"'BOOK ONE\n\n\nChapter 1\n\nSelden paused in surprise. In the afternoon rush of the Grand Central\nStation his eyes had been refreshed by the sight of Miss Lily Bart.\n\nIt was a Monday in early September, and he was returning to his work from\na hurried dip into the country; but what was Miss Bart doing in town at\nthat season? If she had appeared to be catching a train, he might have\ninferred that he had come on her in the act of transition between one and\nanother of the country-houses which disputed her presence after the close\nof the Newport season; but her desultory air perplexed him. She stood\napart from the crowd, letting it drift by her to the platform or the\nstreet, and wearing an air of irresolution which might, as he surmised,\nbe the mask of a very definite purpose. It struck him at once that she\nwas waiting for some one, but he hardly knew why the idea arrested him.\nThere was nothing new about Lily Bart, yet he could never see her without\na faint movement of interest: it was characteristic of her that she\nalways roused speculation, that her simplest acts seemed the result of\nfar-reaching intentions.\n\nAn impulse of curiosity made him turn out of his direct line to the door,\nand stroll past her. He knew that if she did not wish to be seen she\nwould contrive to elude him; and it amused him to think of putting her\nskill to the test.\n\n\"Mr. Selden--what good luck!\"\n\nShe came forward smiling, eager almost, in her resolve to intercept him.\nOne or two persons, in brushing past them, lingered to look; for Miss\nBart was a figure to arrest even the suburban traveller rushing to his\nlast train.\n\nSelden had never seen her more radiant. Her vivid head, relieved against\nthe dull tints of the crowd, made her more conspicuous than in a\nball-room, and under her dark hat and veil she regained the girlish\nsmoothness, the purity of tint, that she was beginning to lose after\neleven years of late hours and indefatigable dancing. Was it really\neleven years, Selden found himself wondering, and had she indeed reached\nthe nine-and-twentieth birthday with which her rivals credited her?\n\n\"What luck!\" she repeated. \"How nice of you to come to my rescue!\"\n\nHe responded joyfully that to do so was his mission in life, and asked\nwhat form the rescue was to take.\n\n\"Oh, almost any--even to sitting on a bench and talking to me. One sits\nout a cotillion--why not sit out a train? It isn\'t a bit hotter here than\nin Mrs. Van Osburgh\'s conservatory--and some of the women are not a bit\nuglier.\" She broke off, laughing, to explain that she had come up to\ntown from Tuxedo, on her way to the Gus Trenors\' at Bellomont, and had\nmissed the three-fifteen train to Rhinebeck. \"And there isn\'t another\ntill half-past five.\" She consulted the little jewelled watch among her\nlaces. \"Just two hours to wait. And I don\'t know what to do with myself.\nMy maid came up this morning to do some shopping for me, and was to go on\nto Bellomont at one o\'clock, and my aunt\'s house is closed, and I don\'t\nknow a soul in town.\" She glanced plaintively about the station. \"It IS\nhotter than Mrs. Van Osburgh\'s, after all. If you can spare the time, do\ntake me somewhere for a breath of air.\"\n\nHe declared himself entirely at her disposal: the adventure struck him as\ndiverting. As a spectator, he had always enjoyed Lily Bart; and his\ncourse lay so far out of her orbit that it amused him to be drawn for a\nmoment into the sudden intimacy which her proposal implied.\n\n\"Shall we go over to Sherry\'s for a cup of tea?\"\n\nShe smiled assentingly, and then made a slight grimace.\n\n\"So many people come up to town on a Monday--one is sure to meet a lot of\nbores. I\'m as old as the hills, of course, and it ought not to make any\ndifference; but if I\'M old enough, you\'re not,\" she objected gaily. \"I\'m\ndying for tea--but isn\'t there a quieter place?\"\n\nHe answered her smile, which rested on him vividly. Her discretions\ninterested him almost as much as her imprudences: he was so sure that\nboth were part of the same carefully-elaborated plan. In judging Miss\nBart, he had always made use of the \"argument from design.\"\n\n\"The resources of New York are rather meagre,\" he said; \"but I\'ll find a\nhansom first, and then we\'ll invent something.\" He led her through the\nthrong of returning holiday-makers, past sallow-faced girls in\npreposterous hats, and flat-chested women struggling with paper bundles\nand palm-leaf fans. Was it possible that she belonged to the same race?\nThe dinginess, the crudity of this average section of womanhood made him\nfeel how highly specialized she was.\n\nA rapid shower had cooled the air, and clouds still hung refreshingly\nover the moist street.\n\n\"How delicious! Let us walk a little,\" she said as they emerged from the\nstation.\n\nThey turned into Madison Avenue and began to stroll northward. As she\nmoved beside him, with her long light step, Selden was conscious of\ntaking a luxurious pleasure in her nearness: in the modelling of her\nlittle ear, the crisp upward wave of her hair--was it ever so slightly\nbrightened by art?--and the thick planting of her straight black lashes.\nEverything about her was at once vigorous and exquisite, at once strong\nand fine. He had a confused sense that she must have cost a great deal to\nmake, that a great many dull and ugly people must, in some mysterious\nway, have been sacrificed to produce her. He was aware that the qualities\ndistinguishing her from the herd of her sex were chiefly external: as\nthough a fine glaze of beauty and fastidiousness had been applied to\nvulgar clay. Yet the analogy left him unsatisfied, for a coarse texture\nwill not take a high finish; and was it not possible that the material\nwas fine, but that circumstance had fashioned it into a futile shape?\n\nAs he reached this point in his speculations the sun came out, and her\nlifted parasol cut off his enjoyment. A moment or two later she paused\nwith a sigh.\n\n\"Oh, dear, I\'m so hot and thirsty--and what a hideous place New York is!\"\nShe looked despairingly up and down the dreary thoroughfare. \"Other\ncities put on their best clothes in summer, but New York seems to sit in\nits shirtsleeves.\" Her eyes wandered down one of the side-streets.\n\"Someone has had the humanity to plant a few trees over there. Let us go\ninto the shade.\"\n\n\"I am glad my street meets with your approval,\" said Selden as they\nturned the corner.\n\n\"Your street? Do you live here?\"\n\nShe glanced with interest along the new brick and limestone house-fronts,\nfantastically varied in obedience to the American craving for novelty,\nbut fresh and inviting with their awnings and flower-boxes.\n\n\"Ah, yes--to be sure: THE BENEDICK. What a nice-looking building! I\ndon\'t think I\'ve ever seen it before.\" She looked across at the\nflat-house with its marble porch and pseudo-Georgian facade. \"Which are\nyour windows? Those with the awnings down?\"\n\n\"On the top floor--yes.\"\n\n\"And that nice little balcony is yours? How cool it looks up there!\"\n\nHe paused a moment. \"Come up and see,\" he suggested. \"I can give you a\ncup of tea in no time--and you won\'t meet any bores.\"\n\nHer colour deepened--she still had the art of blushing at the right\ntime--but she took the suggestion as lightly as it was made.\n\n\"Why not? It\'s too tempting--I\'ll take the risk,\" she declared.\n\n\"Oh, I\'m not dangerous,\" he said in the same key. In truth, he had never\nliked her as well as at that moment. He knew she had accepted without\nafterthought: he could never be a factor in her calculations, and there\nwas a surprise, a refreshment almost, in the spontaneity of her consent.\n\nOn the threshold he paused a moment, feeling for his latchkey.\n\n\"There\'s no one here; but I have a servant who is supposed to come in the\nmornings, and it\'s just possible he may have put out the tea-things and\nprovided some cake.\"\n\nHe ushered her into a slip of a hall hung with old prints. She noticed\nthe letters and notes heaped on the table among his gloves and sticks;\nthen she found herself in a small library, dark but cheerful, with its\nwalls of books, a pleasantly faded Turkey rug, a littered desk and, as he\nhad foretold, a tea-tray on a low table near the window. A breeze had\nsprung up, swaying inward the muslin curtains, and bringing a fresh scent\nof mignonette and petunias from the flower-box on the balcony.\n\nLily sank with a sigh into one of the shabby leather chairs.\n\n\"How delicious to have a place like this all to one\'s self! What a\nmiserable thing it is to be a woman.\" She leaned back in a luxury of\ndiscontent.\n\nSelden was rummaging in a cupboard for the cake.\n\n\"Even women,\" he said, \"have been known to enjoy the privileges of a\nflat.\"\n\n\"Oh, governesses--or widows. But not girls--not poor, miserable,\nmarriageable girls!\"\n\n\"I even know a girl who lives in a flat.\"\n\nShe sat up in surprise. \"You do?\"\n\n\"I do,\" he assured her, emerging from the cupboard with the sought-for\ncake.\n\n\"Oh, I know--you mean Gerty Farish.\" She smiled a little unkindly. \"But I\nsaid MARRIAGEABLE--and besides, she has a horrid little place, and no\nmaid, and such queer things to eat. Her cook does the washing and the\nfood tastes of soap. I should hate that, you know.\"\n\n\"You shouldn\'t dine with her on wash-days,\" said Selden, cutting the cake.\n\nThey both laughed, and he knelt by the table to light the lamp under the\nkettle, while she measured out the tea into a little tea-pot of green\nglaze. As he watched her hand, polished as a bit of old ivory, with its\nslender pink nails, and the sapphire bracelet slipping over her wrist, he\nwas struck with the irony of suggesting to her such a life as his cousin\nGertrude Farish had chosen. She was so evidently the victim of the\ncivilization which had produced her, that the links of her bracelet\nseemed like manacles chaining her to her fate.\n\nShe seemed to read his thought. \"It was horrid of me to say that of\nGerty,\" she said with charming compunction. \"I forgot she was your\ncousin. But we\'re so different, you know: she likes being good, and I\nlike being happy. And besides, she is free and I am not. If I were, I\ndaresay I could manage to be happy even in her flat. It must be pure\nbliss to arrange the furniture just as one likes, and give all the\nhorrors to the ash-man. If I could only do over my aunt\'s drawing-room I\nknow I should be a better woman.\"\n\n\"Is it so very bad?\" he asked sympathetically.\n\nShe smiled at him across the tea-pot which she was holding up to be\nfilled.\n\n\"That shows how seldom you come there. Why don\'t you come oftener?\"\n\n\"When I do come, it\'s not to look at Mrs. Peniston\'s furniture.\"\n\n\"Nonsense,\" she said. \"You don\'t come at all--and yet we get on so well\nwhen we meet.\"\n\n\"Perhaps that\'s the reason,\" he answered promptly. \"I\'m afraid I haven\'t\nany cream, you know--shall you mind a slice of lemon instead?\"\n\n\"I shall like it better.\" She waited while he cut the lemon and dropped a\nthin disk into her cup. \"But that is not the reason,\" she insisted.\n\n\"The reason for what?\"\n\n\"For your never coming.\" She leaned forward with a shade of perplexity in\nher charming eyes. \"I wish I knew--I wish I could make you out. Of course\nI know there are men who don\'t like me--one can tell that at a glance.\nAnd there are others who are afraid of me: they think I want to marry\nthem.\" She smiled up at him frankly. \"But I don\'t think you dislike\nme--and you can\'t possibly think I want to marry you.\"\n\n\"No--I absolve you of that,\" he agreed.\n\n\"Well, then----?\"\n\nHe had carried his cup to the fireplace, and stood leaning against the\nchimney-piece and looking down on her with an air of indolent amusement.\nThe provocation in her eyes increased his amusement--he had not supposed\nshe would waste her powder on such small game; but perhaps she was only\nkeeping her hand in; or perhaps a girl of her type had no conversation\nbut of the personal kind. At any rate, she was amazingly pretty, and he\nhad asked her to tea and must live up to his obligations.\n\n\"Well, then,\" he said with a plunge, \"perhaps THAT\'S the reason.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"The fact that you don\'t want to marry me. Perhaps I don\'t regard it as\nsuch a strong inducement to go and see you.\" He felt a slight shiver down\nhis spine as he ventured this, but her laugh reassured him.\n\n\"Dear Mr. Selden, that wasn\'t worthy of you. It\'s stupid of you to make\nlove to me, and it isn\'t like you to be stupid.\" She leaned back, sipping\nher tea with an air so enchantingly judicial that, if they had been in\nher aunt\'s drawing-room, he might almost have tried to disprove her\ndeduction.\n\n\"Don\'t you see,\" she continued, \"that there are men enough to say\npleasant things to me, and that what I want is a friend who won\'t be\nafraid to say disagreeable ones when I need them? Sometimes I have\nfancied you might be that friend--I don\'t know why, except that you are\nneither a prig nor a bounder, and that I shouldn\'t have to pretend with\nyou or be on my guard against you.\" Her voice had dropped to a note of\nseriousness, and she sat gazing up at him with the troubled gravity of a\nchild.\n\n\"You don\'t know how much I need such a friend,\" she said. \"My aunt is\nfull of copy-book axioms, but they were all meant to apply to conduct in\nthe early fifties. I always feel that to live up to them would include\nwearing book-muslin with gigot sleeves. And the other women--my best\nfriends--well, they use me or abuse me; but they don\'t care a straw what\nhappens to me. I\'ve been about too long--people are getting tired of me;\nthey are beginning to say I ought to marry.\"\n\nThere was a moment\'s pause, during which Selden meditated one or two\nreplies calculated to add a momentary zest to the situation; but he\nrejected them in favour of the simple question: \"Well, why don\'t you?\"\n\nShe coloured and laughed. \"Ah, I see you ARE a friend after all, and that\nis one of the disagreeable things I was asking for.\"\n\n\"It wasn\'t meant to be disagreeable,\" he returned amicably. \"Isn\'t\nmarriage your vocation? Isn\'t it what you\'re all brought up for?\"\n\nShe sighed. \"I suppose so. What else is there?\"\n\n\"Exactly. And so why not take the plunge and have it over?\"\n\nShe shrugged her shoulders. \"You speak as if I ought to marry the first\nman who came along.\"\n\n\"I didn\'t mean to imply that you are as hard put to it as that. But there\nmust be some one with the requisite qualifications.\"\n\nShe shook her head wearily. \"I threw away one or two good chances when I\nfirst came out--I suppose every girl does; and you know I am horribly\npoor--and very expensive. I must have a great deal of money.\"\n\nSelden had turned to reach for a cigarette-box on the mantelpiece.\n\n\"What\'s become of Dillworth?\" he asked.\n\n\"Oh, his mother was frightened--she was afraid I should have all the\nfamily jewels reset. And she wanted me to promise that I wouldn\'t do over\nthe drawing-room.\"\n\n\"The very thing you are marrying for!\"\n\n\"Exactly. So she packed him off to India.\"\n\n\"Hard luck--but you can do better than Dillworth.\"\n\nHe offered the box, and she took out three or four cigarettes, putting\none between her lips and slipping the others into a little gold case\nattached to her long pearl chain.\n\n\"Have I time? Just a whiff, then.\" She leaned forward, holding the tip of\nher cigarette to his. As she did so, he noted, with a purely impersonal\nenjoyment, how evenly the black lashes were set in her smooth white lids,\nand how the purplish shade beneath them melted into the pure pallour of\nthe cheek.\n\nShe began to saunter about the room, examining the bookshelves between\nthe puffs of her cigarette-smoke. Some of the volumes had the ripe tints\nof good tooling and old morocco, and her eyes lingered on them\ncaressingly, not with the appreciation of the expert, but with the\npleasure in agreeable tones and textures that was one of her inmost\nsusceptibilities. Suddenly her expression changed from desultory\nenjoyment to active conjecture, and she turned to Selden with a question.\n\n\"You collect, don\'t you--you know about first editions and things?\"\n\n\"As much as a man may who has no money to spend. Now and then I pick up\nsomething in the rubbish heap; and I go and look on at the big sales.\"\n\nShe had again addressed herself to the shelves, but her eyes now swept\nthem inattentively, and he saw that she was preoccupied with a new idea.\n\n\"And Americana--do you collect Americana?\"\n\nSelden stared and laughed.\n\n\"No, that\'s rather out of my line. I\'m not really a collector, you see; I\nsimply like to have good editions of the books I am fond of.\"\n\nShe made a slight grimace. \"And Americana are horribly dull, I suppose?\"\n\n\"I should fancy so--except to the historian. But your real collector\nvalues a thing for its rarity. I don\'t suppose the buyers of Americana\nsit up reading them all night--old Jefferson Gryce certainly didn\'t.\"\n\nShe was listening with keen attention. \"And yet they fetch fabulous\nprices, don\'t they? It seems so odd to want to pay a lot for an ugly\nbadly-printed book that one is never going to read! And I suppose most\nof the owners of Americana are not historians either?\"\n\n\"No; very few of the historians can afford to buy them. They have to use\nthose in the public libraries or in private collections. It seems to be\nthe mere rarity that attracts the average collector.\"\n\nHe had seated himself on an arm of the chair near which she was standing,\nand she continued to question him, asking which were the rarest volumes,\nwhether the Jefferson Gryce collection was really considered the finest\nin the world, and what was the largest price ever fetched by a single\nvolume.\n\nIt was so pleasant to sit there looking up at her, as she lifted now one\nbook and then another from the shelves, fluttering the pages between her\nfingers, while her drooping profile was outlined against the warm\nbackground of old bindings, that he talked on without pausing to wonder\nat her sudden interest in so unsuggestive a subject. But he could never\nbe long with her without trying to find a reason for what she was doing,\nand as she replaced his first edition of La Bruyere and turned away from\nthe bookcases, he began to ask himself what she had been driving at. Her\nnext question was not of a nature to enlighten him. She paused before him\nwith a smile which seemed at once designed to admit him to her\nfamiliarity, and to remind him of the restrictions it imposed.\n\n\"Don\'t you ever mind,\" she asked suddenly, \"not being rich enough to buy\nall the books you want?\"\n\nHe followed her glance about the room, with its worn furniture and shabby\nwalls.\n\n\"Don\'t I just? Do you take me for a saint on a pillar?\"\n\n\"And having to work--do you mind that?\"\n\n\"Oh, the work itself is not so bad--I\'m rather fond of the law.\"\n\n\"No; but the being tied down: the routine--don\'t you ever want to get\naway, to see new places and people?\"\n\n\"Horribly--especially when I see all my friends rushing to the steamer.\"\n\nShe drew a sympathetic breath. \"But do you mind enough--to marry to get\nout of it?\"\n\nSelden broke into a laugh. \"God forbid!\" he declared.\n\nShe rose with a sigh, tossing her cigarette into the grate.\n\n\"Ah, there\'s the difference--a girl must, a man may if he chooses.\" She\nsurveyed him critically. \"Your coat\'s a little shabby--but who cares? It\ndoesn\'t keep people from asking you to dine. If I were shabby no one\nwould have me: a woman is asked out as much for her clothes as for\nherself. The clothes are the background, the frame, if you like: they\ndon\'t make success, but they are a part of it. Who wants a dingy woman?\nWe are expected to be pretty and well-dressed till we drop--and if we\ncan\'t keep it up alone, we have to go into partnership.\"\n\nSelden glanced at her with amusement: it was impossible, even with her\nlovely eyes imploring him, to take a sentimental view of her case.\n\n\"Ah, well, there must be plenty of capital on the look-out for such an\ninvestment. Perhaps you\'ll meet your fate tonight at the Trenors\'.\"\n\nShe returned his look interrogatively.\n\n\"I thought you might be going there--oh, not in that capacity! But there\nare to be a lot of your set--Gwen Van Osburgh, the Wetheralls, Lady\nCressida Raith--and the George Dorsets.\"\n\nShe paused a moment before the last name, and shot a query through her\nlashes; but he remained imperturbable.\n\n\"Mrs. Trenor asked me; but I can\'t get away till the end of the week; and\nthose big parties bore me.\"\n\n\"Ah, so they do me,\" she exclaimed.\n\n\"Then why go?\"\n\n\"It\'s part of the business--you forget! And besides, if I didn\'t, I\nshould be playing bezique with my aunt at Richfield Springs.\"\n\n\"That\'s almost as bad as marrying Dillworth,\" he agreed, and they both\nlaughed for pure pleasure in their sudden intimacy.\n\nShe glanced at the clock.\n\n\"Dear me! I must be off. It\'s after five.\"\n\nShe paused before the mantelpiece, studying herself in the mirror while\nshe adjusted her veil. The attitude revealed the long slope of her\nslender sides, which gave a kind of wild-wood grace to her outline--as\nthough she were a captured dryad subdued to the conventions of the\ndrawing-room; and Selden reflected that it was the same streak of sylvan\nfreedom in her nature that lent such savour to her artificiality.\n\nHe followed her across the room to the entrance-hall; but on the\nthreshold she held out her hand with a gesture of leave-taking.\n\n\"It\'s been delightful; and now you will have to return my visit.\"\n\n\"But don\'t you want me to see you to the station?\"\n\n\"No; good bye here, please.\"\n\nShe let her hand lie in his a moment, smiling up at him adorably.\n\n\"Good bye, then--and good luck at Bellomont!\" he said, opening the door\nfor her.\n\nOn the landing she paused to look about her. There were a thousand\nchances to one against her meeting anybody, but one could never tell, and\nshe always paid for her rare indiscretions by a violent reaction of\nprudence. There was no one in sight, however, but a char-woman who was\nscrubbing the stairs. Her own stout person and its surrounding implements\ntook up so much room that Lily, to pass her, had to gather up her skirts\nand brush against the wall. As she did so, the woman paused in her work\nand looked up curiously, resting her clenched red fists on the wet cloth\nshe had just drawn from her pail. She had a broad sallow face, slightly\npitted with small-pox, and thin straw-coloured hair through which her\nscalp shone unpleasantly.\n\n\"I beg your pardon,\" said Lily, intending by her politeness to convey a\ncriticism of the other\'s manner.\n\nThe woman, without answering, pushed her pail aside, and continued to\nstare as Miss Bart swept by with a murmur of silken linings. Lily felt\nherself flushing under the look. What did the creature suppose? Could one\nnever do the simplest, the most harmless thing, without subjecting one\'s\nself to some odious conjecture? Half way down the next flight, she smiled\nto think that a char-woman\'s stare should so perturb her. The poor thing\nwas probably dazzled by such an unwonted apparition. But WERE such\napparitions unwonted on Selden\'s stairs? Miss Bart was not familiar with\nthe moral code of bachelors\' flat-houses, and her colour rose again as it\noccurred to her that the woman\'s persistent gaze implied a groping among\npast associations. But she put aside the thought with a smile at her own\nfears, and hastened downward, wondering if she should find a cab short of\nFifth Avenue.\n\nUnder the Georgian porch she paused again, scanning the street for a\nhansom. None was in sight, but as she reached the sidewalk she ran\nagainst a small glossy-looking man with a gardenia in his coat, who\nraised his hat with a surprised exclamation.\n\n\"Miss Bart? Well--of all people! This IS luck,\" he declared; and she\ncaught a twinkle of amused curiosity between his screwed-up lids.\n\n\"Oh, Mr. Rosedale--how are you?\" she said, perceiving that the\nirrepressible annoyance on her face was reflected in the sudden intimacy\nof his smile.\n\nMr. Rosedale stood scanning her with interest and approval. He was a\nplump rosy man of the blond Jewish type, with smart London clothes\nfitting him like upholstery, and small sidelong eyes which gave him the\nair of appraising people as if they were bric-a-brac. He glanced up\ninterrogatively at the porch of the Benedick.\n\n\"Been up to town for a little shopping, I suppose?\" he said, in a tone\nwhich had the familiarity of a touch.\n\nMiss Bart shrank from it slightly, and then flung herself into\nprecipitate explanations.\n\n\"Yes--I came up to see my dress-maker. I am just on my way to catch the\ntrain to the Trenors\'.\"\n\n\"Ah--your dress-maker; just so,\" he said blandly. \"I didn\'t know there\nwere any dress-makers in the Benedick.\"\n\n\"The Benedick?\" She looked gently puzzled. \"Is that the name of this\nbuilding?\"\n\n\"Yes, that\'s the name: I believe it\'s an old word for bachelor, isn\'t it?\nI happen to own the building--that\'s the way I know.\" His smile deepened\nas he added with increasing assurance: \"But you must let me take you to\nthe station. The Trenors are at Bellomont, of course? You\'ve barely time\nto catch the five-forty. The dress-maker kept you waiting, I suppose.\"\n\nLily stiffened under the pleasantry.\n\n\"Oh, thanks,\" she stammered; and at that moment her eye caught a hansom\ndrifting down Madison Avenue, and she hailed it with a desperate gesture.\n\n\"You\'re very kind; but I couldn\'t think of troubling you,\" she said,\nextending her hand to Mr. Rosedale; and heedless of his protestations,\nshe sprang into the rescuing vehicle, and called out a breathless order\nto the driver.\n\n\n\nChapter 2\n\nIn the hansom she leaned back with a sigh. Why must a girl pay so dearly\nfor her least escape from routine? Why could one never do a natural thing\nwithout having to screen it behind a structure of artifice? She had\nyielded to a passing impulse in going to Lawrence Selden\'s rooms, and it\nwas so seldom that she could allow herself the luxury of an impulse! This\none, at any rate, was going to cost her rather more than she could\nafford. She was vexed to see that, in spite of so many years of\nvigilance, she had blundered twice within five minutes. That stupid story\nabout her dress-maker was bad enough--it would have been so simple to\ntell Rosedale that she had been taking tea with Selden! The mere\nstatement of the fact would have rendered it innocuous. But, after having\nlet herself be surprised in a falsehood, it was doubly stupid to snub the\nwitness of her discomfiture. If she had had the presence of mind to let\nRosedale drive her to the station, the concession might have purchased\nhis silence. He had his race\'s accuracy in the appraisal of values, and\nto be seen walking down the platform at the crowded afternoon hour in the\ncompany of Miss Lily Bart would have been money in his pocket, as he\nmight himself have phrased it. He knew, of course, that there would be a\nlarge house-party at Bellomont, and the possibility of being taken for\none of Mrs. Trenor\'s guests was doubtless included in his calculations.\nMr. Rosedale was still at a stage in his social ascent when it was of\nimportance to produce such impressions.\n\nThe provoking part was that Lily knew all this--knew how easy it would\nhave been to silence him on the spot, and how difficult it might be to do\nso afterward. Mr. Simon Rosedale was a man who made it his business to\nknow everything about every one, whose idea of showing himself to be at\nhome in society was to display an inconvenient familiarity with the\nhabits of those with whom he wished to be thought intimate. Lily was sure\nthat within twenty-four hours the story of her visiting her dress-maker\nat the Benedick would be in active circulation among Mr. Rosedale\'s\nacquaintances. The worst of it was that she had always snubbed and\nignored him. On his first appearance--when her improvident cousin, Jack\nStepney, had obtained for him (in return for favours too easily guessed)\na card to one of the vast impersonal Van Osburgh \"crushes\"--Rosedale,\nwith that mixture of artistic sensibility and business astuteness which\ncharacterizes his race, had instantly gravitated toward Miss Bart. She\nunderstood his motives, for her own course was guided by as nice\ncalculations. Training and experience had taught her to be hospitable to\nnewcomers, since the most unpromising might be useful later on, and there\nwere plenty of available OUBLIETTES to swallow them if they were not. But\nsome intuitive repugnance, getting the better of years of social\ndiscipline, had made her push Mr. Rosedale into his OUBLIETTE without a\ntrial. He had left behind only the ripple of amusement which his speedy\ndespatch had caused among her friends; and though later (to shift the\nmetaphor) he reappeared lower down the stream, it was only in fleeting\nglimpses, with long submergences between.\n\nHitherto Lily had been undisturbed by scruples. In her little set Mr.\nRosedale had been pronounced \"impossible,\" and Jack Stepney roundly\nsnubbed for his attempt to pay his debts in dinner invitations. Even Mrs.\nTrenor, whose taste for variety had led her into some hazardous\nexperiments, resisted Jack\'s attempts to disguise Mr. Rosedale as a\nnovelty, and declared that he was the same little Jew who had been served\nup and rejected at the social board a dozen times within her memory; and\nwhile Judy Trenor was obdurate there was small chance of Mr. Rosedale\'s\npenetrating beyond the outer limbo of the Van Osburgh crushes. Jack gave\nup the contest with a laughing \"You\'ll see,\" and, sticking manfully to\nhis guns, showed himself with Rosedale at the fashionable restaurants, in\ncompany with the personally vivid if socially obscure ladies who are\navailable for such purposes. But the attempt had hitherto been vain, and\nas Rosedale undoubtedly paid for the dinners, the laugh remained with his\ndebtor.\n\nMr. Rosedale, it will be seen, was thus far not a factor to be\nfeared--unless one put one\'s self in his power. And this was precisely\nwhat Miss Bart had done. Her clumsy fib had let him see that she had\nsomething to conceal; and she was sure he had a score to settle with her.\nSomething in his smile told her he had not forgotten. She turned from the\nthought with a little shiver, but it hung on her all the way to the\nstation, and dogged her down the platform with the persistency of Mr.\nRosedale himself.\n\nShe had just time to take her seat before the train started; but having\narranged herself in her corner with the instinctive feeling for effect\nwhich never forsook her, she glanced about in the hope of seeing some\nother member of the Trenors\' party. She wanted to get away from herself,\nand conversation was the only means of escape that she knew.\n\nHer search was rewarded by the discovery of a very blond young man with a\nsoft reddish beard, who, at the other end of the carriage, appeared to be\ndissembling himself behind an unfolded newspaper. Lily\'s eye brightened,\nand a faint smile relaxed the drawn lines of her mouth. She had known\nthat Mr. Percy Gryce was to be at Bellomont, but she had not counted on\nthe luck of having him to herself in the train; and the fact banished all\nperturbing thoughts of Mr. Rosedale. Perhaps, after all, the day was to\nend more favourably than it had begun.\n\nShe began to cut the pages of a novel, tranquilly studying her prey\nthrough downcast lashes while she organized a method of attack.\nSomething in his attitude of conscious absorption told her that he was\naware of her presence: no one had ever been quite so engrossed in an\nevening paper! She guessed that he was too shy to come up to her, and\nthat she would have to devise some means of approach which should not\nappear to be an advance on her part. It amused her to think that any one\nas rich as Mr. Percy Gryce should be shy; but she was gifted with\ntreasures of indulgence for such idiosyncrasies, and besides, his\ntimidity might serve her purpose better than too much assurance. She had\nthe art of giving self-confidence to the embarrassed, but she was not\nequally sure of being able to embarrass the self-confident.\n\nShe waited till the train had emerged from the tunnel and was racing\nbetween the ragged edges of the northern suburbs. Then, as it lowered its\nspeed near Yonkers, she rose from her seat and drifted slowly down the\ncarriage. As she passed Mr. Gryce, the train gave a lurch, and he was\naware of a slender hand gripping the back of his chair. He rose with a\nstart, his ingenuous face looking as though it had been dipped in\ncrimson: even the reddish tint in his beard seemed to deepen. The train\nswayed again, almost flinging Miss Bart into his arms.\n\nShe steadied herself with a laugh and drew back; but he was enveloped in\nthe scent of her dress, and his shoulder had felt her fugitive touch.\n\n\"Oh, Mr. Gryce, is it you? I\'m so sorry--I was trying to find the porter\nand get some tea.\"\n\nShe held out her hand as the train resumed its level rush, and they stood\nexchanging a few words in the aisle. Yes--he was going to Bellomont. He\nhad heard she was to be of the party--he blushed again as he admitted it.\nAnd was he to be there for a whole week? How delightful!\n\nBut at this point one or two belated passengers from the last station\nforced their way into the carriage, and Lily had to retreat to her seat.\n\n\"The chair next to mine is empty--do take it,\" she said over her\nshoulder; and Mr. Gryce, with considerable embarrassment, succeeded in\neffecting an exchange which enabled him to transport himself and his bags\nto her side.\n\n\"Ah--and here is the porter, and perhaps we can have some tea.\"\n\nShe signalled to that official, and in a moment, with the ease that\nseemed to attend the fulfilment of all her wishes, a little table had\nbeen set up between the seats, and she had helped Mr. Gryce to bestow his\nencumbering properties beneath it.\n\nWhen the tea came he watched her in silent fascination while her hands\nflitted above the tray, looking miraculously fine and slender in contrast\nto the coarse china and lumpy bread. It seemed wonderful to him that any\none should perform with such careless ease the difficult task of making\ntea in public in a lurching train. He would never have dared to order it\nfor himself, lest he should attract the notice of his fellow-passengers;\nbut, secure in the shelter of her conspicuousness, he sipped the inky\ndraught with a delicious sense of exhilaration.\n\nLily, with the flavour of Selden\'s caravan tea on her lips, had no great\nfancy to drown it in the railway brew which seemed such nectar to her\ncompanion; but, rightly judging that one of the charms of tea is the fact\nof drinking it together, she proceeded to give the last touch to Mr.\nGryce\'s enjoyment by smiling at him across her lifted cup.\n\n\"Is it quite right--I haven\'t made it too strong?\" she asked\nsolicitously; and he replied with conviction that he had never tasted\nbetter tea.\n\n\"I daresay it is true,\" she reflected; and her imagination was fired by\nthe thought that Mr. Gryce, who might have sounded the depths of the most\ncomplex self-indulgence, was perhaps actually taking his first journey\nalone with a pretty woman.\n\nIt struck her as providential that she should be the instrument of his\ninitiation. Some girls would not have known how to manage him. They would\nhave over-emphasized the novelty of the adventure, trying to make him\nfeel in it the zest of an escapade. But Lily\'s methods were more\ndelicate. She remembered that her cousin Jack Stepney had once defined\nMr. Gryce as the young man who had promised his mother never to go out in\nthe rain without his overshoes; and acting on this hint, she resolved to\nimpart a gently domestic air to the scene, in the hope that her\ncompanion, instead of feeling that he was doing something reckless or\nunusual, would merely be led to dwell on the advantage of always having a\ncompanion to make one\'s tea in the train.\n\nBut in spite of her efforts, conversation flagged after the tray had been\nremoved, and she was driven to take a fresh measurement of Mr. Gryce\'s\nlimitations. It was not, after all, opportunity but imagination that he\nlacked: he had a mental palate which would never learn to distinguish\nbetween railway tea and nectar. There was, however, one topic she could\nrely on: one spring that she had only to touch to set his simple\nmachinery in motion. She had refrained from touching it because it was a\nlast resource, and she had relied on other arts to stimulate other\nsensations; but as a settled look of dulness began to creep over his\ncandid features, she saw that extreme measures were necessary.\n\n\"And how,\" she said, leaning forward, \"are you getting on with your\nAmericana?\"\n\nHis eye became a degree less opaque: it was as though an incipient film\nhad been removed from it, and she felt the pride of a skilful operator.\n\n\"I\'ve got a few new things,\" he said, suffused with pleasure, but\nlowering his voice as though he feared his fellow-passengers might be in\nleague to despoil him.\n\nShe returned a sympathetic enquiry, and gradually he was drawn on to talk\nof his latest purchases. It was the one subject which enabled him to\nforget himself, or allowed him, rather, to remember himself without\nconstraint, because he was at home in it, and could assert a superiority\nthat there were few to dispute. Hardly any of his acquaintances cared for\nAmericana, or knew anything about them; and the consciousness of this\nignorance threw Mr. Gryce\'s knowledge into agreeable relief. The only\ndifficulty was to introduce the topic and to keep it to the front; most\npeople showed no desire to have their ignorance dispelled, and Mr. Gryce\nwas like a merchant whose warehouses are crammed with an unmarketable\ncommodity.\n\nBut Miss Bart, it appeared, really did want to know about Americana; and\nmoreover, she was already sufficiently informed to make the task of\nfarther instruction as easy as it was agreeable. She questioned him\nintelligently, she heard him submissively; and, prepared for the look of\nlassitude which usually crept over his listeners\' faces, he grew eloquent\nunder her receptive gaze. The \"points\" she had had the presence of mind\nto glean from Selden, in anticipation of this very contingency, were\nserving her to such good purpose that she began to think her visit to him\nhad been the luckiest incident of the day. She had once more shown her\ntalent for profiting by the unexpected, and dangerous theories as to the\nadvisability of yielding to impulse were germinating under the surface of\nsmiling attention which she continued to present to her companion.\n\nMr. Gryce\'s sensations, if less definite, were equally agreeable. He\nfelt the confused titillation with which the lower organisms welcome the\ngratification of their needs, and all his senses floundered in a vague\nwell-being, through which Miss Bart\'s personality was dimly but\npleasantly perceptible.\n\nMr. Gryce\'s interest in Americana had not originated with himself: it was\nimpossible to think of him as evolving any taste of his own. An uncle had\nleft him a collection already noted among bibliophiles; the existence of\nthe collection was the only fact that had ever shed glory on the name of\nGryce, and the nephew took as much pride in his inheritance as though it\nhad been his own work. Indeed, he gradually came to regard it as such,\nand to feel a sense of personal complacency when he chanced on any\nreference to the Gryce Americana. Anxious as he was to avoid personal\nnotice, he took, in the printed mention of his name, a pleasure so\nexquisite and excessive that it seemed a compensation for his shrinking\nfrom publicity.\n\nTo enjoy the sensation as often as possible, he subscribed to all the\nreviews dealing with book-collecting in general, and American history in\nparticular, and as allusions to his library abounded in the pages of\nthese journals, which formed his only reading, he came to regard himself\nas figuring prominently in the public eye, and to enjoy the thought of\nthe interest which would be excited if the persons he met in the street,\nor sat among in travelling, were suddenly to be told that he was the\npossessor of the Gryce Americana.\n\nMost timidities have such secret compensations, and Miss Bart was\ndiscerning enough to know that the inner vanity is generally in\nproportion to the outer self-depreciation. With a more confident person\nshe would not have dared to dwell so long on one topic, or to show such\nexaggerated interest in it; but she had rightly guessed that Mr. Gryce\'s\negoism was a thirsty soil, requiring constant nurture from without. Miss\nBart had the gift of following an undercurrent of thought while she\nappeared to be sailing on the surface of conversation; and in this case\nher mental excursion took the form of a rapid survey of Mr. Percy Gryce\'s\nfuture as combined with her own. The Gryces were from Albany, and but\nlately introduced to the metropolis, where the mother and son had come,\nafter old Jefferson Gryce\'s death, to take possession of his house in\nMadison Avenue--an appalling house, all brown stone without and black\nwalnut within, with the Gryce library in a fire-proof annex that looked\nlike a mausoleum. Lily, however, knew all about them: young Mr. Gryce\'s\narrival had fluttered the maternal breasts of New York, and when a girl\nhas no mother to palpitate for her she must needs be on the alert for\nherself. Lily, therefore, had not only contrived to put herself in the\nyoung man\'s way, but had made the acquaintance of Mrs. Gryce, a\nmonumental woman with the voice of a pulpit orator and a mind preoccupied\nwith the iniquities of her servants, who came sometimes to sit with Mrs.\nPeniston and learn from that lady how she managed to prevent the\nkitchen-maid\'s smuggling groceries out of the house. Mrs. Gryce had a\nkind of impersonal benevolence: cases of individual need she regarded\nwith suspicion, but she subscribed to Institutions when their annual\nreports showed an impressive surplus. Her domestic duties were manifold,\nfor they extended from furtive inspections of the servants\' bedrooms to\nunannounced descents to the cellar; but she had never allowed herself\nmany pleasures. Once, however, she had had a special edition of the Sarum\nRule printed in rubric and presented to every clergyman in the diocese;\nand the gilt album in which their letters of thanks were pasted formed\nthe chief ornament of her drawing-room table.\n\nPercy had been brought up in the principles which so excellent a woman\nwas sure to inculcate. Every form of prudence and suspicion had been\ngrafted on a nature originally reluctant and cautious, with the result\nthat it would have seemed hardly needful for Mrs. Gryce to extract his\npromise about the overshoes, so little likely was he to hazard himself\nabroad in the rain. After attaining his majority, and coming into the\nfortune which the late Mr. Gryce had made out of a patent device for\nexcluding fresh air from hotels, the young man continued to live with his\nmother in Albany; but on Jefferson Gryce\'s death, when another large\nproperty passed into her son\'s hands, Mrs. Gryce thought that what she\ncalled his \"interests\" demanded his presence in New York. She accordingly\ninstalled herself in the Madison Avenue house, and Percy, whose sense of\nduty was not inferior to his mother\'s, spent all his week days in the\nhandsome Broad Street office where a batch of pale men on small salaries\nhad grown grey in the management of the Gryce estate, and where he was\ninitiated with becoming reverence into every detail of the art of\naccumulation.\n\nAs far as Lily could learn, this had hitherto been Mr. Gryce\'s only\noccupation, and she might have been pardoned for thinking it not too hard\na task to interest a young man who had been kept on such low diet. At\nany rate, she felt herself so completely in command of the situation that\nshe yielded to a sense of security in which all fear of Mr. Rosedale, and\nof the difficulties on which that fear was contingent, vanished beyond\nthe edge of thought.\n\nThe stopping of the train at Garrisons would not have distracted her from\nthese thoughts, had she not caught a sudden look of distress in her\ncompanion\'s eye. His seat faced toward the door, and she guessed that he\nhad been perturbed by the approach of an acquaintance; a fact confirmed\nby the turning of heads and general sense of commotion which her own\nentrance into a railway-carriage was apt to produce.\n\nShe knew the symptoms at once, and was not surprised to be hailed by the\nhigh notes of a pretty woman, who entered the train accompanied by a\nmaid, a bull-terrier, and a footman staggering under a load of bags and\ndressing-cases.\n\n\"Oh, Lily--are you going to Bellomont? Then you can\'t let me have your\nseat, I suppose? But I MUST have a seat in this carriage--porter, you\nmust find me a place at once. Can\'t some one be put somewhere else? I\nwant to be with my friends. Oh, how do you do, Mr. Gryce? Do please make\nhim understand that I must have a seat next to you and Lily.