resisted the
+hand he had held out.
+
+All her resentment of his fancied coldness was swept away in this
+overwhelming rush of recollection. Twice he had been
+ready to help her--to help her by loving her, as he had said--and
+if, the third time, he had seemed to fail her, whom but herself
+could she accuse? . . . Well, that part of her life was over; she
+did not know why her thoughts still clung to it. But the sudden
+longing to see him remained; it grew to hunger as she paused on
+the pavement opposite his door. The street was dark and empty,
+swept by the rain. She had a vision of his quiet room, of the
+bookshelves, and the fire on the hearth. She looked up and saw a
+light in his window; then she crossed the street and entered the
+house.
+
+
+
+Chapter 12
+
+The library looked as she had pictured it. The green-shaded lamps
+made tranquil circles of light in the gathering dusk, a little
+fire flickered on the hearth, and Selden's easy-chair, which
+stood near it, had been pushed aside when he rose to admit her.
+
+He had checked his first movement of surprise, and stood silent,
+waiting for her to speak, while she paused a moment on the
+threshold, assailed by a rush of memories.
+
+The scene was unchanged. She recognized the row of shelves from
+which he had taken down his La Bruyere, and the worn arm of the
+chair he had leaned against while she examined the precious
+volume. But then the wide September light had filled the room,
+making it seem a part of the outer world: now the shaded lamps
+and the warm hearth, detaching it from the gathering darkness of
+the street, gave it a sweeter touch of intimacy.
+
+Becoming gradually aware of the surprise under Selden's silence,
+Lily turned to him and said simply: "I came to tell you that I
+was sorry for the way we parted--for what I said to you that day
+at Mrs. Hatch's."
+
+The words rose to her lips spontaneously. Even on her way up the
+stairs, she had not thought of preparing a pretext for her visit,
+but she now felt an intense longing to dispel the cloud of
+misunderstanding that hung between them.
+
+Selden returned her look with a smile. "I was sorry too that we
+should have parted in that way; but I am not sure I didn't bring
+it on myself. Luckily I had foreseen the risk I was taking---"
+
+"So that you really didn't care---?" broke from her with a flash
+of her old irony.
+
+"So that I was prepared for the consequences," he corrected
+good-humouredly. "But we'll talk of all this later. Do come and
+sit by the fire. I can recommend that arm-chair, if you'll let me
+put a cushion behind you."
+
+While he spoke she had moved slowly to the middle of the room,
+and paused near his writing-table, where the lamp,
+striking upward, cast exaggerated shadows on the pallour of her
+delicately-hollowed face.
+
+"You look tired--do sit down," he repeated gently.
+
+She did not seem to hear the request. "I wanted you to know that
+I left Mrs. Hatch immediately after I saw you," she said, as
+though continuing her confession.
+
+"Yes--yes; I know," he assented, with a rising tinge of
+embarrassment.
+
+"And that I did so because you told me to. Before you came I had
+already begun to see that it would be impossible to remain with
+her--for the reasons you gave me; but I wouldn't admit it--I
+wouldn't let you see that I understood what you meant."
+
+"Ah, I might have trusted you to find your own way out--don't
+overwhelm me with the sense of my officiousness!"
+
+His light tone, in which, had her nerves been steadier, she would
+have recognized the mere effort to bridge over an awkward moment,
+jarred on her passionate desire to be understood. In her strange
+state of extra-lucidity, which gave her the sense of being
+already at the heart of the situation, it seemed incredible that
+any one should think it necessary to linger in the conventional
+outskirts of word-play and evasion.
+
+"It was not that--I was not ungrateful," she insisted. But the
+power of expression failed her suddenly; she felt a tremor in her
+throat, and two tears gathered and fell slowly from her eyes.
+
+Selden moved forward and took her hand. "You are very tired. Why
+won't you sit down and let me make you comfortable?"
+
+He drew her to the arm-chair near the fire, and placed a cushion
+behind her shoulders.
+
+"And now you must let me make you some tea: you know I always
+have that amount of hospitality at my command."
+
+She shook her head, and two more tears ran over. But she did not
+weep easily, and the long habit of self-control reasserted
+itself, though she was still too tremulous to speak.
+
+"You know I can coax the water to boil in five minutes," Selden
+continued, speaking as though she were a troubled child.
+
+His words recalled the vision of that other afternoon
+when they had sat together over his tea-table and talked
+jestingly of her future. There were moments when that day seemed
+more remote than any other event in her life; and yet she could
+always relive it in its minutest detail.
+
+She made a gesture of refusal. "No: I drink too much tea. I would
+rather sit quiet--I must go in a moment," she added confusedly.
+
+Selden continued to stand near her, leaning against the
+mantelpiece. The tinge of constraint was beginning to be more
+distinctly perceptible under the friendly ease of his manner. Her
+self-absorption had not allowed her to perceive it at first; but
+now that her consciousness was once more putting forth its eager
+feelers, she saw that her presence was becoming an embarrassment
+to him. Such a situation can be saved only by an immediate
+outrush of feeling; and on Selden's side the determining impulse
+was still lacking.
+
+The discovery did not disturb Lily as it might once have done.
+She had passed beyond the phase of well-bred reciprocity, in
+which every demonstration must be scrupulously proportioned to
+the emotion it elicits, and generosity of feeling is the only
+ostentation condemned. But the sense of loneliness returned with
+redoubled force as she saw herself forever shut out from Selden's
+inmost self. She had come to him with no definite purpose; the
+mere longing to see him had directed her; but the secret hope she
+had carried with her suddenly revealed itself in its death-pang.
+
+"I must go," she repeated, making a motion to rise from her
+chair. "But I may not see you again for a long time, and I wanted
+to tell you that I have never forgotten the things you said to me
+at Bellomont, and that sometimes--sometimes when I seemed
+farthest from remembering them--they have helped me, and kept me
+from mistakes; kept me from really becoming what many people have
+thought me."
+
+Strive as she would to put some order in her thoughts, the words
+would not come more clearly; yet she felt that she could not
+leave him without trying to make him understand that she had
+saved herself whole from the seeming ruin of her life.
+
+A change had come over Selden's face as she spoke. Its guarded
+look had yielded to an expression still untinged by personal
+emotion, but full of a gentle understanding.