\"\n\nMrs. George Dorset, regardless of the mild efforts of a traveller with a\ncarpet-bag, who was doing his best to make room for her by getting out of\nthe train, stood in the middle of the aisle, diffusing about her that\ngeneral sense of exasperation which a pretty woman on her travels not\ninfrequently creates.\n\nShe was smaller and thinner than Lily Bart, with a restless pliability of\npose, as if she could have been crumpled up and run through a ring, like\nthe sinuous draperies she affected. Her small pale face seemed the mere\nsetting of a pair of dark exaggerated eyes, of which the visionary gaze\ncontrasted curiously with her self-assertive tone and gestures; so that,\nas one of her friends observed, she was like a disembodied spirit who\ntook up a great deal of room.\n\nHaving finally discovered that the seat adjoining Miss Bart\'s was at her\ndisposal, she possessed herself of it with a farther displacement of her\nsurroundings, explaining meanwhile that she had come across from Mount\nKisco in her motor-car that morning, and had been kicking her heels for\nan hour at Garrisons, without even the alleviation of a cigarette, her\nbrute of a husband having neglected to replenish her case before they\nparted that morning.\n\n\"And at this hour of the day I don\'t suppose you\'ve a single one left,\nhave you, Lily?\" she plaintively concluded.\n\nMiss Bart caught the startled glance of Mr. Percy Gryce, whose own lips\nwere never defiled by tobacco.\n\n\"What an absurd question, Bertha!\" she exclaimed, blushing at the thought\nof the store she had laid in at Lawrence Selden\'s.\n\n\"Why, don\'t you smoke? Since when have you given it up? What--you\nnever---- And you don\'t either, Mr. Gryce? Ah, of course--how stupid of\nme--I understand.\"\n\nAnd Mrs. Dorset leaned back against her travelling cushions with a smile\nwhich made Lily wish there had been no vacant seat beside her own.\n\n\n\nChapter 3\n\nBridge at Bellomont usually lasted till the small hours; and when Lily\nwent to bed that night she had played too long for her own good.\n\nFeeling no desire for the self-communion which awaited her in her room,\nshe lingered on the broad stairway, looking down into the hall below,\nwhere the last card-players were grouped about the tray of tall glasses\nand silver-collared decanters which the butler had just placed on a low\ntable near the fire.\n\nThe hall was arcaded, with a gallery supported on columns of pale yellow\nmarble. Tall clumps of flowering plants were grouped against a background\nof dark foliage in the angles of the walls. On the crimson carpet a\ndeer-hound and two or three spaniels dozed luxuriously before the fire,\nand the light from the great central lantern overhead shed a brightness\non the women\'s hair and struck sparks from their jewels as they moved.\n\nThere were moments when such scenes delighted Lily, when they gratified\nher sense of beauty and her craving for the external finish of life;\nthere were others when they gave a sharper edge to the meagreness of her\nown opportunities. This was one of the moments when the sense of contrast\nwas uppermost, and she turned away impatiently as Mrs. George Dorset,\nglittering in serpentine spangles, drew Percy Gryce in her wake to a\nconfidential nook beneath the gallery.\n\nIt was not that Miss Bart was afraid of losing her newly-acquired hold\nover Mr. Gryce. Mrs. Dorset might startle or dazzle him, but she had\nneither the skill nor the patience to effect his capture. She was too\nself-engrossed to penetrate the recesses of his shyness, and besides, why\nshould she care to give herself the trouble? At most it might amuse her\nto make sport of his simplicity for an evening--after that he would be\nmerely a burden to her, and knowing this, she was far too experienced to\nencourage him. But the mere thought of that other woman, who could take a\nman up and toss him aside as she willed, without having to regard him as\na possible factor in her plans, filled Lily Bart with envy. She had been\nbored all the afternoon by Percy Gryce--the mere thought seemed to waken\nan echo of his droning voice--but she could not ignore him on the morrow,\nshe must follow up her success, must submit to more boredom, must be\nready with fresh compliances and adaptabilities, and all on the bare\nchance that he might ultimately decide to do her the honour of boring her\nfor life.\n\nIt was a hateful fate--but how escape from it? What choice had she? To be\nherself, or a Gerty Farish. As she entered her bedroom, with its\nsoftly-shaded lights, her lace dressing-gown lying across the silken\nbedspread, her little embroidered slippers before the fire, a vase of\ncarnations filling the air with perfume, and the last novels and\nmagazines lying uncut on a table beside the reading-lamp, she had a\nvision of Miss Farish\'s cramped flat, with its cheap conveniences and\nhideous wall-papers. No; she was not made for mean and shabby\nsurroundings, for the squalid compromises of poverty. Her whole being\ndilated in an atmosphere of luxury; it was the background she required,\nthe only climate she could breathe in. But the luxury of others was not\nwhat she wanted. A few years ago it had sufficed her: she had taken her\ndaily meed of pleasure without caring who provided it. Now she was\nbeginning to chafe at the obligations it imposed, to feel herself a mere\npensioner on the splendour which had once seemed to belong to her. There\nwere even moments when she was conscious of having to pay her way.\n\nFor a long time she had refused to play bridge. She knew she could not\nafford it, and she was afraid of acquiring so expensive a taste. She had\nseen the danger exemplified in more than one of her associates--in young\nNed Silverton, for instance, the charming fair boy now seated in abject\nrapture at the elbow of Mrs. Fisher, a striking divorcee with eyes and\ngowns as emphatic as the head-lines of her \"case.\" Lily could remember\nwhen young Silverton had stumbled into their circle, with the air of a\nstrayed Arcadian who has published charming sonnets in his college journal.\nSince then he had developed a taste for Mrs. Fisher and bridge, and the\nlatter at least had involved him in expenses from which he had been more\nthan once rescued by harassed maiden sisters, who treasured the sonnets,\nand went without sugar in their tea to keep their darling afloat. Ned\'s\ncase was familiar to Lily: she had seen his charming eyes--which had a\ngood deal more poetry in them than the sonnets--change from surprise to\namusement, and from amusement to anxiety, as he passed under the spell\nof the terrible god of chance; and she was afraid of discovering the\nsame symptoms in her own case.\n\nFor in the last year she had found that her hostesses expected her to\ntake a place at the card-table. It was one of the taxes she had to pay\nfor their prolonged hospitality, and for the dresses and trinkets which\noccasionally replenished her insufficient wardrobe. And since she had\nplayed regularly the passion had grown on her. Once or twice of late she\nhad won a large sum, and instead of keeping it against future losses, had\nspent it in dress or jewelry; and the desire to atone for this\nimprudence, combined with the increasing exhilaration of the game, drove\nher to risk higher stakes at each fresh venture. She tried to excuse\nherself on the plea that, in the Trenor set, if one played at all one\nmust either play high or be set down as priggish or stingy; but she knew\nthat the gambling passion was upon her, and that in her present\nsurroundings there was small hope of resisting it.\n\nTonight the luck had been persistently bad, and the little gold purse\nwhich hung among her trinkets was almost empty when she returned to her\nroom. She unlocked the wardrobe, and taking out her jewel-case, looked\nunder the tray for the roll of bills from which she had replenished the\npurse before going down to dinner. Only twenty dollars were left: the\ndiscovery was so startling that for a moment she fancied she must have\nbeen robbed. Then she took paper and pencil, and seating herself at the\nwriting-table, tried to reckon up what she had spent during the day. Her\nhead was throbbing with fatigue, and she had to go over the figures again\nand again; but at last it became clear to her that she had lost three\nhundred dollars at cards. She took out her cheque-book to see if her\nbalance was larger than she remembered, but found she had erred in the\nother direction. Then she returned to her calculations; but figure as she\nwould, she could not conjure back the vanished three hundred dollars. It\nwas the sum she had set aside to pacify her dress-maker--unless she\nshould decide to use it as a sop to the jeweller. At any rate, she had so\nmany uses for it that its very insufficiency had caused her to play high\nin the hope of doubling it. But of course she had lost--she who needed\nevery penny, while Bertha Dorset, whose husband showered money on her,\nmust have pocketed at least five hundred, and Judy Trenor, who could have\nafforded to lose a thousand a night, had left the table clutching such a\nheap of bills that she had been unable to shake hands with her guests\nwhen they bade her good night.\n\nA world in which such things could be seemed a miserable place to Lily\nBart; but then she had never been able to understand the laws of a\nuniverse which was so ready to leave her out of its calculations.\n\nShe began to undress without ringing for her maid, whom she had sent to\nbed. She had been long enough in bondage to other people\'s pleasure to be\nconsiderate of those who depended on hers, and in her bitter moods it\nsometimes struck her that she and her maid were in the same position,\nexcept that the latter received her wages more regularly.\n\nAs she sat before the mirror brushing her hair, her face looked hollow\nand pale, and she was frightened by two little lines near her mouth,\nfaint flaws in the smooth curve of the cheek.\n\n\"Oh, I must stop worrying!\" she exclaimed. \"Unless it\'s the electric\nlight----\" she reflected, springing up from her seat and lighting the\ncandles on the dressing-table.\n\nShe turned out the wall-lights, and peered at herself between the\ncandle-flames. The white oval of her face swam out waveringly from a\nbackground of shadows, the uncertain light blurring it like a haze; but\nthe two lines about the mouth remained.\n\nLily rose and undressed in haste.\n\n\"It is only because I am tired and have such odious things to think\nabout,\" she kept repeating; and it seemed an added injustice that petty\ncares should leave a trace on the beauty which was her only defence\nagainst them.\n\nBut the odious things were there, and remained with her. She returned\nwearily to the thought of Percy Gryce, as a wayfarer picks up a heavy\nload and toils on after a brief rest. She was almost sure she had\n\"landed\" him: a few days\' work and she would win her reward. But the\nreward itself seemed unpalatable just then: she could get no zest from\nthe thought of victory. It would be a rest from worry, no more--and how\nlittle that would have seemed to her a few years earlier! Her ambitions\nhad shrunk gradually in the desiccating air of failure. But why had she\nfailed? Was it her own fault or that of destiny?\n\nShe remembered how her mother, after they had lost their money, used to\nsay to her with a kind of fierce vindictiveness: \"But you\'ll get it all\nback--you\'ll get it all back, with your face.\" . . . The remembrance\nroused a whole train of association, and she lay in the darkness\nreconstructing the past out of which her present had grown.\n\nA house in which no one ever dined at home unless there was \"company\"; a\ndoor-bell perpetually ringing; a hall-table showered with square\nenvelopes which were opened in haste, and oblong envelopes which were\nallowed to gather dust in the depths of a bronze jar; a series of French\nand English maids giving warning amid a chaos of hurriedly-ransacked\nwardrobes and dress-closets; an equally changing dynasty of nurses and\nfootmen; quarrels in the pantry, the kitchen and the drawing-room;\nprecipitate trips to Europe, and returns with gorged trunks and days of\ninterminable unpacking; semi-annual discussions as to where the summer\nshould be spent, grey interludes of economy and brilliant reactions of\nexpense--such was the setting of Lily Bart\'s first memories.\n\nRuling the turbulent element called home was the vigorous and determined\nfigure of a mother still young enough to dance her ball-dresses to rags,\nwhile the hazy outline of a neutral-tinted father filled an intermediate\nspace between the butler and the man who came to wind the clocks. Even to\nthe eyes of infancy, Mrs. Hudson Bart had appeared young; but Lily could\nnot recall the time when her father had not been bald and slightly\nstooping, with streaks of grey in his hair, and a tired walk. It was a\nshock to her to learn afterward that he was but two years older than her\nmother.\n\nLily seldom saw her father by daylight. All day he was \"down town\"; and\nin winter it was long after nightfall when she heard his fagged step on\nthe stairs and his hand on the school-room door. He would kiss her in\nsilence, and ask one or two questions of the nurse or the governess; then\nMrs. Bart\'s maid would come to remind him that he was dining out, and he\nwould hurry away with a nod to Lily. In summer, when he joined them for a\nSunday at Newport or Southampton, he was even more effaced and silent\nthan in winter. It seemed to tire him to rest, and he would sit for hours\nstaring at the sea-line from a quiet corner of the verandah, while the\nclatter of his wife\'s existence went on unheeded a few feet off.\nGenerally, however, Mrs. Bart and Lily went to Europe for the summer, and\nbefore the steamer was half way over Mr. Bart had dipped below the\nhorizon. Sometimes his daughter heard him denounced for having neglected\nto forward Mrs. Bart\'s remittances; but for the most part he was never\nmentioned or thought of till his patient stooping figure presented itself\non the New York dock as a buffer between the magnitude of his wife\'s\nluggage and the restrictions of the American custom-house.\n\nIn this desultory yet agitated fashion life went on through Lily\'s teens:\na zig-zag broken course down which the family craft glided on a rapid\ncurrent of amusement, tugged at by the underflow of a perpetual need--the\nneed of more money. Lily could not recall the time when there had been\nmoney enough, and in some vague way her father seemed always to blame for\nthe deficiency. It could certainly not be the fault of Mrs. Bart, who\nwas spoken of by her friends as a \"wonderful manager.\" Mrs. Bart was\nfamous for the unlimited effect she produced on limited means; and to the\nlady and her acquaintances there was something heroic in living as though\none were much richer than one\'s bank-book denoted.\n\nLily was naturally proud of her mother\'s aptitude in this line: she had\nbeen brought up in the faith that, whatever it cost, one must have a good\ncook, and be what Mrs. Bart called \"decently dressed.\" Mrs. Bart\'s worst\nreproach to her husband was to ask him if he expected her to \"live like a\npig\"; and his replying in the negative was always regarded as a\njustification for cabling to Paris for an extra dress or two, and\ntelephoning to the jeweller that he might, after all, send home the\nturquoise bracelet which Mrs. Bart had looked at that morning.\n\nLily knew people who \"lived like pigs,\" and their appearance and\nsurroundings justified her mother\'s repugnance to that form of existence.\nThey were mostly cousins, who inhabited dingy houses with engravings from\nCole\'s Voyage of Life on the drawing-room walls, and slatternly\nparlour-maids who said \"I\'ll go and see\" to visitors calling at an hour\nwhen all right-minded persons are conventionally if not actually out. The\ndisgusting part of it was that many of these cousins were rich, so that\nLily imbibed the idea that if people lived like pigs it was from choice,\nand through the lack of any proper standard of conduct. This gave her a\nsense of reflected superiority, and she did not need Mrs. Bart\'s comments\non the family frumps and misers to foster her naturally lively taste for\nsplendour.\n\nLily was nineteen when circumstances caused her to revise her view of the\nuniverse.\n\nThe previous year she had made a dazzling debut fringed by a heavy\nthunder-cloud of bills. The light of the debut still lingered on the\nhorizon, but the cloud had thickened; and suddenly it broke. The\nsuddenness added to the horror; and there were still times when Lily\nrelived with painful vividness every detail of the day on which the blow\nfell. She and her mother had been seated at the luncheon-table, over the\nCHAUFROIX and cold salmon of the previous night\'s dinner: it was one of\nMrs. Bart\'s few economies to consume in private the expensive remnants of\nher hospitality. Lily was feeling the pleasant languor which is youth\'s\npenalty for dancing till dawn; but her mother, in spite of a few lines\nabout the mouth, and under the yellow waves on her temples, was as alert,\ndetermined and high in colour as if she had risen from an untroubled\nsleep.\n\nIn the centre of the table, between the melting MARRONS GLACES and\ncandied cherries, a pyramid of American Beauties lifted their vigorous\nstems; they held their heads as high as Mrs. Bart, but their rose-colour\nhad turned to a dissipated purple, and Lily\'s sense of fitness was\ndisturbed by their reappearance on the luncheon-table.\n\n\"I really think, mother,\" she said reproachfully, \"we might afford a few\nfresh flowers for luncheon. Just some jonquils or lilies-of-the-valley--\"\n\nMrs. Bart stared. Her own fastidiousness had its eye fixed on the world,\nand she did not care how the luncheon-table looked when there was no one\npresent at it but the family. But she smiled at her daughter\'s innocence.\n\n\"Lilies-of-the-valley,\" she said calmly, \"cost two dollars a dozen at\nthis season.\"\n\nLily was not impressed. She knew very little of the value of money.\n\n\"It would not take more than six dozen to fill that bowl,\" she argued.\n\n\"Six dozen what?\" asked her father\'s voice in the doorway.\n\nThe two women looked up in surprise; though it was a Saturday, the sight\nof Mr. Bart at luncheon was an unwonted one. But neither his wife nor his\ndaughter was sufficiently interested to ask an explanation.\n\nMr. Bart dropped into a chair, and sat gazing absently at the fragment of\njellied salmon which the butler had placed before him.\n\n\"I was only saying,\" Lily began, \"that I hate to see faded flowers at\nluncheon; and mother says a bunch of lilies-of-the-valley would not cost\nmore than twelve dollars. Mayn\'t I tell the florist to send a few every\nday?\"\n\nShe leaned confidently toward her father: he seldom refused her anything,\nand Mrs. Bart had taught her to plead with him when her own entreaties\nfailed.\n\nMr. Bart sat motionless, his gaze still fixed on the salmon, and his\nlower jaw dropped; he looked even paler than usual, and his thin hair lay\nin untidy streaks on his forehead. Suddenly he looked at his daughter and\nlaughed. The laugh was so strange that Lily coloured under it: she\ndisliked being ridiculed, and her father seemed to see something\nridiculous in the request. Perhaps he thought it foolish that she should\ntrouble him about such a trifle.\n\n\"Twelve dollars--twelve dollars a day for flowers? Oh, certainly, my\ndear--give him an order for twelve hundred.\" He continued to laugh.\n\nMrs. Bart gave him a quick glance.\n\n\"You needn\'t wait, Poleworth--I will ring for you,\" she said to the\nbutler.\n\nThe butler withdrew with an air of silent disapproval, leaving the\nremains of the CHAUFROIX on the sideboard.\n\n\"What is the matter, Hudson? Are you ill?\" said Mrs. Bart severely.\n\nShe had no tolerance for scenes which were not of her own making, and it\nwas odious to her that her husband should make a show of himself before\nthe servants.\n\n\"Are you ill?\" she repeated.\n\n\"Ill?---- No, I\'m ruined,\" he said.\n\nLily made a frightened sound, and Mrs. Bart rose to her feet.\n\n\"Ruined----?\" she cried; but controlling herself instantly, she turned a\ncalm face to Lily.\n\n\"Shut the pantry door,\" she said.\n\nLily obeyed, and when she turned back into the room her father was\nsitting with both elbows on the table, the plate of salmon between them,\nand his head bowed on his hands.\n\nMrs. Bart stood over him with a white face which made her hair\nunnaturally yellow. She looked at Lily as the latter approached: her look\nwas terrible, but her voice was modulated to a ghastly cheerfulness.\n\n\"Your father is not well--he doesn\'t know what he is saying. It is\nnothing--but you had better go upstairs; and don\'t talk to the servants,\"\nshe added.\n\nLily obeyed; she always obeyed when her mother spoke in that voice. She\nhad not been deceived by Mrs. Bart\'s words: she knew at once that they\nwere ruined. In the dark hours which followed, that awful fact\novershadowed even her father\'s slow and difficult dying. To his wife he\nno longer counted: he had become extinct when he ceased to fulfil his\npurpose, and she sat at his side with the provisional air of a traveller\nwho waits for a belated train to start. Lily\'s feelings were softer: she\npitied him in a frightened ineffectual way. But the fact that he was for\nthe most part unconscious, and that his attention, when she stole into\nthe room, drifted away from her after a moment, made him even more of a\nstranger than in the nursery days when he had never come home till after\ndark. She seemed always to have seen him through a blur--first of\nsleepiness, then of distance and indifference--and now the fog had\nthickened till he was almost indistinguishable. If she could have\nperformed any little services for him, or have exchanged with him a few\nof those affecting words which an extensive perusal of fiction had led\nher to connect with such occasions, the filial instinct might have\nstirred in her; but her pity, finding no active expression, remained in a\nstate of spectatorship, overshadowed by her mother\'s grim unflagging\nresentment. Every look and act of Mrs. Bart\'s seemed to say: \"You are\nsorry for him now--but you will feel differently when you see what he has\ndone to us.\"\n\nIt was a relief to Lily when her father died.\n\nThen a long winter set in. There was a little money left, but to Mrs.\nBart it seemed worse than nothing--the mere mockery of what she was\nentitled to. What was the use of living if one had to live like a pig?\nShe sank into a kind of furious apathy, a state of inert anger against\nfate. Her faculty for \"managing\" deserted her, or she no longer took\nsufficient pride in it to exert it. It was well enough to \"manage\" when\nby so doing one could keep one\'s own carriage; but when one\'s best\ncontrivance did not conceal the fact that one had to go on foot, the\neffort was no longer worth making.\n\nLily and her mother wandered from place to place, now paying long visits\nto relations whose house-keeping Mrs. Bart criticized, and who deplored\nthe fact that she let Lily breakfast in bed when the girl had no\nprospects before her, and now vegetating in cheap continental refuges,\nwhere Mrs. Bart held herself fiercely aloof from the frugal tea-tables of\nher companions in misfortune. She was especially careful to avoid her old\nfriends and the scenes of her former successes. To be poor seemed to her\nsuch a confession of failure that it amounted to disgrace; and she\ndetected a note of condescension in the friendliest advances.\n\nOnly one thought consoled her, and that was the contemplation of Lily\'s\nbeauty. She studied it with a kind of passion, as though it were some\nweapon she had slowly fashioned for her vengeance. It was the last asset\nin their fortunes, the nucleus around which their life was to be rebuilt.\nShe watched it jealously, as though it were her own property and Lily its\nmere custodian; and she tried to instil into the latter a sense of the\nresponsibility that such a charge involved. She followed in imagination\nthe career of other beauties, pointing out to her daughter what might be\nachieved through such a gift, and dwelling on the awful warning of those\nwho, in spite of it, had failed to get what they wanted: to Mrs. Bart,\nonly stupidity could explain the lamentable denouement of some of her\nexamples. She was not above the inconsistency of charging fate, rather\nthan herself, with her own misfortunes; but she inveighed so\nacrimoniously against love-matches that Lily would have fancied her own\nmarriage had been of that nature, had not Mrs. Bart frequently assured\nher that she had been \"talked into it\"--by whom, she never made clear.\n\nLily was duly impressed by the magnitude of her opportunities. The\ndinginess of her present life threw into enchanting relief the existence\nto which she felt herself entitled. To a less illuminated intelligence\nMrs. Bart\'s counsels might have been dangerous; but Lily understood that\nbeauty is only the raw material of conquest, and that to convert it into\nsuccess other arts are required. She knew that to betray any sense of\nsuperiority was a subtler form of the stupidity her mother denounced, and\nit did not take her long to learn that a beauty needs more tact than the\npossessor of an average set of features.\n\nHer ambitions were not as crude as Mrs. Bart\'s. It had been among that\nlady\'s grievances that her husband--in the early days, before he was too\ntired--had wasted his evenings in what she vaguely described as \"reading\npoetry\"; and among the effects packed off to auction after his death were\na score or two of dingy volumes which had struggled for existence among\nthe boots and medicine bottles of his dressing-room shelves. There was in\nLily a vein of sentiment, perhaps transmitted from this source, which\ngave an idealizing touch to her most prosaic purposes. She liked to think\nof her beauty as a power for good, as giving her the opportunity to\nattain a position where she should make her influence felt in the vague\ndiffusion of refinement and good taste. She was fond of pictures and\nflowers, and of sentimental fiction, and she could not help thinking that\nthe possession of such tastes ennobled her desire for worldly advantages.\nShe would not indeed have cared to marry a man who was merely rich: she\nwas secretly ashamed of her mother\'s crude passion for money. Lily\'s\npreference would have been for an English nobleman with political\nambitions and vast estates; or, for second choice, an Italian prince with\na castle in the Apennines and an hereditary office in the Vatican. Lost\ncauses had a romantic charm for her, and she liked to picture herself as\nstanding aloof from the vulgar press of the Quirinal, and sacrificing her\npleasure to the claims of an immemorial tradition. . . .\n\nHow long ago and how far off it all seemed! Those ambitions were hardly\nmore futile and childish than the earlier ones which had centred about\nthe possession of a French jointed doll with real hair. Was it only ten\nyears since she had wavered in imagination between the English earl and\nthe Italian prince? Relentlessly her mind travelled on over the dreary\ninterval. . . .\n\nAfter two years of hungry roaming Mrs. Bart had died----died of a deep\ndisgust. She had hated dinginess, and it was her fate to be dingy. Her\nvisions of a brilliant marriage for Lily had faded after the first year.\n\n\"People can\'t marry you if they don\'t see you--and how can they see you\nin these holes where we\'re stuck?\" That was the burden of her lament; and\nher last adjuration to her daughter was to escape from dinginess if she\ncould.\n\n\"Don\'t let it creep up on you and drag you down. Fight your way out of it\nsomehow--you\'re young and can do it,\" she insisted.\n\nShe had died during one of their brief visits to New York, and there Lily\nat once became the centre of a family council composed of the wealthy\nrelatives whom she had been taught to despise for living like pigs. It\nmay be that they had an inkling of the sentiments in which she had been\nbrought up, for none of them manifested a very lively desire for her\ncompany; indeed, the question threatened to remain unsolved till Mrs.\nPeniston with a sigh announced: \"I\'ll try her for a year.\"\n\nEvery one was surprised, but one and all concealed their surprise, lest\nMrs. Peniston should be alarmed by it into reconsidering her decision.\n\nMrs. Peniston was Mr. Bart\'s widowed sister, and if she was by no means\nthe richest of the family group, its other members nevertheless abounded\nin reasons why she was clearly destined by Providence to assume the\ncharge of Lily. In the first place she was alone, and it would be\ncharming for her to have a young companion. Then she sometimes travelled,\nand Lily\'s familiarity with foreign customs--deplored as a misfortune by\nher more conservative relatives--would at least enable her to act as a\nkind of courier. But as a matter of fact Mrs. Peniston had not been\naffected by these considerations. She had taken the girl simply because\nno one else would have her, and because she had the kind of moral\nMAUVAISE HONTE which makes the public display of selfishness difficult,\nthough it does not interfere with its private indulgence. It would have\nbeen impossible for Mrs. Peniston to be heroic on a desert island, but\nwith the eyes of her little world upon her she took a certain pleasure in\nher act.\n\nShe reaped the reward to which disinterestedness is entitled, and found\nan agreeable companion in her niece. She had expected to find Lily\nheadstrong, critical and \"foreign\"--for even Mrs. Peniston, though she\noccasionally went abroad, had the family dread of foreignness--but the\ngirl showed a pliancy, which, to a more penetrating mind than her aunt\'s,\nmight have been less reassuring than the open selfishness of youth.\nMisfortune had made Lily supple instead of hardening her, and a pliable\nsubstance is less easy to break than a stiff one.\n\nMrs. Peniston, however, did not suffer from her niece\'s adaptability.\nLily had no intention of taking advantage of her aunt\'s good nature. She\nwas in truth grateful for the refuge offered her: Mrs. Peniston\'s opulent\ninterior was at least not externally dingy. But dinginess is a quality\nwhich assumes all manner of disguises; and Lily soon found that it was as\nlatent in the expensive routine of her aunt\'s life as in the makeshift\nexistence of a continental pension.\n\nMrs. Peniston was one of the episodical persons who form the padding of\nlife. It was impossible to believe that she had herself ever been a focus\nof activities. The most vivid thing about her was the fact that her\ngrandmother had been a Van Alstyne. This connection with the well-fed and\nindustrious stock of early New York revealed itself in the glacial\nneatness of Mrs. Peniston\'s drawing-room and in the excellence of her\ncuisine. She belonged to the class of old New Yorkers who have always\nlived well, dressed expensively, and done little else; and to these\ninherited obligations Mrs. Peniston faithfully conformed. She had always\nbeen a looker-on at life, and her mind resembled one of those little\nmirrors which her Dutch ancestors were accustomed to affix to their upper\nwindows, so that from the depths of an impenetrable domesticity they\nmight see what was happening in the street.\n\nMrs. Peniston was the owner of a country-place in New Jersey, but she had\nnever lived there since her husband\'s death--a remote event, which\nappeared to dwell in her memory chiefly as a dividing point in the\npersonal reminiscences that formed the staple of her conversation. She\nwas a woman who remembered dates with intensity, and could tell at a\nmoment\'s notice whether the drawing-room curtains had been renewed before\nor after Mr. Peniston\'s last illness.\n\nMrs. Peniston thought the country lonely and trees damp, and cherished a\nvague fear of meeting a bull. To guard against such contingencies she\nfrequented the more populous watering-places, where she installed herself\nimpersonally in a hired house and looked on at life through the matting\nscreen of her verandah. In the care of such a guardian, it soon became\nclear to Lily that she was to enjoy only the material advantages of good\nfood and expensive clothing; and, though far from underrating these, she\nwould gladly have exchanged them for what Mrs. Bart had taught her to\nregard as opportunities. She sighed to think what her mother\'s fierce\nenergies would have accomplished, had they been coupled with Mrs.\nPeniston\'s resources. Lily had abundant energy of her own, but it was\nrestricted by the necessity of adapting herself to her aunt\'s habits. She\nsaw that at all costs she must keep Mrs. Peniston\'s favour till, as Mrs.\nBart would have phrased it, she could stand on her own legs. Lily had no\nmind for the vagabond life of the poor relation, and to adapt herself to\nMrs. Peniston she had, to some degree, to assume that lady\'s passive\nattitude. She had fancied at first that it would be easy to draw her aunt\ninto the whirl of her own activities, but there was a static force in\nMrs. Peniston against which her niece\'s efforts spent themselves in vain.\nTo attempt to bring her into active relation with life was like tugging\nat a piece of furniture which has been screwed to the floor. She did not,\nindeed, expect Lily to remain equally immovable: she had all the American\nguardian\'s indulgence for the volatility of youth.\n\nShe had indulgence also for certain other habits of her niece\'s. It\nseemed to her natural that Lily should spend all her money on dress, and\nshe supplemented the girl\'s scanty income by occasional \"handsome\npresents\" meant to be applied to the same purpose. Lily, who was\nintensely practical, would have preferred a fixed allowance; but Mrs.\nPeniston liked the periodical recurrence of gratitude evoked by\nunexpected cheques, and was perhaps shrewd enough to perceive that such a\nmethod of giving kept alive in her niece a salutary sense of dependence.\n\nBeyond this, Mrs. Peniston had not felt called upon to do anything for\nher charge: she had simply stood aside and let her take the field. Lily\nhad taken it, at first with the confidence of assured possessorship, then\nwith gradually narrowing demands, till now she found herself actually\nstruggling for a foothold on the broad space which had once seemed her\nown for the asking. How it happened she did not yet know. Sometimes she\nthought it was because Mrs. Peniston had been too passive, and again she\nfeared it was because she herself had not been passive enough. Had she\nshown an undue eagerness for victory? Had she lacked patience, pliancy\nand dissimulation? Whether she charged herself with these faults or\nabsolved herself from them, made no difference in the sum-total of her\nfailure. Younger and plainer girls had been married off by dozens, and\nshe was nine-and-twenty, and still Miss Bart.\n\nShe was beginning to have fits of angry rebellion against fate, when she\nlonged to drop out of the race and make an independent life for herself.\nBut what manner of life would it be? She had barely enough money to pay\nher dress-makers\' bills and her gambling debts; and none of the desultory\ninterests which she dignified with the name of tastes was pronounced\nenough to enable her to live contentedly in obscurity. Ah, no--she was\ntoo intelligent not to be honest with herself. She knew that she hated\ndinginess as much as her mother had hated it, and to her last breath she\nmeant to fight against it, dragging herself up again and again above its\nflood till she gained the bright pinnacles of success which presented\nsuch a slippery surface to her clutch.\n\n\n\nChapter 4\n\nThe next morning, on her breakfast tray, Miss Bart found a note from her\nhostess.\n\n\"Dearest Lily,\" it ran, \"if it is not too much of a bore to be down by\nten, will you come to my sitting-room to help me with some tiresome\nthings?\"\n\nLily tossed aside the note and subsided on her pillows with a sigh. It\nWAS a bore to be down by ten--an hour regarded at Bellomont as vaguely\nsynchronous with sunrise--and she knew too well the nature of the\ntiresome things in question. Miss Pragg, the secretary, had been called\naway, and there would be notes and dinner-cards to write, lost addresses\nto hunt up, and other social drudgery to perform. It was understood that\nMiss Bart should fill the gap in such emergencies, and she usually\nrecognized the obligation without a murmur.\n\nToday, however, it renewed the sense of servitude which the previous\nnight\'s review of her cheque-book had produced. Everything in her\nsurroundings ministered to feelings of ease and amenity. The windows\nstood open to the sparkling freshness of the September morning, and\nbetween the yellow boughs she caught a perspective of hedges and\nparterres leading by degrees of lessening formality to the free\nundulations of the park. Her maid had kindled a little fire on the\nhearth, and it contended cheerfully with the sunlight which slanted\nacross the moss-green carpet and caressed the curved sides of an old\nmarquetry desk. Near the bed stood a table holding her breakfast tray,\nwith its harmonious porcelain and silver, a handful of violets in a\nslender glass, and the morning paper folded beneath her letters. There\nwas nothing new to Lily in these tokens of a studied luxury; but, though\nthey formed a part of her atmosphere, she never lost her sensitiveness to\ntheir charm. Mere display left her with a sense of superior distinction;\nbut she felt an affinity to all the subtler manifestations of wealth.\n\nMrs. Trenor\'s summons, however, suddenly recalled her state of\ndependence, and she rose and dressed in a mood of irritability that she\nwas usually too prudent to indulge. She knew that such emotions leave\nlines on the face as well as in the character, and she had meant to take\nwarning by the little creases which her midnight survey had revealed.\n\nThe matter-of-course tone of Mrs. Trenor\'s greeting deepened her\nirritation. If one did drag one\'s self out of bed at such an hour, and\ncome down fresh and radiant to the monotony of note-writing, some special\nrecognition of the sacrifice seemed fitting. But Mrs. Trenor\'s tone\nshowed no consciousness of the fact.\n\n\"Oh, Lily, that\'s nice of you,\" she merely sighed across the chaos of\nletters, bills and other domestic documents which gave an incongruously\ncommercial touch to the slender elegance of her writing-table.\n\n\"There are such lots of horrors this morning,\" she added, clearing a\nspace in the centre of the confusion and rising to yield her seat to Miss\nBart.\n\nMrs. Trenor was a tall fair woman, whose height just saved her from\nredundancy. Her rosy blondness had survived some forty years of futile\nactivity without showing much trace of ill-usage except in a diminished\nplay of feature. It was difficult to define her beyond saying that she\nseemed to exist only as a hostess, not so much from any exaggerated\ninstinct of hospitality as because she could not sustain life except in a\ncrowd. The collective nature of her interests exempted her from the\nordinary rivalries of her sex, and she knew no more personal emotion than\nthat of hatred for the woman who presumed to give bigger dinners or have\nmore amusing house-parties than herself. As her social talents, backed by\nMr. Trenor\'s bank-account, almost always assured her ultimate triumph in\nsuch competitions, success had developed in her an unscrupulous good\nnature toward the rest of her sex, and in Miss Bart\'s utilitarian\nclassification of her friends, Mrs. Trenor ranked as the woman who was\nleast likely to \"go back\" on her.\n\n\"It was simply inhuman of Pragg to go off now,\" Mrs. Trenor declared, as\nher friend seated herself at the desk. \"She says her sister is going to\nhave a baby--as if that were anything to having a house-party! I\'m sure I\nshall get most horribly mixed up and there will be some awful rows. When\nI was down at Tuxedo I asked a lot of people for next week, and I\'ve\nmislaid the list and can\'t remember who is coming. And this week is going\nto be a horrid failure too--and Gwen Van Osburgh will go back and tell\nher mother how bored people were. I did mean to ask the Wetheralls--that\nwas a blunder of Gus\'s. They disapprove of Carry Fisher, you know. As if\none could help having Carry Fisher! It WAS foolish of her to get that\nsecond divorce--Carry always overdoes things--but she said the only way\nto get a penny out of Fisher was to divorce him and make him pay alimony.\nAnd poor Carry has to consider every dollar. It\'s really absurd of Alice\nWetherall to make such a fuss about meeting her, when one thinks of what\nsociety is coming to. Some one said the other day that there was a\ndivorce and a case of appendicitis in every family one knows. Besides,\nCarry is the only person who can keep Gus in a good humour when we have\nbores in the house. Have you noticed that ALL the husbands like her? All,\nI mean, except her own. It\'s rather clever of her to have made a\nspecialty of devoting herself to dull people--the field is such a large\none, and she has it practically to herself. She finds compensations, no\ndoubt--I know she borrows money of Gus--but then I\'d PAY her to keep him\nin a good humour, so I can\'t complain, after all.\"\n\nMrs. Trenor paused to enjoy the spectacle of Miss Bart\'s efforts to\nunravel her tangled correspondence.\n\n\"But it is only the Wetheralls and Carry,\" she resumed, with a fresh note\nof lament. \"The truth is, I\'m awfully disappointed in Lady Cressida\nRaith.\"\n\n\"Disappointed? Had you known her before?\"\n\n\"Mercy, no--never saw her till yesterday. Lady Skiddaw sent her over with\nletters to the Van Osburghs, and I heard that Maria Van Osburgh was\nasking a big party to meet her this week, so I thought it would be fun to\nget her away, and Jack Stepney, who knew her in India, managed it for me.\nMaria was furious, and actually had the impudence to make Gwen invite\nherself here, so that they shouldn\'t be QUITE out of it--if I\'d known\nwhat Lady Cressida was like, they could have had her and welcome! But I\nthought any friend of the Skiddaws\' was sure to be amusing. You remember\nwhat fun Lady Skiddaw was? There were times when I simply had to send the\ngirls out of the room. Besides, Lady Cressida is the Duchess of\nBeltshire\'s sister, and I naturally supposed she was the same sort; but\nyou never can tell in those English families. They are so big that\nthere\'s room for all kinds, and it turns out that Lady Cressida is the\nmoral one--married a clergy-man and does missionary work in the East End.\nThink of my taking such a lot of trouble about a clergyman\'s wife, who\nwears Indian jewelry and botanizes! She made Gus take her all through the\nglass-houses yesterday, and bothered him to death by asking him the names\nof the plants. Fancy treating Gus as if he were the gardener!\"\n\nMrs. Trenor brought this out in a CRESCENDO of indignation.\n\n\"Oh, well, perhaps Lady Cressida will reconcile the Wetheralls to meeting\nCarry Fisher,\" said Miss Bart pacifically.\n\n\"I\'m sure I hope so! But she is boring all the men horribly, and if she\ntakes to distributing tracts, as I hear she does, it will be too\ndepressing. The worst of it is that she would have been so useful at the\nright time. You know we have to have the Bishop once a year, and she\nwould have given just the right tone to things. I always have horrid luck\nabout the Bishop\'s visits,\" added Mrs. Trenor, whose present misery was\nbeing fed by a rapidly rising tide of reminiscence; \"last year, when he\ncame, Gus forgot all about his being here, and brought home the Ned\nWintons and the Farleys--five divorces and six sets of children between\nthem!\"\n\n\"When is Lady Cressida going?\" Lily enquired.\n\nMrs. Trenor cast up her eyes in despair. \"My dear, if one only knew! I\nwas in such a hurry to get her away from Maria that I actually forgot to\nname a date, and Gus says she told some one she meant to stop here all\nwinter.\"\n\n\"To stop here? In this house?\"\n\n\"Don\'t be silly--in America. But if no one else asks her--you know they\nNEVER go to hotels.\"\n\n\"Perhaps Gus only said it to frighten you.\"\n\n\"No--I heard her tell Bertha Dorset that she had six months to put in\nwhile her husband was taking the cure in the Engadine. You should have\nseen Bertha look vacant! But it\'s no joke, you know--if she stays here\nall the autumn she\'ll spoil everything, and Maria Van Osburgh will simply\nexult.\"\n\nAt this affecting vision Mrs. Trenor\'s voice trembled with self-pity.\n\n\"Oh, Judy--as if any one were ever bored at Bellomont!\" Miss Bart\ntactfully protested. \"You know perfectly well that, if Mrs. Van Osburgh\nwere to get all the right people and leave you with all the wrong ones,\nyou\'d manage to make things go off, and she wouldn\'t.\"\n\nSuch an assurance would usually have restored Mrs. Trenor\'s complacency;\nbut on this occasion it did not chase the cloud from her brow.\n\n\"It isn\'t only Lady Cressida,\" she lamented. \"Everything has gone wrong\nthis week. I can see that Bertha Dorset is furious with me.\"\n\n\"Furious with you? Why?\"\n\n\"Because I told her that Lawrence Selden was coming; but he wouldn\'t,\nafter all, and she\'s quite unreasonable enough to think it\'s my fault.\"\n\nMiss Bart put down her pen and sat absently gazing at the note she had\nbegun.\n\n\"I thought that was all over,\" she said.\n\n\"So it is, on his side. And of course Bertha has been idle since. But I\nfancy she\'s out of a job just at present--and some one gave me a hint\nthat I had better ask Lawrence. Well, I DID ask him--but I couldn\'t make\nhim come; and now I suppose she\'ll take it out of me by being perfectly\nnasty to every one else.\"\n\n\"Oh, she may take it out of HIM by being perfectly charming--to some one\nelse.\"\n\nMrs. Trenor shook her head dolefully. \"She knows he wouldn\'t mind. And\nwho else is there? Alice Wetherall won\'t let Lucius out of her sight.\nNed Silverton can\'t take his eyes off Carry Fisher--poor boy! Gus is\nbored by Bertha, Jack Stepney knows her too well--and--well, to be sure,\nthere\'s Percy Gryce!\"\n\nShe sat up smiling at the thought.\n\nMiss Bart\'s countenance did not reflect the smile.\n\n\"Oh, she and Mr. Gryce would not be likely to hit it off.\"\n\n\"You mean that she\'d shock him and he\'d bore her? Well, that\'s not such a\nbad beginning, you know. But I hope she won\'t take it into her head to be\nnice to him, for I asked him here on purpose for you.\"\n\nLily laughed. \"MERCI DU COMPLIMENT! I should certainly have no show\nagainst Bertha.\"\n\n\"Do you think I am uncomplimentary? I\'m not really, you know. Every one\nknows you\'re a thousand times handsomer and cleverer than Bertha; but\nthen you\'re not nasty. And for always getting what she wants in the long\nrun, commend me to a nasty woman.\"\n\nMiss Bart stared in affected reproval. \"I thought you were so fond of\nBertha.\"\n\n\"Oh, I am--it\'s much safer to be fond of dangerous people. But she IS\ndangerous--and if I ever saw her up to mischief it\'s now. I can tell by\npoor George\'s manner. That man is a perfect barometer--he always knows\nwhen Bertha is going to----\"\n\n\"To fall?\" Miss Bart suggested.\n\n\"Don\'t be shocking! You know he believes in her still. And of course I\ndon\'t say there\'s any real harm in Bertha. Only she delights in making\npeople miserable, and especially poor George.\"\n\n\"Well, he seems cut out for the part--I don\'t wonder she likes more\ncheerful companionship.\"\n\n\"Oh, George is not as dismal as you think. If Bertha did worry him he\nwould be quite different. Or if she\'d leave him alone, and let him\narrange his life as he pleases. But she doesn\'t dare lose her hold of him\non account of the money, and so when HE isn\'t jealous she pretends to be.\"\n\nMiss Bart went on writing in silence, and her hostess sat following her\ntrain of thought with frowning intensity.\n\n\"Do you know,\" she exclaimed after a long pause, \"I believe I\'ll call up\nLawrence on the telephone and tell him he simply MUST come?\"\n\n\"Oh, don\'t,\" said Lily, with a quick suffusion of colour. The blush\nsurprised her almost as much as it did her hostess, who, though not\ncommonly observant of facial changes, sat staring at her with puzzled\neyes.\n\n\"Good gracious, Lily, how handsome you are! Why? Do you dislike him so\nmuch?\"\n\n\"Not at all; I like him. But if you are actuated by the benevolent\nintention of protecting me from Bertha--I don\'t think I need your\nprotection.\"\n\nMrs. Trenor sat up with an exclamation. \"Lily!----PERCY? Do you mean to\nsay you\'ve actually done it?\"\n\nMiss Bart smiled. \"I only mean to say that Mr. Gryce and I are getting to\nbe very good friends.\"\n\n\"H\'m--I see.\" Mrs. Trenor fixed a rapt eye upon her. \"You know they say\nhe has eight hundred thousand a year--and spends nothing, except on some\nrubbishy old books. And his mother has heart-disease and will leave him a\nlot more. OH, LILY, DO GO SLOWLY,\" her friend adjured her.\n\nMiss Bart continued to smile without annoyance. \"I shouldn\'t, for\ninstance,\" she remarked, \"be in any haste to tell him that he had a lot\nof rubbishy old books.\"\n\n\"No, of course not; I know you\'re wonderful about getting up people\'s\nsubjects. But he\'s horribly shy, and easily shocked, and--and----\"\n\n\"Why don\'t you say it, Judy? I have the reputation of being on the hunt\nfor a rich husband?\"\n\n\"Oh, I don\'t mean that; he wouldn\'t believe it of you--at first,\" said\nMrs. Trenor, with candid shrewdness. \"But you know things are rather\nlively here at times--I must give Jack and Gus a hint--and if he thought\nyou were what his mother would call fast--oh, well, you know what I mean.\nDon\'t wear your scarlet CREPE-DE-CHINE for dinner, and don\'t smoke if you\ncan help it, Lily dear!\"\n\nLily pushed aside her finished work with a dry smile. \"You\'re very kind,\nJudy: I\'ll lock up my cigarettes and wear that last year\'s dress you sent\nme this morning. And if you are really interested in my career, perhaps\nyou\'ll be kind enough not to ask me to play bridge again this evening.\"\n\n\"Bridge? Does he mind bridge, too? Oh, Lily, what an awful life you\'ll\nlead! But of course I won\'t--why didn\'t you give me a hint last night?\nThere\'s nothing I wouldn\'t do, you poor duck, to see you happy!\"\n\nAnd Mrs. Trenor, glowing with her sex\'s eagerness to smooth the course of\ntrue love, enveloped Lily in a long embrace.\n\n\"You\'re quite sure,\" she added solicitously, as the latter extricated\nherself, \"that you wouldn\'t like me to telephone for Lawrence Selden?\"\n\n\"Quite sure,\" said Lily.\n\n\n\nThe next three days demonstrated to her own complete satisfaction Miss\nBart\'s ability to manage her affairs without extraneous aid.\n\nAs she sat, on the Saturday afternoon, on the terrace at Bellomont, she\nsmiled at Mrs. Trenor\'s fear that she might go too fast. If such a\nwarning had ever been needful, the years had taught her a salutary\nlesson, and she flattered herself that she now knew how to adapt her pace\nto the object of pursuit. In the case of Mr. Gryce she had found it well\nto flutter ahead, losing herself elusively and luring him on from depth\nto depth of unconscious intimacy. The surrounding atmosphere was\npropitious to this scheme of courtship. Mrs. Trenor, true to her word,\nhad shown no signs of expecting Lily at the bridge-table, and had even\nhinted to the other card-players that they were to betray no surprise at\nher unwonted defection. In consequence of this hint, Lily found herself\nthe centre of that feminine solicitude which envelops a young woman in\nthe mating season. A solitude was tacitly created for her in the crowded\nexistence of Bellomont, and her friends could not have shown a greater\nreadiness for self-effacement had her wooing been adorned with all the\nattributes of romance. In Lily\'s set this conduct implied a sympathetic\ncomprehension of her motives, and Mr. Gryce rose in her esteem as she saw\nthe consideration he inspired.\n\nThe terrace at Bellomont on a September afternoon was a spot propitious\nto sentimental musings, and as Miss Bart stood leaning against the\nbalustrade above the sunken garden, at a little distance from the\nanimated group about the tea-table, she might have been lost in the mazes\nof an inarticulate happiness. In reality, her thoughts were finding\ndefinite utterance in the tranquil recapitulation of the blessings in\nstore for her. From where she stood she could see them embodied in the\nform of Mr. Gryce, who, in a light overcoat and muffler, sat somewhat\nnervously on the edge of his chair, while Carry Fisher, with all the\nenergy of eye and gesture with which nature and art had combined to endow\nher, pressed on him the duty of taking part in the task of municipal\nreform.\n\nMrs. Fisher\'s latest hobby was municipal reform. It had been preceded by\nan equal zeal for socialism, which had in turn replaced an energetic\nadvocacy of Christian Science. Mrs. Fisher was small, fiery and dramatic;\nand her hands and eyes were admirable instruments in the service of\nwhatever causes he happened to espouse. She had, however, the fault\ncommon to enthusiasts of ignoring any slackness of response on the part\nof her hearers, and Lily was amused by her unconsciousness of the\nresistance displayed in every angle of Mr. Gryce\'s attitude. Lily\nherself knew that his mind was divided between the dread of catching cold\nif he remained out of doors too long at that hour, and the fear that, if\nhe retreated to the house, Mrs. Fisher might follow him up with a paper\nto be signed. Mr. Gryce had a constitutional dislike to what he called\n\"committing himself,\" and tenderly as he cherished his health, he\nevidently concluded that it was safer to stay out of reach of pen and ink\ntill chance released him from Mrs. Fisher\'s toils. Meanwhile he cast\nagonized glances in the direction of Miss Bart, whose only response was\nto sink into an attitude of more graceful abstraction. She had learned\nthe value of contrast in throwing her charms into relief, and was fully\naware of the extent to which Mrs. Fisher\'s volubility was enhancing her\nown repose.\n\nShe was roused from her musings by the approach of her cousin Jack\nStepney who, at Gwen Van Osburgh\'s side, was returning across the garden\nfrom the tennis court.\n\nThe couple in question were engaged in the same kind of romance in which\nLily figured, and the latter felt a certain annoyance in contemplating\nwhat seemed to her a caricature of her own situation. Miss Van Osburgh\nwas a large girl with flat surfaces and no high lights: Jack Stepney had\nonce said of her that she was as reliable as roast mutton. His own taste\nwas in the line of less solid and more highly-seasoned diet; but hunger\nmakes any fare palatable, and there had been times when Mr. Stepney had\nbeen reduced to a crust.\n\nLily considered with interest the expression of their faces: the girl\'s\nturned toward her companion\'s like an empty plate held up to be filled,\nwhile the man lounging at her side already betrayed the encroaching\nboredom which would presently crack the thin veneer of his smile.\n\n\"How impatient men are!\" Lily reflected. \"All Jack has to do to get\neverything he wants is to keep quiet and let that girl marry him; whereas\nI have to calculate and contrive, and retreat and advance, as if I were\ngoing through an intricate dance, where one misstep would throw me\nhopelessly out of time.\"\n\nAs they drew nearer she was whimsically struck by a kind of family\nlikeness between Miss Van Osburgh and Percy Gryce. There was no\nresemblance of feature. Gryce was handsome in a didactic way--he looked\nlike a clever pupil\'s drawing from a plaster-cast--while Gwen\'s\ncountenance had no more modelling than a face painted on a toy balloon.\nBut the deeper affinity was unmistakable: the two had the same prejudices\nand ideals, and the same quality of making other standards non-existent\nby ignoring them. This attribute was common to most of Lily\'s set: they\nhad a force of negation which eliminated everything beyond their own\nrange of perception. Gryce and Miss Van Osburgh were, in short, made for\neach other by every law of moral and physical correspondence----\"Yet they\nwouldn\'t look at each other,\" Lily mused, \"they never do. Each of them\nwants a creature of a different race, of Jack\'s race and mine, with all\nsorts of intuitions, sensations and perceptions that they don\'t even\nguess the existence of. And they always get what they want.\"\n\nShe stood talking with her cousin and Miss Van Osburgh, till a slight\ncloud on the latter\'s brow advised her that even cousinly amenities were\nsubject to suspicion, and Miss Bart, mindful of the necessity of not\nexciting enmities at this crucial point of her career, dropped aside\nwhile the happy couple proceeded toward the tea-table.\n\nSeating herself on the upper step of the terrace, Lily leaned her head\nagainst the honeysuckles wreathing the balustrade. The fragrance of the\nlate blossoms seemed an emanation of the tranquil scene, a landscape\ntutored to the last degree of rural elegance. In the foreground glowed\nthe warm tints of the gardens. Beyond the lawn, with its pyramidal\npale-gold maples and velvety firs, sloped pastures dotted with cattle;\nand through a long glade the river widened like a lake under the silver\nlight of September. Lily did not want to join the circle about the\ntea-table. They represented the future she had chosen, and she was\ncontent with it, but in no haste to anticipate its joys. The certainty\nthat she could marry Percy Gryce when she pleased had lifted a heavy load\nfrom her mind, and her money troubles were too recent for their removal\nnot to leave a sense of relief which a less discerning intelligence might\nhave taken for happiness. Her vulgar cares were at an end. She would be\nable to arrange her life as she pleased, to soar into that empyrean of\nsecurity where creditors cannot penetrate. She would have smarter gowns\nthan Judy Trenor, and far, far more jewels than Bertha Dorset. She would\nbe free forever from the shifts, the expedients, the humiliations of the\nrelatively poor. Instead of having to flatter, she would be flattered;\ninstead of being grateful, she would receive thanks. There were old\nscores she could pay off as well as old benefits she could return. And\nshe had no doubts as to the extent of her power. She knew that Mr. Gryce\nwas of the small chary type most inaccessible to impulses and emotions.\nHe had the kind of character in which prudence is a vice, and good advice\nthe most dangerous nourishment. But Lily had known the species before:\nshe was aware that such a guarded nature must find one huge outlet of\negoism, and she determined to be to him what his Americana had hitherto\nbeen: the one possession in which he took sufficient pride to spend money\non it. She knew that this generosity to self is one of the forms of\nmeanness, and she resolved so to identify herself with her husband\'s\nvanity that to gratify her wishes would be to him the most exquisite form\nof self-indulgence. The system might at first necessitate a resort to\nsome of the very shifts and expedients from which she intended it should\nfree her; but she felt sure that in a short time she would be able to\nplay the game in her own way. How should she have distrusted her powers?\nHer beauty itself was not the mere ephemeral possession it might have\nbeen in the hands of inexperience: her skill in enhancing it, the care\nshe took of it, the use she made of it, seemed to give it a kind of\npermanence. She felt she could trust it to carry her through to the end.\n\nAnd the end, on the whole, was worthwhile. Life was not the mockery she\nhad thought it three days ago. There was room for her, after all, in this\ncrowded selfish world of pleasure whence, so short a time since, her\npoverty had seemed to exclude her. These people whom she had ridiculed\nand yet envied were glad to make a place for her in the charmed circle\nabout which all her desires revolved. They were not as brutal and\nself-engrossed as she had fancied--or rather, since it would no longer be\nnecessary to flatter and humour them, that side of their nature became\nless conspicuous. Society is a revolving body which is apt to be judged\naccording to its place in each man\'s heaven; and at present it was\nturning its illuminated face to Lily.\n\nIn the rosy glow it diffused her companions seemed full of amiable\nqualities. She liked their elegance, their lightness, their lack of\nemphasis: even the self-assurance which at times was so like obtuseness\nnow seemed the natural sign of social ascendency. They were lords of the\nonly world she cared for, and they were ready to admit her to their ranks\nand let her lord it with them. Already she felt within her a stealing\nallegiance to their standards, an acceptance of their limitations, a\ndisbelief in the things they did not believe in, a contemptuous pity for\nthe people who were not able to live as they lived.\n\nThe early sunset was slanting across the park. Through the boughs of the\nlong avenue beyond the gardens she caught the flash of wheels, and\ndivined that more visitors were approaching. There was a movement behind\nher, a scattering of steps and voices: it was evident that the party\nabout the tea-table was breaking up. Presently she heard a tread behind\nher on the terrace. She supposed that Mr. Gryce had at last found means\nto escape from his predicament, and she smiled at the significance of his\ncoming to join her instead of beating an instant retreat to the fire-side.\n\nShe turned to give him the welcome which such gallantry deserved; but her\ngreeting wavered into a blush of wonder, for the man who had approached\nher was Lawrence Selden.\n\n\"You see I came after all,\" he said; but before she had time to answer,\nMrs. Dorset, breaking away from a lifeless colloquy with her host, had\nstepped between them with a little gesture of appropriation.\n\n\n\nChapter 5\n\nThe observance of Sunday at Bellomont was chiefly marked by the punctual\nappearance of the smart omnibus destined to convey the household to the\nlittle church at the gates. Whether any one got into the omnibus or not\nwas a matter of secondary importance, since by standing there it not only\nbore witness to the orthodox intentions of the family, but made Mrs.\nTrenor feel, when she finally heard it drive away, that she had somehow\nvicariously made use of it.\n\nIt was Mrs. Trenor\'s theory that her daughters actually did go to church\nevery Sunday; but their French governess\'s convictions calling her to the\nrival fane, and the fatigues of the week keeping their mother in her room\ntill luncheon, there was seldom any one present to verify the fact. Now\nand then, in a spasmodic burst of virtue--when the house had been too\nuproarious over night--Gus Trenor forced his genial bulk into a tight\nfrock-coat and routed his daughters from their slumbers; but habitually,\nas Lily explained to Mr. Gryce, this parental duty was forgotten till the\nchurch bells were ringing across the park, and the omnibus had driven\naway empty.\n\nLily had hinted to Mr. Gryce that this neglect of religious observances\nwas repugnant to her early traditions, and that during her visits to\nBellomont she regularly accompanied Muriel and Hilda to church. This\ntallied with the assurance, also confidentially imparted, that, never\nhaving played bridge before, she had been \"dragged into it\" on the night\nof her arrival, and had lost an appalling amount of money in consequence\nof her ignorance of the game and of the rules of betting. Mr. Gryce was\nundoubtedly enjoying Bellomont. He liked the ease and glitter of the\nlife, and the lustre conferred on him by being a member of this group of\nrich and conspicuous people. But he thought it a very materialistic\nsociety; there were times when he was frightened by the talk of the men\nand the looks of the ladies, and he was glad to find that Miss Bart, for\nall her ease and self-possession, was not at home in so ambiguous an\natmosphere. For this reason he had been especially pleased to learn that\nshe would, as usual, attend the young Trenors to church on Sunday\nmorning; and as he paced the gravel sweep before the door, his light\novercoat on his arm and his prayer-book in one carefully-gloved hand, he\nreflected agreeably on the strength of character which kept her true to\nher early training in surroundings so subversive to religious principles.\n\nFor a long time Mr. Gryce and the omnibus had the gravel sweep to\nthemselves; but, far from regretting this deplorable indifference on the\npart of the other guests, he found himself nourishing the hope that Miss\nBart might be unaccompanied. The precious minutes were flying, however;\nthe big chestnuts pawed the ground and flecked their impatient sides with\nfoam; the coachman seemed to be slowly petrifying on the box, and the\ngroom on the doorstep; and still the lady did not come. Suddenly,\nhowever, there was a sound of voices and a rustle of skirts in the\ndoorway, and Mr. Gryce, restoring his watch to his pocket, turned with a\nnervous start; but it was only to find himself handing Mrs. Wetherall\ninto the carriage.\n\nThe Wetheralls always went to church. They belonged to the vast group of\nhuman automata who go through life without neglecting to perform a single\none of the gestures executed by the surrounding puppets. It is true that\nthe Bellomont puppets did not go to church; but others equally important\ndid--and Mr. and Mrs. Wetherall\'s circle was so large that God was\nincluded in their visiting-list. They appeared, therefore, punctual and\nresigned, with the air of people bound for a dull \"At Home,\" and after\nthem Hilda and Muriel straggled, yawning and pinning each other\'s veils\nand ribbons as they came. They had promised Lily to go to church with\nher, they declared, and Lily was such a dear old duck that they didn\'t\nmind doing it to please her, though they couldn\'t fancy what had put the\nidea in her head, and though for their own part they would much rather\nhave played lawn tennis with Jack and Gwen, if she hadn\'t told them she\nwas coming. The Misses Trenor were followed by Lady Cressida Raith, a\nweather-beaten person in Liberty silk and ethnological trinkets, who, on\nseeing the omnibus, expressed her surprise that they were not to walk\nacross the park; but at Mrs. Wetherall\'s horrified protest that the\nchurch was a mile away, her ladyship, after a glance at the height of the\nother\'s heels, acquiesced in the necessity of driving, and poor Mr. Gryce\nfound himself rolling off between four ladies for whose spiritual welfare\nhe felt not the least concern.\n\nIt might have afforded him some consolation could he have known that Miss\nBart had really meant to go to church. She had even risen earlier than\nusual in the execution of her purpose. She had an idea that the sight of\nher in a grey gown of devotional cut, with her famous lashes drooped\nabove a prayer-book, would put the finishing touch to Mr. Gryce\'s\nsubjugation, and render inevitable a certain incident which she had\nresolved should form a part of the walk they were to take together after\nluncheon. Her intentions in short had never been more definite; but poor\nLily, for all the hard glaze of her exterior, was inwardly as malleable\nas wax. Her faculty for adapting herself, for entering into other\npeople\'s feelings, if it served her now and then in small contingencies,\nhampered her in the decisive moments of life. She was like a water-plant\nin the flux of the tides, and today the whole current of her mood was\ncarrying her toward Lawrence Selden. Why had he come? Was it to see\nherself or Bertha Dorset? It was the last question which, at that\nmoment, should have engaged her. She might better have contented herself\nwith thinking that he had simply responded to the despairing summons of\nhis hostess, anxious to interpose him between herself and the ill-humour\nof Mrs. Dorset. But Lily had not rested till she learned from Mrs. Trenor\nthat Selden had come of his own accord. \"He didn\'t even wire me--he just\nhappened to find the trap at the station. Perhaps it\'s not over with\nBertha after all,\" Mrs. Trenor musingly concluded; and went away to\narrange her dinner-cards accordingly.\n\nPerhaps it was not, Lily reflected; but it should be soon, unless she had\nlost her cunning. If Selden had come at Mrs. Dorset\'s call, it was at her\nown that he would stay. So much the previous evening had told her. Mrs.\nTrenor, true to her simple principle of making her married friends happy,\nhad placed Selden and Mrs. Dorset next to each other at dinner; but, in\nobedience to the time-honoured traditions of the match-maker, she had\nseparated Lily and Mr. Gryce, sending in the former with George Dorset,\nwhile Mr. Gryce was coupled with Gwen Van Osburgh.\n\nGeorge Dorset\'s talk did not interfere with the range of his neighbour\'s\nthoughts. He was a mournful dyspeptic, intent on finding out the\ndeleterious ingredients of every dish and diverted from this care only by\nthe sound of his wife\'s voice. On this occasion, however, Mrs. Dorset\ntook no part in the general conversation. She sat talking in low murmurs\nwith Selden, and turning a contemptuous and denuded shoulder toward her\nhost, who, far from resenting his exclusion, plunged into the excesses of\nthe MENU with the joyous irresponsibility of a free man. To Mr. Dorset,\nhowever, his wife\'s attitude was a subject of such evident concern that,\nwhen he was not scraping the sauce from his fish, or scooping the moist\nbread-crumbs from the interior of his roll, he sat straining his thin\nneck for a glimpse of her between the lights.\n\nMrs. Trenor, as it chanced, had placed the husband and wife on opposite\nsides of the table, and Lily was therefore able to observe Mrs. Dorset\nalso, and by carrying her glance a few feet farther, to set up a rapid\ncomparison between Lawrence Selden and Mr. Gryce. It was that comparison\nwhich was her undoing. Why else had she suddenly grown interested in\nSelden? She had known him for eight years or more: ever since her return\nto America he had formed a part of her background. She had always been\nglad to sit next to him at dinner, had found him more agreeable than most\nmen, and had vaguely wished that he possessed the other qualities needful\nto fix her attention; but till now she had been too busy with her own\naffairs to regard him as more than one of the pleasant accessories of\nlife. Miss Bart was a keen reader of her own heart, and she saw that her\nsudden preoccupation with Selden was due to the fact that his presence\nshed a new light on her surroundings. Not that he was notably brilliant\nor exceptional; in his own profession he was surpassed by more than one\nman who had bored Lily through many a weary dinner. It was rather that he\nhad preserved a certain social detachment, a happy air of viewing the\nshow objectively, of having points of contact outside the great gilt cage\nin which they were all huddled for the mob to gape at. How alluring the\nworld outside the cage appeared to Lily, as she heard its door clang on\nher! In reality, as she knew, the door never clanged: it stood always\nopen; but most of the captives were like flies in a bottle, and having\nonce flown in, could never regain their freedom. It was Selden\'s\ndistinction that he had never forgotten the way out.\n\nThat was the secret of his way of readjusting her vision. Lily, turning\nher eyes from him, found herself scanning her little world through his\nretina: it was as though the pink lamps had been shut off and the dusty\ndaylight let in. She looked down the long table, studying its occupants\none by one, from Gus Trenor, with his heavy carnivorous head sunk between\nhis shoulders, as he preyed on a jellied plover, to his wife, at the\nopposite end of the long bank of orchids, suggestive, with her glaring\ngood-looks, of a jeweller\'s window lit by electricity. And between the\ntwo, what a long stretch of vacuity! How dreary and trivial these people\nwere! Lily reviewed them with a scornful impatience: Carry Fisher, with\nher shoulders, her eyes, her divorces, her general air of embodying a\n\"spicy paragraph\"; young Silverton, who had meant to live on\nproof-reading and write an epic, and who now lived on his friends and had\nbecome critical of truffles; Alice Wetherall, an animated visiting-list,\nwhose most fervid convictions turned on the wording of invitations and\nthe engraving of dinner-cards; Wetherall, with his perpetual nervous nod\nof acquiescence, his air of agreeing with people before he knew what they\nwere saying; Jack Stepney, with his confident smile and anxious eyes,\nhalf way between the sheriff and an heiress; Gwen Van Osburgh, with all\nthe guileless confidence of a young girl who has always been told that\nthere is no one richer than her father.\n\nLily smiled at her classification of her friends. How different they had\nseemed to her a few hours ago! Then they had symbolized what she was\ngaining, now they stood for what she was giving up. That very afternoon\nthey had seemed full of brilliant qualities; now she saw that they were\nmerely dull in a loud way. Under the glitter of their opportunities she\nsaw the poverty of their achievement. It was not that she wanted them to\nbe more disinterested; but she would have liked them to be more\npicturesque. And she had a shamed recollection of the way in which, a few\nhours since, she had felt the centripetal force of their standards. She\nclosed her eyes an instant, and the vacuous routine of the life she had\nchosen stretched before her like a long white road without dip or\nturning: it was true she was to roll over it in a carriage instead of\ntrudging it on foot, but sometimes the pedestrian enjoys the diversion of\na short cut which is denied to those on wheels.\n\nShe was roused by a chuckle which Mr. Dorset seemed to eject from the\ndepths of his lean throat.\n\n\"I say, do look at her,\" he exclaimed, turning to Miss Bart with\nlugubrious merriment--\"I beg your pardon, but do just look at my wife\nmaking a fool of that poor devil over there! One would really suppose she\nwas gone on him--and it\'s all the other way round, I assure you.\"\n\nThus adjured, Lily turned her eyes on the spectacle which was affording\nMr. Dorset such legitimate mirth. It certainly appeared, as he said, that\nMrs. Dorset was the more active participant in the scene: her neighbour\nseemed to receive her advances with a temperate zest which did not\ndistract him from his dinner. The sight restored Lily\'s good humour, and\nknowing the peculiar disguise which Mr. Dorset\'s marital fears assumed,\nshe asked gaily: \"Aren\'t you horribly jealous of her?\"\n\nDorset greeted the sally with delight. \"Oh, abominably--you\'ve just hit\nit--keeps me awake at night. The doctors tell me that\'s what has knocked\nmy digestion out--being so infernally jealous of her.--I can\'t eat a\nmouthful of this stuff, you know,\" he added suddenly, pushing back his\nplate with a clouded countenance; and Lily, unfailingly adaptable,\naccorded her radiant attention to his prolonged denunciation of other\npeople\'s cooks, with a supplementary tirade on the toxic qualities of\nmelted butter.\n\nIt was not often that he found so ready an ear; and, being a man as well\nas a dyspeptic, it may be that as he poured his grievances into it he was\nnot insensible to its rosy symmetry. At any rate he engaged Lily so long\nthat the sweets were being handed when she caught a phrase on her other\nside, where Miss Corby, the comic woman of the company, was bantering\nJack Stepney on his approaching engagement. Miss Corby\'s role was\njocularity: she always entered the conversation with a handspring.\n\n\"And of course you\'ll have Sim Rosedale as best man!\" Lily heard her\nfling out as the climax of her prognostications; and Stepney responded,\nas if struck: \"Jove, that\'s an idea. What a thumping present I\'d get out\nof him!\"\n\nSIM ROSEDALE! The name, made more odious by its diminutive, obtruded\nitself on Lily\'s thoughts like a leer. It stood for one of the many hated\npossibilities hovering on the edge of life. If she did not marry Percy\nGryce, the day might come when she would have to be civil to such men as\nRosedale. IF SHE DID NOT MARRY HIM? But she meant to marry him--she was\nsure of him and sure of herself. She drew back with a shiver from the\npleasant paths in which her thoughts had been straying, and set her feet\nonce more in the middle of the long white road.... When she went\nupstairs that night she found that the late post had brought her a fresh\nbatch of bills. Mrs. Peniston, who was a conscientious woman, had\nforwarded them all to Bellomont.\n\nMiss Bart, accordingly, rose the next morning with the most earnest\nconviction that it was her duty to go to church. She tore herself betimes\nfrom the lingering enjoyment of her breakfast-tray, rang to have her grey\ngown laid out, and despatched her maid to borrow a prayer-book from Mrs.\nTrenor.\n\nBut her course was too purely reasonable not to contain the germs of\nrebellion. No sooner were her preparations made than they roused a\nsmothered sense of resistance. A small spark was enough to kindle Lily\'s\nimagination, and the sight of the grey dress and the borrowed prayer-book\nflashed a long light down the years. She would have to go to church with\nPercy Gryce every Sunday. They would have a front pew in the most\nexpensive church in New York, and his name would figure handsomely in the\nlist of parish charities. In a few years, when he grew stouter, he would\nbe made a warden. Once in the winter the rector would come to dine, and\nher husband would beg her to go over the list and see that no DIVORCEES\nwere included, except those who had showed signs of penitence by being\nre-married to the very wealthy. There was nothing especially arduous in\nthis round of religious obligations; but it stood for a fraction of that\ngreat bulk of boredom which loomed across her path. And who could consent\nto be bored on such a morning? Lily had slept well, and her bath had\nfilled her with a pleasant glow, which was becomingly reflected in the\nclear curve of her cheek. No lines were visible this morning, or else the\nglass was at a happier angle.\n\nAnd the day was the accomplice of her mood: it was a day for impulse and\ntruancy. The light air seemed full of powdered gold; below the dewy bloom\nof the lawns the woodlands blushed and smouldered, and the hills across\nthe river swam in molten blue. Every drop of blood in Lily\'s veins\ninvited her to happiness.\n\nThe sound of wheels roused her from these musings, and leaning behind her\nshutters she saw the omnibus take up its freight. She was too late,\nthen--but the fact did not alarm her. A glimpse of Mr. Gryce\'s\ncrestfallen face even suggested that she had done wisely in absenting\nherself, since the disappointment he so candidly betrayed would surely\nwhet his appetite for the afternoon walk. That walk she did not mean to\nmiss; one glance at the bills on her writing-table was enough to recall\nits necessity. But meanwhile she had the morning to herself, and could\nmuse pleasantly on the disposal of its hours. She was familiar enough\nwith the habits of Bellomont to know that she was likely to have a free\nfield till luncheon. She had seen the Wetheralls, the Trenor girls and\nLady Cressida packed safely into the omnibus; Judy Trenor was sure to be\nhaving her hair shampooed; Carry Fisher had doubtless carried off her\nhost for a drive; Ned Silverton was probably smoking the cigarette of\nyoung despair in his bedroom; and Kate Corby was certain to be playing\ntennis with Jack Stepney and Miss Van Osburgh. Of the ladies, this left\nonly Mrs. Dorset unaccounted for, and Mrs. Dorset never came down till\nluncheon: her doctors, she averred, had forbidden her to expose herself\nto the crude air of the morning.\n\nTo the remaining members of the party Lily gave no special thought;\nwherever they were, they were not likely to interfere with her plans.\nThese, for the moment, took the shape of assuming a dress somewhat more\nrustic and summerlike in style than the garment she had first selected,\nand rustling downstairs, sunshade in hand, with the disengaged air of a\nlady in quest of exercise. The great hall was empty but for the knot of\ndogs by the fire, who, taking in at a glance the outdoor aspect of Miss\nBart, were upon her at once with lavish offers of companionship. She put\naside the ramming paws which conveyed these offers, and assuring the\njoyous volunteers that she might presently have a use for their company,\nsauntered on through the empty drawing-room to the library at the end of\nthe house. The library was almost the only surviving portion of the old\nmanor-house of Bellomont: a long spacious room, revealing the traditions\nof the mother-country in its classically-cased doors, the Dutch tiles of\nthe chimney, and the elaborate hob-grate with its shining brass urns. A\nfew family portraits of lantern-jawed gentlemen in tie-wigs, and ladies\nwith large head-dresses and small bodies, hung between the shelves lined\nwith pleasantly-shabby books: books mostly contemporaneous with the\nancestors in question, and to which the subsequent Trenors had made no\nperceptible additions. The library at Bellomont was in fact never used\nfor reading, though it had a certain popularity as a smoking-room or a\nquiet retreat for flirtation. It had occurred to Lily, however, that it\nmight on this occasion have been resorted to by the only member of the\nparty in the least likely to put it to its original use. She advanced\nnoiselessly over the dense old rug scattered with easy-chairs, and before\nshe reached the middle of the room she saw that she had not been\nmistaken. Lawrence Selden was in fact seated at its farther end; but\nthough a book lay on his knee, his attention was not engaged with it, but\ndirected to a lady whose lace-clad figure, as she leaned back in an\nadjoining chair, detached itself with exaggerated slimness against the\ndusky leather upholstery.\n\nLily paused as she caught sight of the group; for a moment she seemed\nabout to withdraw, but thinking better of this, she announced her\napproach by a slight shake of her skirts which made the couple raise\ntheir heads, Mrs. Dorset with a look of frank displeasure, and Selden\nwith his usual quiet smile. The sight of his composure had a disturbing\neffect on Lily; but to be disturbed was in her case to make a more\nbrilliant effort at self-possession.\n\n\"Dear me, am I late?\" she asked, putting a hand in his as he advanced to\ngreet her.\n\n\"Late for what?\" enquired Mrs. Dorset tartly. \"Not for luncheon,\ncertainly--but perhaps you had an earlier engagement?\"\n\n\"Yes, I had,\" said Lily confidingly.\n\n\"Really? Perhaps I am in the way, then? But Mr. Selden is entirely at\nyour disposal.\" Mrs. Dorset was pale with temper, and her antagonist felt\na certain pleasure in prolonging her distress.\n\n\"Oh, dear, no--do stay,\" she said good-humouredly. \"I don\'t in the least\nwant to drive you away.\"\n\n\"You\'re awfully good, dear, but I never interfere with Mr. Selden\'s\nengagements.\"\n\nThe remark was uttered with a little air of proprietorship not lost on\nits object, who concealed a faint blush of annoyance by stooping to pick\nup the book he had dropped at Lily\'s approach. The latter\'s eyes widened\ncharmingly and she broke into a light laugh.\n\n\"But I have no engagement with Mr. Selden! My engagement was to go to\nchurch; and I\'m afraid the omnibus has started without me. HAS it\nstarted, do you know?\"\n\nShe turned to Selden, who replied that he had heard it drive away some\ntime since.\n\n\"Ah, then I shall have to walk; I promised Hilda and Muriel to go to\nchurch with them. It\'s too late to walk there, you say? Well, I shall\nhave the credit of trying, at any rate--and the advantage of escaping\npart of the service. I\'m not so sorry for myself, after all!\"\n\nAnd with a bright nod to the couple on whom she had intruded, Miss Bart\nstrolled through the glass doors and carried her rustling grace down the\nlong perspective of the garden walk.\n\nShe was taking her way churchward, but at no very quick pace; a fact not\nlost on one of her observers, who stood in the doorway looking after her\nwith an air of puzzled amusement. The truth is that she was conscious of\na somewhat keen shock of disappointment. All her plans for the day had\nbeen built on the assumption that it was to see her that Selden had come\nto Bellomont. She had expected, when she came downstairs, to find him on\nthe watch for her; and she had found him, instead, in a situation which\nmight well denote that he had been on the watch for another lady. Was it\npossible, after all, that he had come for Bertha Dorset? The latter had\nacted on the assumption to the extent of appearing at an hour when she\nnever showed herself to ordinary mortals, and Lily, for the moment, saw\nno way of putting her in the wrong. It did not occur to her that Selden\nmight have been actuated merely by the desire to spend a Sunday out of\ntown: women never learn to dispense with the sentimental motive in their\njudgments of men. But Lily was not easily disconcerted; competition put\nher on her mettle, and she reflected that Selden\'s coming, if it did not\ndeclare him to be still in Mrs. Dorset\'s toils, showed him to be so\ncompletely free from them that he was not afraid of her proximity.\n\nThese thoughts so engaged her that she fell into a gait hardly likely to\ncarry her to church before the sermon, and at length, having passed from\nthe gardens to the wood-path beyond, so far forgot her intention as to\nsink into a rustic seat at a bend of the walk. The spot was charming, and\nLily was not insensible to the charm, or to the fact that her presence\nenhanced it; but she was not accustomed to taste the joys of solitude\nexcept in company, and the combination of a handsome girl and a romantic\nscene struck her as too good to be wasted. No one, however, appeared to\nprofit by the opportunity; and after a half hour of fruitless waiting she\nrose and wandered on. She felt a stealing sense of fatigue as she walked;\nthe sparkle had died out of her, and the taste of life was stale on her\nlips. She hardly knew what she had been seeking, or why the failure to\nfind it had so blotted the light from her sky: she was only aware of a\nvague sense of failure, of an inner isolation deeper than the loneliness\nabout her.\n\nHer footsteps flagged, and she stood gazing listlessly ahead, digging the\nferny edge of the path with the tip of her sunshade. As she did so a\nstep sounded behind her, and she saw Selden at her side.\n\n\"How fast you walk!\" he remarked. \"I thought I should never catch up with\nyou.\"\n\nShe answered gaily: \"You must be quite breathless! I\'ve been sitting\nunder that tree for an hour.\"\n\n\"Waiting for me, I hope?\" he rejoined; and she said with a vague laugh:\n\n\"Well--waiting to see if you would come.\"\n\n\"I seize the distinction, but I don\'t mind it, since doing the one\ninvolved doing the other. But weren\'t you sure that I should come?\"\n\n\"If I waited long enough--but you see I had only a limited time to give\nto the experiment.\"\n\n\"Why limited? Limited by luncheon?\"\n\n\"No; by my other engagement.\"\n\n\"Your engagement to go to church with Muriel and Hilda?\"\n\n\"No; but to come home from church with another person.\"\n\n\"Ah, I see; I might have known you were fully provided with alternatives.\nAnd is the other person coming home this way?\"\n\nLily laughed again. \"That\'s just what I don\'t know; and to find out, it\nis my business to get to church before the service is over.\"\n\n\"Exactly; and it is my business to prevent your doing so; in which case\nthe other person, piqued by your absence, will form the desperate resolve\nof driving back in the omnibus.\"\n\nLily received this with fresh appreciation; his nonsense was like the\nbubbling of her inner mood. \"Is that what you would do in such an\nemergency?\" she enquired.\n\nSelden looked at her with solemnity. \"I am here to prove to you,\" he\ncried, \"what I am capable of doing in an emergency!\"\n\n\"Walking a mile in an hour--you must own that the omnibus would be\nquicker!\"\n\n\"Ah--but will he find you in the end? That\'s the only test of success.\"\n\nThey looked at each other with the same luxury of enjoyment that they had\nfelt in exchanging absurdities over his tea-table; but suddenly Lily\'s\nface changed, and she said: \"Well, if it is, he has succeeded.\"\n\nSelden, following her glance, perceived a party of people advancing\ntoward them from the farther bend of the path. Lady Cressida had\nevidently insisted on walking home, and the rest of the church-goers had\nthought it their duty to accompany her. Lily\'s companion looked rapidly\nfrom one to the other of the two men of the party; Wetherall walking\nrespectfully at Lady Cressida\'s side with his little sidelong look of\nnervous attention, and Percy Gryce bringing up the rear with Mrs.\nWetherall and the Trenors.\n\n\"Ah--now I see why you were getting up your Americana!\" Selden exclaimed\nwith a note of the freest admiration but the blush with which the sally\nwas received checked whatever amplifications he had meant to give it.\n\nThat Lily Bart should object to being bantered about her suitors, or even\nabout her means of attracting them, was so new to Selden that he had a\nmomentary flash of surprise, which lit up a number of possibilities; but\nshe rose gallantly to the defence of her confusion, by saying, as its\nobject approached: \"That was why I was waiting for you--to thank you for\nhaving given me so many points!\"\n\n\"Ah, you can hardly do justice to the subject in such a short time,\" said\nSelden, as the Trenor girls caught sight of Miss Bart; and while she\nsignalled a response to their boisterous greeting, he added quickly:\n\"Won\'t you devote your afternoon to it? You know I must be off tomorrow\nmorning. We\'ll take a walk, and you can thank me at your leisure.\"\n\n\n\nChapter 6\n\nThe afternoon was perfect. A deeper stillness possessed the air, and the\nglitter of the American autumn was tempered by a haze which diffused the\nbrightness without dulling it.\n\nIn the woody hollows of the park there was already a faint chill; but as\nthe ground rose the air grew lighter, and ascending the long slopes\nbeyond the high-road, Lily and her companion reached a zone of lingering\nsummer. The path wound across a meadow with scattered trees; then it\ndipped into a lane plumed with asters and purpling sprays of bramble,\nwhence, through the light quiver of ash-leaves, the country unrolled\nitself in pastoral distances.