+
+"I am glad to have you tell me that; but nothing I have said has
+really made the difference. The difference is in yourself--it
+will always be there. And since it IS there, it can't really
+matter to you what people think: you are so sure that your
+friends will always understand you."
+
+"Ah, don't say that--don't say that what you have told me has
+made no difference. It seems to shut me out--to leave me all
+alone with the other people." She had risen and stood before him,
+once more completely mastered by the inner urgency of the moment.
+The consciousness of his half-divined reluctance had vanished.
+Whether he wished it or not, he must see her wholly for once
+before they parted.
+
+Her voice had gathered strength, and she looked him gravely in
+the eyes as she continued. "Once--twice--you gave me the chance
+to escape from my life, and I refused it: refused it because I
+was a coward. Afterward I saw my mistake--I saw I could never be
+happy with what had contented me before. But it was too late: you
+had judged me--I understood. It was too late for happiness--but
+not too late to be helped by the thought of what I had missed.
+That is all I have lived on--don't take it from me now! Even in
+my worst moments it has been like a little light in the darkness.
+Some women are strong enough to be good by themselves, but I
+needed the help of your belief in me. Perhaps I might have
+resisted a great temptation, but the little ones would have
+pulled me down. And then I remembered--I remembered your saying
+that such a life could never satisfy me; and I was ashamed to
+admit to myself that it could. That is what you did for me--that
+is what I wanted to thank you for. I wanted to tell you that I
+have always remembered; and that I have tried--tried hard . . ."
+
+She broke off suddenly. Her tears had risen again, and in drawing
+out her handkerchief her fingers touched the packet in the folds
+of her dress. A wave of colour suffused her, and the words died
+on her lips. Then she lifted her eyes to his and went on in an
+altered voice.
+
+"I have tried hard--but life is difficult, and I am a very
+useless person. I can hardly be said to have an independent
+existence. I was just a screw or a cog in the great machine
+I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was
+of no use anywhere else. What can one do when one finds that one
+only fits into one hole? One must get back to it or be thrown out
+into the rubbish heap--and you don't know what it's like in the
+rubbish heap!"
+
+Her lips wavered into a smile--she had been distracted by the
+whimsical remembrance of the confidences she had made to him, two
+years earlier, in that very room. Then she had been planning to
+marry Percy Gryce--what was it she was planning now?
+
+The blood had risen strongly under Selden's dark skin, but his
+emotion showed itself only in an added seriousness of manner.
+
+"You have something to tell me--do you mean to marry?" he said
+abruptly.
+
+Lily's eyes did not falter, but a look of wonder, of puzzled
+self-interrogation, formed itself slowly in their depths. In the
+light of his question, she had paused to ask herself if her
+decision had really been taken when she entered the room.
+
+"You always told me I should have to come to it sooner or later!"
+she said with a faint smile.
+
+"And you have come to it now?"
+
+"I shall have to come to it--presently. But there is something
+else I must come to first." She paused again, trying to transmit
+to her voice the steadiness of her recovered smile. "There is
+some one I must say goodbye to. Oh, not YOU--we are sure to see
+each other again--but the Lily Bart you knew. I have kept her
+with me all this time, but now we are going to part, and I have
+brought her back to you--I am going to leave her here. When I go
+out presently she will not go with me. I shall like to think that
+she has stayed with you--and she'll be no trouble, she'll take up
+no room."
+
+She went toward him, and put out her hand, still smiling. "Will
+you let her stay with you?" she asked.
+
+He caught her hand, and she felt in his the vibration of feeling
+that had not yet risen to his lips. "Lily--can't I help you?" he
+exclaimed.
+
+She looked at him gently. "Do you remember what you said to me
+once? That you could help me only by loving me? Well--you did
+love me for a moment; and it helped me. It has always
+helped me. But the moment is gone--it was I who let it go. And
+one must go on living. Goodbye."
+
+She laid her other hand on his, and they looked at each other
+with a kind of solemnity, as though they stood in the presence of
+death. Something in truth lay dead between them--the love she had
+killed in him and could no longer call to life. But something
+lived between them also, and leaped up in her like an
+imperishable flame: it was the love his love had kindled, the
+passion of her soul for his.
+
+In its light everything else dwindled and fell away from her. She
+understood now that she could not go forth and leave her old self
+with him: that self must indeed live on in his presence, but it
+must still continue to be hers.
+
+Selden had retained her hand, and continued to scrutinize her
+with a strange sense of foreboding. The external aspect of the
+situation had vanished for him as completely as for her: he felt
+it only as one of those rare moments which lift the veil from
+their faces as they pass.
+
+"Lily," he said in a low voice, "you mustn't speak in this way. I
+can't let you go without knowing what you mean to do. Things may
+change--but they don't pass. You can never go out of my life."
+
+She met his eyes with an illumined look. "No," she said. "I see
+that now. Let us always be friends. Then I shall feel safe,
+whatever happens."
+
+"Whatever happens? What do you mean? What is going to happen?"
+
+She turned away quietly and walked toward the hearth.
+
+"Nothing at present--except that I am very cold, and that before
+I go you must make up the fire for me."
+
+She knelt on the hearth-rug, stretching her hands to the embers.
+Puzzled by the sudden change in her tone, he mechanically
+gathered a handful of wood from the basket and tossed it on the
+fire. As he did so, he noticed how thin her hands looked against
+the rising light of the flames. He saw too, under the loose lines
+of her dress, how the curves of her figure had shrunk to
+angularity; he remembered long afterward how the red play of the
+flame sharpened the depression of her nostrils, and intensified
+the blackness of the shadows which struck up from her cheekbones
+to her eyes. She knelt there for a few moments in
+silence; a silence which he dared not break. When she rose he
+fancied that he saw her draw something from her dress and drop it
+into the fire; but he hardly noticed the gesture at the time. His
+faculties seemed tranced, and he was still groping for the word
+to break the spell. She went up to him and laid her hands on his
+shoulders. "Goodbye," she said, and as he bent over her she
+touched his forehead with her lips.
+
+
+
+Chapter 13
+
+The street-lamps were lit, but the rain had ceased, and there was
+a momentary revival of light in the upper sky. Lily walked on
+unconscious of her surroundings. She was still treading the
+buoyant ether which emanates from the high moments of life. But
+gradually it shrank away from her and she felt the dull pavement
+beneath her feet. The sense of weariness returned with
+accumulated force, and for a moment she felt that she could walk
+no farther. She had reached the corner of Forty-first Street and
+Fifth Avenue, and she remembered that in Bryant Park there were
+seats where she might rest.