\n\nHigher up, the lane showed thickening tufts of fern and of the creeping\nglossy verdure of shaded slopes; trees began to overhang it, and the\nshade deepened to the checkered dusk of a beech-grove. The boles of the\ntrees stood well apart, with only a light feathering of undergrowth; the\npath wound along the edge of the wood, now and then looking out on a\nsunlit pasture or on an orchard spangled with fruit.\n\nLily had no real intimacy with nature, but she had a passion for the\nappropriate and could be keenly sensitive to a scene which was the\nfitting background of her own sensations. The landscape outspread below\nher seemed an enlargement of her present mood, and she found something of\nherself in its calmness, its breadth, its long free reaches. On the\nnearer slopes the sugar-maples wavered like pyres of light; lower down\nwas a massing of grey orchards, and here and there the lingering green of\nan oak-grove. Two or three red farm-houses dozed under the apple-trees,\nand the white wooden spire of a village church showed beyond the shoulder\nof the hill; while far below, in a haze of dust, the high-road ran\nbetween the fields.\n\n\"Let us sit here,\" Selden suggested, as they reached an open ledge of\nrock above which the beeches rose steeply between mossy boulders.\n\nLily dropped down on the rock, glowing with her long climb. She sat\nquiet, her lips parted by the stress of the ascent, her eyes wandering\npeacefully over the broken ranges of the landscape. Selden stretched\nhimself on the grass at her feet, tilting his hat against the level\nsun-rays, and clasping his hands behind his head, which rested against\nthe side of the rock. He had no wish to make her talk; her\nquick-breathing silence seemed a part of the general hush and harmony of\nthings. In his own mind there was only a lazy sense of pleasure, veiling\nthe sharp edges of sensation as the September haze veiled the scene at\ntheir feet. But Lily, though her attitude was as calm as his, was\nthrobbing inwardly with a rush of thoughts. There were in her at the\nmoment two beings, one drawing deep breaths of freedom and exhilaration,\nthe other gasping for air in a little black prison-house of fears. But\ngradually the captive\'s gasps grew fainter, or the other paid less heed\nto them: the horizon expanded, the air grew stronger, and the free spirit\nquivered for flight.\n\nShe could not herself have explained the sense of buoyancy which seemed\nto lift and swing her above the sun-suffused world at her feet. Was it\nlove, she wondered, or a mere fortuitous combination of happy thoughts\nand sensations? How much of it was owing to the spell of the perfect\nafternoon, the scent of the fading woods, the thought of the dulness she\nhad fled from? Lily had no definite experience by which to test the\nquality of her feelings. She had several times been in love with\nfortunes or careers, but only once with a man. That was years ago, when\nshe first came out, and had been smitten with a romantic passion for a\nyoung gentleman named Herbert Melson, who had blue eyes and a little wave\nin his hair. Mr. Melson, who was possessed of no other negotiable\nsecurities, had hastened to employ these in capturing the eldest Miss Van\nOsburgh: since then he had grown stout and wheezy, and was given to\ntelling anecdotes about his children. If Lily recalled this early emotion\nit was not to compare it with that which now possessed her; the only\npoint of comparison was the sense of lightness, of emancipation, which\nshe remembered feeling, in the whirl of a waltz or the seclusion of a\nconservatory, during the brief course of her youthful romance. She had\nnot known again till today that lightness, that glow of freedom; but now\nit was something more than a blind groping of the blood. The peculiar\ncharm of her feeling for Selden was that she understood it; she could put\nher finger on every link of the chain that was drawing them together.\nThough his popularity was of the quiet kind, felt rather than actively\nexpressed among his friends, she had never mistaken his inconspicuousness\nfor obscurity. His reputed cultivation was generally regarded as a slight\nobstacle to easy intercourse, but Lily, who prided herself on her\nbroad-minded recognition of literature, and always carried an Omar Khayam\nin her travelling-bag, was attracted by this attribute, which she felt\nwould have had its distinction in an older society. It was, moreover, one\nof his gifts to look his part; to have a height which lifted his head\nabove the crowd, and the keenly-modelled dark features which, in a land\nof amorphous types, gave him the air of belonging to a more specialized\nrace, of carrying the impress of a concentrated past. Expansive persons\nfound him a little dry, and very young girls thought him sarcastic; but\nthis air of friendly aloofness, as far removed as possible from any\nassertion of personal advantage, was the quality which piqued Lily\'s\ninterest. Everything about him accorded with the fastidious element in\nher taste, even to the light irony with which he surveyed what seemed to\nher most sacred. She admired him most of all, perhaps, for being able to\nconvey as distinct a sense of superiority as the richest man she had ever\nmet.\n\nIt was the unconscious prolongation of this thought which led her to say\npresently, with a laugh: \"I have broken two engagements for you today.\nHow many have you broken for me?\"\n\n\"None,\" said Selden calmly. \"My only engagement at Bellomont was with\nyou.\"\n\nShe glanced down at him, faintly smiling.\n\n\"Did you really come to Bellomont to see me?\"\n\n\"Of course I did.\"\n\nHer look deepened meditatively. \"Why?\" she murmured, with an accent which\ntook all tinge of coquetry from the question.\n\n\"Because you\'re such a wonderful spectacle: I always like to see what you\nare doing.\"\n\n\"How do you know what I should be doing if you were not here?\"\n\nSelden smiled. \"I don\'t flatter myself that my coming has deflected your\ncourse of action by a hair\'s breadth.\"\n\n\"That\'s absurd--since, if you were not here, I could obviously not be\ntaking a walk with you.\"\n\n\"No; but your taking a walk with me is only another way of making use of\nyour material. You are an artist and I happen to be the bit of colour you\nare using today. It\'s a part of your cleverness to be able to produce\npremeditated effects extemporaneously.\"\n\nLily smiled also: his words were too acute not to strike her sense of\nhumour. It was true that she meant to use the accident of his presence as\npart of a very definite effect; or that, at least, was the secret pretext\nshe had found for breaking her promise to walk with Mr. Gryce. She had\nsometimes been accused of being too eager--even Judy Trenor had warned\nher to go slowly. Well, she would not be too eager in this case; she\nwould give her suitor a longer taste of suspense. Where duty and\ninclination jumped together, it was not in Lily\'s nature to hold them\nasunder. She had excused herself from the walk on the plea of a headache:\nthe horrid headache which, in the morning, had prevented her venturing to\nchurch. Her appearance at luncheon justified the excuse. She looked\nlanguid, full of a suffering sweetness; she carried a scent-bottle in her\nhand. Mr. Gryce was new to such manifestations; he wondered rather\nnervously if she were delicate, having far-reaching fears about the\nfuture of his progeny. But sympathy won the day, and he besought her not\nto expose herself: he always connected the outer air with ideas of\nexposure.\n\nLily had received his sympathy with languid gratitude, urging him, since\nshe should be such poor company, to join the rest of the party who, after\nluncheon, were starting in automobiles on a visit to the Van Osburghs at\nPeekskill. Mr. Gryce was touched by her disinterestedness, and, to escape\nfrom the threatened vacuity of the afternoon, had taken her advice and\ndeparted mournfully, in a dust-hood and goggles: as the motor-car plunged\ndown the avenue she smiled at his resemblance to a baffled beetle. Selden\nhad watched her manoeuvres with lazy amusement. She had made no reply to\nhis suggestion that they should spend the afternoon together, but as her\nplan unfolded itself he felt fairly confident of being included in it.\nThe house was empty when at length he heard her step on the stair and\nstrolled out of the billiard-room to join her.\n\nShe had on a hat and walking-dress, and the dogs were bounding at her\nfeet.\n\n\"I thought, after all, the air might do me good,\" she explained; and he\nagreed that so simple a remedy was worth trying.\n\nThe excursionists would be gone at least four hours; Lily and Selden had\nthe whole afternoon before them, and the sense of leisure and safety gave\nthe last touch of lightness to her spirit. With so much time to talk, and\nno definite object to be led up to, she could taste the rare joys of\nmental vagrancy.\n\nShe felt so free from ulterior motives that she took up his charge with a\ntouch of resentment.\n\n\"I don\'t know,\" she said, \"why you are always accusing me of\npremeditation.\"\n\n\"I thought you confessed to it: you told me the other day that you had to\nfollow a certain line--and if one does a thing at all it is a merit to do\nit thoroughly.\"\n\n\"If you mean that a girl who has no one to think for her is obliged to\nthink for herself, I am quite willing to accept the imputation. But you\nmust find me a dismal kind of person if you suppose that I never yield to\nan impulse.\"\n\n\"Ah, but I don\'t suppose that: haven\'t I told you that your genius lies\nin converting impulses into intentions?\"\n\n\"My genius?\" she echoed with a sudden note of weariness. \"Is there any\nfinal test of genius but success? And I certainly haven\'t succeeded.\"\n\nSelden pushed his hat back and took a side-glance at her. \"Success--what\nis success? I shall be interested to have your definition.\"\n\n\"Success?\" She hesitated. \"Why, to get as much as one can out of life, I\nsuppose. It\'s a relative quality, after all. Isn\'t that your idea of it?\"\n\n\"My idea of it? God forbid!\" He sat up with sudden energy, resting his\nelbows on his knees and staring out upon the mellow fields. \"My idea of\nsuccess,\" he said, \"is personal freedom.\"\n\n\"Freedom? Freedom from worries?\"\n\n\"From everything--from money, from poverty, from ease and anxiety, from\nall the material accidents. To keep a kind of republic of the\nspirit--that\'s what I call success.\"\n\nShe leaned forward with a responsive flash. \"I know--I know--it\'s\nstrange; but that\'s just what I\'ve been feeling today.\"\n\nHe met her eyes with the latent sweetness of his. \"Is the feeling so rare\nwith you?\" he said.\n\nShe blushed a little under his gaze. \"You think me horribly sordid, don\'t\nyou? But perhaps it\'s rather that I never had any choice. There was no\none, I mean, to tell me about the republic of the spirit.\"\n\n\"There never is--it\'s a country one has to find the way to one\'s self.\"\n\n\"But I should never have found my way there if you hadn\'t told me.\"\n\n\"Ah, there are sign-posts--but one has to know how to read them.\"\n\n\"Well, I have known, I have known!\" she cried with a glow of eagerness.\n\"Whenever I see you, I find myself spelling out a letter of the sign--and\nyesterday--last evening at dinner--I suddenly saw a little way into your\nrepublic.\"\n\nSelden was still looking at her, but with a changed eye. Hitherto he had\nfound, in her presence and her talk, the aesthetic amusement which a\nreflective man is apt to seek in desultory intercourse with pretty women.\nHis attitude had been one of admiring spectatorship, and he would have\nbeen almost sorry to detect in her any emotional weakness which should\ninterfere with the fulfilment of her aims. But now the hint of this\nweakness had become the most interesting thing about her. He had come on\nher that morning in a moment of disarray; her face had been pale and\naltered, and the diminution of her beauty had lent her a poignant charm.\nTHAT IS HOW SHE LOOKS WHEN SHE IS ALONE! had been his first thought; and\nthe second was to note in her the change which his coming produced. It\nwas the danger-point of their intercourse that he could not doubt the\nspontaneity of her liking. From whatever angle he viewed their dawning\nintimacy, he could not see it as part of her scheme of life; and to be\nthe unforeseen element in a career so accurately planned was stimulating\neven to a man who had renounced sentimental experiments.\n\n\"Well,\" he said, \"did it make you want to see more? Are you going to\nbecome one of us?\"\n\nHe had drawn out his cigarettes as he spoke, and she reached her hand\ntoward the case.\n\n\"Oh, do give me one--I haven\'t smoked for days!\"\n\n\"Why such unnatural abstinence? Everybody smokes at Bellomont.\"\n\n\"Yes--but it is not considered becoming in a JEUNE FILLE A MARIER; and at\nthe present moment I am a JEUNE FILLE A MARIER.\"\n\n\"Ah, then I\'m afraid we can\'t let you into the republic.\"\n\n\"Why not? Is it a celibate order?\"\n\n\"Not in the least, though I\'m bound to say there are not many married\npeople in it. But you will marry some one very rich, and it\'s as hard for\nrich people to get into as the kingdom of heaven.\"\n\n\"That\'s unjust, I think, because, as I understand it, one of the\nconditions of citizenship is not to think too much about money, and the\nonly way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it.\"\n\n\"You might as well say that the only way not to think about air is to\nhave enough to breathe. That is true enough in a sense; but your lungs\nare thinking about the air, if you are not. And so it is with your rich\npeople--they may not be thinking of money, but they\'re breathing it all\nthe while; take them into another element and see how they squirm and\ngasp!\"\n\nLily sat gazing absently through the blue rings of her cigarette-smoke.\n\n\"It seems to me,\" she said at length, \"that you spend a good deal of your\ntime in the element you disapprove of.\"\n\nSelden received this thrust without discomposure. \"Yes; but I have tried\nto remain amphibious: it\'s all right as long as one\'s lungs can work in\nanother air. The real alchemy consists in being able to turn gold back\nagain into something else; and that\'s the secret that most of your\nfriends have lost.\"\n\nLily mused. \"Don\'t you think,\" she rejoined after a moment, \"that the\npeople who find fault with society are too apt to regard it as an end and\nnot a means, just as the people who despise money speak as if its only\nuse were to be kept in bags and gloated over? Isn\'t it fairer to look at\nthem both as opportunities, which may be used either stupidly or\nintelligently, according to the capacity of the user?\"\n\n\"That is certainly the sane view; but the queer thing about society is\nthat the people who regard it as an end are those who are in it, and not\nthe critics on the fence. It\'s just the other way with most shows--the\naudience may be under the illusion, but the actors know that real life is\non the other side of the footlights. The people who take society as an\nescape from work are putting it to its proper use; but when it becomes\nthe thing worked for it distorts all the relations of life.\" Selden\nraised himself on his elbow. \"Good heavens!\" he went on, \"I don\'t\nunderrate the decorative side of life. It seems to me the sense of\nsplendour has justified itself by what it has produced. The worst of it\nis that so much human nature is used up in the process. If we\'re all the\nraw stuff of the cosmic effects, one would rather be the fire that\ntempers a sword than the fish that dyes a purple cloak. And a society\nlike ours wastes such good material in producing its little patch of\npurple! Look at a boy like Ned Silverton--he\'s really too good to be used\nto refurbish anybody\'s social shabbiness. There\'s a lad just setting out\nto discover the universe: isn\'t it a pity he should end by finding it in\nMrs. Fisher\'s drawing-room?\"\n\n\"Ned is a dear boy, and I hope he will keep his illusions long enough to\nwrite some nice poetry about them; but do you think it is only in society\nthat he is likely to lose them?\"\n\nSelden answered her with a shrug. \"Why do we call all our generous ideas\nillusions, and the mean ones truths? Isn\'t it a sufficient condemnation\nof society to find one\'s self accepting such phraseology? I very nearly\nacquired the jargon at Silverton\'s age, and I know how names can alter\nthe colour of beliefs.\"\n\nShe had never heard him speak with such energy of affirmation. His\nhabitual touch was that of the eclectic, who lightly turns over and\ncompares; and she was moved by this sudden glimpse into the laboratory\nwhere his faiths were formed.\n\n\"Ah, you are as bad as the other sectarians,\" she exclaimed; \"why do you\ncall your republic a republic? It is a closed corporation, and you create\narbitrary objections in order to keep people out.\"\n\n\"It is not MY republic; if it were, I should have a COUP D\'ETAT and seat\nyou on the throne.\"\n\n\"Whereas, in reality, you think I can never even get my foot across the\nthreshold? Oh, I understand what you mean. You despise my ambitions--you\nthink them unworthy of me!\"\n\nSelden smiled, but not ironically. \"Well, isn\'t that a tribute? I think\nthem quite worthy of most of the people who live by them.\"\n\nShe had turned to gaze on him gravely. \"But isn\'t it possible that, if I\nhad the opportunities of these people, I might make a better use of them?\nMoney stands for all kinds of things--its purchasing quality isn\'t\nlimited to diamonds and motor-cars.\"\n\n\n\"Not in the least: you might expiate your enjoyment of them by founding a\nhospital.\"\n\n\"But if you think they are what I should really enjoy, you must think my\nambitions are good enough for me.\"\n\nSelden met this appeal with a laugh. \"Ah, my dear Miss Bart, I am not\ndivine Providence, to guarantee your enjoying the things you are trying\nto get!\"\n\n\"Then the best you can say for me is, that after struggling to get them I\nprobably shan\'t like them?\" She drew a deep breath. \"What a miserable\nfuture you foresee for me!\"\n\n\"Well--have you never foreseen it for yourself?\" The slow colour rose to\nher cheek, not a blush of excitement but drawn from the deep wells of\nfeeling; it was as if the effort of her spirit had produced it.\n\n\"Often and often,\" she said. \"But it looks so much darker when you show\nit to me!\"\n\nHe made no answer to this exclamation, and for a while they sat silent,\nwhile something throbbed between them in the wide quiet of the air.\n\nBut suddenly she turned on him with a kind of vehemence. \"Why do you do\nthis to me?\" she cried. \"Why do you make the things I have chosen seem\nhateful to me, if you have nothing to give me instead?\"\n\nThe words roused Selden from the musing fit into which he had fallen. He\nhimself did not know why he had led their talk along such lines; it was\nthe last use he would have imagined himself making of an afternoon\'s\nsolitude with Miss Bart. But it was one of those moments when neither\nseemed to speak deliberately, when an indwelling voice in each called to\nthe other across unsounded depths of feeling.\n\n\"No, I have nothing to give you instead,\" he said, sitting up and turning\nso that he faced her. \"If I had, it should be yours, you know.\"\n\nShe received this abrupt declaration in a way even stranger than the\nmanner of its making: she dropped her face on her hands and he saw that\nfor a moment she wept.\n\nIt was for a moment only, however; for when he leaned nearer and drew\ndown her hands with a gesture less passionate than grave, she turned on\nhim a face softened but not disfigured by emotion, and he said to\nhimself, somewhat cruelly, that even her weeping was an art.\n\nThe reflection steadied his voice as he asked, between pity and irony:\n\"Isn\'t it natural that I should try to belittle all the things I can\'t\noffer you?\"\n\nHer face brightened at this, but she drew her hand away, not with a\ngesture of coquetry, but as though renouncing something to which she had\nno claim.\n\n\"But you belittle ME, don\'t you,\" she returned gently, \"in being so sure\nthey are the only things I care for?\"\n\nSelden felt an inner start; but it was only the last quiver of his\negoism. Almost at once he answered quite simply: \"But you do care for\nthem, don\'t you? And no wishing of mine can alter that.\"\n\nHe had so completely ceased to consider how far this might carry him,\nthat he had a distinct sense of disappointment when she turned on him a\nface sparkling with derision.\n\n\"Ah,\" she cried, \"for all your fine phrases you\'re really as great a\ncoward as I am, for you wouldn\'t have made one of them if you hadn\'t been\nso sure of my answer.\"\n\nThe shock of this retort had the effect of crystallizing Selden\'s\nwavering intentions.\n\n\"I am not so sure of your answer,\" he said quietly. \"And I do you the\njustice to believe that you are not either.\"\n\nIt was her turn to look at him with surprise; and after a moment--\"Do you\nwant to marry me?\" she asked.\n\nHe broke into a laugh. \"No, I don\'t want to--but perhaps I should if you\ndid!\"\n\n\"That\'s what I told you--you\'re so sure of me that you can amuse yourself\nwith experiments.\" She drew back the hand he had regained, and sat\nlooking down on him sadly.\n\n\"I am not making experiments,\" he returned. \"Or if I am, it is not on you\nbut on myself. I don\'t know what effect they are going to have on me--but\nif marrying you is one of them, I will take the risk.\"\n\nShe smiled faintly. \"It would be a great risk, certainly--I have never\nconcealed from you how great.\"\n\n\"Ah, it\'s you who are the coward!\" he exclaimed.\n\nShe had risen, and he stood facing her with his eyes on hers. The soft\nisolation of the falling day enveloped them: they seemed lifted into a\nfiner air. All the exquisite influences of the hour trembled in their\nveins, and drew them to each other as the loosened leaves were drawn to\nthe earth.\n\n\"It\'s you who are the coward,\" he repeated, catching her hands in his.\n\nShe leaned on him for a moment, as if with a drop of tired wings: he felt\nas though her heart were beating rather with the stress of a long flight\nthan the thrill of new distances. Then, drawing back with a little smile\nof warning--\"I shall look hideous in dowdy clothes; but I can trim my own\nhats,\" she declared.\n\nThey stood silent for a while after this, smiling at each other like\nadventurous children who have climbed to a forbidden height from which\nthey discover a new world. The actual world at their feet was veiling\nitself in dimness, and across the valley a clear moon rose in the denser\nblue.\n\nSuddenly they heard a remote sound, like the hum of a giant insect, and\nfollowing the high-road, which wound whiter through the surrounding\ntwilight, a black object rushed across their vision.\n\nLily started from her attitude of absorption; her smile faded and she\nbegan to move toward the lane.\n\n\"I had no idea it was so late! We shall not be back till after dark,\" she\nsaid, almost impatiently.\n\nSelden was looking at her with surprise: it took him a moment to regain\nhis usual view of her; then he said, with an uncontrollable note of\ndryness: \"That was not one of our party; the motor was going the other\nway.\"\n\n\"I know--I know----\" She paused, and he saw her redden through the\ntwilight. \"But I told them I was not well--that I should not go out. Let\nus go down!\" she murmured.\n\nSelden continued to look at her; then he drew his cigarette-case from his\npocket and slowly lit a cigarette. It seemed to him necessary, at that\nmoment, to proclaim, by some habitual gesture of this sort, his recovered\nhold on the actual: he had an almost puerile wish to let his companion\nsee that, their flight over, he had landed on his feet.\n\nShe waited while the spark flickered under his curved palm; then he held\nout the cigarettes to her.\n\nShe took one with an unsteady hand, and putting it to her lips, leaned\nforward to draw her light from his. In the indistinctness the little red\ngleam lit up the lower part of her face, and he saw her mouth tremble\ninto a smile.\n\n\"Were you serious?\" she asked, with an odd thrill of gaiety which she\nmight have caught up, in haste, from a heap of stock inflections, without\nhaving time to select the just note. Selden\'s voice was under better\ncontrol. \"Why not?\" he returned. \"You see I took no risks in being so.\"\nAnd as she continued to stand before him, a little pale under the retort,\nhe added quickly: \"Let us go down.\"\n\n\n\nChapter 7\n\nIt spoke much for the depth of Mrs. Trenor\'s friendship that her voice,\nin admonishing Miss Bart, took the same note of personal despair as if\nshe had been lamenting the collapse of a house-party.\n\n\"All I can say is, Lily, that I can\'t make you out!\" She leaned back,\nsighing, in the morning abandon of lace and muslin, turning an\nindifferent shoulder to the heaped-up importunities of her desk, while\nshe considered, with the eye of a physician who has given up the case,\nthe erect exterior of the patient confronting her.\n\n\"If you hadn\'t told me you were going in for him seriously--but I\'m sure\nyou made that plain enough from the beginning! Why else did you ask me to\nlet you off bridge, and to keep away Carry and Kate Corby? I don\'t\nsuppose you did it because he amused you; we could none of us imagine\nyour putting up with him for a moment unless you meant to marry him. And\nI\'m sure everybody played fair! They all wanted to help it along. Even\nBertha kept her hands off--I will say that--till Lawrence came down and\nyou dragged him away from her. After that she had a right to\nretaliate--why on earth did you interfere with her? You\'ve known Lawrence\nSelden for years--why did you behave as if you had just discovered him?\nIf you had a grudge against Bertha it was a stupid time to show it--you\ncould have paid her back just as well after you were married! I told you\nBertha was dangerous. She was in an odious mood when she came here, but\nLawrence\'s turning up put her in a good humour, and if you\'d only let her\nthink he came for HER it would have never occurred to her to play you\nthis trick. Oh, Lily, you\'ll never do anything if you\'re not serious!\"\n\nMiss Bart accepted this exhortation in a spirit of the purest\nimpartiality. Why should she have been angry? It was the voice of her own\nconscience which spoke to her through Mrs. Trenor\'s reproachful accents.\nBut even to her own conscience she must trump up a semblance of defence.\n\"I only took a day off--I thought he meant to stay on all this week, and\nI knew Mr. Selden was leaving this morning.\"\n\nMrs. Trenor brushed aside the plea with a gesture which laid bare its\nweakness.\n\n\"He did mean to stay--that\'s the worst of it. It shows that he\'s run away\nfrom you; that Bertha\'s done her work and poisoned him thoroughly.\"\n\nLily gave a slight laugh. \"Oh, if he\'s running I\'ll overtake him!\"\n\nHer friend threw out an arresting hand. \"Whatever you do, Lily, do\nnothing!\"\n\nMiss Bart received the warning with a smile. \"I don\'t mean, literally, to\ntake the next train. There are ways----\" But she did not go on to specify\nthem.\n\nMrs. Trenor sharply corrected the tense. \"There WERE ways--plenty of\nthem! I didn\'t suppose you needed to have them pointed out. But don\'t\ndeceive yourself--he\'s thoroughly frightened. He has run straight home to\nhis mother, and she\'ll protect him!\"\n\n\"Oh, to the death,\" Lily agreed, dimpling at the vision.\n\n\"How you can LAUGH----\" her friend rebuked her; and she dropped back to a\nsoberer perception of things with the question: \"What was it Bertha\nreally told him?\"\n\n\"Don\'t ask me--horrors! She seemed to have raked up everything. Oh, you\nknow what I mean--of course there isn\'t anything, REALLY; but I suppose\nshe brought in Prince Varigliano--and Lord Hubert--and there was some\nstory of your having borrowed money of old Ned Van Alstyne: did you ever?\"\n\n\"He is my father\'s cousin,\" Miss Bart interposed.\n\n\"Well, of course she left THAT out. It seems Ned told Carry Fisher; and\nshe told Bertha, naturally. They\'re all alike, you know: they hold their\ntongues for years, and you think you\'re safe, but when their opportunity\ncomes they remember everything.\"\n\nLily had grown pale: her voice had a harsh note in it. \"It was some money\nI lost at bridge at the Van Osburghs\'. I repaid it, of course.\"\n\n\"Ah, well, they wouldn\'t remember that; besides, it was the idea of the\ngambling debt that frightened Percy. Oh, Bertha knew her man--she knew\njust what to tell him!\"\n\nIn this strain Mrs. Trenor continued for nearly an hour to admonish her\nfriend. Miss Bart listened with admirable equanimity. Her naturally good\ntemper had been disciplined by years of enforced compliance, since she\nhad almost always had to attain her ends by the circuitous path of other\npeople\'s; and, being naturally inclined to face unpleasant facts as soon\nas they presented themselves, she was not sorry to hear an impartial\nstatement of what her folly was likely to cost, the more so as her own\nthoughts were still insisting on the other side of the case. Presented\nin the light of Mrs. Trenor\'s vigorous comments, the reckoning was\ncertainly a formidable one, and Lily, as she listened, found herself\ngradually reverting to her friend\'s view of the situation. Mrs. Trenor\'s\nwords were moreover emphasized for her hearer by anxieties which she\nherself could scarcely guess. Affluence, unless stimulated by a keen\nimagination, forms but the vaguest notion of the practical strain of\npoverty. Judy knew it must be \"horrid\" for poor Lily to have to stop to\nconsider whether she could afford real lace on her petticoats, and not to\nhave a motor-car and a steam-yacht at her orders; but the daily friction\nof unpaid bills, the daily nibble of small temptations to expenditure,\nwere trials as far out of her experience as the domestic problems of the\nchar-woman. Mrs. Trenor\'s unconsciousness of the real stress of the\nsituation had the effect of making it more galling to Lily. While her\nfriend reproached her for missing the opportunity to eclipse her rivals,\nshe was once more battling in imagination with the mounting tide of\nindebtedness from which she had so nearly escaped. What wind of folly had\ndriven her out again on those dark seas?\n\nIf anything was needed to put the last touch to her self-abasement it was\nthe sense of the way her old life was opening its ruts again to receive\nher. Yesterday her fancy had fluttered free pinions above a choice of\noccupations; now she had to drop to the level of the familiar routine, in\nwhich moments of seeming brilliancy and freedom alternated with long\nhours of subjection.\n\nShe laid a deprecating hand on her friend\'s. \"Dear Judy! I\'m sorry to\nhave been such a bore, and you are very good to me. But you must have\nsome letters for me to answer--let me at least be useful.\"\n\nShe settled herself at the desk, and Mrs. Trenor accepted her resumption\nof the morning\'s task with a sigh which implied that, after all, she had\nproved herself unfit for higher uses.\n\nThe luncheon table showed a depleted circle. All the men but Jack Stepney\nand Dorset had returned to town (it seemed to Lily a last touch of irony\nthat Selden and Percy Gryce should have gone in the same train), and Lady\nCressida and the attendant Wetheralls had been despatched by motor to\nlunch at a distant country-house. At such moments of diminished interest\nit was usual for Mrs. Dorset to keep her room till the afternoon; but on\nthis occasion she drifted in when luncheon was half over, hollowed-eyed\nand drooping, but with an edge of malice under her indifference.\n\nShe raised her eyebrows as she looked about the table. \"How few of us are\nleft! I do so enjoy the quiet--don\'t you, Lily? I wish the men would\nalways stop away--it\'s really much nicer without them. Oh, you don\'t\ncount, George: one doesn\'t have to talk to one\'s husband. But I thought\nMr. Gryce was to stay for the rest of the week?\" she added enquiringly.\n\"Didn\'t he intend to, Judy? He\'s such a nice boy--I wonder what drove\nhim away? He is rather shy, and I\'m afraid we may have shocked him: he\nhas been brought up in such an old-fashioned way. Do you know, Lily, he\ntold me he had never seen a girl play cards for money till he saw you\ndoing it the other night? And he lives on the interest of his income, and\nalways has a lot left over to invest!\"\n\nMrs. Fisher leaned forward eagerly. \"I do believe it is some one\'s duty\nto educate that young man. It is shocking that he has never been made to\nrealize his duties as a citizen. Every wealthy man should be compelled to\nstudy the laws of his country.\"\n\nMrs. Dorset glanced at her quietly. \"I think he HAS studied the divorce\nlaws. He told me he had promised the Bishop to sign some kind of a\npetition against divorce.\"\n\nMrs. Fisher reddened under her powder, and Stepney said with a laughing\nglance at Miss Bart: \"I suppose he is thinking of marriage, and wants to\ntinker up the old ship before he goes aboard.\"\n\nHis betrothed looked shocked at the metaphor, and George Dorset exclaimed\nwith a sardonic growl: \"Poor devil! It isn\'t the ship that will do for\nhim, it\'s the crew.\"\n\n\"Or the stowaways,\" said Miss Corby brightly. \"If I contemplated a voyage\nwith him I should try to start with a friend in the hold.\"\n\nMiss Van Osburgh\'s vague feeling of pique was struggling for appropriate\nexpression. \"I\'m sure I don\'t see why you laugh at him; I think he\'s very\nnice,\" she exclaimed; \"and, at any rate, a girl who married him would\nalways have enough to be comfortable.\"\n\nShe looked puzzled at the redoubled laughter which hailed her words, but\nit might have consoled her to know how deeply they had sunk into the\nbreast of one of her hearers.\n\nComfortable! At that moment the word was more eloquent to Lily Bart than\nany other in the language. She could not even pause to smile over the\nheiress\'s view of a colossal fortune as a mere shelter against want: her\nmind was filled with the vision of what that shelter might have been to\nher. Mrs. Dorset\'s pin-pricks did not smart, for her own irony cut\ndeeper: no one could hurt her as much as she was hurting herself, for no\none else--not even Judy Trenor--knew the full magnitude of her folly.\n\nShe was roused from these unprofitable considerations by a whispered\nrequest from her hostess, who drew her apart as they left the\nluncheon-table.\n\n\"Lily, dear, if you\'ve nothing special to do, may I tell Carry Fisher\nthat you intend to drive to the station and fetch Gus? He will be back at\nfour, and I know she has it in her mind to meet him. Of course I\'m very\nglad to have him amused, but I happen to know that she has bled him\nrather severely since she\'s been here, and she is so keen about going to\nfetch him that I fancy she must have got a lot more bills this morning.\nIt seems to me,\" Mrs. Trenor feelingly concluded, \"that most of her\nalimony is paid by other women\'s husbands!\"\n\nMiss Bart, on her way to the station, had leisure to muse over her\nfriend\'s words, and their peculiar application to herself. Why should\nshe have to suffer for having once, for a few hours, borrowed money of an\nelderly cousin, when a woman like Carry Fisher could make a living\nunrebuked from the good-nature of her men friends and the tolerance of\ntheir wives? It all turned on the tiresome distinction between what a\nmarried woman might, and a girl might not, do. Of course it was shocking\nfor a married woman to borrow money--and Lily was expertly aware of the\nimplication involved--but still, it was the mere MALUM PROHIBITUM which\nthe world decries but condones, and which, though it may be punished by\nprivate vengeance, does not provoke the collective disapprobation of\nsociety. To Miss Bart, in short, no such opportunities were possible. She\ncould of course borrow from her women friends--a hundred here or there,\nat the utmost--but they were more ready to give a gown or a trinket, and\nlooked a little askance when she hinted her preference for a cheque.\nWomen are not generous lenders, and those among whom her lot was cast\nwere either in the same case as herself, or else too far removed from it\nto understand its necessities. The result of her meditations was the\ndecision to join her aunt at Richfield. She could not remain at Bellomont\nwithout playing bridge, and being involved in other expenses; and to\ncontinue her usual series of autumn visits would merely prolong the same\ndifficulties. She had reached a point where abrupt retrenchment was\nnecessary, and the only cheap life was a dull life. She would start the\nnext morning for Richfield.\n\nAt the station she thought Gus Trenor seemed surprised, and not wholly\nunrelieved, to see her. She yielded up the reins of the light runabout in\nwhich she had driven over, and as he climbed heavily to her side,\ncrushing her into a scant third of the seat, he said: \"Halloo! It isn\'t\noften you honour me. You must have been uncommonly hard up for something\nto do.\"\n\nThe afternoon was warm, and propinquity made her more than usually\nconscious that he was red and massive, and that beads of moisture had\ncaused the dust of the train to adhere unpleasantly to the broad expanse\nof cheek and neck which he turned to her; but she was aware also, from\nthe look in his small dull eyes, that the contact with her freshness and\nslenderness was as agreeable to him as the sight of a cooling beverage.\n\nThe perception of this fact helped her to answer gaily: \"It\'s not often I\nhave the chance. There are too many ladies to dispute the privilege with\nme.\"\n\n\"The privilege of driving me home? Well, I\'m glad you won the race,\nanyhow. But I know what really happened--my wife sent you. Now didn\'t\nshe?\"\n\nHe had the dull man\'s unexpected flashes of astuteness, and Lily could\nnot help joining in the laugh with which he had pounced on the truth.\n\n\"You see, Judy thinks I\'m the safest person for you to be with; and she\'s\nquite right,\" she rejoined.\n\n\"Oh, is she, though? If she is, it\'s because you wouldn\'t waste your time\non an old hulk like me. We married men have to put up with what we can\nget: all the prizes are for the clever chaps who\'ve kept a free foot. Let\nme light a cigar, will you? I\'ve had a beastly day of it.\"\n\nHe drew up in the shade of the village street, and passed the reins to\nher while he held a match to his cigar. The little flame under his hand\ncast a deeper crimson on his puffing face, and Lily averted her eyes with\na momentary feeling of repugnance. And yet some women thought him\nhandsome!\n\nAs she handed back the reins, she said sympathetically: \"Did you have\nsuch a lot of tiresome things to do?\"\n\n\"I should say so--rather!\" Trenor, who was seldom listened to, either by\nhis wife or her friends, settled down into the rare enjoyment of a\nconfidential talk. \"You don\'t know how a fellow has to hustle to keep\nthis kind of thing going.\" He waved his whip in the direction of the\nBellomont acres, which lay outspread before them in opulent undulations.\n\"Judy has no idea of what she spends--not that there isn\'t plenty to keep\nthe thing going,\" he interrupted himself, \"but a man has got to keep his\neyes open and pick up all the tips he can. My father and mother used to\nlive like fighting-cocks on their income, and put by a good bit of it\ntoo--luckily for me--but at the pace we go now, I don\'t know where I\nshould be if it weren\'t for taking a flyer now and then. The women all\nthink--I mean Judy thinks--I\'ve nothing to do but to go down town once a\nmonth and cut off coupons, but the truth is it takes a devilish lot of\nhard work to keep the machinery running. Not that I ought to complain\nto-day, though,\" he went on after a moment, \"for I did a very neat stroke\nof business, thanks to Stepney\'s friend Rosedale: by the way, Miss Lily,\nI wish you\'d try to persuade Judy to be decently civil to that chap. He\'s\ngoing to be rich enough to buy us all out one of these days, and if she\'d\nonly ask him to dine now and then I could get almost anything out of him.\nThe man is mad to know the people who don\'t want to know him, and when a\nfellow\'s in that state there is nothing he won\'t do for the first woman\nwho takes him up.\"\n\nLily hesitated a moment. The first part of her companion\'s discourse had\nstarted an interesting train of thought, which was rudely interrupted by\nthe mention of Mr. Rosedale\'s name. She uttered a faint protest.\n\n\"But you know Jack did try to take him about, and he was impossible.\"\n\n\"Oh, hang it--because he\'s fat and shiny, and has a sloppy manner! Well,\nall I can say is that the people who are clever enough to be civil to him\nnow will make a mighty good thing of it. A few years from now he\'ll be in\nit whether we want him or not, and then he won\'t be giving away a\nhalf-a-million tip for a dinner.\"\n\nLily\'s mind had reverted from the intrusive personality of Mr. Rosedale\nto the train of thought set in motion by Trenor\'s first words. This vast\nmysterious Wall Street world of \"tips\" and \"deals\"--might she not find in\nit the means of escape from her dreary predicament? She had often heard\nof women making money in this way through their friends: she had no more\nnotion than most of her sex of the exact nature of the transaction, and\nits vagueness seemed to diminish its indelicacy. She could not, indeed,\nimagine herself, in any extremity, stooping to extract a \"tip\" from Mr.\nRosedale; but at her side was a man in possession of that precious\ncommodity, and who, as the husband of her dearest friend, stood to her in\na relation of almost fraternal intimacy.\n\nIn her inmost heart Lily knew it was not by appealing to the fraternal\ninstinct that she was likely to move Gus Trenor; but this way of\nexplaining the situation helped to drape its crudity, and she was always\nscrupulous about keeping up appearances to herself. Her personal\nfastidiousness had a moral equivalent, and when she made a tour of\ninspection in her own mind there were certain closed doors she did not\nopen.\n\nAs they reached the gates of Bellomont she turned to Trenor with a smile.\n\"The afternoon is so perfect--don\'t you want to drive me a little\nfarther? I\'ve been rather out of spirits all day, and it\'s so restful to\nbe away from people, with some one who won\'t mind if I\'m a little dull.\"\n\nShe looked so plaintively lovely as she proffered the request, so\ntrustfully sure of his sympathy and understanding, that Trenor felt\nhimself wishing that his wife could see how other women treated him--not\nbattered wire-pullers like Mrs. Fisher, but a girl that most men would\nhave given their boots to get such a look from.\n\n\"Out of spirits? Why on earth should you ever be out of spirits? Is your\nlast box of Doucet dresses a failure, or did Judy rook you out of\neverything at bridge last night?\"\n\nLily shook her head with a sigh. \"I have had to give up Doucet; and\nbridge too--I can\'t afford it. In fact I can\'t afford any of the things\nmy friends do, and I am afraid Judy often thinks me a bore because I\ndon\'t play cards any longer, and because I am not as smartly dressed as\nthe other women. But you will think me a bore too if I talk to you about\nmy worries, and I only mention them because I want you to do me a\nfavour--the very greatest of favours.\"\n\nHer eyes sought his once more, and she smiled inwardly at the tinge of\napprehension that she read in them.\n\n\"Why, of course--if it\'s anything I can manage----\" He broke off, and she\nguessed that his enjoyment was disturbed by the remembrance of Mrs.\nFisher\'s methods.\n\n\"The greatest of favours,\" she rejoined gently. \"The fact is, Judy is\nangry with me, and I want you to make my peace.\"\n\n\"Angry with you? Oh, come, nonsense----\" his relief broke through in a\nlaugh. \"Why, you know she\'s devoted to you.\"\n\n\"She is the best friend I have, and that is why I mind having to vex her.\nBut I daresay you know what she has wanted me to do. She has set her\nheart--poor dear--on my marrying--marrying a great deal of money.\"\n\nShe paused with a slight falter of embarrassment, and Trenor, turning\nabruptly, fixed on her a look of growing intelligence.\n\n\"A great deal of money? Oh, by Jove--you don\'t mean Gryce? What--you do?\nOh, no, of course I won\'t mention it--you can trust me to keep my mouth\nshut--but Gryce--good Lord, GRYCE! Did Judy really think you could bring\nyourself to marry that portentous little ass? But you couldn\'t, eh? And\nso you gave him the sack, and that\'s the reason why he lit out by the\nfirst train this morning?\" He leaned back, spreading himself farther\nacross the seat, as if dilated by the joyful sense of his own\ndiscernment. \"How on earth could Judy think you would do such a thing? I\ncould have told her you\'d never put up with such a little milksop!\"\n\nLily sighed more deeply. \"I sometimes think,\" she murmured, \"that men\nunderstand a woman\'s motives better than other women do.\"\n\n\"Some men--I\'m certain of it! I could have TOLD Judy,\" he repeated,\nexulting in the implied superiority over his wife.\n\n\"I thought you would understand; that\'s why I wanted to speak to you,\"\nMiss Bart rejoined. \"I can\'t make that kind of marriage; it\'s impossible.