+
+That melancholy pleasure-ground was almost deserted when she
+entered it, and she sank down on an empty bench in the glare of
+an electric street-lamp. The warmth of the fire had passed out of
+her veins, and she told herself that she must not sit long in the
+penetrating dampness which struck up from the wet asphalt. But
+her will-power seemed to have spent itself in a last great
+effort, and she was lost in the blank reaction which follows on
+an unwonted expenditure of energy. And besides, what was there to
+go home to? Nothing but the silence of her cheerless room--that
+silence of the night which may be more racking to tired nerves
+than the most discordant noises: that, and the bottle of chloral
+by her bed. The thought of the chloral was the only spot of light
+in the dark prospect: she could feel its lulling influence
+stealing over her already. But she was troubled by the thought
+that it was losing its power--she dared not go back to it too
+soon. Of late the sleep it had brought her had been more broken
+and less profound; there had been nights when she was perpetually
+floating up through it to consciousness. What if the effect of
+the drug should gradually fail, as all narcotics were said to
+fail? She remembered the chemist's warning against increasing the
+dose; and she had heard before of the capricious and incalculable
+action of the drug. Her dread of returning to a sleepless night
+was so great that she lingered on, hoping that excessive
+weariness would reinforce the waning power of the chloral.
+
+Night had now closed in, and the roar of traffic in Forty-second
+Street was dying out. As complete darkness fell on the square the
+lingering occupants of the benches rose and dispersed; but now
+and then a stray figure, hurrying homeward, struck across the
+path where Lily sat, looming black for a moment in the white
+circle of electric light. One or two of these passers-by
+slackened their pace to glance curiously at her lonely figure;
+but she was hardly conscious of their scrutiny.
+
+Suddenly, however, she became aware that one of the passing
+shadows remained stationary between her line of vision and the
+gleaming asphalt; and raising her eyes she saw a young woman
+bending over her.
+
+"Excuse me--are you sick?--Why, it's Miss Bart!" a half-familiar
+voice exclaimed.
+
+Lily looked up. The speaker was a poorly-dressed young woman with
+a bundle under her arm. Her face had the air of unwholesome
+refinement which ill-health and over-work may produce, but its
+common prettiness was redeemed by the strong and generous curve
+of the lips.
+
+"You don't remember me," she continued, brightening with the
+pleasure of recognition, "but I'd know you anywhere, I've thought
+of you such a lot. I guess my folks all know your name by heart.
+I was one of the girls at Miss Farish's club--you helped me to go
+to the country that time I had lung-trouble. My name's Nettie
+Struther. It was Nettie Crane then--but I daresay you don't
+remember that either."
+
+Yes: Lily was beginning to remember. The episode of Nettie
+Crane's timely rescue from disease had been one of the most
+satisfying incidents of her connection with Gerty's charitable
+work. She had furnished the girl with the means to go to a
+sanatorium in the mountains: it struck her now with a peculiar
+irony that the money she had used had been Gus Trenor's.
+
+She tried to reply, to assure the speaker that she had not
+forgotten; but her voice failed in the effort, and she felt
+herself sinking under a great wave of physical weakness. Nettie
+Struther, with a startled exclamation, sat down and slipped a
+shabbily-clad arm behind her back.
+
+"Why, Miss Bart, you ARE sick. Just lean on me a little till you
+feel better."
+
+A faint glow of returning strength seemed to pass into Lily from
+the pressure of the supporting arm.
+
+"I'm only tired--it is nothing," she found voice to say in a
+moment; and then, as she met the timid appeal of her companion's
+eyes, she added involuntarily: "I have been unhappy--in great
+trouble."
+
+"YOU in trouble? I've always thought of you as being so high up,
+where everything was just grand. Sometimes, when I felt real
+mean, and got to wondering why things were so queerly fixed in
+the world, I used to remember that you were having a lovely time,
+anyhow, and that seemed to show there was a kind of justice
+somewhere. But you mustn't sit here too long--it's fearfully
+damp. Don't you feel strong enough to walk on a little ways now?"
+she broke off.
+
+"Yes--yes; I must go home," Lily murmured, rising.
+
+Her eyes rested wonderingly on the thin shabby figure at her
+side. She had known Nettie Crane as one of the discouraged
+victims of over-work and anaemic parentage: one of the
+superfluous fragments of life destined to be swept prematurely
+into that social refuse-heap of which Lily had so lately
+expressed her dread. But Nettie Struther's frail envelope was now
+alive with hope and energy: whatever fate the future reserved for
+her, she would not be cast into the refuse-heap without a
+struggle.
+
+"I am very glad to have seen you," Lily continued, summoning a
+smile to her unsteady lips. "It'll be my turn to think of you as
+happy--and the world will seem a less unjust place to me too."
+
+"Oh, but I can't leave you like this--you're not fit to go home
+alone. And I can't go with you either!" Nettie Struther wailed
+with a start of recollection. "You see, it's my husband's
+night-shift--he's a motor-man--and the friend I leave the baby
+with has to step upstairs to get HER husband's supper at seven. I
+didn't tell you I had a baby, did I? She'll be four months old
+day after tomorrow, and to look at her you wouldn't think I'd
+ever had a sick day. I'd give anything to show you the baby, Miss
+Bart, and we live right down the street here--it's only three
+blocks off." She lifted her eyes tentatively to Lily's face, and
+then added with a burst of courage: "Why won't you get right into
+the cars and come home with me while I get baby's supper?
+It's real warm in our kitchen, and you can rest there, and I'll
+take YOU home as soon as ever she drops off to sleep."
+
+It WAS warm in the kitchen, which, when Nettie Struther's match
+had made a flame leap from the gas-jet above the table, revealed
+itself to Lily as extraordinarily small and almost miraculously
+clean. A fire shone through the polished flanks of the iron
+stove, and near it stood a crib in which a baby was sitting
+upright, with incipient anxiety struggling for expression on a
+countenance still placid with sleep.
+
+Having passionately celebrated her reunion with her offspring,
+and excused herself in cryptic language for the lateness of her
+return, Nettie restored the baby to the crib and shyly invited
+Miss Bart to the rocking-chair near the stove.
+
+"We've got a parlour too," she explained with pardonable pride;
+"but I guess it's warmer in here, and I don't want to leave you
+alone while I'm getting baby's supper."
+
+On receiving Lily's assurance that she much preferred the
+friendly proximity of the kitchen fire, Mrs. Struther proceeded
+to prepare a bottle of infantile food, which she tenderly applied
+to the baby's impatient lips; and while the ensuing degustation
+went on, she seated herself with a beaming countenance beside her
+visitor.
+
+"You're sure you won't let me warm up a drop of coffee for you,
+Miss Bart? There's some of baby's fresh milk left over--well,
+maybe you'd rather just sit quiet and rest a little while. It's
+too lovely having you here. I've thought of it so often that I
+can't believe it's really come true. I've said to George again
+and again: 'I just wish Miss Bart could see me NOW--' and I used
+to watch for your name in the papers, and we'd talk over what you
+were doing, and read the descriptions of the dresses you wore. I
+haven't seen your name for a long time, though, and I began to be
+afraid you were sick, and it worried me so that George said I'd
+get sick myself, fretting about it." Her lips broke into a
+reminiscent smile. "Well, I can't afford to be sick again, that's
+a fact: the last spell nearly finished me. When you sent me off
+that time I never thought I'd come back alive, and I didn't much
+care if I did. You see I didn't know about George and the baby
+then."
+
+She paused to readjust the bottle to the child's bubbling mouth.
+
+"You precious--don't you be in too much of a hurry! Was it mad
+with mommer for getting its supper so late? Marry
+Anto'nette--that's what we call her: after the French queen in
+that play at the Garden--I told George the actress reminded me of
+you, and that made me fancy the name . . . I never thought I'd
+get married, you know, and I'd never have had the heart to go on
+working just for myself."
+
+She broke off again, and meeting the encouragement in Lily's
+eyes, went on, with a flush rising under her anaemic skin: "You
+see I wasn't only just SICK that time you sent me off--I was
+dreadfully unhappy too. I'd known a gentleman where I was
+employed--I don't know as you remember I did type-writing in a
+big importing firm--and--well--I thought we were to be married:
+he'd gone steady with me six months and given me his mother's
+wedding ring. But I presume he was too stylish for me--he
+travelled for the firm, and had seen a great deal of society.
+Work girls aren't looked after the way you are, and they don't
+always know how to look after themselves. I didn't . . . and it
+pretty near killed me when he went away and left off writing . . .
+ It was then I came down sick--I thought it was the end of
+everything. I guess it would have been if you hadn't sent me off.
+But when I found I was getting well I began to take heart in
+spite of myself. And then, when I got back home, George came
+round and asked me to marry him. At first I thought I couldn't,
+because we'd been brought up together, and I knew he knew about
+me. But after a while I began to see that that made it easier. I
+never could have told another man, and I'd never have married
+without telling; but if George cared for me enough to have me as
+I was, I didn't see why I shouldn't begin over again--and I did."
+
+The strength of the victory shone forth from her as she lifted
+her irradiated face from the child on her knees. "But, mercy, I
+didn't mean to go on like this about myself, with you sitting
+there looking so fagged out. Only it's so lovely having you here,
+and letting you see just how you've helped me." The baby had sunk
+back blissfully replete, and Mrs. Struther softly rose to
+lay the bottle aside. Then she paused before Miss Bart.
+
+"I only wish I could help YOU--but I suppose there's nothing on
+earth I could do," she murmured wistfully.
+
+Lily, instead of answering, rose with a smile and held out her
+arms; and the mother, understanding the gesture, laid her child
+in them.
+
+The baby, feeling herself detached from her habitual anchorage,
+made an instinctive motion of resistance; but the soothing
+influences of digestion prevailed, and Lily felt the soft weight
+sink trustfully against her breast. The child's confidence in its
+safety thrilled her with a sense of warmth and returning life,
+and she bent over, wondering at the rosy blur of the little face,
+the empty clearness of the eyes, the vague tendrilly motions of
+the folding and unfolding fingers. At first the burden in her
+arms seemed as light as a pink cloud or a heap of down, but as
+she continued to hold it the weight increased, sinking deeper,
+and penetrating her with a strange sense of weakness, as though
+the child entered into her and became a part of herself.
+
+She looked up, and saw Nettie's eyes resting on her with
+tenderness and exultation.
+
+"Wouldn't it be too lovely for anything if she could grow up to
+be just like you? Of course I know she never COULD--but mothers
+are always dreaming the craziest things for their children."
+
+Lily clasped the child close for a moment and laid her back in
+her mother's arms.
+
+"Oh, she must not do that--I should be afraid to come and see her
+too often!" she said with a smile; and then, resisting Mrs.
+Struther's anxious offer of companionship, and reiterating the
+promise that of course she would come back soon, and make
+George's acquaintance, and see the baby in her bath, she passed
+out of the kitchen and went alone down the tenement stairs.
+
+
+
+As she reached the street she realized that she felt stronger and
+happier: the little episode had done her good. It was the first
+time she had ever come across the results of her spasmodic
+benevolence, and the surprised sense of human fellowship took the
+mortal chill from her heart.
+
+It was not till she entered her own door that she felt the
+reaction of a deeper loneliness. It was long after seven o'clock,
+and the light and odours proceeding from the basement made it
+manifest that the boarding-house dinner had begun. She hastened
+up to her room, lit the gas, and began to dress. She did not mean
+to pamper herself any longer, to go without food because her
+surroundings made it unpalatable. Since it was her fate to live
+in a boarding-house, she must learn to fall in with the
+conditions of the life. Nevertheless she was glad that, when she
+descended to the heat and glare of the dining-room, the repast
+was nearly over.
+
+
+
+In her own room again, she was seized with a sudden fever of
+activity. For weeks past she had been too listless and
+indifferent to set her possessions in order, but now she began to
+examine systematically the contents of her drawers and cupboard.