\nBut neither can I go on living as all the women in my set do. I am almost\nentirely dependent on my aunt, and though she is very kind to me she\nmakes me no regular allowance, and lately I\'ve lost money at cards, and I\ndon\'t dare tell her about it. I have paid my card debts, of course, but\nthere is hardly anything left for my other expenses, and if I go on with\nmy present life I shall be in horrible difficulties. I have a tiny income\nof my own, but I\'m afraid it\'s badly invested, for it seems to bring in\nless every year, and I am so ignorant of money matters that I don\'t know\nif my aunt\'s agent, who looks after it, is a good adviser.\" She paused a\nmoment, and added in a lighter tone: \"I didn\'t mean to bore you with all\nthis, but I want your help in making Judy understand that I can\'t, at\npresent, go on living as one must live among you all. I am going away\ntomorrow to join my aunt at Richfield, and I shall stay there for the\nrest of the autumn, and dismiss my maid and learn how to mend my own\nclothes.\"\n\nAt this picture of loveliness in distress, the pathos of which was\nheightened by the light touch with which it was drawn, a murmur of\nindignant sympathy broke from Trenor. Twenty-four hours earlier, if his\nwife had consulted him on the subject of Miss Bart\'s future, he would\nhave said that a girl with extravagant tastes and no money had better\nmarry the first rich man she could get; but with the subject of\ndiscussion at his side, turning to him for sympathy, making him feel that\nhe understood her better than her dearest friends, and confirming the\nassurance by the appeal of her exquisite nearness, he was ready to swear\nthat such a marriage was a desecration, and that, as a man of honour, he\nwas bound to do all he could to protect her from the results of her\ndisinterestedness. This impulse was reinforced by the reflection that if\nshe had married Gryce she would have been surrounded by flattery and\napproval, whereas, having refused to sacrifice herself to expediency, she\nwas left to bear the whole cost of her resistance. Hang it, if he could\nfind a way out of such difficulties for a professional sponge like Carry\nFisher, who was simply a mental habit corresponding to the physical\ntitillations of the cigarette or the cock-tail, he could surely do as\nmuch for a girl who appealed to his highest sympathies, and who brought\nher troubles to him with the trustfulness of a child.\n\nTrenor and Miss Bart prolonged their drive till long after sunset; and\nbefore it was over he had tried, with some show of success, to prove to\nher that, if she would only trust him, he could make a handsome sum of\nmoney for her without endangering the small amount she possessed. She was\ntoo genuinely ignorant of the manipulations of the stock-market to\nunderstand his technical explanations, or even perhaps to perceive that\ncertain points in them were slurred; the haziness enveloping the\ntransaction served as a veil for her embarrassment, and through the\ngeneral blur her hopes dilated like lamps in a fog. She understood only\nthat her modest investments were to be mysteriously multiplied without\nrisk to herself; and the assurance that this miracle would take place\nwithin a short time, that there would be no tedious interval for suspense\nand reaction, relieved her of her lingering scruples.\n\nAgain she felt the lightening of her load, and with it the release of\nrepressed activities. Her immediate worries conjured, it was easy to\nresolve that she would never again find herself in such straits, and as\nthe need of economy and self-denial receded from her foreground she felt\nherself ready to meet any other demand which life might make. Even the\nimmediate one of letting Trenor, as they drove homeward, lean a little\nnearer and rest his hand reassuringly on hers, cost her only a momentary\nshiver of reluctance. It was part of the game to make him feel that her\nappeal had been an uncalculated impulse, provoked by the liking he\ninspired; and the renewed sense of power in handling men, while it\nconsoled her wounded vanity, helped also to obscure the thought of the\nclaim at which his manner hinted. He was a coarse dull man who, under all\nhis show of authority, was a mere supernumerary in the costly show for\nwhich his money paid: surely, to a clever girl, it would be easy to hold\nhim by his vanity, and so keep the obligation on his side.\n\n\n\nChapter 8\n\nThe first thousand dollar cheque which Lily received with a blotted\nscrawl from Gus Trenor strengthened her self-confidence in the exact\ndegree to which it effaced her debts.\n\nThe transaction had justified itself by its results: she saw now how\nabsurd it would have been to let any primitive scruple deprive her of\nthis easy means of appeasing her creditors. Lily felt really virtuous as\nshe dispensed the sum in sops to her tradesmen, and the fact that a fresh\norder accompanied each payment did not lessen her sense of\ndisinterestedness. How many women, in her place, would have given the\norders without making the payment!\n\nShe had found it reassuringly easy to keep Trenor in a good humour. To\nlisten to his stories, to receive his confidences and laugh at his jokes,\nseemed for the moment all that was required of her, and the complacency\nwith which her hostess regarded these attentions freed them of the least\nhint of ambiguity. Mrs. Trenor evidently assumed that Lily\'s growing\nintimacy with her husband was simply an indirect way of returning her own\nkindness.\n\n\"I\'m so glad you and Gus have become such good friends,\" she said\napprovingly. \"It\'s too delightful of you to be so nice to him, and put up\nwith all his tiresome stories. I know what they are, because I had to\nlisten to them when we were engaged--I\'m sure he is telling the same ones\nstill. And now I shan\'t always have to be asking Carry Fisher here to\nkeep him in a good-humour. She\'s a perfect vulture, you know; and she\nhasn\'t the least moral sense. She is always getting Gus to speculate for\nher, and I\'m sure she never pays when she loses.\"\n\nMiss Bart could shudder at this state of things without the embarrassment\nof a personal application. Her own position was surely quite different.\nThere could be no question of her not paying when she lost, since Trenor\nhad assured her that she was certain not to lose. In sending her the\ncheque he had explained that he had made five thousand for her out of\nRosedale\'s \"tip,\" and had put four thousand back in the same venture, as\nthere was the promise of another \"big rise\"; she understood therefore\nthat he was now speculating with her own money, and that she consequently\nowed him no more than the gratitude which such a trifling service\ndemanded. She vaguely supposed that, to raise the first sum, he had\nborrowed on her securities; but this was a point over which her curiosity\ndid not linger. It was concentrated, for the moment, on the probable date\nof the next \"big rise.\"\n\nThe news of this event was received by her some weeks later, on the\noccasion of Jack Stepney\'s marriage to Miss Van Osburgh. As a cousin of\nthe bridegroom, Miss Bart had been asked to act as bridesmaid; but she\nhad declined on the plea that, since she was much taller than the other\nattendant virgins, her presence might mar the symmetry of the group. The\ntruth was, she had attended too many brides to the altar: when next seen\nthere she meant to be the chief figure in the ceremony. She knew the\npleasantries made at the expense of young girls who have been too long\nbefore the public, and she was resolved to avoid such assumptions of\nyouthfulness as might lead people to think her older than she really was.\n\nThe Van Osburgh marriage was celebrated in the village church near the\npaternal estate on the Hudson. It was the \"simple country wedding\" to\nwhich guests are convoyed in special trains, and from which the hordes of\nthe uninvited have to be fended off by the intervention of the police.\nWhile these sylvan rites were taking place, in a church packed with\nfashion and festooned with orchids, the representatives of the press were\nthreading their way, note-book in hand, through the labyrinth of wedding\npresents, and the agent of a cinematograph syndicate was setting up his\napparatus at the church door. It was the kind of scene in which Lily had\noften pictured herself as taking the principal part, and on this occasion\nthe fact that she was once more merely a casual spectator, instead of the\nmystically veiled figure occupying the centre of attention, strengthened\nher resolve to assume the latter part before the year was over. The fact\nthat her immediate anxieties were relieved did not blind her to a\npossibility of their recurrence; it merely gave her enough buoyancy to\nrise once more above her doubts and feel a renewed faith in her beauty,\nher power, and her general fitness to attract a brilliant destiny. It\ncould not be that one conscious of such aptitudes for mastery and\nenjoyment was doomed to a perpetuity of failure; and her mistakes looked\neasily reparable in the light of her restored self-confidence.\n\nA special appositeness was given to these reflections by the discovery,\nin a neighbouring pew, of the serious profile and neatly-trimmed beard of\nMr. Percy Gryce. There was something almost bridal in his own aspect: his\nlarge white gardenia had a symbolic air that struck Lily as a good omen.\nAfter all, seen in an assemblage of his kind he was not\nridiculous-looking: a friendly critic might have called his heaviness\nweighty, and he was at his best in the attitude of vacant passivity which\nbrings out the oddities of the restless. She fancied he was the kind of\nman whose sentimental associations would be stirred by the conventional\nimagery of a wedding, and she pictured herself, in the seclusion of the\nVan Osburgh conservatories, playing skillfully upon sensibilities thus\nprepared for her touch. In fact, when she looked at the other women about\nher, and recalled the image she had brought away from her own glass, it\ndid not seem as though any special skill would be needed to repair her\nblunder and bring him once more to her feet.\n\nThe sight of Selden\'s dark head, in a pew almost facing her, disturbed\nfor a moment the balance of her complacency. The rise of her blood as\ntheir eyes met was succeeded by a contrary motion, a wave of resistance\nand withdrawal. She did not wish to see him again, not because she feared\nhis influence, but because his presence always had the effect of\ncheapening her aspirations, of throwing her whole world out of focus.\nBesides, he was a living reminder of the worst mistake in her career, and\nthe fact that he had been its cause did not soften her feelings toward\nhim. She could still imagine an ideal state of existence in which, all\nelse being superadded, intercourse with Selden might be the last touch of\nluxury; but in the world as it was, such a privilege was likely to cost\nmore than it was worth.\n\n\"Lily, dear, I never saw you look so lovely! You look as if something\ndelightful had just happened to you!\"\n\nThe young lady who thus formulated her admiration of her brilliant friend\ndid not, in her own person, suggest such happy possibilities. Miss\nGertrude Farish, in fact, typified the mediocre and the ineffectual. If\nthere were compensating qualities in her wide frank glance and the\nfreshness of her smile, these were qualities which only the sympathetic\nobserver would perceive before noticing that her eyes were of a workaday\ngrey and her lips without haunting curves. Lily\'s own view of her wavered\nbetween pity for her limitations and impatience at her cheerful\nacceptance of them. To Miss Bart, as to her mother, acquiescence in\ndinginess was evidence of stupidity; and there were moments when, in the\nconsciousness of her own power to look and to be so exactly what the\noccasion required, she almost felt that other girls were plain and\ninferior from choice. Certainly no one need have confessed such\nacquiescence in her lot as was revealed in the \"useful\" colour of Gerty\nFarish\'s gown and the subdued lines of her hat: it is almost as stupid to\nlet your clothes betray that you know you are ugly as to have them\nproclaim that you think you are beautiful.\n\nOf course, being fatally poor and dingy, it was wise of Gerty to have\ntaken up philanthropy and symphony concerts; but there was something\nirritating in her assumption that existence yielded no higher pleasures,\nand that one might get as much interest and excitement out of life in a\ncramped flat as in the splendours of the Van Osburgh establishment.\nToday, however, her chirping enthusiasms did not irritate Lily. They\nseemed only to throw her own exceptionalness into becoming relief, and\ngive a soaring vastness to her scheme of life.\n\n\"Do let us go and take a peep at the presents before everyone else leaves\nthe dining-room!\" suggested Miss Farish, linking her arm in her friend\'s.\nIt was characteristic of her to take a sentimental and unenvious interest\nin all the details of a wedding: she was the kind of person who always\nkept her handkerchief out during the service, and departed clutching a\nbox of wedding-cake.\n\n\"Isn\'t everything beautifully done?\" she pursued, as they entered the\ndistant drawing-room assigned to the display of Miss Van Osburgh\'s bridal\nspoils. \"I always say no one does things better than cousin Grace! Did\nyou ever taste anything more delicious than that MOUSSE of lobster with\nchampagne sauce? I made up my mind weeks ago that I wouldn\'t miss this\nwedding, and just fancy how delightfully it all came about. When Lawrence\nSelden heard I was coming, he insisted on fetching me himself and driving\nme to the station, and when we go back this evening I am to dine with him\nat Sherry\'s. I really feel as excited as if I were getting married\nmyself!\"\n\nLily smiled: she knew that Selden had always been kind to his dull\ncousin, and she had sometimes wondered why he wasted so much time in such\nan unremunerative manner; but now the thought gave her a vague pleasure.\n\n\"Do you see him often?\" she asked.\n\n\"Yes; he is very good about dropping in on Sundays. And now and then we\ndo a play together; but lately I haven\'t seen much of him. He doesn\'t\nlook well, and he seems nervous and unsettled. The dear fellow! I do\nwish he would marry some nice girl. I told him so today, but he said he\ndidn\'t care for the really nice ones, and the other kind didn\'t care for\nhim--but that was just his joke, of course. He could never marry a girl\nwho WASN\'T nice. Oh, my dear, did you ever see such pearls?\"\n\nThey had paused before the table on which the bride\'s jewels were\ndisplayed, and Lily\'s heart gave an envious throb as she caught the\nrefraction of light from their surfaces--the milky gleam of perfectly\nmatched pearls, the flash of rubies relieved against contrasting velvet,\nthe intense blue rays of sapphires kindled into light by surrounding\ndiamonds: all these precious tints enhanced and deepened by the varied\nart of their setting. The glow of the stones warmed Lily\'s veins like\nwine. More completely than any other expression of wealth they symbolized\nthe life she longed to lead, the life of fastidious aloofness and\nrefinement in which every detail should have the finish of a jewel, and\nthe whole form a harmonious setting to her own jewel-like rareness.\n\n\"Oh, Lily, do look at this diamond pendant--it\'s as big as a\ndinner-plate! Who can have given it?\" Miss Farish bent short-sightedly\nover the accompanying card. \"MR. SIMON ROSEDALE. What, that horrid man?\nOh, yes--I remember he\'s a friend of Jack\'s, and I suppose cousin Grace\nhad to ask him here today; but she must rather hate having to let Gwen\naccept such a present from him.\"\n\nLily smiled. She doubted Mrs. Van Osburgh\'s reluctance, but was aware of\nMiss Farish\'s habit of ascribing her own delicacies of feeling to the\npersons least likely to be encumbered by them.\n\n\"Well, if Gwen doesn\'t care to be seen wearing it she can always exchange\nit for something else,\" she remarked.\n\n\"Ah, here is something so much prettier,\" Miss Farish continued. \"Do\nlook at this exquisite white sapphire. I\'m sure the person who chose it\nmust have taken particular pains. What is the name? Percy Gryce? Ah,\nthen I\'m not surprised!\" She smiled significantly as she replaced the\ncard. \"Of course you\'ve heard that he\'s perfectly devoted to Evie Van\nOsburgh? Cousin Grace is so pleased about it--it\'s quite a romance! He\nmet her first at the George Dorsets\', only about six weeks ago, and it\'s\njust the nicest possible marriage for dear Evie. Oh, I don\'t mean the\nmoney--of course she has plenty of her own--but she\'s such a quiet\nstay-at-home kind of girl, and it seems he has just the same tastes; so\nthey are exactly suited to each other.\"\n\nLily stood staring vacantly at the white sapphire on its velvet bed.\nEvie Van Osburgh and Percy Gryce? The names rang derisively through her\nbrain. EVIE VAN OSBURGH? The youngest, dumpiest, dullest of the four dull\nand dumpy daughters whom Mrs. Van Osburgh, with unsurpassed astuteness,\nhad \"placed\" one by one in enviable niches of existence! Ah, lucky girls\nwho grow up in the shelter of a mother\'s love--a mother who knows how to\ncontrive opportunities without conceding favours, how to take advantage\nof propinquity without allowing appetite to be dulled by habit! The\ncleverest girl may miscalculate where her own interests are concerned,\nmay yield too much at one moment and withdraw too far at the next: it\ntakes a mother\'s unerring vigilance and foresight to land her daughters\nsafely in the arms of wealth and suitability.\n\nLily\'s passing light-heartedness sank beneath a renewed sense of failure.\nLife was too stupid, too blundering! Why should Percy Gryce\'s millions be\njoined to another great fortune, why should this clumsy girl be put in\npossession of powers she would never know how to use?\n\nShe was roused from these speculations by a familiar touch on her arm,\nand turning saw Gus Trenor beside her. She felt a thrill of vexation:\nwhat right had he to touch her? Luckily Gerty Farish had wandered off to\nthe next table, and they were alone.\n\nTrenor, looking stouter than ever in his tight frock-coat, and\nunbecomingly flushed by the bridal libations, gazed at her with\nundisguised approval.\n\n\"By Jove, Lily, you do look a stunner!\" He had slipped insensibly into\nthe use of her Christian name, and she had never found the right moment\nto correct him. Besides, in her set all the men and women called each\nother by their Christian names; it was only on Trenor\'s lips that the\nfamiliar address had an unpleasant significance.\n\n\"Well,\" he continued, still jovially impervious to her annoyance, \"have\nyou made up your mind which of these little trinkets you mean to\nduplicate at Tiffany\'s tomorrow? I\'ve got a cheque for you in my pocket\nthat will go a long way in that line!\"\n\nLily gave him a startled look: his voice was louder than usual, and the\nroom was beginning to fill with people. But as her glance assured her\nthat they were still beyond ear-shot a sense of pleasure replaced her\napprehension.\n\n\"Another dividend?\" she asked, smiling and drawing near him in the desire\nnot to be overheard.\n\n\"Well, not exactly: I sold out on the rise and I\'ve pulled off four thou\'\nfor you. Not so bad for a beginner, eh? I suppose you\'ll begin to think\nyou\'re a pretty knowing speculator. And perhaps you won\'t think poor old\nGus such an awful ass as some people do.\"\n\n\"I think you the kindest of friends; but I can\'t thank you properly now.\"\n\nShe let her eyes shine into his with a look that made up for the\nhand-clasp he would have claimed if they had been alone--and how glad she\nwas that they were not! The news filled her with the glow produced by a\nsudden cessation of physical pain. The world was not so stupid and\nblundering after all: now and then a stroke of luck came to the\nunluckiest. At the thought her spirits began to rise: it was\ncharacteristic of her that one trifling piece of good fortune should give\nwings to all her hopes. Instantly came the reflection that Percy Gryce\nwas not irretrievably lost; and she smiled to think of the excitement of\nrecapturing him from Evie Van Osburgh. What chance could such a simpleton\nhave against her if she chose to exert herself? She glanced about, hoping\nto catch a glimpse of Gryce; but her eyes lit instead on the glossy\ncountenance of Mr. Rosedale, who was slipping through the crowd with an\nair half obsequious, half obtrusive, as though, the moment his presence\nwas recognized, it would swell to the dimensions of the room.\n\nNot wishing to be the means of effecting this enlargement, Lily quickly\ntransferred her glance to Trenor, to whom the expression of her gratitude\nseemed not to have brought the complete gratification she had meant it to\ngive.\n\n\"Hang thanking me--I don\'t want to be thanked, but I SHOULD like the\nchance to say two words to you now and then,\" he grumbled. \"I thought you\nwere going to spend the whole autumn with us, and I\'ve hardly laid eyes\non you for the last month. Why can\'t you come back to Bellomont this\nevening? We\'re all alone, and Judy is as cross as two sticks. Do come and\ncheer a fellow up. If you say yes I\'ll run you over in the motor, and you\ncan telephone your maid to bring your traps from town by the next train.\"\n\nLily shook her head with a charming semblance of regret. \"I wish I\ncould--but it\'s quite impossible. My aunt has come back to town, and I\nmust be with her for the next few days.\"\n\n\"Well, I\'ve seen a good deal less of you since we\'ve got to be such pals\nthan I used to when you were Judy\'s friend,\" he continued with\nunconscious penetration.\n\n\"When I was Judy\'s friend? Am I not her friend still? Really, you say the\nmost absurd things! If I were always at Bellomont you would tire of me\nmuch sooner than Judy--but come and see me at my aunt\'s the next\nafternoon you are in town; then we can have a nice quiet talk, and you\ncan tell me how I had better invest my fortune.\"\n\nIt was true that, during the last three or four weeks, she had absented\nherself from Bellomont on the pretext of having other visits to pay; but\nshe now began to feel that the reckoning she had thus contrived to evade\nhad rolled up interest in the interval.\n\nThe prospect of the nice quiet talk did not appear as all-sufficing to\nTrenor as she had hoped, and his brows continued to lower as he said:\n\"Oh, I don\'t know that I can promise you a fresh tip every day. But\nthere\'s one thing you might do for me; and that is, just to be a little\ncivil to Rosedale. Judy has promised to ask him to dine when we get to\ntown, but I can\'t induce her to have him at Bellomont, and if you would\nlet me bring him up now it would make a lot of difference. I don\'t\nbelieve two women have spoken to him this afternoon, and I can tell you\nhe\'s a chap it pays to be decent to.\"\n\nMiss Bart made an impatient movement, but suppressed the words which\nseemed about to accompany it. After all, this was an unexpectedly easy\nway of acquitting her debt; and had she not reasons of her own for\nwishing to be civil to Mr. Rosedale?\n\n\"Oh, bring him by all means,\" she said smiling; \"perhaps I can get a tip\nout of him on my own account.\"\n\nTrenor paused abruptly, and his eyes fixed themselves on hers with a look\nwhich made her change colour.\n\n\"I say, you know--you\'ll please remember he\'s a blooming bounder,\" he\nsaid; and with a slight laugh she turned toward the open window near\nwhich they had been standing.\n\nThe throng in the room had increased, and she felt a desire for space and\nfresh air. Both of these she found on the terrace, where only a few men\nwere lingering over cigarettes and liqueur, while scattered couples\nstrolled across the lawn to the autumn-tinted borders of the\nflower-garden.\n\nAs she emerged, a man moved toward her from the knot of smokers, and she\nfound herself face to face with Selden. The stir of the pulses which his\nnearness always caused was increased by a slight sense of constraint.\nThey had not met since their Sunday afternoon walk at Bellomont, and that\nepisode was still so vivid to her that she could hardly believe him to be\nless conscious of it. But his greeting expressed no more than the\nsatisfaction which every pretty woman expects to see reflected in\nmasculine eyes; and the discovery, if distasteful to her vanity, was\nreassuring to her nerves. Between the relief of her escape from Trenor,\nand the vague apprehension of her meeting with Rosedale, it was pleasant\nto rest a moment on the sense of complete understanding which Lawrence\nSelden\'s manner always conveyed.\n\n\"This is luck,\" he said smiling. \"I was wondering if I should be able to\nhave a word with you before the special snatches us away. I came with\nGerty Farish, and promised not to let her miss the train, but I am sure\nshe is still extracting sentimental solace from the wedding presents. She\nappears to regard their number and value as evidence of the disinterested\naffection of the contracting parties.\"\n\nThere was not the least trace of embarrassment in his voice, and as he\nspoke, leaning slightly against the jamb of the window, and letting his\neyes rest on her in the frank enjoyment of her grace, she felt with a\nfaint chill of regret that he had gone back without an effort to the\nfooting on which they had stood before their last talk together. Her\nvanity was stung by the sight of his unscathed smile. She longed to be to\nhim something more than a piece of sentient prettiness, a passing\ndiversion to his eye and brain; and the longing betrayed itself in her\nreply.\n\n\"Ah,\" she said, \"I envy Gerty that power she has of dressing up with\nromance all our ugly and prosaic arrangements! I have never recovered my\nself-respect since you showed me how poor and unimportant my ambitions\nwere.\"\n\nThe words were hardly spoken when she realized their infelicity. It\nseemed to be her fate to appear at her worst to Selden.\n\n\"I thought, on the contrary,\" he returned lightly, \"that I had been the\nmeans of proving they were more important to you than anything else.\"\n\nIt was as if the eager current of her being had been checked by a sudden\nobstacle which drove it back upon itself. She looked at him helplessly,\nlike a hurt or frightened child: this real self of hers, which he had the\nfaculty of drawing out of the depths, was so little accustomed to go\nalone!\n\nThe appeal of her helplessness touched in him, as it always did, a latent\nchord of inclination. It would have meant nothing to him to discover that\nhis nearness made her more brilliant, but this glimpse of a twilight mood\nto which he alone had the clue seemed once more to set him in a world\napart with her.\n\n\"At least you can\'t think worse things of me than you say!\" she exclaimed\nwith a trembling laugh; but before he could answer, the flow of\ncomprehension between them was abruptly stayed by the reappearance of Gus\nTrenor, who advanced with Mr. Rosedale in his wake.\n\n\"Hang it, Lily, I thought you\'d given me the slip: Rosedale and I have\nbeen hunting all over for you!\"\n\nHis voice had a note of conjugal familiarity: Miss Bart fancied she\ndetected in Rosedale\'s eye a twinkling perception of the fact, and the\nidea turned her dislike of him to repugnance.\n\nShe returned his profound bow with a slight nod, made more disdainful by\nthe sense of Selden\'s surprise that she should number Rosedale among her\nacquaintances. Trenor had turned away, and his companion continued to\nstand before Miss Bart, alert and expectant, his lips parted in a smile\nat whatever she might be about to say, and his very back conscious of the\nprivilege of being seen with her.\n\nIt was the moment for tact; for the quick bridging over of gaps; but\nSelden still leaned against the window, a detached observer of the scene,\nand under the spell of his observation Lily felt herself powerless to\nexert her usual arts. The dread of Selden\'s suspecting that there was any\nneed for her to propitiate such a man as Rosedale checked the trivial\nphrases of politeness. Rosedale still stood before her in an expectant\nattitude, and she continued to face him in silence, her glance just level\nwith his polished baldness. The look put the finishing touch to what her\nsilence implied.\n\nHe reddened slowly, shifting from one foot to the other, fingered the\nplump black pearl in his tie, and gave a nervous twist to his moustache;\nthen, running his eye over her, he drew back, and said, with a\nside-glance at Selden: \"Upon my soul, I never saw a more ripping get-up.\nIs that the last creation of the dress-maker you go to see at the\nBenedick? If so, I wonder all the other women don\'t go to her too!\"\n\nThe words were projected sharply against Lily\'s silence, and she saw in a\nflash that her own act had given them their emphasis. In ordinary talk\nthey might have passed unheeded; but following on her prolonged pause\nthey acquired a special meaning. She felt, without looking, that Selden\nhad immediately seized it, and would inevitably connect the allusion with\nher visit to himself. The consciousness increased her irritation against\nRosedale, but also her feeling that now, if ever, was the moment to\npropitiate him, hateful as it was to do so in Selden\'s presence.\n\n\"How do you know the other women don\'t go to my dress-maker?\" she\nreturned. \"You see I\'m not afraid to give her address to my friends!\"\n\nHer glance and accent so plainly included Rosedale in this privileged\ncircle that his small eyes puckered with gratification, and a knowing\nsmile drew up his moustache.\n\n\"By Jove, you needn\'t be!\" he declared. \"You could give \'em the whole\noutfit and win at a canter!\"\n\n\"Ah, that\'s nice of you; and it would be nicer still if you would carry\nme off to a quiet corner, and get me a glass of lemonade or some innocent\ndrink before we all have to rush for the train.\"\n\nShe turned away as she spoke, letting him strut at her side through the\ngathering groups on the terrace, while every nerve in her throbbed with\nthe consciousness of what Selden must have thought of the scene.\n\nBut under her angry sense of the perverseness of things, and the light\nsurface of her talk with Rosedale, a third idea persisted: she did not\nmean to leave without an attempt to discover the truth about Percy Gryce.\nChance, or perhaps his own resolve, had kept them apart since his hasty\nwithdrawal from Bellomont; but Miss Bart was an expert in making the most\nof the unexpected, and the distasteful incidents of the last few\nminutes--the revelation to Selden of precisely that part of her life\nwhich she most wished him to ignore--increased her longing for shelter,\nfor escape from such humiliating contingencies. Any definite situation\nwould be more tolerable than this buffeting of chances, which kept her in\nan attitude of uneasy alertness toward every possibility of life.\n\nIndoors there was a general sense of dispersal in the air, as of an\naudience gathering itself up for departure after the principal actors had\nleft the stage; but among the remaining groups, Lily could discover\nneither Gryce nor the youngest Miss Van Osburgh. That both should be\nmissing struck her with foreboding; and she charmed Mr. Rosedale by\nproposing that they should make their way to the conservatories at the\nfarther end of the house. There were just enough people left in the long\nsuite of rooms to make their progress conspicuous, and Lily was aware of\nbeing followed by looks of amusement and interrogation, which glanced off\nas harmlessly from her indifference as from her companion\'s\nself-satisfaction. She cared very little at that moment about being seen\nwith Rosedale: all her thoughts were centred on the object of her search.\nThe latter, however, was not discoverable in the conservatories, and\nLily, oppressed by a sudden conviction of failure, was casting about for\na way to rid herself of her now superfluous companion, when they came\nupon Mrs. Van Osburgh, flushed and exhausted, but beaming with the\nconsciousness of duty performed.\n\nShe glanced at them a moment with the benign but vacant eye of the tired\nhostess, to whom her guests have become mere whirling spots in a\nkaleidoscope of fatigue; then her attention became suddenly fixed, and\nshe seized on Miss Bart with a confidential gesture. \"My dear Lily, I\nhaven\'t had time for a word with you, and now I suppose you are just off.\nHave you seen Evie? She\'s been looking everywhere for you: she wanted to\ntell you her little secret; but I daresay you have guessed it already.\nThe engagement is not to be announced till next week--but you are such a\nfriend of Mr. Gryce\'s that they both wished you to be the first to know\nof their happiness.\"\n\n\n\nChapter 9\n\nIn Mrs. Peniston\'s youth, fashion had returned to town in October;\ntherefore on the tenth day of the month the blinds of her Fifth Avenue\nresidence were drawn up, and the eyes of the Dying Gladiator in bronze\nwho occupied the drawing-room window resumed their survey of that\ndeserted thoroughfare.\n\nThe first two weeks after her return represented to Mrs. Peniston the\ndomestic equivalent of a religious retreat. She \"went through\" the linen\nand blankets in the precise spirit of the penitent exploring the inner\nfolds of conscience; she sought for moths as the stricken soul seeks for\nlurking infirmities. The topmost shelf of every closet was made to yield\nup its secret, cellar and coal-bin were probed to their darkest depths\nand, as a final stage in the lustral rites, the entire house was swathed\nin penitential white and deluged with expiatory soapsuds.\n\nIt was on this phase of the proceedings that Miss Bart entered on the\nafternoon of her return from the Van Osburgh wedding. The journey back to\ntown had not been calculated to soothe her nerves. Though Evie Van\nOsburgh\'s engagement was still officially a secret, it was one of which\nthe innumerable intimate friends of the family were already possessed;\nand the trainful of returning guests buzzed with allusions and\nanticipations. Lily was acutely aware of her own part in this drama of\ninnuendo: she knew the exact quality of the amusement the situation\nevoked. The crude forms in which her friends took their pleasure included\na loud enjoyment of such complications: the zest of surprising destiny in\nthe act of playing a practical joke. Lily knew well enough how to bear\nherself in difficult situations. She had, to a shade, the exact manner\nbetween victory and defeat: every insinuation was shed without an effort\nby the bright indifference of her manner. But she was beginning to feel\nthe strain of the attitude; the reaction was more rapid, and she lapsed\nto a deeper self-disgust.\n\n\nAs was always the case with her, this moral repulsion found a physical\noutlet in a quickened distaste for her surroundings. She revolted from\nthe complacent ugliness of Mrs. Peniston\'s black walnut, from the\nslippery gloss of the vestibule tiles, and the mingled odour of sapolio\nand furniture-polish that met her at the door.\n\nThe stairs were still carpetless, and on the way up to her room she was\narrested on the landing by an encroaching tide of soapsuds. Gathering up\nher skirts, she drew aside with an impatient gesture; and as she did so\nshe had the odd sensation of having already found herself in the same\nsituation but in different surroundings. It seemed to her that she was\nagain descending the staircase from Selden\'s rooms; and looking down to\nremonstrate with the dispenser of the soapy flood, she found herself met\nby a lifted stare which had once before confronted her under similar\ncircumstances. It was the char-woman of the Benedick who, resting on\ncrimson elbows, examined her with the same unflinching curiosity, the\nsame apparent reluctance to let her pass. On this occasion, however, Miss\nBart was on her own ground.\n\n\"Don\'t you see that I wish to go by? Please move your pail,\" she said\nsharply.\n\nThe woman at first seemed not to hear; then, without a word of excuse,\nshe pushed back her pail and dragged a wet floor-cloth across the\nlanding, keeping her eyes fixed on Lily while the latter swept by. It was\ninsufferable that Mrs. Peniston should have such creatures about the\nhouse; and Lily entered her room resolved that the woman should be\ndismissed that evening.\n\nMrs. Peniston, however, was at the moment inaccessible to remonstrance:\nsince early morning she had been shut up with her maid, going over her\nfurs, a process which formed the culminating episode in the drama of\nhousehold renovation. In the evening also Lily found herself alone, for\nher aunt, who rarely dined out, had responded to the summons of a Van\nAlstyne cousin who was passing through town. The house, in its state of\nunnatural immaculateness and order, was as dreary as a tomb, and as Lily,\nturning from her brief repast between shrouded sideboards, wandered into\nthe newly-uncovered glare of the drawing-room she felt as though she were\nburied alive in the stifling limits of Mrs. Peniston\'s existence.\n\nShe usually contrived to avoid being at home during the season of\ndomestic renewal. On the present occasion, however, a variety of reasons\nhad combined to bring her to town; and foremost among them was the fact\nthat she had fewer invitations than usual for the autumn. She had so long\nbeen accustomed to pass from one country-house to another, till the close\nof the holidays brought her friends to town, that the unfilled gaps of\ntime confronting her produced a sharp sense of waning popularity. It was\nas she had said to Selden--people were tired of her. They would welcome\nher in a new character, but as Miss Bart they knew her by heart. She\nknew herself by heart too, and was sick of the old story. There were\nmoments when she longed blindly for anything different, anything strange,\nremote and untried; but the utmost reach of her imagination did not go\nbeyond picturing her usual life in a new setting. She could not figure\nherself as anywhere but in a drawing-room, diffusing elegance as a flower\nsheds perfume.\n\nMeanwhile, as October advanced she had to face the alternative of\nreturning to the Trenors or joining her aunt in town. Even the desolating\ndulness of New York in October, and the soapy discomforts of Mrs.\nPeniston\'s interior, seemed preferable to what might await her at\nBellomont; and with an air of heroic devotion she announced her intention\nof remaining with her aunt till the holidays.\n\nSacrifices of this nature are sometimes received with feelings as mixed\nas those which actuate them; and Mrs. Peniston remarked to her\nconfidential maid that, if any of the family were to be with her at such\na crisis (though for forty years she had been thought competent to see to\nthe hanging of her own curtains), she would certainly have preferred Miss\nGrace to Miss Lily. Grace Stepney was an obscure cousin, of adaptable\nmanners and vicarious interests, who \"ran in\" to sit with Mrs. Peniston\nwhen Lily dined out too continuously; who played bezique, picked up\ndropped stitches, read out the deaths from the Times, and sincerely\nadmired the purple satin drawing-room curtains, the Dying Gladiator in\nthe window, and the seven-by-five painting of Niagara which represented\nthe one artistic excess of Mr. Peniston\'s temperate career.\n\nMrs. Peniston, under ordinary circumstances, was as much bored by her\nexcellent cousin as the recipient of such services usually is by the\nperson who performs them. She greatly preferred the brilliant and\nunreliable Lily, who did not know one end of a crochet-needle from the\nother, and had frequently wounded her susceptibilities by suggesting that\nthe drawing-room should be \"done over.\" But when it came to hunting for\nmissing napkins, or helping to decide whether the backstairs needed\nre-carpeting, Grace\'s judgment was certainly sounder than Lily\'s: not to\nmention the fact that the latter resented the smell of beeswax and brown\nsoap, and behaved as though she thought a house ought to keep clean of\nitself, without extraneous assistance.\n\nSeated under the cheerless blaze of the drawing-room chandelier--Mrs.\nPeniston never lit the lamps unless there was \"company\"--Lily seemed to\nwatch her own figure retreating down vistas of neutral-tinted dulness to\na middle age like Grace Stepney\'s. When she ceased to amuse Judy Trenor\nand her friends she would have to fall back on amusing Mrs. Peniston;\nwhichever way she looked she saw only a future of servitude to the whims\nof others, never the possibility of asserting her own eager individuality.\n\nA ring at the door-bell, sounding emphatically through the empty house,\nroused her suddenly to the extent of her boredom. It was as though all\nthe weariness of the past months had culminated in the vacuity of that\ninterminable evening. If only the ring meant a summons from the outer\nworld--a token that she was still remembered and wanted!\n\nAfter some delay a parlour-maid presented herself with the announcement\nthat there was a person outside who was asking to see Miss Bart; and on\nLily\'s pressing for a more specific description, she added:\n\n\"It\'s Mrs. Haffen, Miss; she won\'t say what she wants.\"\n\nLily, to whom the name conveyed nothing, opened the door upon a woman in\na battered bonnet, who stood firmly planted under the hall-light. The\nglare of the unshaded gas shone familiarly on her pock-marked face and\nthe reddish baldness visible through thin strands of straw-coloured hair.\nLily looked at the char-woman in surprise.\n\n\"Do you wish to see me?\" she asked.\n\n\"I should like to say a word to you, Miss.\" The tone was neither\naggressive nor conciliatory: it revealed nothing of the speaker\'s errand.\nNevertheless, some precautionary instinct warned Lily to withdraw beyond\near-shot of the hovering parlour-maid.\n\nShe signed to Mrs. Haffen to follow her into the drawing-room, and closed\nthe door when they had entered.\n\n\"What is it that you wish?\" she enquired.\n\nThe char-woman, after the manner of her kind, stood with her arms folded\nin her shawl. Unwinding the latter, she produced a small parcel wrapped\nin dirty newspaper.\n\n\"I have something here that you might like to see, Miss Bart.\" She spoke\nthe name with an unpleasant emphasis, as though her knowing it made a\npart of her reason for being there. To Lily the intonation sounded like a\nthreat.\n\n\"You have found something belonging to me?\" she asked, extending her hand.\n\nMrs. Haffen drew back. \"Well, if it comes to that, I guess it\'s mine as\nmuch as anybody\'s,\" she returned.\n\nLily looked at her perplexedly. She was sure, now, that her visitor\'s\nmanner conveyed a threat; but, expert as she was in certain directions,\nthere was nothing in her experience to prepare her for the exact\nsignificance of the present scene. She felt, however, that it must be\nended as promptly as possible.\n\n\"I don\'t understand; if this parcel is not mine, why have you asked for\nme?\"\n\nThe woman was unabashed by the question. She was evidently prepared to\nanswer it, but like all her class she had to go a long way back to make a\nbeginning, and it was only after a pause that she replied: \"My husband\nwas janitor to the Benedick till the first of the month; since then he\ncan\'t get nothing to do.\"\n\nLily remained silent and she continued: \"It wasn\'t no fault of our own,\nneither: the agent had another man he wanted the place for, and we was\nput out, bag and baggage, just to suit his fancy. I had a long sickness\nlast winter, and an operation that ate up all we\'d put by; and it\'s hard\nfor me and the children, Haffen being so long out of a job.\"\n\nAfter all, then, she had come only to ask Miss Bart to find a place for\nher husband; or, more probably, to seek the young lady\'s intervention\nwith Mrs. Peniston. Lily had such an air of always getting what she\nwanted that she was used to being appealed to as an intermediary, and,\nrelieved of her vague apprehension, she took refuge in the conventional\nformula.\n\n\"I am sorry you have been in trouble,\" she said.\n\n\"Oh, that we have, Miss, and it\'s on\'y just beginning. If on\'y we\'d \'a\ngot another situation--but the agent, he\'s dead against us. It ain\'t no\nfault of ours, neither, but----\"\n\nAt this point Lily\'s impatience overcame her. \"If you have anything to\nsay to me----\" she interposed.\n\nThe woman\'s resentment of the rebuff seemed to spur her lagging ideas.\n\n\"Yes, Miss; I\'m coming to that,\" she said. She paused again, with her\neyes on Lily, and then continued, in a tone of diffuse narrative: \"When\nwe was at the Benedick I had charge of some of the gentlemen\'s rooms;\nleastways, I swep\' \'em out on Saturdays. Some of the gentlemen got the\ngreatest sight of letters: I never saw the like of it. Their waste-paper\nbaskets \'d be fairly brimming, and papers falling over on the floor.\nMaybe havin\' so many is how they get so careless. Some of \'em is worse\nthan others. Mr. Selden, Mr. Lawrence Selden, he was always one of the\ncarefullest: burnt his letters in winter, and tore \'em in little bits in\nsummer. But sometimes he\'d have so many he\'d just bunch \'em together, the\nway the others did, and tear the lot through once--like this.\"\n\nWhile she spoke she had loosened the string from the parcel in her hand,\nand now she drew forth a letter which she laid on the table between Miss\nBart and herself. As she had said, the letter was torn in two; but with a\nrapid gesture she laid the torn edges together and smoothed out the page.\n\nA wave of indignation swept over Lily. She felt herself in the presence\nof something vile, as yet but dimly conjectured--the kind of vileness of\nwhich people whispered, but which she had never thought of as touching\nher own life. She drew back with a motion of disgust, but her withdrawal\nwas checked by a sudden discovery: under the glare of Mrs. Peniston\'s\nchandelier she had recognized the hand-writing of the letter. It was a\nlarge disjointed hand, with a flourish of masculinity which but slightly\ndisguised its rambling weakness, and the words, scrawled in heavy ink on\npale-tinted notepaper, smote on Lily\'s ear as though she had heard them\nspoken.\n\nAt first she did not grasp the full import of the situation. She\nunderstood only that before her lay a letter written by Bertha Dorset,\nand addressed, presumably, to Lawrence Selden. There was no date, but the\nblackness of the ink proved the writing to be comparatively recent. The\npacket in Mrs. Haffen\'s hand doubtless contained more letters of the same\nkind--a dozen, Lily conjectured from its thickness. The letter before her\nwas short, but its few words, which had leapt into her brain before she\nwas conscious of reading them, told a long history--a history over which,\nfor the last four years, the friends of the writer had smiled and\nshrugged, viewing it merely as one among the countless \"good situations\"\nof the mundane comedy. Now the other side presented itself to Lily, the\nvolcanic nether side of the surface over which conjecture and innuendo\nglide so lightly till the first fissure turns their whisper to a shriek.\nLily knew that there is nothing society resents so much as having given\nits protection to those who have not known how to profit by it: it is for\nhaving betrayed its connivance that the body social punishes the offender\nwho is found out. And in this case there was no doubt of the issue. The\ncode of Lily\'s world decreed that a woman\'s husband should be the only\njudge of her conduct: she was technically above suspicion while she had\nthe shelter of his approval, or even of his indifference. But with a man\nof George Dorset\'s temper there could be no thought of condonation--the\npossessor of his wife\'s letters could overthrow with a touch the whole\nstructure of her existence. And into what hands Bertha Dorset\'s secret\nhad been delivered! For a moment the irony of the coincidence tinged\nLily\'s disgust with a confused sense of triumph. But the disgust\nprevailed--all her instinctive resistances, of taste, of training, of\nblind inherited scruples, rose against the other feeling. Her strongest\nsense was one of personal contamination.\n\nShe moved away, as though to put as much distance as possible between\nherself and her visitor. \"I know nothing of these letters,\" she said; \"I\nhave no idea why you have brought them here.\"\n\nMrs. Haffen faced her steadily. \"I\'ll tell you why, Miss. I brought \'em\nto you to sell, because I ain\'t got no other way of raising money, and if\nwe don\'t pay our rent by tomorrow night we\'ll be put out. I never done\nanythin\' of the kind before, and if you\'d speak to Mr. Selden or to Mr.\nRosedale about getting Haffen taken on again at the Benedick--I seen you\ntalking to Mr. Rosedale on the steps that day you come out of Mr.\nSelden\'s rooms----\"\n\nThe blood rushed to Lily\'s forehead. She understood now--Mrs. Haffen\nsupposed her to be the writer of the letters. In the first leap of her\nanger she was about to ring and order the woman out; but an obscure\nimpulse restrained her. The mention of Selden\'s name had started a new\ntrain of thought. Bertha Dorset\'s letters were nothing to her--they might\ngo where the current of chance carried them! But Selden was inextricably\ninvolved in their fate. Men do not, at worst, suffer much from such\nexposure; and in this instance the flash of divination which had carried\nthe meaning of the letters to Lily\'s brain had revealed also that they\nwere appeals--repeated and therefore probably unanswered--for the renewal\nof a tie which time had evidently relaxed. Nevertheless, the fact that\nthe correspondence had been allowed to fall into strange hands would\nconvict Selden of negligence in a matter where the world holds it least\npardonable; and there were graver risks to consider where a man of\nDorset\'s ticklish balance was concerned.\n\nIf she weighed all these things it was unconsciously: she was aware only\nof feeling that Selden would wish the letters rescued, and that therefore\nshe must obtain possession of them. Beyond that her mind did not travel.\nShe had, indeed, a quick vision of returning the packet to Bertha Dorset,\nand of the opportunities the restitution offered; but this thought lit up\nabysses from which she shrank back ashamed.\n\nMeanwhile Mrs. Haffen, prompt to perceive her hesitation, had already\nopened the packet and ranged its contents on the table. All the letters\nhad been pieced together with strips of thin paper. Some were in small\nfragments, the others merely torn in half. Though there were not many,\nthus spread out they nearly covered the table. Lily\'s glance fell on a\nword here and there--then she said in a low voice: \"What do you wish me\nto pay you?\"\n\nMrs. Haffen\'s face reddened with satisfaction. It was clear that the\nyoung lady was badly frightened, and Mrs. Haffen was the woman to make\nthe most of such fears. Anticipating an easier victory than she had\nforeseen, she named an exorbitant sum.\n\nBut Miss Bart showed herself a less ready prey than might have been\nexpected from her imprudent opening. She refused to pay the price named,\nand after a moment\'s hesitation, met it by a counter-offer of half the\namount.\n\nMrs. Haffen immediately stiffened. Her hand travelled toward the\noutspread letters, and folding them slowly, she made as though to restore\nthem to their wrapping.\n\n\"I guess they\'re worth more to you than to me, Miss, but the poor has got\nto live as well as the rich,\" she observed sententiously.\n\n\nLily was throbbing with fear, but the insinuation fortified her\nresistance.\n\n\"You are mistaken,\" she said indifferently. \"I have offered all I am\nwilling to give for the letters; but there may be other ways of getting\nthem.\"\n\nMrs. Haffen raised a suspicious glance: she was too experienced not to\nknow that the traffic she was engaged in had perils as great as its\nrewards, and she had a vision of the elaborate machinery of revenge which\na word of this commanding young lady\'s might set in motion.\n\nShe applied the corner of her shawl to her eyes, and murmured through it\nthat no good came of bearing too hard on the poor, but that for her part\nshe had never been mixed up in such a business before, and that on her\nhonour as a Christian all she and Haffen had thought of was that the\nletters mustn\'t go any farther.\n\nLily stood motionless, keeping between herself and the char-woman the\ngreatest distance compatible with the need of speaking in low tones. The\nidea of bargaining for the letters was intolerable to her, but she knew\nthat, if she appeared to weaken, Mrs. Haffen would at once increase her\noriginal demand.\n\nShe could never afterward recall how long the duel lasted, or what was\nthe decisive stroke which finally, after a lapse of time recorded in\nminutes by the clock, in hours by the precipitate beat of her pulses, put\nher in possession of the letters; she knew only that the door had finally\nclosed, and that she stood alone with the packet in her hand.\n\nShe had no idea of reading the letters; even to unfold Mrs. Haffen\'s\ndirty newspaper would have seemed degrading. But what did she intend to\ndo with its contents? The recipient of the letters had meant to destroy\nthem, and it was her duty to carry out his intention. She had no right to\nkeep them--to do so was to lessen whatever merit lay in having secured\ntheir possession. But how destroy them so effectually that there should\nbe no second risk of their falling in such hands? Mrs. Peniston\'s icy\ndrawing-room grate shone with a forbidding lustre: the fire, like the\nlamps, was never lit except when there was company.\n\nMiss Bart was turning to carry the letters upstairs when she heard the\nopening of the outer door, and her aunt entered the drawing-room. Mrs.\nPeniston was a small plump woman, with a colourless skin lined with\ntrivial wrinkles. Her grey hair was arranged with precision, and her\nclothes looked excessively new and yet slightly old-fashioned. They were\nalways black and tightly fitting, with an expensive glitter: she was the\nkind of woman who wore jet at breakfast. Lily had never seen her when she\nwas not cuirassed in shining black, with small tight boots, and an air of\nbeing packed and ready to start; yet she never started.\n\nShe looked about the drawing-room with an expression of minute scrutiny.\n\"I saw a streak of light under one of the blinds as I drove up: it\'s\nextraordinary that I can never teach that woman to draw them down evenly.\"\n\nHaving corrected the irregularity, she seated herself on one of the\nglossy purple arm-chairs; Mrs. Peniston always sat on a chair, never in\nit.\n\nThen she turned her glance to Miss Bart. \"My dear, you look tired; I\nsuppose it\'s the excitement of the wedding. Cornelia Van Alstyne was full\nof it: Molly was there, and Gerty Farish ran in for a minute to tell us\nabout it. I think it was odd, their serving melons before the CONSOMME: a\nwedding breakfast should always begin with CONSOMME. Molly didn\'t care\nfor the bridesmaids\' dresses. She had it straight from Julia Melson that\nthey cost three hundred dollars apiece at Celeste\'s, but she says they\ndidn\'t look it. I\'m glad you decided not to be a bridesmaid; that shade\nof salmon-pink wouldn\'t have suited you.\" Mrs. Peniston delighted in\ndiscussing the minutest details of festivities in which she had not taken\npart. Nothing would have induced her to undergo the exertion and fatigue\nof attending the Van Osburgh wedding, but so great was her interest in\nthe event that, having heard two versions of it, she now prepared to\nextract a third from her niece. Lily, however, had been deplorably\ncareless in noting the particulars of the entertainment. She had failed\nto observe the colour of Mrs. Van Osburgh\'s gown, and could not even say\nwhether the old Van Osburgh Sevres had been used at the bride\'s table:\nMrs. Peniston, in short, found that she was of more service as a listener\nthan as a narrator.\n\n\"Really, Lily, I don\'t see why you took the trouble to go to the wedding,\nif you don\'t remember what happened or whom you saw there. When I was a\ngirl I used to keep the MENU of every dinner I went to, and write the\nnames of the people on the back; and I never threw away my cotillion\nfavours till after your uncle\'s death, when it seemed unsuitable to have\nso many coloured things about the house. I had a whole closet-full, I\nremember; and I can tell to this day what balls I got them at. Molly Van\nAlstyne reminds me of what I was at that age; it\'s wonderful how she\nnotices. She was able to tell her mother exactly how the wedding-dress\nwas cut, and we knew at once, from the fold in the back, that it must\nhave come from Paquin.\"\n\nMrs. Peniston rose abruptly, and, advancing to the ormolu clock\nsurmounted by a helmeted Minerva, which throned on the chimney-piece\nbetween two malachite vases, passed her lace handkerchief between the\nhelmet and its visor.\n\n\"I knew it--the parlour-maid never dusts there!\" she exclaimed,\ntriumphantly displaying a minute spot on the handkerchief; then,\nreseating herself, she went on: \"Molly thought Mrs. Dorset the\nbest-dressed woman at the wedding. I\'ve no doubt her dress DID cost more\nthan any one else\'s, but I can\'t quite like the idea--a combination of\nsable and POINT DE MILAN. It seems she goes to a new man in Paris, who\nwon\'t take an order till his client has spent a day with him at his villa\nat Neuilly. He says he must study his subject\'s home life--a most\npeculiar arrangement, I should say! But Mrs. Dorset told Molly about it\nherself: she said the villa was full of the most exquisite things and she\nwas really sorry to leave. Molly said she never saw her looking better;\nshe was in tremendous spirits, and said she had made a match between Evie\nVan Osburgh and Percy Gryce. She really seems to have a very good\ninfluence on young men. I hear she is interesting herself now in that\nsilly Silverton boy, who has had his head turned by Carry Fisher, and has\nbeen gambling so dreadfully. Well, as I was saying, Evie is really\nengaged: Mrs. Dorset had her to stay with Percy Gryce, and managed it\nall, and Grace Van Osburgh is in the seventh heaven--she had almost\ndespaired of marrying Evie.\"\n\nMrs. Peniston again paused, but this time her scrutiny addressed itself,\nnot to the furniture, but to her niece.\n\n\"Cornelia Van Alstyne was so surprised: she had heard that you were to\nmarry young Gryce. She saw the Wetheralls just after they had stopped\nwith you at Bellomont, and Alice Wetherall was quite sure there was an\nengagement. She said that when Mr. Gryce left unexpectedly one morning,\nthey all thought he had rushed to town for the ring.\"\n\nLily rose and moved toward the door.\n\n\"I believe I AM tired: I think I will go to bed,\" she said; and Mrs.\nPeniston, suddenly distracted by the discovery that the easel sustaining\nthe late Mr. Peniston\'s crayon-portrait was not exactly in line with the\nsofa in front of it, presented an absent-minded brow to her kiss.\n\nIn her own room Lily turned up the gas-jet and glanced toward the grate.\nIt was as brilliantly polished as the one below, but here at least she\ncould burn a few papers with less risk of incurring her aunt\'s\ndisapproval. She made no immediate motion to do so, however, but dropping\ninto a chair looked wearily about her. Her room was large and\ncomfortably-furnished--it was the envy and admiration of poor Grace\nStepney, who boarded; but, contrasted with the light tints and luxurious\nappointments of the guest-rooms where so many weeks of Lily\'s existence\nwere spent, it seemed as dreary as a prison. The monumental wardrobe and\nbedstead of black walnut had migrated from Mr. Peniston\'s bedroom, and\nthe magenta \"flock\" wall-paper, of a pattern dear to the early \'sixties,\nwas hung with large steel engravings of an anecdotic character. Lily had\ntried to mitigate this charmless background by a few frivolous touches,\nin the shape of a lace-decked toilet table and a little painted desk\nsurmounted by photographs; but the futility of the attempt struck her as\nshe looked about the room. What a contrast to the subtle elegance of the\nsetting she had pictured for herself--an apartment which should surpass\nthe complicated luxury of her friends\' surroundings by the whole extent\nof that artistic sensibility which made her feel herself their superior;\nin which every tint and line should combine to enhance her beauty and\ngive distinction to her leisure! Once more the haunting sense of physical\nugliness was intensified by her mental depression, so that each piece of\nthe offending furniture seemed to thrust forth its most aggressive angle.\n\nHer aunt\'s words had told her nothing new; but they had revived the\nvision of Bertha Dorset, smiling, flattered, victorious, holding her up\nto ridicule by insinuations intelligible to every member of their little\ngroup. The thought of the ridicule struck deeper than any other\nsensation: Lily knew every turn of the allusive jargon which could flay\nits victims without the shedding of blood. Her cheek burned at the\nrecollection, and she rose and caught up the letters. She no longer meant\nto destroy them: that intention had been effaced by the quick corrosion\nof Mrs. Peniston\'s words.\n\nInstead, she approached her desk, and lighting a taper, tied and sealed\nthe packet; then she opened the wardrobe, drew out a despatch-box, and\ndeposited the letters within it. As she did so, it struck her with a\nflash of irony that she was indebted to Gus Trenor for the means of\nbuying them.\n\n\n\nChapter 10\n\nThe autumn dragged on monotonously. Miss Bart had received one or two\nnotes from Judy Trenor, reproaching her for not returning to Bellomont;\nbut she replied evasively, alleging the obligation to remain with her\naunt. In truth, however, she was fast wearying of her solitary existence\nwith Mrs. Peniston, and only the excitement of spending her\nnewly-acquired money lightened the dulness of the days.\n\nAll her life Lily had seen money go out as quickly as it came in, and\nwhatever theories she cultivated as to the prudence of setting aside a\npart of her gains, she had unhappily no saving vision of the risks of the\nopposite course. It was a keen satisfaction to feel that, for a few\nmonths at least, she would be independent of her friends\' bounty, that\nshe could show herself abroad without wondering whether some penetrating\neye would detect in her dress the traces of Judy Trenor\'s refurbished\nsplendour. The fact that the money freed her temporarily from all minor\nobligations obscured her sense of the greater one it represented, and\nhaving never before known what it was to command so large a sum, she\nlingered delectably over the amusement of spending it.\n\nIt was on one of these occasions that, leaving a shop where she had spent\nan hour of deliberation over a dressing-case of the most complicated\nelegance, she ran across Miss Farish, who had entered the same\nestablishment with the modest object of having her watch repaired. Lily\nwas feeling unusually virtuous. She had decided to defer the purchase of\nthe dressing-case till she should receive the bill for her new\nopera-cloak, and the resolve made her feel much richer than when she had\nentered the shop. In this mood of self-approval she had a sympathetic eye\nfor others, and she was struck by her friend\'s air of dejection.\n\nMiss Farish, it appeared, had just left the committee-meeting of a\nstruggling charity in which she was interested. The object of the\nassociation was to provide comfortable lodgings, with a reading-room and\nother modest distractions, where young women of the class employed in\ndown town offices might find a home when out of work, or in need of rest,\nand the first year\'s financial report showed so deplorably small a\nbalance that Miss Farish, who was convinced of the urgency of the work,\nfelt proportionately discouraged by the small amount of interest it\naroused. The other-regarding sentiments had not been cultivated in Lily,\nand she was often bored by the relation of her friend\'s philanthropic\nefforts, but today her quick dramatizing fancy seized on the contrast\nbetween her own situation and that represented by some of Gerty\'s\n\"cases.\" These were young girls, like herself; some perhaps pretty, some\nnot without a trace of her finer sensibilities. She pictured herself\nleading such a life as theirs--a life in which achievement seemed as\nsqualid as failure--and the vision made her shudder sympathetically. The\nprice of the dressing-case was still in her pocket; and drawing out her\nlittle gold purse she slipped a liberal fraction of the amount into Miss\nFarish\'s hand.\n\nThe satisfaction derived from this act was all that the most ardent\nmoralist could have desired. Lily felt a new interest in herself as a\nperson of charitable instincts: she had never before thought of doing\ngood with the wealth she had so often dreamed of possessing, but now her\nhorizon was enlarged by the vision of a prodigal philanthropy. Moreover,\nby some obscure process of logic, she felt that her momentary burst of\ngenerosity had justified all previous extravagances, and excused any in\nwhich she might subsequently indulge. Miss Farish\'s surprise and\ngratitude confirmed this feeling, and Lily parted from her with a sense\nof self-esteem which she naturally mistook for the fruits of altruism.\n\nAbout this time she was farther cheered by an invitation to spend the\nThanksgiving week at a camp in the Adirondacks. The invitation was one\nwhich, a year earlier, would have provoked a less ready response, for the\nparty, though organized by Mrs. Fisher, was ostensibly given by a lady of\nobscure origin and indomitable social ambitions, whose acquaintance Lily\nhad hitherto avoided. Now, however, she was disposed to coincide with\nMrs. Fisher\'s view, that it didn\'t matter who gave the party, as long as\nthings were well done; and doing things well (under competent direction)\nwas Mrs. Wellington Bry\'s strong point. The lady (whose consort was known\nas \"Welly\" Bry on the Stock Exchange and in sporting circles) had already\nsacrificed one husband, and sundry minor considerations, to her\ndetermination to get on; and, having obtained a hold on Carry Fisher, she\nwas astute enough to perceive the wisdom of committing herself entirely\nto that lady\'s guidance. Everything, accordingly, was well done, for\nthere was no limit to Mrs. Fisher\'s prodigality when she was not spending\nher own money, and as she remarked to her pupil, a good cook was the best\nintroduction to society. If the company was not as select as the CUISINE,\nthe Welly Brys at least had the satisfaction of figuring for the first\ntime in the society columns in company with one or two noticeable names;\nand foremost among these was of course Miss Bart\'s. The young lady was\ntreated by her hosts with corresponding deference; and she was in the\nmood when such attentions are acceptable, whatever their source. Mrs.\nBry\'s admiration was a mirror in which Lily\'s self-complacency recovered\nits lost outline. No insect hangs its nest on threads as frail as those\nwhich will sustain the weight of human vanity; and the sense of being of\nimportance among the insignificant was enough to restore to Miss Bart the\ngratifying consciousness of power. If these people paid court to her it\nproved that she was still conspicuous in the world to which they aspired;\nand she was not above a certain enjoyment in dazzling them by her\nfineness, in developing their puzzled perception of her superiorities.\n\nPerhaps, however, her enjoyment proceeded more than she was aware from\nthe physical stimulus of the excursion, the challenge of crisp cold and\nhard exercise, the responsive thrill of her body to the influences of the\nwinter woods. She returned to town in a glow of rejuvenation, conscious\nof a clearer colour in her cheeks, a fresh elasticity in her muscles. The\nfuture seemed full of a vague promise, and all her apprehensions were\nswept out of sight on the buoyant current of her mood.\n\nA few days after her return to town she had the unpleasant surprise of a\nvisit from Mr. Rosedale. He came late, at the confidential hour when the\ntea-table still lingers by the fire in friendly expectancy; and his\nmanner showed a readiness to adapt itself to the intimacy of the occasion.\n\nLily, who had a vague sense of his being somehow connected with her lucky\nspeculations, tried to give him the welcome he expected; but there was\nsomething in the quality of his geniality which chilled her own, and she\nwas conscious of marking each step in their acquaintance by a fresh\nblunder.\n\nMr. Rosedale--making himself promptly at home in an adjoining easy-chair,\nand sipping his tea critically, with the comment: \"You ought to go to my\nman for something really good\"--appeared totally unconscious of the\nrepugnance which kept her in frozen erectness behind the urn. It was\nperhaps her very manner of holding herself aloof that appealed to his\ncollector\'s passion for the rare and unattainable. He gave, at any rate,\nno sign of resenting it and seemed prepared to supply in his own manner\nall the ease that was lacking in hers.\n\nHis object in calling was to ask her to go to the opera in his box on the\nopening night, and seeing her hesitate he said persuasively: \"Mrs. Fisher\nis coming, and I\'ve secured a tremendous admirer of yours, who\'ll never\nforgive me if you don\'t accept.\"\n\nAs Lily\'s silence left him with this allusion on his hands, he added with\na confidential smile: \"Gus Trenor has promised to come to town on\npurpose. I fancy he\'d go a good deal farther for the pleasure of seeing\nyou.\"\n\nMiss Bart felt an inward motion of annoyance: it was distasteful enough\nto hear her name coupled with Trenor\'s, and on Rosedale\'s lips the\nallusion was peculiarly unpleasant.\n\n\"The Trenors are my best friends--I think we should all go a long way to\nsee each other,\" she said, absorbing herself in the preparation of fresh\ntea.\n\nHer visitor\'s smile grew increasingly intimate. \"Well, I wasn\'t thinking\nof Mrs. Trenor at the moment--they say Gus doesn\'t always, you know.\"\nThen, dimly conscious that he had not struck the right note, he added,\nwith a well-meant effort at diversion: \"How\'s your luck been going in\nWall Street, by the way? I hear Gus pulled off a nice little pile for you\nlast month.\"\n\nLily put down the tea-caddy with an abrupt gesture. She felt that her\nhands were trembling, and clasped them on her knee to steady them; but\nher lip trembled too, and for a moment she was afraid the tremor might\ncommunicate itself to her voice. When she spoke, however, it was in a\ntone of perfect lightness.\n\n\"Ah, yes--I had a little bit of money to invest, and Mr. Trenor, who\nhelps me about such matters, advised my putting it in stocks instead of a\nmortgage, as my aunt\'s agent wanted me to do; and as it happened, I made\na lucky \'turn\'--is that what you call it? For you make a great many\nyourself, I believe.\"\n\nShe was smiling back at him now, relaxing the tension of her attitude,\nand admitting him, by imperceptible gradations of glance and manner, a\nstep farther toward intimacy. The protective instinct always nerved her\nto successful dissimulation, and it was not the first time she had used\nher beauty to divert attention from an inconvenient topic.\n\nWhen Mr. Rosedale took leave, he carried with him, not only her\nacceptance of his invitation, but a general sense of having comported\nhimself in a way calculated to advance his cause. He had always believed\nhe had a light touch and a knowing way with women, and the prompt manner\nin which Miss Bart (as he would have phrased it) had \"come into line,\"\nconfirmed his confidence in his powers of handling this skittish sex. Her\nway of glossing over the transaction with Trenor he regarded at once as a\ntribute to his own acuteness, and a confirmation of his suspicions. The\ngirl was evidently nervous, and Mr. Rosedale, if he saw no other means of\nadvancing his acquaintance with her, was not above taking advantage of\nher nervousness.\n\nHe left Lily to a passion of disgust and fear. It seemed incredible that\nGus Trenor should have spoken of her to Rosedale. With all his faults,\nTrenor had the safeguard of his traditions, and was the less likely to\noverstep them because they were so purely instinctive. But Lily recalled\nwith a pang that there were convivial moments when, as Judy had confided\nto her, Gus \"talked foolishly\": in one of these, no doubt, the fatal word\nhad slipped from him. As for Rosedale, she did not, after the first\nshock, greatly care what conclusions he had drawn. Though usually adroit\nenough where her own interests were concerned, she made the mistake, not\nuncommon to persons in whom the social habits are instinctive, of\nsupposing that the inability to acquire them quickly implies a general\ndulness. Because a blue-bottle bangs irrationally against a window-pane,\nthe drawing-room naturalist may forget that under less artificial\nconditions it is capable of measuring distances and drawing conclusions\nwith all the accuracy needful to its welfare; and the fact that Mr.\nRosedale\'s drawing-room manner lacked perspective made Lily class him\nwith Trenor and the other dull men she knew, and assume that a little\nflattery, and the occasional acceptance of his hospitality, would suffice\nto render him innocuous. However, there could be no doubt of the\nexpediency of showing herself in his box on the opening night of the\nopera; and after all, since Judy Trenor had promised to take him up that\nwinter, it was as well to reap the advantage of being first in the field.\n\nFor a day or two after Rosedale\'s visit, Lily\'s thoughts were dogged by\nthe consciousness of Trenor\'s shadowy claim, and she wished she had a\nclearer notion of the exact nature of the transaction which seemed to\nhave put her in his power; but her mind shrank from any unusual\napplication, and she was always helplessly puzzled by figures. Moreover\nshe had not seen Trenor since the day of the Van Osburgh wedding, and in\nhis continued absence the trace of Rosedale\'s words was soon effaced by\nother impressions.\n\nWhen the opening night of the opera came, her apprehensions had so\ncompletely vanished that the sight of Trenor\'s ruddy countenance in the\nback of Mr. Rosedale\'s box filled her with a sense of pleasant\nreassurance. Lily had not quite reconciled herself to the necessity of\nappearing as Rosedale\'s guest on so conspicuous an occasion, and it was a\nrelief to find herself supported by any one of her own set--for Mrs.\nFisher\'s social habits were too promiscuous for her presence to justify\nMiss Bart\'s.\n\nTo Lily, always inspirited by the prospect of showing her beauty in\npublic, and conscious tonight of all the added enhancements of dress, the\ninsistency of Trenor\'s gaze merged itself in the general stream of\nadmiring looks of which she felt herself the centre. Ah, it was good to\nbe young, to be radiant, to glow with the sense of slenderness, strength\nand elasticity, of well-poised lines and happy tints, to feel one\'s self\nlifted to a height apart by that incommunicable grace which is the bodily\ncounterpart of genius!\n\nAll means seemed justifiable to attain such an end, or rather, by a happy\nshifting of lights with which practice had familiarized Miss Bart, the\ncause shrank to a pin-point in the general brightness of the effect. But\nbrilliant young ladies, a little blinded by their own effulgence, are apt\nto forget that the modest satellite drowned in their light is still\nperforming its own revolutions and generating heat at its own rate. If\nLily\'s poetic enjoyment of the moment was undisturbed by the base thought\nthat her gown and opera cloak had been indirectly paid for by Gus Trenor,\nthe latter had not sufficient poetry in his composition to lose sight of\nthese prosaic facts. He knew only that he had never seen Lily look\nsmarter in her life, that there wasn\'t a woman in the house who showed\noff good clothes as she did, and that hitherto he, to whom she owed the\nopportunity of making this display, had reaped no return beyond that of\ngazing at her in company with several hundred other pairs of eyes.\n\nIt came to Lily therefore as a disagreeable surprise when, in the back of\nthe box, where they found themselves alone between two acts, Trenor said,\nwithout preamble, and in a tone of sulky authority: \"Look here, Lily, how\nis a fellow ever to see anything of you? I\'m in town three or four days\nin the week, and you know a line to the club will always find me, but you\ndon\'t seem to remember my existence nowadays unless you want to get a tip\nout of me.\"\n\nThe fact that the remark was in distinctly bad taste did not make it any\neasier to answer, for Lily was vividly aware that it was not the moment\nfor that drawing up of her slim figure and surprised lifting of the brows\nby which she usually quelled incipient signs of familiarity.\n\n\"I\'m very much flattered by your wanting to see me,\" she returned,\nessaying lightness instead, \"but, unless you have mislaid my address, it\nwould have been easy to find me any afternoon at my aunt\'s--in fact, I\nrather expected you to look me up there.\"\n\nIf she hoped to mollify him by this last concession the attempt was a\nfailure, for he only replied, with the familiar lowering of the brows\nthat made him look his dullest when he was angry: \"Hang going to your\naunt\'s, and wasting the afternoon listening to a lot of other chaps\ntalking to you! You know I\'m not the kind to sit in a crowd and jaw--I\'d\nalways rather clear out when that sort of circus is going on. But why\ncan\'t we go off somewhere on a little lark together--a nice quiet little\nexpedition like that drive at Bellomont, the day you met me at the\nstation?\"\n\nHe leaned unpleasantly close in order to convey this suggestion, and she\nfancied she caught a significant aroma which explained the dark flush on\nhis face and the glistening dampness of his forehead.\n\nThe idea that any rash answer might provoke an unpleasant outburst\ntempered her disgust with caution, and she answered with a laugh: \"I\ndon\'t see how one can very well take country drives in town, but I am not\nalways surrounded by an admiring throng, and if you will let me know what\nafternoon you are coming I will arrange things so that we can have a nice\nquiet talk.\"\n\n\"Hang talking! That\'s what you always say,\" returned Trenor, whose\nexpletives lacked variety. \"You put me off with that at the Van Osburgh\nwedding--but the plain English of it is that, now you\'ve got what you\nwanted out of me, you\'d rather have any other fellow about.\"\n\nHis voice had risen sharply with the last words, and Lily flushed with\nannoyance, but she kept command of the situation and laid a persuasive\nhand on his arm.\n\n\"Don\'t be foolish, Gus; I can\'t let you talk to me in that ridiculous\nway. If you really want to see me, why shouldn\'t we take a walk in the\nPark some afternoon? I agree with you that it\'s amusing to be rustic in\ntown, and if you like I\'ll meet you there, and we\'ll go and feed the\nsquirrels, and you shall take me out on the lake in the steam-gondola.\"\n\nShe smiled as she spoke, letting her eyes rest on his in a way that took\nthe edge from her banter and made him suddenly malleable to her will.\n\n\"All right, then: that\'s a go. Will you come tomorrow? Tomorrow at three\no\'clock, at the end of the Mall. I\'ll be there sharp, remember; you won\'t\ngo back on me, Lily?\"\n\nBut to Miss Bart\'s relief the repetition of her promise was cut short by\nthe opening of the box door to admit George Dorset.\n\nTrenor sulkily yielded his place, and Lily turned a brilliant smile on\nthe newcomer. She had not talked with Dorset since their visit at\nBellomont, but something in his look and manner told her that he recalled\nthe friendly footing on which they had last met. He was not a man to whom\nthe expression of admiration came easily: his long sallow face and\ndistrustful eyes seemed always barricaded against the expansive emotions.\nBut, where her own influence was concerned, Lily\'s intuitions sent out\nthread-like feelers, and as she made room for him on the narrow sofa she\nwas sure he found a dumb pleasure in being near her. Few women took the\ntrouble to make themselves agreeable to Dorset, and Lily had been kind to\nhim at Bellomont, and was now smiling on him with a divine renewal of\nkindness.\n\n\"Well, here we are, in for another six months of caterwauling,\" he began\ncomplainingly. \"Not a shade of difference between this year and last,\nexcept that the women have got new clothes and the singers haven\'t got\nnew voices. My wife\'s musical, you know--puts me through a course of this\nevery winter. It isn\'t so bad on Italian nights--then she comes late, and\nthere\'s time to digest. But when they give Wagner we have to rush\ndinner, and I pay up for it. And the draughts are damnable--asphyxia in\nfront and pleurisy in the back. There\'s Trenor leaving the box without\ndrawing the curtain! With a hide like that draughts don\'t make any\ndifference. Did you ever watch Trenor eat? If you did, you\'d wonder why\nhe\'s alive; I suppose he\'s leather inside too.--But I came to say that my\nwife wants you to come down to our place next Sunday. Do for heaven\'s\nsake say yes. She\'s got a lot of bores coming--intellectual ones, I mean;\nthat\'s her new line, you know, and I\'m not sure it ain\'t worse than the\nmusic. Some of \'em have long hair, and they start an argument with the\nsoup, and don\'t notice when things are handed to them. The consequence is\nthe dinner gets cold, and I have dyspepsia. That silly ass Silverton\nbrings them to the house--he writes poetry, you know, and Bertha and he\nare getting tremendously thick. She could write better than any of \'em if\nshe chose, and I don\'t blame her for wanting clever fellows about; all I\nsay is: \'Don\'t let me see \'em eat!\'\"\n\nThe gist of this strange communication gave Lily a distinct thrill of\npleasure. Under ordinary circumstances, there would have been nothing\nsurprising in an invitation from Bertha Dorset; but since the Bellomont\nepisode an unavowed hostility had kept the two women apart. Now, with a\nstart of inner wonder, Lily felt that her thirst for retaliation had died\nout. IF YOU WOULD FORGIVE YOUR ENEMY, says the Malay proverb, FIRST\nINFLICT A HURT ON HIM; and Lily was experiencing the truth of the\napothegm. If she had destroyed Mrs. Dorset\'s letters, she might have\ncontinued to hate her; but the fact that they remained in her possession\nhad fed her resentment to satiety.\n\nShe uttered a smiling acceptance, hailing in the renewal of the tie an\nescape from Trenor\'s importunities.\n\n\n\nChapter 11\n\nMeanwhile the holidays had gone by and the season was beginning. Fifth\nAvenue had become a nightly torrent of carriages surging upward to the\nfashionable quarters about the Park, where illuminated windows and\noutspread awnings betokened the usual routine of hospitality. Other\ntributary currents crossed the mainstream, bearing their freight to the\ntheatres, restaurants or opera; and Mrs. Peniston, from the secluded\nwatch-tower of her upper window, could tell to a nicety just when the\nchronic volume of sound was increased by the sudden influx setting toward\na Van Osburgh ball, or when the multiplication of wheels meant merely\nthat the opera was over, or that there was a big supper at Sherry\'s.\n\nMrs. Peniston followed the rise and culmination of the season as keenly\nas the most active sharer in its gaieties; and, as a looker-on, she\nenjoyed opportunities of comparison and generalization such as those who\ntake part must proverbially forego. No one could have kept a more\naccurate record of social fluctuations, or have put a more unerring\nfinger on the distinguishing features of each season: its dulness, its\nextravagance, its lack of balls or excess of divorces. She had a special\nmemory for the vicissitudes of the \"new people\" who rose to the surface\nwith each recurring tide, and were either submerged beneath its rush or\nlanded triumphantly beyond the reach of envious breakers; and she was apt\nto display a remarkable retrospective insight into their ultimate fate,\nso that, when they had fulfilled their destiny, she was almost always\nable to say to Grace Stepney--the recipient of her prophecies--that she\nhad known exactly what would happen.\n\nThis particular season Mrs. Peniston would have characterized as that in\nwhich everybody \"felt poor\" except the Welly Brys and Mr. Simon Rosedale.\nIt had been a bad autumn in Wall Street, where prices fell in accordance\nwith that peculiar law which proves railway stocks and bales of cotton to\nbe more sensitive to the allotment of executive power than many estimable\ncitizens trained to all the advantages of self-government. Even fortunes\nsupposed to be independent of the market either betrayed a secret\ndependence on it, or suffered from a sympathetic affection: fashion\nsulked in its country houses, or came to town incognito, general\nentertainments were discountenanced, and informality and short dinners\nbecame the fashion.\n\nBut society, amused for a while at playing Cinderella, soon wearied of\nthe hearthside role, and welcomed the Fairy Godmother in the shape of any\nmagician powerful enough to turn the shrunken pumpkin back again into the\ngolden coach. The mere fact of growing richer at a time when most\npeople\'s investments are shrinking, is calculated to attract envious\nattention; and according to Wall Street rumours, Welly Bry and Rosedale\nhad found the secret of performing this miracle.\n\nRosedale, in particular, was said to have doubled his fortune, and there\nwas talk of his buying the newly-finished house of one of the victims of\nthe crash, who, in the space of twelve short months, had made the same\nnumber of millions, built a house in Fifth Avenue, filled a\npicture-gallery with old masters, entertained all New York in it, and\nbeen smuggled out of the country between a trained nurse and a doctor,\nwhile his creditors mounted guard over the old masters, and his guests\nexplained to each other that they had dined with him only because they\nwanted to see the pictures. Mr. Rosedale meant to have a less meteoric\ncareer. He knew he should have to go slowly, and the instincts of his\nrace fitted him to suffer rebuffs and put up with delays. But he was\nprompt to perceive that the general dulness of the season afforded him an\nunusual opportunity to shine, and he set about with patient industry to\nform a background for his growing glory. Mrs. Fisher was of immense\nservice to him at this period. She had set off so many newcomers on the\nsocial stage that she was like one of those pieces of stock scenery which\ntell the experienced spectator exactly what is going to take place. But\nMr. Rosedale wanted, in the long run, a more individual environment. He\nwas sensitive to shades of difference which Miss Bart would never have\ncredited him with perceiving, because he had no corresponding variations\nof manner; and it was becoming more and more clear to him that Miss Bart\nherself possessed precisely the complementary qualities needed to round\noff his social personality.\n\nSuch details did not fall within the range of Mrs. Peniston\'s vision.\nLike many minds of panoramic sweep, hers was apt to overlook the MINUTIAE\nof the foreground, and she was much more likely to know where Carry\nFisher had found the Welly Brys\' CHEF for them, than what was happening\nto her own niece. She was not, however, without purveyors of information\nready to supplement her deficiencies. Grace Stepney\'s mind was like a\nkind of moral fly-paper, to which the buzzing items of gossip were drawn\nby a fatal attraction, and where they hung fast in the toils of an\ninexorable memory. Lily would have been surprised to know how many\ntrivial facts concerning herself were lodged in Miss Stepney\'s head. She\nwas quite aware that she was of interest to dingy people, but she assumed\nthat there is only one form of dinginess, and that admiration for\nbrilliancy is the natural expression of its inferior state. She knew that\nGerty Farish admired her blindly, and therefore supposed that she\ninspired the same sentiments in Grace Stepney, whom she classified as a\nGerty Farish without the saving traits of youth and enthusiasm.\n\nIn reality, the two differed from each other as much as they differed\nfrom the object of their mutual contemplation. Miss Farish\'s heart was a\nfountain of tender illusions, Miss Stepney\'s a precise register of facts\nas manifested in their relation to herself. She had sensibilities which,\nto Lily, would have seemed comic in a person with a freckled nose and red\neyelids, who lived in a boarding-house and admired Mrs. Peniston\'s\ndrawing-room; but poor Grace\'s limitations gave them a more concentrated\ninner life, as poor soil starves certain plants into intenser\nefflorescence. She had in truth no abstract propensity to malice: she did\nnot dislike Lily because the latter was brilliant and predominant, but\nbecause she thought that Lily disliked her. It is less mortifying to\nbelieve one\'s self unpopular than insignificant, and vanity prefers to\nassume that indifference is a latent form of unfriendliness. Even such\nscant civilities as Lily accorded to Mr. Rosedale would have made Miss\nStepney her friend for life; but how could she foresee that such a friend\nwas worth cultivating? How, moreover, can a young woman who has never\nbeen ignored measure the pang which this injury inflicts? And, lastly,\nhow could Lily, accustomed to choose between a pressure of engagements,\nguess that she had mortally offended Miss Stepney by causing her to be\nexcluded from one of Mrs. Peniston\'s infrequent dinner-parties?\n\nMrs. Peniston disliked giving dinners, but she had a high sense of family\nobligation, and on the Jack Stepneys\' return from their honeymoon she\nfelt it incumbent upon her to light the drawing-room lamps and extract\nher best silver from the Safe Deposit vaults. Mrs. Peniston\'s rare\nentertainments were preceded by days of heart-rending vacillation as to\nevery detail of the feast, from the seating of the guests to the pattern\nof the table-cloth, and in the course of one of these preliminary\ndiscussions she had imprudently suggested to her cousin Grace that, as\nthe dinner was a family affair, she might be included in it. For a week\nthe prospect had lighted up Miss Stepney\'s colourless existence; then she\nhad been given to understand that it would be more convenient to have her\nanother day. Miss Stepney knew exactly what had happened. Lily, to whom\nfamily reunions were occasions of unalloyed dulness, had persuaded her\naunt that a dinner of \"smart\" people would be much more to the taste of\nthe young couple, and Mrs. Peniston, who leaned helplessly on her niece\nin social matters, had been prevailed upon to pronounce Grace\'s exile.