+She had a few handsome dresses left--survivals of her last phase
+of splendour, on the Sabrina and in London--but when she had been
+obliged to part with her maid she had given the woman a generous
+share of her cast-off apparel. The remaining dresses, though they
+had lost their freshness, still kept the long unerring lines, the
+sweep and amplitude of the great artist's stroke, and as she
+spread them out on the bed the scenes in which they had been worn
+rose vividly before her. An association lurked in every fold:
+each fall of lace and gleam of embroidery was like a letter in
+the record of her past. She was startled to find how the
+atmosphere of her old life enveloped her. But, after all, it was
+the life she had been made for: every dawning tendency in her had
+been carefully directed toward it, all her interests and
+activities had been taught to centre around it. She was like some
+rare flower grown for exhibition, a flower from which every bud
+had been nipped except the crowning blossom of her beauty.
+
+Last of all, she drew forth from the bottom of her trunk a heap
+of white drapery which fell shapelessly across her arm. It was
+the Reynolds dress she had worn in the Bry TABLEAUX. It had been
+impossible for her to give it away, but she had never seen it
+since that night, and the long flexible folds, as she
+shook them out, gave forth an odour of violets which came to her
+like a breath from the flower-edged fountain where she had stood
+with Lawrence Selden and disowned her fate. She put back the
+dresses one by one, laying away with each some gleam of light,
+some note of laughter, some stray waft from the rosy shores of
+pleasure. She was still in a state of highly-wrought
+impressionability, and every hint of the past sent a lingering
+tremor along her nerves.
+
+She had just closed her trunk on the white folds of the Reynolds
+dress when she heard a tap at her door, and the red fist of the
+Irish maid-servant thrust in a belated letter. Carrying it to the
+light, Lily read with surprise the address stamped on the upper
+corner of the envelope. It was a business communication from the
+office of her aunt's executors, and she wondered what unexpected
+development had caused them to break silence before the appointed
+time. She opened the envelope and a cheque fluttered to the
+floor. As she stooped to pick it up the blood rushed to her face.
+The cheque represented the full amount of Mrs. Peniston's legacy,
+and the letter accompanying it explained that the executors,
+having adjusted the business of the estate with less delay than
+they had expected, had decided to anticipate the date fixed for
+the payment of the bequests.
+
+Lily sat down beside the desk at the foot of her bed, and
+spreading out the cheque, read over and over the TEN THOUSAND
+DOLLARS written across it in a steely business hand. Ten months
+earlier the amount it stood for had represented the depths of
+penury; but her standard of values had changed in the interval,
+and now visions of wealth lurked in every flourish of the pen. As
+she continued to gaze at it, she felt the glitter of the visions
+mounting to her brain, and after a while she lifted the lid of
+the desk and slipped the magic formula out of sight. It was
+easier to think without those five figures dancing before her
+eyes; and she had a great deal of thinking to do before she
+slept.
+
+She opened her cheque-book, and plunged into such anxious
+calculations as had prolonged her vigil at Bellomont on the night
+when she had decided to marry Percy Gryce. Poverty simplifies
+book-keeping, and her financial situation was easier to ascertain
+than it had been then; but she had not yet learned the
+control of money, and during her transient phase of luxury at the
+Emporium she had slipped back into habits of extravagance which
+still impaired her slender balance. A careful examination of her
+cheque-book, and of the unpaid bills in her desk, showed that,
+when the latter had been settled, she would have barely enough to
+live on for the next three or four months; and even after that,
+if she were to continue her present way of living, without
+earning any additional money, all incidental expenses must be
+reduced to the vanishing point. She hid her eyes with a shudder,
+beholding herself at the entrance of that ever-narrowing
+perspective down which she had seen Miss Silverton's dowdy figure
+take its despondent way.
+
+It was no longer, however, from the vision of material poverty
+that she turned with the greatest shrinking. She had a sense of
+deeper empoverishment--of an inner destitution compared to which
+outward conditions dwindled into insignificance. It was indeed
+miserable to be poor--to look forward to a shabby, anxious
+middle-age, leading by dreary degrees of economy and self-denial
+to gradual absorption in the dingy communal existence of the
+boarding-house. But there was something more miserable still--it
+was the clutch of solitude at her heart, the sense of being swept
+like a stray uprooted growth down the heedless current of the
+years. That was the feeling which possessed her now--the feeling
+of being something rootless and ephemeral, mere spin-drift of the
+whirling surface of existence, without anything to which the poor
+little tentacles of self could cling before the awful flood
+submerged them. And as she looked back she saw that there had
+never been a time when she had had any real relation to life. Her
+parents too had been rootless, blown hither and thither on every
+wind of fashion, without any personal existence to shelter them
+from its shifting gusts. She herself had grown up without any one
+spot of earth being dearer to her than another: there was no
+centre of early pieties, of grave endearing traditions, to which
+her heart could revert and from which it could draw strength for
+itself and tenderness for others. In whatever form a
+slowly-accumulated past lives in the blood--whether in the
+concrete image of the old house stored with visual memories, or
+in the conception of the house not built with hands, but
+made up of inherited passions and loyalties--it has the same
+power of broadening and deepening the individual existence, of
+attaching it by mysterious links of kinship to all the mighty sum
+of human striving.
+
+Such a vision of the solidarity of life had never before come to
+Lily. She had had a premonition of it in the blind motions of her
+mating-instinct; but they had been checked by the disintegrating
+influences of the life about her. All the men and women she knew
+were like atoms whirling away from each other in some wild
+centrifugal dance: her first glimpse of the continuity of life
+had come to her that evening in Nettie Struther's kitchen.
+
+The poor little working-girl who had found strength to gather up
+the fragments of her life, and build herself a shelter with them,
+seemed to Lily to have reached the central truth of existence. It
+was a meagre enough life, on the grim edge of poverty, with scant
+margin for possibilities of sickness or mischance, but it had the
+frail audacious permanence of a bird's nest built on the edge of
+a cliff--a mere wisp of leaves and straw, yet so put together
+that the lives entrusted to it may hang safely over the abyss.
+
+Yes--but it had taken two to build the nest; the man's faith as
+well as the woman's courage. Lily remembered Nettie's words: I
+KNEW HE KNEW ABOUT ME. Her husband's faith in her had made her
+renewal possible--it is so easy for a woman to become what the
+man she loves believes her to be! Well--Selden had twice been
+ready to stake his faith on Lily Bart; but the third trial had
+been too severe for his endurance. The very quality of his love
+had made it the more impossible to recall to life. If it had been
+a simple instinct of the blood, the power of her beauty might
+have revived it. But the fact that it struck deeper, that it was
+inextricably wound up with inherited habits of thought and
+feeling, made it as impossible to restore to growth as a
+deep-rooted plant torn from its bed. Selden had given her of his
+best; but he was as incapable as herself of an uncritical return
+to former states of feeling.