\nAfter all, Grace could come any other day; why should she mind being put\noff?\n\nIt was precisely because Miss Stepney could come any other day--and\nbecause she knew her relations were in the secret of her unoccupied\nevenings--that this incident loomed gigantically on her horizon. She was\naware that she had Lily to thank for it; and dull resentment was turned\nto active animosity.\n\nMrs. Peniston, on whom she had looked in a day or two after the dinner,\nlaid down her crochet-work and turned abruptly from her oblique survey of\nFifth Avenue.\n\n\"Gus Trenor?--Lily and Gus Trenor?\" she said, growing so suddenly pale\nthat her visitor was almost alarmed.\n\n\"Oh, cousin Julia . . . of course I don\'t mean . . .\"\n\n\"I don\'t know what you DO mean,\" said Mrs. Peniston, with a frightened\nquiver in her small fretful voice. \"Such things were never heard of in my\nday. And my own niece! I\'m not sure I understand you. Do people say he\'s\nin love with her?\"\n\nMrs. Peniston\'s horror was genuine. Though she boasted an unequalled\nfamiliarity with the secret chronicles of society, she had the innocence\nof the school-girl who regards wickedness as a part of \"history,\" and to\nwhom it never occurs that the scandals she reads of in lesson-hours may\nbe repeating themselves in the next street. Mrs. Peniston had kept her\nimagination shrouded, like the drawing-room furniture. She knew, of\ncourse, that society was \"very much changed,\" and that many women her\nmother would have thought \"peculiar\" were now in a position to be\ncritical about their visiting-lists; she had discussed the perils of\ndivorce with her rector, and had felt thankful at times that Lily was\nstill unmarried; but the idea that any scandal could attach to a young\ngirl\'s name, above all that it could be lightly coupled with that of a\nmarried man, was so new to her that she was as much aghast as if she had\nbeen accused of leaving her carpets down all summer, or of violating any\nof the other cardinal laws of housekeeping.\n\nMiss Stepney, when her first fright had subsided, began to feel the\nsuperiority that greater breadth of mind confers. It was really pitiable\nto be as ignorant of the world as Mrs. Peniston! She smiled at the\nlatter\'s question. \"People always say unpleasant things--and certainly\nthey\'re a great deal together. A friend of mine met them the other\nafternoon in the Park--quite late, after the lamps were lit. It\'s a pity\nLily makes herself so conspicuous.\"\n\n\"CONSPICUOUS!\" gasped Mrs. Peniston. She bent forward, lowering her voice\nto mitigate the horror. \"What sort of things do they say? That he means\nto get a divorce and marry her?\"\n\nGrace Stepney laughed outright. \"Dear me, no! He would hardly do that.\nIt--it\'s a flirtation--nothing more.\"\n\n\"A flirtation? Between my niece and a married man? Do you mean to tell me\nthat, with Lily\'s looks and advantages, she could find no better use for\nher time than to waste it on a fat stupid man almost old enough to be her\nfather?\" This argument had such a convincing ring that it gave Mrs.\nPeniston sufficient reassurance to pick up her work, while she waited for\nGrace Stepney to rally her scattered forces.\n\nBut Miss Stepney was on the spot in an instant. \"That\'s the worst of\nit--people say she isn\'t wasting her time! Every one knows, as you say,\nthat Lily is too handsome and--and charming--to devote herself to a man\nlike Gus Trenor unless--\"\n\n\"Unless?\" echoed Mrs. Peniston. Her visitor drew breath nervously. It was\nagreeable to shock Mrs. Peniston, but not to shock her to the verge of\nanger. Miss Stepney was not sufficiently familiar with the classic drama\nto have recalled in advance how bearers of bad tidings are proverbially\nreceived, but she now had a rapid vision of forfeited dinners and a\nreduced wardrobe as the possible consequence of her disinterestedness. To\nthe honour of her sex, however, hatred of Lily prevailed over more\npersonal considerations. Mrs. Peniston had chosen the wrong moment to\nboast of her niece\'s charms.\n\n\"Unless,\" said Grace, leaning forward to speak with low-toned emphasis,\n\"unless there are material advantages to be gained by making herself\nagreeable to him.\"\n\nShe felt that the moment was tremendous, and remembered suddenly that\nMrs. Peniston\'s black brocade, with the cut jet fringe, would have been\nhers at the end of the season.\n\nMrs. Peniston put down her work again. Another aspect of the same idea\nhad presented itself to her, and she felt that it was beneath her dignity\nto have her nerves racked by a dependent relative who wore her old\nclothes.\n\n\"If you take pleasure in annoying me by mysterious insinuations,\" she\nsaid coldly, \"you might at least have chosen a more suitable time than\njust as I am recovering from the strain of giving a large dinner.\"\n\nThe mention of the dinner dispelled Miss Stepney\'s last scruples. \"I\ndon\'t know why I should be accused of taking pleasure in telling you\nabout Lily. I was sure I shouldn\'t get any thanks for it,\" she returned\nwith a flare of temper. \"But I have some family feeling left, and as you\nare the only person who has any authority over Lily, I thought you ought\nto know what is being said of her.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Mrs. Peniston, \"what I complain of is that you haven\'t told\nme yet what IS being said.\"\n\n\"I didn\'t suppose I should have to put it so plainly. People say that Gus\nTrenor pays her bills.\"\n\n\"Pays her bills--her bills?\" Mrs. Peniston broke into a laugh. \"I can\'t\nimagine where you can have picked up such rubbish. Lily has her own\nincome--and I provide for her very handsomely--\"\n\n\"Oh, we all know that,\" interposed Miss Stepney drily. \"But Lily wears a\ngreat many smart gowns--\"\n\n\"I like her to be well-dressed--it\'s only suitable!\"\n\n\"Certainly; but then there are her gambling debts besides.\"\n\nMiss Stepney, in the beginning, had not meant to bring up this point; but\nMrs. Peniston had only her own incredulity to blame. She was like the\nstiff-necked unbelievers of Scripture, who must be annihilated to be\nconvinced.\n\n\"Gambling debts? Lily?\" Mrs. Peniston\'s voice shook with anger and\nbewilderment. She wondered whether Grace Stepney had gone out of her\nmind. \"What do you mean by her gambling debts?\"\n\n\"Simply that if one plays bridge for money in Lily\'s set one is liable to\nlose a great deal--and I don\'t suppose Lily always wins.\"\n\n\"Who told you that my niece played cards for money?\"\n\n\"Mercy, cousin Julia, don\'t look at me as if I were trying to turn you\nagainst Lily! Everybody knows she is crazy about bridge. Mrs. Gryce told\nme herself that it was her gambling that frightened Percy Gryce--it seems\nhe was really taken with her at first. But, of course, among Lily\'s\nfriends it\'s quite the custom for girls to play for money. In fact,\npeople are inclined to excuse her on that account----\"\n\n\"To excuse her for what?\"\n\n\"For being hard up--and accepting attentions from men like Gus\nTrenor--and George Dorset----\"\n\nMrs. Peniston gave another cry. \"George Dorset? Is there any one else? I\nshould like to know the worst, if you please.\"\n\n\"Don\'t put it in that way, cousin Julia. Lately Lily has been a good deal\nwith the Dorsets, and he seems to admire her--but of course that\'s only\nnatural. And I\'m sure there is no truth in the horrid things people say;\nbut she HAS been spending a great deal of money this winter. Evie Van\nOsburgh was at Celeste\'s ordering her trousseau the other day--yes, the\nmarriage takes place next month--and she told me that Celeste showed her\nthe most exquisite things she was just sending home to Lily. And people\nsay that Judy Trenor has quarrelled with her on account of Gus; but I\'m\nsure I\'m sorry I spoke, though I only meant it as a kindness.\"\n\nMrs. Peniston\'s genuine incredulity enabled her to dismiss Miss Stepney\nwith a disdain which boded ill for that lady\'s prospect of succeeding to\nthe black brocade; but minds impenetrable to reason have generally some\ncrack through which suspicion filters, and her visitor\'s insinuations did\nnot glide off as easily as she had expected. Mrs. Peniston disliked\nscenes, and her determination to avoid them had always led her to hold\nherself aloof from the details of Lily\'s life. In her youth, girls had\nnot been supposed to require close supervision. They were generally\nassumed to be taken up with the legitimate business of courtship and\nmarriage, and interference in such affairs on the part of their natural\nguardians was considered as unwarrantable as a spectator\'s suddenly\njoining in a game. There had of course been \"fast\" girls even in Mrs.\nPeniston\'s early experience; but their fastness, at worst, was understood\nto be a mere excess of animal spirits, against which there could be no\ngraver charge than that of being \"unladylike.\" The modern fastness\nappeared synonymous with immorality, and the mere idea of immorality was\nas offensive to Mrs. Peniston as a smell of cooking in the drawing-room:\nit was one of the conceptions her mind refused to admit.\n\nShe had no immediate intention of repeating to Lily what she had heard,\nor even of trying to ascertain its truth by means of discreet\ninterrogation. To do so might be to provoke a scene; and a scene, in the\nshaken state of Mrs. Peniston\'s nerves, with the effects of her dinner\nnot worn off, and her mind still tremulous with new impressions, was a\nrisk she deemed it her duty to avoid. But there remained in her thoughts\na settled deposit of resentment against her niece, all the denser because\nit was not to be cleared by explanation or discussion. It was horrible\nof a young girl to let herself be talked about; however unfounded the\ncharges against her, she must be to blame for their having been made.\nMrs. Peniston felt as if there had been a contagious illness in the\nhouse, and she was doomed to sit shivering among her contaminated\nfurniture.\n\n\n\nChapter 12\n\nMiss Bart had in fact been treading a devious way, and none of her\ncritics could have been more alive to the fact than herself; but she had\na fatalistic sense of being drawn from one wrong turning to another,\nwithout ever perceiving the right road till it was too late to take it.\n\nLily, who considered herself above narrow prejudices, had not imagined\nthat the fact of letting Gus Trenor make a little money for her would\never disturb her self-complacency. And the fact in itself still seemed\nharmless enough; only it was a fertile source of harmful complications.\nAs she exhausted the amusement of spending the money these complications\nbecame more pressing, and Lily, whose mind could be severely logical in\ntracing the causes of her ill-luck to others, justified herself by the\nthought that she owed all her troubles to the enmity of Bertha Dorset.\nThis enmity, however, had apparently expired in a renewal of friendliness\nbetween the two women. Lily\'s visit to the Dorsets had resulted, for\nboth, in the discovery that they could be of use to each other; and the\ncivilized instinct finds a subtler pleasure in making use of its\nantagonist than in confounding him. Mrs. Dorset was, in fact, engaged in\na new sentimental experiment, of which Mrs. Fisher\'s late property, Ned\nSilverton, was the rosy victim; and at such moments, as Judy Trenor had\nonce remarked, she felt a peculiar need of distracting her husband\'s\nattention. Dorset was as difficult to amuse as a savage; but even his\nself-engrossment was not proof against Lily\'s arts, or rather these were\nespecially adapted to soothe an uneasy egoism. Her experience with Percy\nGryce stood her in good stead in ministering to Dorset\'s humours, and if\nthe incentive to please was less urgent, the difficulties of her\nsituation were teaching her to make much of minor opportunities.\n\nIntimacy with the Dorsets was not likely to lessen such difficulties on\nthe material side. Mrs. Dorset had none of Judy Trenor\'s lavish impulses,\nand Dorset\'s admiration was not likely to express itself in financial\n\"tips,\" even had Lily cared to renew her experiences in that line. What\nshe required, for the moment, of the Dorsets\' friendship, was simply its\nsocial sanction. She knew that people were beginning to talk of her; but\nthis fact did not alarm her as it had alarmed Mrs. Peniston. In her set\nsuch gossip was not unusual, and a handsome girl who flirted with a\nmarried man was merely assumed to be pressing to the limit of her\nopportunities. It was Trenor himself who frightened her. Their walk in\nthe Park had not been a success. Trenor had married young, and since his\nmarriage his intercourse with women had not taken the form of the\nsentimental small-talk which doubles upon itself like the paths in a\nmaze. He was first puzzled and then irritated to find himself always led\nback to the same starting-point, and Lily felt that she was gradually\nlosing control of the situation. Trenor was in truth in an unmanageable\nmood. In spite of his understanding with Rosedale he had been somewhat\nheavily \"touched\" by the fall in stocks; his household expenses weighed\non him, and he seemed to be meeting, on all sides, a sullen opposition to\nhis wishes, instead of the easy good luck he had hitherto encountered.\n\nMrs. Trenor was still at Bellomont, keeping the town-house open, and\ndescending on it now and then for a taste of the world, but preferring\nthe recurrent excitement of week-end parties to the restrictions of a\ndull season. Since the holidays she had not urged Lily to return to\nBellomont, and the first time they met in town Lily fancied there was a\nshade of coldness in her manner. Was it merely the expression of her\ndispleasure at Miss Bart\'s neglect, or had disquieting rumours reached\nher? The latter contingency seemed improbable, yet Lily was not without a\nsense of uneasiness. If her roaming sympathies had struck root anywhere,\nit was in her friendship with Judy Trenor. She believed in the sincerity\nof her friend\'s affection, though it sometimes showed itself in\nself-interested ways, and she shrank with peculiar reluctance from any\nrisk of estranging it. But, aside from this, she was keenly conscious of\nthe way in which such an estrangement would react on herself. The fact\nthat Gus Trenor was Judy\'s husband was at times Lily\'s strongest reason\nfor disliking him, and for resenting the obligation under which he had\nplaced her. To set her doubts at rest, Miss Bart, soon after the New\nYear, \"proposed\" herself for a week-end at Bellomont. She had learned in\nadvance that the presence of a large party would protect her from too\ngreat assiduity on Trenor\'s part, and his wife\'s telegraphic \"come by all\nmeans\" seemed to assure her of her usual welcome.\n\nJudy received her amicably. The cares of a large party always prevailed\nover personal feelings, and Lily saw no change in her hostess\'s manner.\nNevertheless, she was soon aware that the experiment of coming to\nBellomont was destined not to be successful. The party was made up of\nwhat Mrs. Trenor called \"poky people\"--her generic name for persons who\ndid not play bridge--and, it being her habit to group all such\nobstructionists in one class, she usually invited them together,\nregardless of their other characteristics. The result was apt to be an\nirreducible combination of persons having no other quality in common than\ntheir abstinence from bridge, and the antagonisms developed in a group\nlacking the one taste which might have amalgamated them, were in this\ncase aggravated by bad weather, and by the ill-concealed boredom of their\nhost and hostess. In such emergencies, Judy would usually have turned to\nLily to fuse the discordant elements; and Miss Bart, assuming that such a\nservice was expected of her, threw herself into it with her accustomed\nzeal. But at the outset she perceived a subtle resistance to her efforts.\nIf Mrs. Trenor\'s manner toward her was unchanged, there was certainly a\nfaint coldness in that of the other ladies. An occasional caustic\nallusion to \"your friends the Wellington Brys,\" or to \"the little Jew who\nhas bought the Greiner house--some one told us you knew him, Miss\nBart,\"--showed Lily that she was in disfavour with that portion of\nsociety which, while contributing least to its amusement, has assumed the\nright to decide what forms that amusement shall take. The indication was\na slight one, and a year ago Lily would have smiled at it, trusting to\nthe charm of her personality to dispel any prejudice against her. But now\nshe had grown more sensitive to criticism and less confident in her power\nof disarming it. She knew, moreover, that if the ladies at Bellomont\npermitted themselves to criticize her friends openly, it was a proof that\nthey were not afraid of subjecting her to the same treatment behind her\nback. The nervous dread lest anything in Trenor\'s manner should seem to\njustify their disapproval made her seek every pretext for avoiding him,\nand she left Bellomont conscious of having failed in every purpose which\nhad taken her there.\n\nIn town she returned to preoccupations which, for the moment, had the\nhappy effect of banishing troublesome thoughts. The Welly Brys, after\nmuch debate, and anxious counsel with their newly acquired friends, had\ndecided on the bold move of giving a general entertainment. To attack\nsociety collectively, when one\'s means of approach are limited to a few\nacquaintances, is like advancing into a strange country with an\ninsufficient number of scouts; but such rash tactics have sometimes led\nto brilliant victories, and the Brys had determined to put their fate to\nthe touch. Mrs. Fisher, to whom they had entrusted the conduct of the\naffair, had decided that TABLEAUX VIVANTS and expensive music were the\ntwo baits most likely to attract the desired prey, and after prolonged\nnegotiations, and the kind of wire-pulling in which she was known to\nexcel, she had induced a dozen fashionable women to exhibit themselves in\na series of pictures which, by a farther miracle of persuasion, the\ndistinguished portrait painter, Paul Morpeth, had been prevailed upon to\norganize.\n\nLily was in her element on such occasions. Under Morpeth\'s guidance her\nvivid plastic sense, hitherto nurtured on no higher food than\ndress-making and upholstery, found eager expression in the disposal of\ndraperies, the study of attitudes, the shifting of lights and shadows.\nHer dramatic instinct was roused by the choice of subjects, and the\ngorgeous reproductions of historic dress stirred an imagination which\nonly visual impressions could reach. But keenest of all was the\nexhilaration of displaying her own beauty under a new aspect: of showing\nthat her loveliness was no mere fixed quality, but an element shaping all\nemotions to fresh forms of grace.\n\nMrs. Fisher\'s measures had been well-taken, and society, surprised in a\ndull moment, succumbed to the temptation of Mrs. Bry\'s hospitality. The\nprotesting minority were forgotten in the throng which abjured and came;\nand the audience was almost as brilliant as the show.\n\nLawrence Selden was among those who had yielded to the proffered\ninducements. If he did not often act on the accepted social axiom that a\nman may go where he pleases, it was because he had long since learned\nthat his pleasures were mainly to be found in a small group of the\nlike-minded. But he enjoyed spectacular effects, and was not insensible\nto the part money plays in their production: all he asked was that the\nvery rich should live up to their calling as stage-managers, and not\nspend their money in a dull way. This the Brys could certainly not be\ncharged with doing. Their recently built house, whatever it might lack as\na frame for domesticity, was almost as well-designed for the display of a\nfestal assemblage as one of those airy pleasure-halls which the Italian\narchitects improvised to set off the hospitality of princes. The air of\nimprovisation was in fact strikingly present: so recent, so\nrapidly-evoked was the whole MISE-EN-SCENE that one had to touch the\nmarble columns to learn they were not of cardboard, to seat one\'s self in\none of the damask-and-gold arm-chairs to be sure it was not painted\nagainst the wall.\n\nSelden, who had put one of these seats to the test, found himself, from\nan angle of the ball-room, surveying the scene with frank enjoyment. The\ncompany, in obedience to the decorative instinct which calls for fine\nclothes in fine surroundings, had dressed rather with an eye to Mrs.\nBry\'s background than to herself. The seated throng, filling the immense\nroom without undue crowding, presented a surface of rich tissues and\njewelled shoulders in harmony with the festooned and gilded walls, and\nthe flushed splendours of the Venetian ceiling. At the farther end of the\nroom a stage had been constructed behind a proscenium arch curtained with\nfolds of old damask; but in the pause before the parting of the folds\nthere was little thought of what they might reveal, for every woman who\nhad accepted Mrs. Bry\'s invitation was engaged in trying to find out how\nmany of her friends had done the same.\n\nGerty Farish, seated next to Selden, was lost in that indiscriminate and\nuncritical enjoyment so irritating to Miss Bart\'s finer perceptions. It\nmay be that Selden\'s nearness had something to do with the quality of his\ncousin\'s pleasure; but Miss Farish was so little accustomed to refer her\nenjoyment of such scenes to her own share in them, that she was merely\nconscious of a deeper sense of contentment.\n\n\"Wasn\'t it dear of Lily to get me an invitation? Of course it would never\nhave occurred to Carry Fisher to put me on the list, and I should have\nbeen so sorry to miss seeing it all--and especially Lily herself. Some\none told me the ceiling was by Veronese--you would know, of course,\nLawrence. I suppose it\'s very beautiful, but his women are so dreadfully\nfat. Goddesses? Well, I can only say that if they\'d been mortals and had\nto wear corsets, it would have been better for them. I think our women\nare much handsomer. And this room is wonderfully becoming--every one\nlooks so well! Did you ever see such jewels? Do look at Mrs. George\nDorset\'s pearls--I suppose the smallest of them would pay the rent of our\nGirls\' Club for a year. Not that I ought to complain about the club;\nevery one has been so wonderfully kind. Did I tell you that Lily had\ngiven us three hundred dollars? Wasn\'t it splendid of her? And then she\ncollected a lot of money from her friends--Mrs. Bry gave us five hundred,\nand Mr. Rosedale a thousand. I wish Lily were not so nice to Mr.\nRosedale, but she says it\'s no use being rude to him, because he doesn\'t\nsee the difference. She really can\'t bear to hurt people\'s feelings--it\nmakes me so angry when I hear her called cold and conceited! The girls at\nthe club don\'t call her that. Do you know she has been there with me\ntwice?--yes, Lily! And you should have seen their eyes! One of them said\nit was as good as a day in the country just to look at her. And she sat\nthere, and laughed and talked with them--not a bit as if she were being\nCHARITABLE, you know, but as if she liked it as much as they did. They\'ve\nbeen asking ever since when she\'s coming back; and she\'s promised\nme----oh!\"\n\nMiss Farish\'s confidences were cut short by the parting of the curtain on\nthe first TABLEAU--a group of nymphs dancing across flower-strewn sward\nin the rhythmic postures of Botticelli\'s Spring. TABLEAUX VIVANTS depend\nfor their effect not only on the happy disposal of lights and the\ndelusive-interposition of layers of gauze, but on a corresponding\nadjustment of the mental vision. To unfurnished minds they remain, in\nspite of every enhancement of art, only a superior kind of wax-works; but\nto the responsive fancy they may give magic glimpses of the boundary\nworld between fact and imagination. Selden\'s mind was of this order: he\ncould yield to vision-making influences as completely as a child to the\nspell of a fairy-tale. Mrs. Bry\'s TABLEAUX wanted none of the qualities\nwhich go to the producing of such illusions, and under Morpeth\'s\norganizing hand the pictures succeeded each other with the rhythmic march\nof some splendid frieze, in which the fugitive curves of living flesh and\nthe wandering light of young eyes have been subdued to plastic harmony\nwithout losing the charm of life.\n\nThe scenes were taken from old pictures, and the participators had been\ncleverly fitted with characters suited to their types. No one, for\ninstance, could have made a more typical Goya than Carry Fisher, with her\nshort dark-skinned face, the exaggerated glow of her eyes, the\nprovocation of her frankly-painted smile. A brilliant Miss Smedden from\nBrooklyn showed to perfection the sumptuous curves of Titian\'s Daughter,\nlifting her gold salver laden with grapes above the harmonizing gold of\nrippled hair and rich brocade, and a young Mrs. Van Alstyne, who showed\nthe frailer Dutch type, with high blue-veined forehead and pale eyes and\nlashes, made a characteristic Vandyck, in black satin, against a\ncurtained archway. Then there were Kauffmann nymphs garlanding the altar\nof Love; a Veronese supper, all sheeny textures, pearl-woven heads and\nmarble architecture; and a Watteau group of lute-playing comedians,\nlounging by a fountain in a sunlit glade.\n\nEach evanescent picture touched the vision-building faculty in Selden,\nleading him so far down the vistas of fancy that even Gerty Farish\'s\nrunning commentary--\"Oh, how lovely Lulu Melson looks!\" or: \"That must be\nKate Corby, to the right there, in purple\"--did not break the spell of\nthe illusion. Indeed, so skilfully had the personality of the actors been\nsubdued to the scenes they figured in that even the least imaginative of\nthe audience must have felt a thrill of contrast when the curtain\nsuddenly parted on a picture which was simply and undisguisedly the\nportrait of Miss Bart.\n\nHere there could be no mistaking the predominance of personality--the\nunanimous \"Oh!\" of the spectators was a tribute, not to the brush-work of\nReynolds\'s \"Mrs. Lloyd\" but to the flesh and blood loveliness of Lily\nBart. She had shown her artistic intelligence in selecting a type so like\nher own that she could embody the person represented without ceasing to\nbe herself. It was as though she had stepped, not out of, but into,\nReynolds\'s canvas, banishing the phantom of his dead beauty by the beams\nof her living grace. The impulse to show herself in a splendid\nsetting--she had thought for a moment of representing Tiepolo\'s\nCleopatra--had yielded to the truer instinct of trusting to her\nunassisted beauty, and she had purposely chosen a picture without\ndistracting accessories of dress or surroundings. Her pale draperies,\nand the background of foliage against which she stood, served only to\nrelieve the long dryad-like curves that swept upward from her poised foot\nto her lifted arm. The noble buoyancy of her attitude, its suggestion of\nsoaring grace, revealed the touch of poetry in her beauty that Selden\nalways felt in her presence, yet lost the sense of when he was not with\nher. Its expression was now so vivid that for the first time he seemed to\nsee before him the real Lily Bart, divested of the trivialities of her\nlittle world, and catching for a moment a note of that eternal harmony of\nwhich her beauty was a part.\n\n\"Deuced bold thing to show herself in that get-up; but, gad, there isn\'t\na break in the lines anywhere, and I suppose she wanted us to know it!\"\n\nThese words, uttered by that experienced connoisseur, Mr. Ned Van\nAlstyne, whose scented white moustache had brushed Selden\'s shoulder\nwhenever the parting of the curtains presented any exceptional\nopportunity for the study of the female outline, affected their hearer in\nan unexpected way. It was not the first time that Selden had heard Lily\'s\nbeauty lightly remarked on, and hitherto the tone of the comments had\nimperceptibly coloured his view of her. But now it woke only a motion of\nindignant contempt. This was the world she lived in, these were the\nstandards by which she was fated to be measured! Does one go to Caliban\nfor a judgment on Miranda?\n\nIn the long moment before the curtain fell, he had time to feel the whole\ntragedy of her life. It was as though her beauty, thus detached from all\nthat cheapened and vulgarized it, had held out suppliant hands to him\nfrom the world in which he and she had once met for a moment, and where\nhe felt an overmastering longing to be with her again.\n\nHe was roused by the pressure of ecstatic fingers. \"Wasn\'t she too\nbeautiful, Lawrence? Don\'t you like her best in that simple dress? It\nmakes her look like the real Lily--the Lily I know.\"\n\nHe met Gerty Farish\'s brimming gaze. \"The Lily we know,\" he corrected;\nand his cousin, beaming at the implied understanding, exclaimed joyfully:\n\"I\'ll tell her that! She always says you dislike her.\"\n\nThe performance over, Selden\'s first impulse was to seek Miss Bart.\nDuring the interlude of music which succeeded the TABLEAUX, the actors\nhad seated themselves here and there in the audience, diversifying its\nconventional appearance by the varied picturesqueness of their dress.\nLily, however, was not among them, and her absence served to protract the\neffect she had produced on Selden: it would have broken the spell to see\nher too soon in the surroundings from which accident had so happily\ndetached her. They had not met since the day of the Van Osburgh wedding,\nand on his side the avoidance had been intentional. Tonight, however, he\nknew that, sooner or later, he should find himself at her side; and\nthough he let the dispersing crowd drift him whither it would, without\nmaking an immediate effort to reach her, his procrastination was not due\nto any lingering resistance, but to the desire to luxuriate a moment in\nthe sense of complete surrender.\n\nLily had not an instant\'s doubt as to the meaning of the murmur greeting\nher appearance. No other tableau had been received with that precise note\nof approval: it had obviously been called forth by herself, and not by\nthe picture she impersonated. She had feared at the last moment that she\nwas risking too much in dispensing with the advantages of a more\nsumptuous setting, and the completeness of her triumph gave her an\nintoxicating sense of recovered power. Not caring to diminish the\nimpression she had produced, she held herself aloof from the audience\ntill the movement of dispersal before supper, and thus had a second\nopportunity of showing herself to advantage, as the throng poured slowly\ninto the empty drawing-room where she was standing.\n\nShe was soon the centre of a group which increased and renewed itself as\nthe circulation became general, and the individual comments on her\nsuccess were a delightful prolongation of the collective applause. At\nsuch moments she lost something of her natural fastidiousness, and cared\nless for the quality of the admiration received than for its quantity.\nDifferences of personality were merged in a warm atmosphere of praise, in\nwhich her beauty expanded like a flower in sunlight; and if Selden had\napproached a moment or two sooner he would have seen her turning on Ned\nVan Alstyne and George Dorset the look he had dreamed of capturing for\nhimself.\n\nFortune willed, however, that the hurried approach of Mrs. Fisher, as\nwhose aide-de-camp Van Alstyne was acting, should break up the group\nbefore Selden reached the threshold of the room. One or two of the men\nwandered off in search of their partners for supper, and the others,\nnoticing Selden\'s approach, gave way to him in accordance with the tacit\nfreemasonry of the ball-room. Lily was therefore standing alone when he\nreached her; and finding the expected look in her eye, he had the\nsatisfaction of supposing he had kindled it. The look did indeed deepen\nas it rested on him, for even in that moment of self-intoxication Lily\nfelt the quicker beat of life that his nearness always produced. She\nread, too, in his answering gaze the delicious confirmation of her\ntriumph, and for the moment it seemed to her that it was for him only she\ncared to be beautiful.\n\nSelden had given her his arm without speaking. She took it in silence,\nand they moved away, not toward the supper-room, but against the tide\nwhich was setting thither. The faces about her flowed by like the\nstreaming images of sleep: she hardly noticed where Selden was leading\nher, till they passed through a glass doorway at the end of the long\nsuite of rooms and stood suddenly in the fragrant hush of a garden.\nGravel grated beneath their feet, and about them was the transparent\ndimness of a midsummer night. Hanging lights made emerald caverns in the\ndepths of foliage, and whitened the spray of a fountain falling among\nlilies. The magic place was deserted: there was no sound but the splash\nof the water on the lily-pads, and a distant drift of music that might\nhave been blown across a sleeping lake.\n\nSelden and Lily stood still, accepting the unreality of the scene as a\npart of their own dream-like sensations. It would not have surprised them\nto feel a summer breeze on their faces, or to see the lights among the\nboughs reduplicated in the arch of a starry sky. The strange solitude\nabout them was no stranger than the sweetness of being alone in it\ntogether. At length Lily withdrew her hand, and moved away a step, so\nthat her white-robed slimness was outlined against the dusk of the\nbranches. Selden followed her, and still without speaking they seated\nthemselves on a bench beside the fountain.\n\nSuddenly she raised her eyes with the beseeching earnestness of a child.\n\"You never speak to me--you think hard things of me,\" she murmured.\n\n\"I think of you at any rate, God knows!\" he said.\n\n\"Then why do we never see each other? Why can\'t we be friends? You\npromised once to help me,\" she continued in the same tone, as though the\nwords were drawn from her unwillingly.\n\n\"The only way I can help you is by loving you,\" Selden said in a low\nvoice.\n\nShe made no reply, but her face turned to him with the soft motion of a\nflower. His own met it slowly, and their lips touched. She drew back and\nrose from her seat. Selden rose too, and they stood facing each other.\nSuddenly she caught his hand and pressed it a moment against her cheek.\n\n\"Ah, love me, love me--but don\'t tell me so!\" she sighed with her eyes in\nhis; and before he could speak she had turned and slipped through the\narch of boughs, disappearing in the brightness of the room beyond.\n\nSelden stood where she had left him. He knew too well the transiency of\nexquisite moments to attempt to follow her; but presently he reentered\nthe house and made his way through the deserted rooms to the door. A few\nsumptuously-cloaked ladies were already gathered in the marble vestibule,\nand in the coat-room he found Van Alstyne and Gus Trenor.\n\nThe former, at Selden\'s approach, paused in the careful selection of a\ncigar from one of the silver boxes invitingly set out near the door.\n\n\"Hallo, Selden, going too? You\'re an Epicurean like myself, I see: you\ndon\'t want to see all those goddesses gobbling terrapin. Gad, what a\nshow of good-looking women; but not one of \'em could touch that little\ncousin of mine. Talk of jewels--what\'s a woman want with jewels when\nshe\'s got herself to show? The trouble is that all these fal-bals they\nwear cover up their figures when they\'ve got \'em. I never knew till\ntonight what an outline Lily has.\"\n\n\"It\'s not her fault if everybody don\'t know it now,\" growled Trenor,\nflushed with the struggle of getting into his fur-lined coat. \"Damned bad\ntaste, I call it--no, no cigar for me. You can\'t tell what you\'re smoking\nin one of these new houses--likely as not the CHEF buys the cigars. Stay\nfor supper? Not if I know it! When people crowd their rooms so that you\ncan\'t get near any one you want to speak to, I\'d as soon sup in the\nelevated at the rush hour. My wife was dead right to stay away: she says\nlife\'s too short to spend it in breaking in new people.\"\n\n\n\nChapter 13\n\nLily woke from happy dreams to find two notes at her bedside.\n\nOne was from Mrs. Trenor, who announced that she was coming to town that\nafternoon for a flying visit, and hoped Miss Bart would be able to dine\nwith her. The other was from Selden. He wrote briefly that an important\ncase called him to Albany, whence he would be unable to return till the\nevening, and asked Lily to let him know at what hour on the following day\nshe would see him.\n\nLily, leaning back among her pillows, gazed musingly at his letter. The\nscene in the Brys\' conservatory had been like a part of her dreams; she\nhad not expected to wake to such evidence of its reality. Her first\nmovement was one of annoyance: this unforeseen act of Selden\'s added\nanother complication to life. It was so unlike him to yield to such an\nirrational impulse! Did he really mean to ask her to marry him? She had\nonce shown him the impossibility of such a hope, and his subsequent\nbehaviour seemed to prove that he had accepted the situation with a\nreasonableness somewhat mortifying to her vanity. It was all the more\nagreeable to find that this reasonableness was maintained only at the\ncost of not seeing her; but, though nothing in life was as sweet as the\nsense of her power over him, she saw the danger of allowing the episode\nof the previous night to have a sequel. Since she could not marry him, it\nwould be kinder to him, as well as easier for herself, to write a line\namicably evading his request to see her: he was not the man to mistake\nsuch a hint, and when next they met it would be on their usual friendly\nfooting.\n\nLily sprang out of bed, and went straight to her desk. She wanted to\nwrite at once, while she could trust to the strength of her resolve. She\nwas still languid from her brief sleep and the exhilaration of the\nevening, and the sight of Selden\'s writing brought back the culminating\nmoment of her triumph: the moment when she had read in his eyes that no\nphilosophy was proof against her power. It would be pleasant to have that\nsensation again . . . no one else could give it to her in its fulness;\nand she could not bear to mar her mood of luxurious retrospection by an\nact of definite refusal. She took up her pen and wrote hastily: \"TOMORROW\nAT FOUR;\" murmuring to herself, as she slipped the sheet into its\nenvelope: \"I can easily put him off when tomorrow comes.\"\n\n\n\nJudy Trenor\'s summons was very welcome to Lily. It was the first time she\nhad received a direct communication from Bellomont since the close of her\nlast visit there, and she was still visited by the dread of having\nincurred Judy\'s displeasure. But this characteristic command seemed to\nreestablish their former relations; and Lily smiled at the thought that\nher friend had probably summoned her in order to hear about the Brys\'\nentertainment. Mrs. Trenor had absented herself from the feast, perhaps\nfor the reason so frankly enunciated by her husband, perhaps because, as\nMrs. Fisher somewhat differently put it, she \"couldn\'t bear new people\nwhen she hadn\'t discovered them herself.\" At any rate, though she\nremained haughtily at Bellomont, Lily suspected in her a devouring\neagerness to hear of what she had missed, and to learn exactly in what\nmeasure Mrs. Wellington Bry had surpassed all previous competitors for\nsocial recognition. Lily was quite ready to gratify this curiosity, but\nit happened that she was dining out. She determined, however, to see Mrs.\nTrenor for a few moments, and ringing for her maid she despatched a\ntelegram to say that she would be with her friend that evening at ten.\n\nShe was dining with Mrs. Fisher, who had gathered at an informal feast a\nfew of the performers of the previous evening. There was to be plantation\nmusic in the studio after dinner--for Mrs. Fisher, despairing of the\nrepublic, had taken up modelling, and annexed to her small crowded house\na spacious apartment, which, whatever its uses in her hours of plastic\ninspiration, served at other times for the exercise of an indefatigable\nhospitality. Lily was reluctant to leave, for the dinner was amusing, and\nshe would have liked to lounge over a cigarette and hear a few songs; but\nshe could not break her engagement with Judy, and shortly after ten she\nasked her hostess to ring for a hansom, and drove up Fifth Avenue to the\nTrenors\'.\n\nShe waited long enough on the doorstep to wonder that Judy\'s presence in\ntown was not signalized by a greater promptness in admitting her; and her\nsurprise was increased when, instead of the expected footman, pushing his\nshoulders into a tardy coat, a shabby care-taking person in calico let\nher into the shrouded hall. Trenor, however, appeared at once on the\nthreshold of the drawing-room, welcoming her with unusual volubility\nwhile he relieved her of her cloak and drew her into the room.\n\n\"Come along to the den; it\'s the only comfortable place in the house.\nDoesn\'t this room look as if it was waiting for the body to be brought\ndown? Can\'t see why Judy keeps the house wrapped up in this awful\nslippery white stuff--it\'s enough to give a fellow pneumonia to walk\nthrough these rooms on a cold day. You look a little pinched yourself, by\nthe way: it\'s rather a sharp night out. I noticed it walking up from the\nclub. Come along, and I\'ll give you a nip of brandy, and you can toast\nyourself over the fire and try some of my new Egyptians--that little\nTurkish chap at the Embassy put me on to a brand that I want you to try,\nand if you like \'em I\'ll get out a lot for you: they don\'t have \'em here\nyet, but I\'ll cable.\"\n\nHe led her through the house to the large room at the back, where Mrs.\nTrenor usually sat, and where, even in her absence, there was an air of\noccupancy. Here, as usual, were flowers, newspapers, a littered\nwriting-table, and a general aspect of lamp-lit familiarity, so that it\nwas a surprise not to see Judy\'s energetic figure start up from the\narm-chair near the fire.\n\nIt was apparently Trenor himself who had been occupying the seat in\nquestion, for it was overhung by a cloud of cigar smoke, and near it\nstood one of those intricate folding tables which British ingenuity has\ndevised to facilitate the circulation of tobacco and spirits. The sight\nof such appliances in a drawing-room was not unusual in Lily\'s set, where\nsmoking and drinking were unrestricted by considerations of time and\nplace, and her first movement was to help herself to one of the\ncigarettes recommended by Trenor, while she checked his loquacity by\nasking, with a surprised glance: \"Where\'s Judy?\"\n\nTrenor, a little heated by his unusual flow of words, and perhaps by\nprolonged propinquity with the decanters, was bending over the latter to\ndecipher their silver labels.\n\n\"Here, now, Lily, just a drop of cognac in a little fizzy water--you do\nlook pinched, you know: I swear the end of your nose is red. I\'ll take\nanother glass to keep you company--Judy?--Why, you see, Judy\'s got a\ndevil of a head ache--quite knocked out with it, poor thing--she asked me\nto explain--make it all right, you know--Do come up to the fire, though;\nyou look dead-beat, really. Now do let me make you comfortable, there\'s a\ngood girl.\"\n\nHe had taken her hand, half-banteringly, and was drawing her toward a low\nseat by the hearth; but she stopped and freed herself quietly.\n\n\"Do you mean to say that Judy\'s not well enough to see me? Doesn\'t she\nwant me to go upstairs?\"\n\nTrenor drained the glass he had filled for himself, and paused to set it\ndown before he answered.\n\n\"Why, no--the fact is, she\'s not up to seeing anybody. It came on\nsuddenly, you know, and she asked me to tell you how awfully sorry she\nwas--if she\'d known where you were dining she\'d have sent you word.\"\n\n\"She did know where I was dining; I mentioned it in my telegram. But it\ndoesn\'t matter, of course. I suppose if she\'s so poorly she won\'t go back\nto Bellomont in the morning, and I can come and see her then.\"\n\n\"Yes: exactly--that\'s capital. I\'ll tell her you\'ll pop in tomorrow\nmorning. And now do sit down a minute, there\'s a dear, and let\'s have a\nnice quiet jaw together. You won\'t take a drop, just for sociability?\nTell me what you think of that cigarette. Why, don\'t you like it? What\nare you chucking it away for?\"\n\n\"I am chucking it away because I must go, if you\'ll have the goodness to\ncall a cab for me,\" Lily returned with a smile.\n\nShe did not like Trenor\'s unusual excitability, with its too evident\nexplanation, and the thought of being alone with him, with her friend out\nof reach upstairs, at the other end of the great empty house, did not\nconduce to a desire to prolong their TETE-A-TETE.\n\nBut Trenor, with a promptness which did not escape her, had moved between\nherself and the door.\n\n\"Why must you go, I should like to know? If Judy\'d been here you\'d have\nsat gossiping till all hours--and you can\'t even give me five minutes!\nIt\'s always the same story. Last night I couldn\'t get near you--I went to\nthat damned vulgar party just to see you, and there was everybody talking\nabout you, and asking me if I\'d ever seen anything so stunning, and when\nI tried to come up and say a word, you never took any notice, but just\nwent on laughing and joking with a lot of asses who only wanted to be\nable to swagger about afterward, and look knowing when you were\nmentioned.