+
+There remained to her, as she had told him, the uplifting memory
+of his faith in her; but she had not reached the age when a woman
+can live on her memories. As she held Nettie Struther's
+child in her arms the frozen currents of youth had loosed
+themselves and run warm in her veins: the old life-hunger
+possessed her, and all her being clamoured for its share of
+personal happiness. Yes--it was happiness she still wanted, and
+the glimpse she had caught of it made everything else of no
+account. One by one she had detached herself from the baser
+possibilities, and she saw that nothing now remained to her but
+the emptiness of renunciation.
+
+It was growing late, and an immense weariness once more possessed
+her. It was not the stealing sense of sleep, but a vivid wakeful
+fatigue, a wan lucidity of mind against which all the
+possibilities of the future were shadowed forth gigantically. She
+was appalled by the intense cleanness of the vision; she seemed
+to have broken through the merciful veil which intervenes between
+intention and action, and to see exactly what she would do in all
+the long days to come. There was the cheque in her desk, for
+instance--she meant to use it in paying her debt to Trenor; but
+she foresaw that when the morning came she would put off doing
+so, would slip into gradual tolerance of the debt. The thought
+terrified her--she dreaded to fall from the height of her last
+moment with Lawrence Selden. But how could she trust herself to
+keep her footing? She knew the strength of the opposing
+impulses-she could feel the countless hands of habit dragging her
+back into some fresh compromise with fate. She felt an intense
+longing to prolong, to perpetuate, the momentary exaltation of
+her spirit. If only life could end now--end on this tragic yet
+sweet vision of lost possibilities, which gave her a sense of
+kinship with all the loving and foregoing in the world!
+
+She reached out suddenly and, drawing the cheque from her
+writing-desk, enclosed it in an envelope which she addressed to
+her bank. She then wrote out a cheque for Trenor, and placing it,
+without an accompanying word, in an envelope inscribed with his
+name, laid the two letters side by side on her desk. After that
+she continued to sit at the table, sorting her papers and
+writing, till the intense silence of the house reminded her of
+the lateness of the hour. In the street the noise of wheels had
+ceased, and the rumble of the "elevated" came only at long
+intervals through the deep unnatural hush. In the mysterious
+nocturnal separation from all outward signs of life, she
+felt herself more strangely confronted with her fate. The
+sensation made her brain reel, and she tried to shut out
+consciousness by pressing her hands against her eyes. But the
+terrible silence and emptiness seemed to symbolize her
+future--she felt as though the house, the street, the world were
+all empty, and she alone left sentient in a lifeless universe.
+
+But this was the verge of delirium . . . she had never hung so
+near the dizzy brink of the unreal. Sleep was what she
+wanted--she remembered that she had not closed her eyes for two
+nights. The little bottle was at her bed-side, waiting to lay its
+spell upon her. She rose and undressed hastily, hungering now for
+the touch of her pillow. She felt so profoundly tired that she
+thought she must fall asleep at once; but as soon as she had lain
+down every nerve started once more into separate wakefulness. It
+was as though a great blaze of electric light had been turned on
+in her head, and her poor little anguished self shrank and
+cowered in it, without knowing where to take refuge.
+
+She had not imagined that such a multiplication of wakefulness
+was possible: her whole past was reenacting itself at a hundred
+different points of consciousness. Where was the drug that could
+still this legion of insurgent nerves? The sense of exhaustion
+would have been sweet compared to this shrill beat of activities;
+but weariness had dropped from her as though some cruel stimulant
+had been forced into her veins.
+
+She could bear it--yes, she could bear it; but what strength
+would be left her the next day? Perspective had disappeared--the
+next day pressed close upon her, and on its heels came the days
+that were to follow--they swarmed about her like a shrieking mob.
+She must shut them out for a few hours; she must take a brief
+bath of oblivion. She put out her hand, and measured the soothing
+drops into a glass; but as she did so, she knew they would be
+powerless against the supernatural lucidity of her brain. She had
+long since raised the dose to its highest limit, but tonight she
+felt she must increase it. She knew she took a slight risk in
+doing so--she remembered the chemist's warning. If sleep came at
+all, it might be a sleep without waking. But after all that was
+but one chance in a hundred: the action of the drug was
+incalculable, and the addition of a few drops to the regular dose
+would probably do no more than procure for her the rest she so
+desperately needed....
+
+She did not, in truth, consider the question very closely--the
+physical craving for sleep was her only sustained sensation. Her
+mind shrank from the glare of thought as instinctively as eyes
+contract in a blaze of light--darkness, darkness was what she
+must have at any cost. She raised herself in bed and swallowed
+the contents of the glass; then she blew out her candle and lay
+down.
+
+She lay very still, waiting with a sensuous pleasure for the
+first effects of the soporific. She knew in advance what form
+they would take--the gradual cessation of the inner throb, the
+soft approach of passiveness, as though an invisible hand made
+magic passes over her in the darkness. The very slowness and
+hesitancy of the effect increased its fascination: it was
+delicious to lean over and look down into the dim abysses of
+unconsciousness. Tonight the drug seemed to work more slowly than
+usual: each passionate pulse had to be stilled in turn, and it
+was long before she felt them dropping into abeyance, like
+sentinels falling asleep at their posts. But gradually the sense
+of complete subjugation came over her, and she wondered languidly
+what had made her feel so uneasy and excited. She saw now that
+there was nothing to be excited about--she had returned to her
+normal view of life. Tomorrow would not be so difficult after
+all: she felt sure that she would have the strength to meet it.
+She did not quite remember what it was that she had been afraid
+to meet, but the uncertainty no longer troubled her. She had been
+unhappy, and now she was happy--she had felt herself alone, and
+now the sense of loneliness had vanished.
+
+She stirred once, and turned on her side, and as she did so, she
+suddenly understood why she did not feel herself alone. It was
+odd--but Nettie Struther's child was lying on her arm: she felt
+the pressure of its little head against her shoulder. She did not
+know how it had come there, but she felt no great surprise at the
+fact, only a gentle penetrating thrill of warmth and pleasure.
+She settled herself into an easier position, hollowing her arm to
+pillow the round downy head, and holding her breath lest
+a sound should disturb the sleeping child.
+
+As she lay there she said to herself that there was something she
+must tell Selden, some word she had found that should make life
+clear between them. She tried to repeat the word, which lingered
+vague and luminous on the far edge of thought--she was afraid of
+not remembering it when she woke; and if she could only remember
+it and say it to him, she felt that everything would be well.
+
+Slowly the thought of the word faded, and sleep began to enfold
+her. She struggled faintly against it, feeling that she ought to
+keep awake on account of the baby; but even this feeling was
+gradually lost in an indistinct sense of drowsy peace, through
+which, of a sudden, a dark flash of loneliness and terror tore
+its way.
+
+She started up again, cold and trembling with the shock: for a
+moment she seemed to have lost her hold of the child. But no--she
+was mistaken--the tender pressure of its body was still close to
+hers: the recovered warmth flowed through her once more, she
+yielded to it, sank into it, and slept.
+
+
+
+Chapter 14
+
+The next morning rose mild and bright, with a promise of summer
+in the air. The sunlight slanted joyously down Lily's street,
+mellowed the blistered house-front, gilded the paintless railings
+of the door-step, and struck prismatic glories from the panes of
+her darkened window.
+
+When such a day coincides with the inner mood there is
+intoxication in its breath; and Selden, hastening along the
+street through the squalor of its morning confidences, felt
+himself thrilling with a youthful sense of adventure. He had cut
+loose from the familiar shores of habit, and launched himself on
+uncharted seas of emotion; all the old tests and measures were
+left behind, and his course was to be shaped by new stars.
+
+That course, for the moment, led merely to Miss Bart's
+boarding-house; but its shabby door-step had suddenly become the
+threshold of the untried. As he approached he looked up at the
+triple row of windows, wondering boyishly which one of them was
+hers. It was nine o'clock, and the house, being tenanted by
+workers, already showed an awakened front to the street. He
+remembered afterward having noticed that only one blind was down.
+He noticed too that there was a pot of pansies on one of the
+window sills, and at once concluded that the window must be hers:
+it was inevitable that he should connect her with the one touch
+of beauty in the dingy scene.
+
+Nine o'clock was an early hour for a visit, but Selden had passed
+beyond all such conventional observances. He only knew that he
+must see Lily Bart at once--he had found the word he meant to say
+to her, and it could not wait another moment to be said. It was
+strange that it had not come to his lips sooner--that he had let
+her pass from him the evening before without being able to speak
+it. But what did that matter, now that a new day had come? It was
+not a word for twilight, but for the morning.
+
+Selden ran eagerly up the steps and pulled the bell; and even in
+his state of self-absorption it came as a sharp surprise to him
+that the door should open so promptly. It was still more
+of a surprise to see, as he entered, that it had been opened by
+Gerty Farish--and that behind her, in an agitated blur, several
+other figures ominously loomed.
+
+"Lawrence!" Gerty cried in a strange voice, "how could you get
+here so quickly?"--and the trembling hand she laid on him seemed
+instantly to close about his heart.
+
+He noticed the other faces, vague with fear and conjecture--he
+saw the landlady's imposing bulk sway professionally toward him;
+but he shrank back, putting up his hand, while his eyes
+mechanically mounted the steep black walnut stairs, up which he
+was immediately aware that his cousin was about to lead him.
+
+A voice in the background said that the doctor might be back at
+any minute--and that nothing, upstairs, was to be disturbed. Some
+one else exclaimed: "It was the greatest mercy--" then Selden
+felt that Gerty had taken him gently by the hand, and that they
+were to be suffered to go up alone.
+
+In silence they mounted the three flights, and walked along the
+passage to a closed door. Gerty opened the door, and Selden went
+in after her. Though the blind was down, the irresistible
+sunlight poured a tempered golden flood into the room, and in its
+light Selden saw a narrow bed along the wall, and on the bed,
+with motionless hands and calm unrecognizing face, the semblance
+of Lily Bart.
+
+That it was her real self, every pulse in him ardently denied.
+Her real self had lain warm on his heart but a few hours
+earlier--what had he to do with this estranged and tranquil face
+which, for the first time, neither paled nor brightened at his
+coming?
+
+Gerty, strangely tranquil too, with the conscious self-control of
+one who has ministered to much pain, stood by the bed, speaking
+gently, as if transmitting a final message.
+
+"The doctor found a bottle of chloral--she had been sleeping
+badly for a long time, and she must have taken an overdose by
+mistake.... There is no doubt of that--no doubt--there will be no
+question--he has been very kind. I told him that you and I would
+like to be left alone with her--to go over her things before any
+one else comes. I know it is what she would have wished."
+
+Selden was hardly conscious of what she said. He stood
+looking down on the sleeping face which seemed to lie like a
+delicate impalpable mask over the living lineaments he had known.
+He felt that the real Lily was still there, close to him, yet
+invisible and inaccessible; and the tenuity of the barrier
+between them mocked him with a sense of helplessness. There had
+never been more than a little impalpable barrier between
+them--and yet he had suffered it to keep them apart! And now,
+though it seemed slighter and frailer than ever, it had suddenly
+hardened to adamant, and he might beat his life out against it in
+vain.
+
+He had dropped on his knees beside the bed, but a touch from
+Gerty aroused him. He stood up, and as their eyes met he was
+struck by the extraordinary light in his cousin's face.
+
+"You understand what the doctor has gone for? He has promised
+that there shall be no trouble--but of course the formalities
+must be gone through. And I asked him to give us time to look
+through her things first---"
+
+He nodded, and she glanced about the small bare room. "It won't
+take long," she concluded.
+
+"No--it won't take long," he agreed.
+
+She held his hand in hers a moment longer, and then, with a last
+look at the bed, moved silently toward the door. On the threshold
+she paused to add: "You will find me downstairs if you want me."
+
+Selden roused himself to detain her. "But why are you going? She
+would have wished---"
+
+Gerty shook her head with a smile. "No: this is what she would
+have wished---" and as she spoke a light broke through Selden's
+stony misery, and he saw deep into the hidden things of love.
+
+The door closed on Gerty, and he stood alone with the motionless
+sleeper on the bed. His impulse was to return to her side, to
+fall on his knees, and rest his throbbing head against the
+peaceful cheek on the pillow. They had never been at peace
+together, they two; and now he felt himself drawn downward into
+the strange mysterious depths of her tranquillity.
+
+But he remembered Gerty's warning words--he knew that, though
+time had ceased in this room, its feet were hastening
+relentlessly toward the door. Gerty had given him this supreme
+half-hour, and he must use it as she willed.
+
+He turned and looked about him, sternly compelling himself to
+regain his consciousness of outward things. There was very little
+furniture in the room. The shabby chest of drawers was spread
+with a lace cover, and set out with a few gold-topped boxes and
+bottles, a rose-coloured pin-cushion, a glass tray strewn with
+tortoise-shell hair-pins--he shrank from the poignant intimacy of
+these trifles, and from the blank surface of the toilet-mirror
+above them.
+
+These were the only traces of luxury, of that clinging to the
+minute observance of personal seemliness, which showed what her
+other renunciations must have cost. There was no other token of
+her personality about the room, unless it showed itself in the
+scrupulous neatness of the scant articles of furniture: a
+washing-stand, two chairs, a small writing-desk, and the little
+table near the bed. On this table stood the empty bottle and
+glass, and from these also he averted his eyes.
+
+The desk was closed, but on its slanting lid lay two letters
+which he took up. One bore the address of a bank, and as it was
+stamped and sealed, Selden, after a moment's hesitation, laid it
+aside. On the other letter he read Gus Trenor's name; and the
+flap of the envelope was still ungummed.
+
+Temptation leapt on him like the stab of a knife. He staggered
+under it, steadying himself against the desk. Why had she been
+writing to Trenor--writing, presumably, just after their parting
+of the previous evening? The thought unhallowed the memory of
+that last hour, made a mock of the word he had come to speak, and
+defiled even the reconciling silence upon which it fell. He felt
+himself flung back on all the ugly uncertainties from which he
+thought he had cast loose forever. After all, what did he know of
+her life? Only as much as she had chosen to show him, and
+measured by the world's estimate, how little that was! By what
+right--the letter in his hand seemed to ask--by what right was it
+he who now passed into her confidence through the gate which
+death had left unbarred? His heart cried out that it was by right
+of their last hour together, the hour when she herself had placed
+the key in his hand. Yes--but what if the letter to Trenor had
+been written afterward?
+
+He put it from him with sudden loathing, and setting his lips,
+addressed himself resolutely to what remained of his task. After
+all, that task would be easier to perform, now that his personal
+stake in it was annulled.
+
+He raised the lid of the desk, and saw within it a cheque-book
+and a few packets of bills and letters, arranged with the orderly
+precision which characterized all her personal habits. He looked
+through the letters first, because it was the most difficult part
+of the work. They proved to be few and unimportant, but among
+them he found, with a strange commotion of the heart, the note he
+had written her the day after the Brys' entertainment.
+
+"When may I come to you?"--his words overwhelmed him with a
+realization of the cowardice which had driven him from her at the
+very moment of attainment. Yes--he had always feared his fate,
+and he was too honest to disown his cowardice now; for had not
+all his old doubts started to life again at the mere sight of
+Trenor's name?
+
+He laid the note in his card-case, folding it away carefully, as
+something made precious by the fact that she had held it so;
+then, growing once more aware of the lapse of time, he continued
+his examination of the papers.
+
+To his surprise, he found that all the bills were receipted;
+there was not an unpaid account among them. He opened the
+cheque-book, and saw that, the very night before, a cheque of ten
+thousand dollars from Mrs. Peniston's executors had been entered
+in it. The legacy, then, had been paid sooner than Gerty had led
+him to expect. But, turning another page or two, he discovered
+with astonishment that, in spite of this recent accession of
+funds, the balance had already declined to a few dollars. A rapid
+glance at the stubs of the last cheques, all of which bore the
+date of the previous day, showed that between four or five
+hundred dollars of the legacy had been spent in the settlement of
+bills, while the remaining thousands were comprehended in one
+cheque, made out, at the same time, to Charles Augustus Trenor.
+
+Selden laid the book aside, and sank into the chair beside the
+desk. He leaned his elbows on it, and hid his face in his
+hands. The bitter waters of life surged high about him, their
+sterile taste was on his lips. Did the cheque to Trenor explain
+the mystery or deepen it? At first his mind refused to act--he
+felt only the taint of such a transaction between a man like
+Trenor and a girl like Lily Bart. Then, gradually, his troubled
+vision cleared, old hints and rumours came back to him, and out
+of the very insinuations he had feared to probe, he constructed
+an explanation of the mystery. It was true, then, that she had
+taken money from Trenor; but true also, as the contents of the
+little desk declared, that the obligation had been intolerable to
+her, and that at the first opportunity she had freed herself from
+it, though the act left her face to face with bare unmitigated
+poverty.
+
+That was all he knew--all he could hope to unravel of the story.
+The mute lips on the pillow refused him more than this--unless
+indeed they had told him the rest in the kiss they had left upon
+his forehead. Yes, he could now read into that farewell all that
+his heart craved to find there; he could even draw from it
+courage not to accuse himself for having failed to reach the
+height of his opportunity.
+
+He saw that all the conditions of life had conspired to keep them
+apart; since his very detachment from the external influences
+which swayed her had increased his spiritual fastidiousness, and
+made it more difficult for him to live and love uncritically. But
+at least he HAD loved her--had been willing to stake his future
+on his faith in her--and if the moment had been fated to pass
+from them before they could seize it, he saw now that, for both,
+it had been saved whole out of the ruin of their lives.
+
+It was this moment of love, this fleeting victory over
+themselves, which had kept them from atrophy and extinction;
+which, in her, had reached out to him in every struggle against
+the influence of her surroundings, and in him, had kept alive the
+faith that now drew him penitent and reconciled to her side.
+
+He knelt by the bed and bent over her, draining their last moment
+to its lees; and in the silence there passed between them the
+word which made all clear.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+Notes:
+
+1.  I have modernized this text by modernizing the contractions:
+do n't becomes don't, etc.
+
+2.  I have retained the British spelling of words like favour and
+colour.
+
+3.  I found and corrected one instance of the name "Gertie,"
+which I changed to "Gerty" to be consistent with rest of the
+book.
+
+Linda Ruoff
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
+
+