\"\n\nHe paused, flushed by his diatribe, and fixing on her a look in which\nresentment was the ingredient she least disliked. But she had regained\nher presence of mind, and stood composedly in the middle of the room,\nwhile her slight smile seemed to put an ever increasing distance between\nherself and Trenor.\n\nAcross it she said: \"Don\'t be absurd, Gus. It\'s past eleven, and I must\nreally ask you to ring for a cab.\"\n\nHe remained immovable, with the lowering forehead she had grown to detest.\n\n\"And supposing I won\'t ring for one--what\'ll you do then?\"\n\n\"I shall go upstairs to Judy if you force me to disturb her.\"\n\nTrenor drew a step nearer and laid his hand on her arm. \"Look here, Lily:\nwon\'t you give me five minutes of your own accord?\"\n\n\"Not tonight, Gus: you----\"\n\n\"Very good, then: I\'ll take \'em. And as many more as I want.\" He had\nsquared himself on the threshold, his hands thrust deep in his pockets.\nHe nodded toward the chair on the hearth.\n\n\"Go and sit down there, please: I\'ve got a word to say to you.\"\n\nLily\'s quick temper was getting the better of her fears. She drew herself\nup and moved toward the door.\n\n\"If you have anything to say to me, you must say it another time. I\nshall go up to Judy unless you call a cab for me at once.\"\n\nHe burst into a laugh. \"Go upstairs and welcome, my dear; but you won\'t\nfind Judy. She ain\'t there.\"\n\nLily cast a startled look upon him. \"Do you mean that Judy is not in the\nhouse--not in town?\" she exclaimed.\n\n\"That\'s just what I do mean,\" returned Trenor, his bluster sinking to\nsullenness under her look.\n\n\"Nonsense--I don\'t believe you. I am going upstairs,\" she said\nimpatiently.\n\nHe drew unexpectedly aside, letting her reach the threshold unimpeded.\n\n\"Go up and welcome; but my wife is at Bellomont.\"\n\nBut Lily had a flash of reassurance. \"If she hadn\'t come she would have\nsent me word----\"\n\n\"She did; she telephoned me this afternoon to let you know.\"\n\n\"I received no message.\"\n\n\"I didn\'t send any.\"\n\nThe two measured each other for a moment, but Lily still saw her opponent\nthrough a blur of scorn that made all other considerations indistinct.\n\n\"I can\'t imagine your object in playing such a stupid trick on me; but if\nyou have fully gratified your peculiar sense of humour I must again ask\nyou to send for a cab.\"\n\nIt was the wrong note, and she knew it as she spoke. To be stung by irony\nit is not necessary to understand it, and the angry streaks on Trenor\'s\nface might have been raised by an actual lash.\n\n\"Look here, Lily, don\'t take that high and mighty tone with me.\" He had\nagain moved toward the door, and in her instinctive shrinking from him\nshe let him regain command of the threshold. \"I DID play a trick on you;\nI own up to it; but if you think I\'m ashamed you\'re mistaken. Lord knows\nI\'ve been patient enough--I\'ve hung round and looked like an ass. And\nall the while you were letting a lot of other fellows make up to\nyou . . . letting \'em make fun of me, I daresay . . . I\'m not sharp, and\ncan\'t dress my friends up to look funny, as you do . . . but I can tell\nwhen it\'s being done to me . . . I can tell fast enough when I\'m made a\nfool of . . .\"\n\n\"Ah, I shouldn\'t have thought that!\" flashed from Lily; but her laugh\ndropped to silence under his look.\n\n\"No; you wouldn\'t have thought it; but you\'ll know better now. That\'s\nwhat you\'re here for tonight. I\'ve been waiting for a quiet time to talk\nthings over, and now I\'ve got it I mean to make you hear me out.\"\n\nHis first rush of inarticulate resentment had been followed by a\nsteadiness and concentration of tone more disconcerting to Lily than the\nexcitement preceding it. For a moment her presence of mind forsook her.\nShe had more than once been in situations where a quick sword-play of wit\nhad been needful to cover her retreat; but her frightened heart-throbs\ntold her that here such skill would not avail.\n\nTo gain time she repeated: \"I don\'t understand what you want.\"\n\nTrenor had pushed a chair between herself and the door. He threw himself\nin it, and leaned back, looking up at her.\n\n\"I\'ll tell you what I want: I want to know just where you and I stand.\nHang it, the man who pays for the dinner is generally allowed to have a\nseat at table.\"\n\nShe flamed with anger and abasement, and the sickening need of having to\nconciliate where she longed to humble.\n\n\"I don\'t know what you mean--but you must see, Gus, that I can\'t stay\nhere talking to you at this hour----\"\n\n\"Gad, you go to men\'s houses fast enough in broad day light--strikes me\nyou\'re not always so deuced careful of appearances.\"\n\nThe brutality of the thrust gave her the sense of dizziness that follows\non a physical blow. Rosedale had spoken then--this was the way men talked\nof her--She felt suddenly weak and defenceless: there was a throb of\nself-pity in her throat. But all the while another self was sharpening\nher to vigilance, whispering the terrified warning that every word and\ngesture must be measured.\n\n\"If you have brought me here to say insulting things----\" she began.\n\nTrenor laughed. \"Don\'t talk stage-rot. I don\'t want to insult you. But a\nman\'s got his feelings--and you\'ve played with mine too long. I didn\'t\nbegin this business--kept out of the way, and left the track clear for\nthe other chaps, till you rummaged me out and set to work to make an ass\nof me--and an easy job you had of it, too. That\'s the trouble--it was too\neasy for you--you got reckless--thought you could turn me inside out, and\nchuck me in the gutter like an empty purse. But, by gad, that ain\'t\nplaying fair: that\'s dodging the rules of the game. Of course I know now\nwhat you wanted--it wasn\'t my beautiful eyes you were after--but I tell\nyou what, Miss Lily, you\'ve got to pay up for making me think so----\"\n\nHe rose, squaring his shoulders aggressively, and stepped toward her with\na reddening brow; but she held her footing, though every nerve tore at\nher to retreat as he advanced.\n\n\"Pay up?\" she faltered. \"Do you mean that I owe you money?\"\n\nHe laughed again. \"Oh, I\'m not asking for payment in kind. But there\'s\nsuch a thing as fair play--and interest on one\'s money--and hang me if\nI\'ve had as much as a look from you----\"\n\n\"Your money? What have I to do with your money? You advised me how to\ninvest mine . . . you must have seen I knew nothing of business . . .\nyou told me it was all right----\"\n\n\"It WAS all right--it is, Lily: you\'re welcome to all of it, and ten\ntimes more. I\'m only asking for a word of thanks from you.\" He was closer\nstill, with a hand that grew formidable; and the frightened self in her\nwas dragging the other down.\n\n\"I HAVE thanked you; I\'ve shown I was grateful. What more have you done\nthan any friend might do, or any one accept from a friend?\"\n\nTrenor caught her up with a sneer. \"I don\'t doubt you\'ve accepted as much\nbefore--and chucked the other chaps as you\'d like to chuck me. I don\'t\ncare how you settled your score with them--if you fooled \'em I\'m that\nmuch to the good. Don\'t stare at me like that--I know I\'m not talking the\nway a man is supposed to talk to a girl--but, hang it, if you don\'t like\nit you can stop me quick enough--you know I\'m mad about you--damn the\nmoney, there\'s plenty more of it--if THAT bothers you . . . I was a\nbrute, Lily--Lily!--just look at me----\"\n\nOver and over her the sea of humiliation broke--wave crashing on wave so\nclose that the moral shame was one with the physical dread. It seemed to\nher that self-esteem would have made her invulnerable--that it was her\nown dishonour which put a fearful solitude about her.\n\nHis touch was a shock to her drowning consciousness. She drew back from\nhim with a desperate assumption of scorn.\n\n\"I\'ve told you I don\'t understand--but if I owe you money you shall be\npaid----\"\n\nTrenor\'s face darkened to rage: her recoil of abhorrence had called out\nthe primitive man.\n\n\"Ah--you\'ll borrow from Selden or Rosedale--and take your chances of\nfooling them as you\'ve fooled me! Unless--unless you\'ve settled your\nother scores already--and I\'m the only one left out in the cold!\"\n\nShe stood silent, frozen to her place. The words--the words were worse\nthan the touch! Her heart was beating all over her body--in her throat,\nher limbs, her helpless useless hands. Her eyes travelled despairingly\nabout the room--they lit on the bell, and she remembered that help was in\ncall. Yes, but scandal with it--a hideous mustering of tongues. No, she\nmust fight her way out alone. It was enough that the servants knew her to\nbe in the house with Trenor--there must be nothing to excite conjecture\nin her way of leaving it.\n\nShe raised her head, and achieved a last clear look at him.\n\n\"I am here alone with you,\" she said. \"What more have you to say?\"\n\nTo her surprise, Trenor answered the look with a speechless stare. With\nhis last gust of words the flame had died out, leaving him chill and\nhumbled. It was as though a cold air had dispersed the fumes of his\nlibations, and the situation loomed before him black and naked as the\nruins of a fire. Old habits, old restraints, the hand of inherited order,\nplucked back the bewildered mind which passion had jolted from its ruts.\nTrenor\'s eye had the haggard look of the sleep-walker waked on a deathly\nledge.\n\n\"Go home! Go away from here\"----he stammered, and turning his back on her\nwalked toward the hearth.\n\nThe sharp release from her fears restored Lily to immediate lucidity.\nThe collapse of Trenor\'s will left her in control, and she heard herself,\nin a voice that was her own yet outside herself, bidding him ring for the\nservant, bidding him give the order for a hansom, directing him to put\nher in it when it came. Whence the strength came to her she knew not; but\nan insistent voice warned her that she must leave the house openly, and\nnerved her, in the hall before the hovering care taker, to exchange light\nwords with Trenor, and charge him with the usual messages for Judy, while\nall the while she shook with inward loathing. On the doorstep, with the\nstreet before her, she felt a mad throb of liberation, intoxicating as\nthe prisoner\'s first draught of free air; but the clearness of brain\ncontinued, and she noted the mute aspect of Fifth Avenue, guessed at the\nlateness of the hour, and even observed a man\'s figure--was there\nsomething half-familiar in its outline?--which, as she entered the\nhansom, turned from the opposite corner and vanished in the obscurity of\nthe side street.\n\nBut with the turn of the wheels reaction came, and shuddering darkness\nclosed on her. \"I can\'t think--I can\'t think,\" she moaned, and leaned her\nhead against the rattling side of the cab. She seemed a stranger to\nherself, or rather there were two selves in her, the one she had always\nknown, and a new abhorrent being to which it found itself chained. She\nhad once picked up, in a house where she was staying, a translation of\nthe EUMENIDES, and her imagination had been seized by the high terror of\nthe scene where Orestes, in the cave of the oracle, finds his implacable\nhuntresses asleep, and snatches an hour\'s repose. Yes, the Furies might\nsometimes sleep, but they were there, always there in the dark corners,\nand now they were awake and the iron clang of their wings was in her\nbrain . . . She opened her eyes and saw the streets passing--the familiar\nalien streets. All she looked on was the same and yet changed. There was\na great gulf fixed between today and yesterday. Everything in the past\nseemed simple, natural, full of daylight--and she was alone in a place of\ndarkness and pollution.--Alone! It was the loneliness that frightened\nher. Her eyes fell on an illuminated clock at a street corner, and she\nsaw that the hands marked the half hour after eleven. Only half-past\neleven--there were hours and hours left of the night! And she must spend\nthem alone, shuddering sleepless on her bed. Her soft nature recoiled\nfrom this ordeal, which had none of the stimulus of conflict to goad her\nthrough it. Oh, the slow cold drip of the minutes on her head! She had a\nvision of herself lying on the black walnut bed--and the darkness would\nfrighten her, and if she left the light burning the dreary details of the\nroom would brand themselves forever on her brain. She had always hated\nher room at Mrs. Peniston\'s--its ugliness, its impersonality, the fact\nthat nothing in it was really hers. To a torn heart uncomforted by human\nnearness a room may open almost human arms, and the being to whom no four\nwalls mean more than any others, is, at such hours, expatriate everywhere.\n\nLily had no heart to lean on. Her relation with her aunt was as\nsuperficial as that of chance lodgers who pass on the stairs. But even\nhad the two been in closer contact, it was impossible to think of Mrs.\nPeniston\'s mind as offering shelter or comprehension to such misery as\nLily\'s. As the pain that can be told is but half a pain, so the pity that\nquestions has little healing in its touch. What Lily craved was the\ndarkness made by enfolding arms, the silence which is not solitude, but\ncompassion holding its breath.\n\nShe started up and looked forth on the passing streets. Gerty!--they\nwere nearing Gerty\'s corner. If only she could reach there before this\nlabouring anguish burst from her breast to her lips--if only she could\nfeel the hold of Gerty\'s arms while she shook in the ague-fit of fear\nthat was coming upon her! She pushed up the door in the roof and called\nthe address to the driver. It was not so late--Gerty might still be\nwaking. And even if she were not, the sound of the bell would penetrate\nevery recess of her tiny apartment, and rouse her to answer her friend\'s\ncall.\n\n\n\nChapter 14\n\nGerty Farish, the morning after the Wellington Brys\' entertainment, woke\nfrom dreams as happy as Lily\'s. If they were less vivid in hue, more\nsubdued to the half-tints of her personality and her experience, they\nwere for that very reason better suited to her mental vision. Such\nflashes of joy as Lily moved in would have blinded Miss Farish, who was\naccustomed, in the way of happiness, to such scant light as shone through\nthe cracks of other people\'s lives.\n\nNow she was the centre of a little illumination of her own: a mild but\nunmistakable beam, compounded of Lawrence Selden\'s growing kindness to\nherself and the discovery that he extended his liking to Lily Bart. If\nthese two factors seem incompatible to the student of feminine\npsychology, it must be remembered that Gerty had always been a parasite\nin the moral order, living on the crumbs of other tables, and content to\nlook through the window at the banquet spread for her friends. Now that\nshe was enjoying a little private feast of her own, it would have seemed\nincredibly selfish not to lay a plate for a friend; and there was no one\nwith whom she would rather have shared her enjoyment than Miss Bart.\n\nAs to the nature of Selden\'s growing kindness, Gerty would no more have\ndared to define it than she would have tried to learn a butterfly\'s\ncolours by knocking the dust from its wings. To seize on the wonder would\nbe to brush off its bloom, and perhaps see it fade and stiffen in her\nhand: better the sense of beauty palpitating out of reach, while she held\nher breath and watched where it would alight. Yet Selden\'s manner at the\nBrys\' had brought the flutter of wings so close that they seemed to be\nbeating in her own heart. She had never seen him so alert, so responsive,\nso attentive to what she had to say. His habitual manner had an\nabsent-minded kindliness which she accepted, and was grateful for, as the\nliveliest sentiment her presence was likely to inspire; but she was quick\nto feel in him a change implying that for once she could give pleasure as\nwell as receive it.\n\nAnd it was so delightful that this higher degree of sympathy should be\nreached through their interest in Lily Bart!\n\nGerty\'s affection for her friend--a sentiment that had learned to keep\nitself alive on the scantiest diet--had grown to active adoration since\nLily\'s restless curiosity had drawn her into the circle of Miss Farish\'s\nwork. Lily\'s taste of beneficence had wakened in her a momentary appetite\nfor well-doing. Her visit to the Girls\' Club had first brought her in\ncontact with the dramatic contrasts of life. She had always accepted with\nphilosophic calm the fact that such existences as hers were pedestalled\non foundations of obscure humanity. The dreary limbo of dinginess lay all\naround and beneath that little illuminated circle in which life reached\nits finest efflorescence, as the mud and sleet of a winter night enclose\na hot-house filled with tropical flowers. All this was in the natural\norder of things, and the orchid basking in its artificially created\natmosphere could round the delicate curves of its petals undisturbed by\nthe ice on the panes.\n\nBut it is one thing to live comfortably with the abstract conception of\npoverty, another to be brought in contact with its human embodiments.\nLily had never conceived of these victims of fate otherwise than in the\nmass. That the mass was composed of individual lives, innumerable\nseparate centres of sensation, with her own eager reachings for pleasure,\nher own fierce revulsions from pain--that some of these bundles of\nfeeling were clothed in shapes not so unlike her own, with eyes meant to\nlook on gladness, and young lips shaped for love--this discovery gave\nLily one of those sudden shocks of pity that sometimes decentralize a\nlife. Lily\'s nature was incapable of such renewal: she could feel other\ndemands only through her own, and no pain was long vivid which did not\npress on an answering nerve. But for the moment she was drawn out of\nherself by the interest of her direct relation with a world so unlike her\nown. She had supplemented her first gift by personal assistance to one or\ntwo of Miss Farish\'s most appealing subjects, and the admiration and\ninterest her presence excited among the tired workers at the club\nministered in a new form to her insatiable desire to please.\n\nGerty Farish was not a close enough reader of character to disentangle\nthe mixed threads of which Lily\'s philanthropy was woven. She supposed\nher beautiful friend to be actuated by the same motive as herself--that\nsharpening of the moral vision which makes all human suffering so near\nand insistent that the other aspects of life fade into remoteness. Gerty\nlived by such simple formulas that she did not hesitate to class her\nfriend\'s state with the emotional \"change of heart\" to which her dealings\nwith the poor had accustomed her; and she rejoiced in the thought that\nshe had been the humble instrument of this renewal. Now she had an answer\nto all criticisms of Lily\'s conduct: as she had said, she knew \"the real\nLily,\" and the discovery that Selden shared her knowledge raised her\nplacid acceptance of life to a dazzled sense of its possibilities--a\nsense farther enlarged, in the course of the afternoon, by the receipt of\na telegram from Selden asking if he might dine with her that evening.\n\nWhile Gerty was lost in the happy bustle which this announcement produced\nin her small household, Selden was at one with her in thinking with\nintensity of Lily Bart. The case which had called him to Albany was not\ncomplicated enough to absorb all his attention, and he had the\nprofessional faculty of keeping a part of his mind free when its services\nwere not needed. This part--which at the moment seemed dangerously like\nthe whole--was filled to the brim with the sensations of the previous\nevening. Selden understood the symptoms: he recognized the fact that he\nwas paying up, as there had always been a chance of his having to pay up,\nfor the voluntary exclusions of his past. He had meant to keep free from\npermanent ties, not from any poverty of feeling, but because, in a\ndifferent way, he was, as much as Lily, the victim of his environment.\nThere had been a germ of truth in his declaration to Gerty Farish that he\nhad never wanted to marry a \"nice\" girl: the adjective connoting, in his\ncousin\'s vocabulary, certain utilitarian qualities which are apt to\npreclude the luxury of charm. Now it had been Selden\'s fate to have a\ncharming mother: her graceful portrait, all smiles and Cashmere, still\nemitted a faded scent of the undefinable quality. His father was the kind\nof man who delights in a charming woman: who quotes her, stimulates her,\nand keeps her perennially charming. Neither one of the couple cared for\nmoney, but their disdain of it took the form of always spending a little\nmore than was prudent. If their house was shabby, it was exquisitely\nkept; if there were good books on the shelves there were also good dishes\non the table. Selden senior had an eye for a picture, his wife an\nunderstanding of old lace; and both were so conscious of restraint and\ndiscrimination in buying that they never quite knew how it was that the\nbills mounted up.\n\nThough many of Selden\'s friends would have called his parents poor, he\nhad grown up in an atmosphere where restricted means were felt only as a\ncheck on aimless profusion: where the few possessions were so good that\ntheir rarity gave them a merited relief, and abstinence was combined with\nelegance in a way exemplified by Mrs. Selden\'s knack of wearing her old\nvelvet as if it were new. A man has the advantage of being delivered\nearly from the home point of view, and before Selden left college he had\nlearned that there are as many different ways of going without money as\nof spending it. Unfortunately, he found no way as agreeable as that\npractised at home; and his views of womankind in especial were tinged by\nthe remembrance of the one woman who had given him his sense of \"values.\"\nIt was from her that he inherited his detachment from the sumptuary side\nof life: the stoic\'s carelessness of material things, combined with the\nEpicurean\'s pleasure in them. Life shorn of either feeling appeared to\nhim a diminished thing; and nowhere was the blending of the two\ningredients so essential as in the character of a pretty woman.\n\nIt had always seemed to Selden that experience offered a great deal\nbesides the sentimental adventure, yet he could vividly conceive of a\nlove which should broaden and deepen till it became the central fact of\nlife. What he could not accept, in his own case, was the makeshift\nalternative of a relation that should be less than this: that should\nleave some portions of his nature unsatisfied, while it put an undue\nstrain on others. He would not, in other words, yield to the growth of an\naffection which might appeal to pity yet leave the understanding\nuntouched: sympathy should no more delude him than a trick of the eyes,\nthe grace of helplessness than a curve of the cheek.\n\nBut now--that little BUT passed like a sponge over all his vows. His\nreasoned-out resistances seemed for the moment so much less important\nthan the question as to when Lily would receive his note! He yielded\nhimself to the charm of trivial preoccupations, wondering at what hour\nher reply would be sent, with what words it would begin. As to its import\nhe had no doubt--he was as sure of her surrender as of his own. And so\nhe had leisure to muse on all its exquisite details, as a hard worker, on\na holiday morning, might lie still and watch the beam of light travel\ngradually across his room. But if the new light dazzled, it did not blind\nhim. He could still discern the outline of facts, though his own relation\nto them had changed. He was no less conscious than before of what was\nsaid of Lily Bart, but he could separate the woman he knew from the\nvulgar estimate of her. His mind turned to Gerty Farish\'s words, and the\nwisdom of the world seemed a groping thing beside the insight of\ninnocence. BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART, FOR THEY SHALL SEE GOD--even\nthe hidden god in their neighbour\'s breast! Selden was in the state of\nimpassioned self-absorption that the first surrender to love produces.\nHis craving was for the companionship of one whose point of view should\njustify his own, who should confirm, by deliberate observation, the truth\nto which his intuitions had leaped. He could not wait for the midday\nrecess, but seized a moment\'s leisure in court to scribble his telegram\nto Gerty Farish.\n\nReaching town, he was driven direct to his club, where he hoped a note\nfrom Miss Bart might await him. But his box contained only a line of\nrapturous assent from Gerty, and he was turning away disappointed when he\nwas hailed by a voice from the smoking room.\n\n\"Hallo, Lawrence! Dining here? Take a bite with me--I\'ve ordered a\ncanvas-back.\"\n\nHe discovered Trenor, in his day clothes, sitting, with a tall glass at\nhis elbow, behind the folds of a sporting journal.\n\nSelden thanked him, but pleaded an engagement.\n\n\"Hang it, I believe every man in town has an engagement tonight. I shall\nhave the club to myself. You know how I\'m living this winter, rattling\nround in that empty house. My wife meant to come to town today, but she\'s\nput it off again, and how is a fellow to dine alone in a room with the\nlooking-glasses covered, and nothing but a bottle of Harvey sauce on the\nside-board? I say, Lawrence, chuck your engagement and take pity on\nme--it gives me the blue devils to dine alone, and there\'s nobody but\nthat canting ass Wetherall in the club.\"\n\n\"Sorry, Gus--I can\'t do it.\"\n\nAs Selden turned away, he noticed the dark flush on Trenor\'s face, the\nunpleasant moisture of his intensely white forehead, the way his jewelled\nrings were wedged in the creases of his fat red fingers. Certainly the\nbeast was predominating--the beast at the bottom of the glass. And he had\nheard this man\'s name coupled with Lily\'s! Bah--the thought sickened him;\nall the way back to his rooms he was haunted by the sight of Trenor\'s fat\ncreased hands----\n\nOn his table lay the note: Lily had sent it to his rooms. He knew what\nwas in it before he broke the seal--a grey seal with BEYOND! beneath a\nflying ship. Ah, he would take her beyond--beyond the ugliness, the\npettiness, the attrition and corrosion of the soul----\n\n\n\nGerty\'s little sitting-room sparkled with welcome when Selden entered it.\nIts modest \"effects,\" compact of enamel paint and ingenuity, spoke to him\nin the language just then sweetest to his ear. It is surprising how\nlittle narrow walls and a low ceiling matter, when the roof of the soul\nhas suddenly been raised. Gerty sparkled too; or at least shone with a\ntempered radiance. He had never before noticed that she had\n\"points\"--really, some good fellow might do worse . . . Over the little\ndinner (and here, again, the effects were wonderful) he told her she\nought to marry--he was in a mood to pair off the whole world. She had\nmade the caramel custard with her own hands? It was sinful to keep such\ngifts to herself. He reflected with a throb of pride that Lily could trim\nher own hats--she had told him so the day of their walk at Bellomont.\n\nHe did not speak of Lily till after dinner. During the little repast he\nkept the talk on his hostess, who, fluttered at being the centre of\nobservation, shone as rosy as the candle-shades she had manufactured for\nthe occasion. Selden evinced an extraordinary interest in her household\narrangements: complimented her on the ingenuity with which she had\nutilized every inch of her small quarters, asked how her servant managed\nabout afternoons out, learned that one may improvise delicious dinners in\na chafing-dish, and uttered thoughtful generalizations on the burden of a\nlarge establishment.\n\nWhen they were in the sitting-room again, where they fitted as snugly as\nbits in a puzzle, and she had brewed the coffee, and poured it into her\ngrandmother\'s egg-shell cups, his eye, as he leaned back, basking in the\nwarm fragrance, lighted on a recent photograph of Miss Bart, and the\ndesired transition was effected without an effort. The photograph was\nwell enough--but to catch her as she had looked last night! Gerty agreed\nwith him--never had she been so radiant. But could photography capture\nthat light? There had been a new look in her face--something different;\nyes, Selden agreed there had been something different. The coffee was so\nexquisite that he asked for a second cup: such a contrast to the watery\nstuff at the club! Ah, your poor bachelor with his impersonal club fare,\nalternating with the equally impersonal CUISINE of the dinner-party! A\nman who lived in lodgings missed the best part of life--he pictured the\nflavourless solitude of Trenor\'s repast, and felt a moment\'s compassion\nfor the man . . . But to return to Lily--and again and again he returned,\nquestioning, conjecturing, leading Gerty on, draining her inmost thoughts\nof their stored tenderness for her friend.\n\nAt first she poured herself out unstintingly, happy in this perfect\ncommunion of their sympathies. His understanding of Lily helped to\nconfirm her own belief in her friend. They dwelt together on the fact\nthat Lily had had no chance. Gerty instanced her generous impulses--her\nrestlessness and discontent. The fact that her life had never satisfied\nher proved that she was made for better things. She might have married\nmore than once--the conventional rich marriage which she had been taught\nto consider the sole end of existence--but when the opportunity came she\nhad always shrunk from it. Percy Gryce, for instance, had been in love\nwith her--every one at Bellomont had supposed them to be engaged, and her\ndismissal of him was thought inexplicable. This view of the Gryce\nincident chimed too well with Selden\'s mood not to be instantly adopted\nby him, with a flash of retrospective contempt for what had once seemed\nthe obvious solution. If rejection there had been--and he wondered now\nthat he had ever doubted it!--then he held the key to the secret, and the\nhillsides of Bellomont were lit up, not with sunset, but with dawn. It\nwas he who had wavered and disowned the face of opportunity--and the joy\nnow warming his breast might have been a familiar inmate if he had\ncaptured it in its first flight.\n\nIt was at this point, perhaps, that a joy just trying its wings in\nGerty\'s heart dropped to earth and lay still. She sat facing Selden,\nrepeating mechanically: \"No, she has never been understood----\" and all\nthe while she herself seemed to be sitting in the centre of a great glare\nof comprehension. The little confidential room, where a moment ago their\nthoughts had touched elbows like their chairs, grew to unfriendly\nvastness, separating her from Selden by all the length of her new vision\nof the future--and that future stretched out interminably, with her\nlonely figure toiling down it, a mere speck on the solitude.\n\n\"She is herself with a few people only; and you are one of them,\" she\nheard Selden saying. And again: \"Be good to her, Gerty, won\'t you?\" and:\n\"She has it in her to become whatever she is believed to be--you\'ll help\nher by believing the best of her?\"\n\nThe words beat on Gerty\'s brain like the sound of a language which has\nseemed familiar at a distance, but on approaching is found to be\nunintelligible. He had come to talk to her of Lily--that was all! There\nhad been a third at the feast she had spread for him, and that third had\ntaken her own place. She tried to follow what he was saying, to cling to\nher own part in the talk--but it was all as meaningless as the boom of\nwaves in a drowning head, and she felt, as the drowning may feel, that to\nsink would be nothing beside the pain of struggling to keep up.\n\nSelden rose, and she drew a deep breath, feeling that soon she could\nyield to the blessed waves.\n\n\"Mrs. Fisher\'s? You say she was dining there? There\'s music afterward; I\nbelieve I had a card from her.\" He glanced at the foolish pink-faced\nclock that was drumming out this hideous hour. \"A quarter past ten? I\nmight look in there now; the Fisher evenings are amusing. I haven\'t kept\nyou up too late, Gerty? You look tired--I\'ve rambled on and bored you.\"\nAnd in the unwonted overflow of his feelings, he left a cousinly kiss\nupon her cheek.\n\n\n\nAt Mrs. Fisher\'s, through the cigar-smoke of the studio, a dozen voices\ngreeted Selden. A song was pending as he entered, and he dropped into a\nseat near his hostess, his eyes roaming in search of Miss Bart. But she\nwas not there, and the discovery gave him a pang out of all proportion to\nits seriousness; since the note in his breast-pocket assured him that at\nfour the next day they would meet. To his impatience it seemed\nimmeasurably long to wait, and half-ashamed of the impulse, he leaned to\nMrs. Fisher to ask, as the music ceased, if Miss Bart had not dined with\nher.\n\n\"Lily? She\'s just gone. She had to run off, I forget where. Wasn\'t she\nwonderful last night?\"\n\n\"Who\'s that? Lily?\" asked Jack Stepney, from the depths of a neighbouring\narm-chair. \"Really, you know, I\'m no prude, but when it comes to a girl\nstanding there as if she was up at auction--I thought seriously of\nspeaking to cousin Julia.\"\n\n\"You didn\'t know Jack had become our social censor?\" Mrs. Fisher said to\nSelden with a laugh; and Stepney spluttered, amid the general derision:\n\"But she\'s a cousin, hang it, and when a man\'s married--TOWN TALK was\nfull of her this morning.\"\n\n\"Yes: lively reading that was,\" said Mr. Ned Van Alstyne, stroking his\nmoustache to hide the smile behind it. \"Buy the dirty sheet? No, of\ncourse not; some fellow showed it to me--but I\'d heard the stories\nbefore. When a girl\'s as good-looking as that she\'d better marry; then no\nquestions are asked. In our imperfectly organized society there is no\nprovision as yet for the young woman who claims the privileges of\nmarriage without assuming its obligations.\"\n\n\"Well, I understand Lily is about to assume them in the shape of Mr.\nRosedale,\" Mrs. Fisher said with a laugh.\n\n\"Rosedale--good heavens!\" exclaimed Van Alstyne, dropping his eye-glass.\n\"Stepney, that\'s your fault for foisting the brute on us.\"\n\n\"Oh, confound it, you know, we don\'t MARRY Rosedale in our family,\"\nStepney languidly protested; but his wife, who sat in oppressive bridal\nfinery at the other side of the room, quelled him with the judicial\nreflection: \"In Lily\'s circumstances it\'s a mistake to have too high a\nstandard.\"\n\n\"I hear even Rosedale has been scared by the talk lately,\" Mrs. Fisher\nrejoined; \"but the sight of her last night sent him off his head. What do\nyou think he said to me after her TABLEAU? \'My God, Mrs. Fisher, if I\ncould get Paul Morpeth to paint her like that, the picture\'d appreciate a\nhundred per cent in ten years.\'\"\n\n\"By Jove,--but isn\'t she about somewhere?\" exclaimed Van Alstyne,\nrestoring his glass with an uneasy glance.\n\n\"No; she ran off while you were all mixing the punch down stairs. Where\nwas she going, by the way? What\'s on tonight? I hadn\'t heard of anything.\"\n\n\"Oh, not a party, I think,\" said an inexperienced young Farish who had\narrived late. \"I put her in her cab as I was coming in, and she gave the\ndriver the Trenors\' address.\"\n\n\"The Trenors\'?\" exclaimed Mrs. Jack Stepney. \"Why, the house is\nclosed--Judy telephoned me from Bellomont this evening.\"\n\n\"Did she? That\'s queer. I\'m sure I\'m not mistaken. Well, come now,\nTrenor\'s there, anyhow--I--oh, well--the fact is, I\'ve no head for\nnumbers,\" he broke off, admonished by the nudge of an adjoining foot, and\nthe smile that circled the room.\n\nIn its unpleasant light Selden had risen and was shaking hands with his\nhostess. The air of the place stifled him, and he wondered why he had\nstayed in it so long.\n\nOn the doorstep he stood still, remembering a phrase of Lily\'s: \"It seems\nto me you spend a good deal of time in the element you disapprove of.\"\n\nWell--what had brought him there but the quest of her? It was her\nelement, not his. But he would lift her out of it, take her beyond! That\nBEYOND! on her letter was like a cry for rescue. He knew that Perseus\'s\ntask is not done when he has loosed Andromeda\'s chains, for her limbs are\nnumb with bondage, and she cannot rise and walk, but clings to him with\ndragging arms as he beats back to land with his burden. Well, he had\nstrength for both--it was her weakness which had put the strength in him.\nIt was not, alas, a clean rush of waves they had to win through, but a\nclogging morass of old associations and habits, and for the moment its\nvapours were in his throat. But he would see clearer, breathe freer in\nher presence: she was at once the dead weight at his breast and the spar\nwhich should float them to safety. He smiled at the whirl of metaphor\nwith which he was trying to build up a defence against the influences of\nthe last hour. It was pitiable that he, who knew the mixed motives on\nwhich social judgments depend, should still feel himself so swayed by\nthem. How could he lift Lily to a freer vision of life, if his own view\nof her was to be coloured by any mind in which he saw her reflected?\n\nThe moral oppression had produced a physical craving for air, and he\nstrode on, opening his lungs to the reverberating coldness of the night.\nAt the corner of Fifth Avenue Van Alstyne hailed him with an offer of\ncompany.\n\n\"Walking? A good thing to blow the smoke out of one\'s head. Now that\nwomen have taken to tobacco we live in a bath of nicotine. It would be a\ncurious thing to study the effect of cigarettes on the relation of the\nsexes. Smoke is almost as great a solvent as divorce: both tend to\nobscure the moral issue.\"\n\nNothing could have been less consonant with Selden\'s mood than Van\nAlstyne\'s after-dinner aphorisms, but as long as the latter confined\nhimself to generalities his listener\'s nerves were in control. Happily\nVan Alstyne prided himself on his summing up of social aspects, and with\nSelden for audience was eager to show the sureness of his touch. Mrs.\nFisher lived in an East side street near the Park, and as the two men\nwalked down Fifth Avenue the new architectural developments of that\nversatile thoroughfare invited Van Alstyne\'s comment.\n\n\"That Greiner house, now--a typical rung in the social ladder! The man\nwho built it came from a MILIEU where all the dishes are put on the table\nat once. His facade is a complete architectural meal; if he had omitted a\nstyle his friends might have thought the money had given out. Not a bad\npurchase for Rosedale, though: attracts attention, and awes the Western\nsight-seer. By and bye he\'ll get out of that phase, and want something\nthat the crowd will pass and the few pause before. Especially if he\nmarries my clever cousin----\"\n\nSelden dashed in with the query: \"And the Wellington Brys\'? Rather\nclever of its kind, don\'t you think?\"\n\nThey were just beneath the wide white facade, with its rich restraint of\nline, which suggested the clever corseting of a redundant figure.\n\n\"That\'s the next stage: the desire to imply that one has been to Europe,\nand has a standard. I\'m sure Mrs. Bry thinks her house a copy of the\nTRIANON; in America every marble house with gilt furniture is thought to\nbe a copy of the TRIANON. What a clever chap that architect is,\nthough--how he takes his client\'s measure! He has put the whole of Mrs.\nBry in his use of the composite order. Now for the Trenors, you remember,\nhe chose the Corinthian: exuberant, but based on the best precedent. The\nTrenor house is one of his best things--doesn\'t look like a\nbanqueting-hall turned inside out. I hear Mrs. Trenor wants to build out\na new ball-room, and that divergence from Gus on that point keeps her at\nBellomont. The dimensions of the Brys\' ball-room must rankle: you may be\nsure she knows \'em as well as if she\'d been there last night with a\nyard-measure. Who said she was in town, by the way? That Farish boy? She\nisn\'t, I know; Mrs. Stepney was right; the house is dark, you see: I\nsuppose Gus lives in the back.\"\n\nHe had halted opposite the Trenors\' corner, and Selden perforce stayed\nhis steps also. The house loomed obscure and uninhabited; only an oblong\ngleam above the door spoke of provisional occupancy.\n\n\"They\'ve bought the house at the back: it gives them a hundred and fifty\nfeet in the side street. There\'s where the ball-room\'s to be, with a\ngallery connecting it: billiard-room and so on above. I suggested\nchanging the entrance, and carrying the drawing-room across the whole\nFifth Avenue front; you see the front door corresponds with the\nwindows----\"\n\nThe walking-stick which Van Alstyne swung in demonstration dropped to a\nstartled \"Hallo!\" as the door opened and two figures were seen\nsilhouetted against the hall-light. At the same moment a hansom halted at\nthe curb-stone, and one of the figures floated down to it in a haze of\nevening draperies; while the other, black and bulky, remained\npersistently projected against the light.\n\nFor an immeasurable second the two spectators of the incident were\nsilent; then the house-door closed, the hansom rolled off, and the whole\nscene slipped by as if with the turn of a stereopticon.\n\nVan Alstyne dropped his eye-glass with a low whistle.\n\n\"A--hem--nothing of this, eh, Selden? As one of the family, I know I may\ncount on you--appearances are deceptive--and Fifth Avenue is so\nimperfectly lighted----\"\n\n\"Goodnight,\" said Selden, turning sharply down the side street without\nseeing the other\'s extended hand.\n\n\n\nAlone with her cousin\'s kiss, Gerty stared upon her thoughts. He had\nkissed her before--but not with another woman on his lips. If he had\nspared her that she could have drowned quietly, welcoming the dark flood\nas it submerged her. But now the flood was shot through with glory, and\nit was harder to drown at sunrise than in darkness. Gerty hid her face\nfrom the light, but it pierced to the crannies of her soul. She had been\nso contented, life had seemed so simple and sufficient--why had he come\nto trouble her with new hopes? And Lily--Lily, her best friend!\nWoman-like, she accused the woman. Perhaps, had it not been for Lily,\nher fond imagining might have become truth. Selden had always liked\nher--had understood and sympathized with the modest independence of her\nlife. He, who had the reputation of weighing all things in the nice\nbalance of fastidious perceptions, had been uncritical and simple in his\nview of her: his cleverness had never overawed her because she had felt\nat home in his heart. And now she was thrust out, and the door barred\nagainst her by Lily\'s hand! Lily, for whose admission there she herself\nhad pleaded! The situation was lighted up by a dreary flash of irony. She\nknew Selden--she saw how the force of her faith in Lily must have helped\nto dispel his hesitations. She remembered, too, how Lily had talked of\nhim--she saw herself bringing the two together, making them known to each\nother. On Selden\'s part, no doubt, the wound inflicted was inconscient;\nhe had never guessed her foolish secret; but Lily--Lily must have known!\nWhen, in such matters, are a woman\'s perceptions at fault? And if she\nknew, then she had deliberately despoiled her friend, and in mere\nwantonness of power, since, even to Gerty\'s suddenly flaming jealousy, it\nseemed incredible that Lily should wish to be Selden\'s wife. Lily might\nbe incapable of marrying for money, but she was equally incapable of\nliving without it, and Selden\'s eager investigations into the small\neconomies of house-keeping made him appear to Gerty as tragically duped\nas herself.\n\nShe remained long in her sitting-room, where the embers were crumbling to\ncold grey, and the lamp paled under its gay shade. Just beneath it stood\nthe photograph of Lily Bart, looking out imperially on the cheap\ngimcracks, the cramped furniture of the little room. Could Selden picture\nher in such an interior? Gerty felt the poverty, the insignificance of\nher surroundings: she beheld her life as it must appear to Lily. And the\ncruelty of Lily\'s judgments smote upon her memory. She saw that she had\ndressed her idol with attributes of her own making. When had Lily ever\nreally felt, or pitied, or understood? All she wanted was the taste of\nnew experiences: she seemed like some cruel creature experimenting in a\nlaboratory.\n\nThe pink-faced clock drummed out another hour, and Gerty rose with a\nstart. She had an appointment early the next morning with a district\nvisitor on the East side. She put out her lamp, covered the fire, and\nwent into her bedroom to undress. In the little glass above her\ndressing-table she saw her face reflected against the shadows of the\nroom, and tears blotted the reflection. What right had she to dream the\ndreams of loveliness? A dull face invited a dull fate. She cried quietly\nas she undressed, laying aside her clothes with her habitual precision,\nsetting everything in order for the next day, when the old life must be\ntaken up as though there had been no break in its routine. Her servant\ndid not come till eight o\'clock, and she prepared her own tea-tray and\nplaced it beside the bed. Then she locked the door of the flat,\nextinguished her light and lay down. But on her bed sleep would not\ncome, and she lay face to face with the fact that she hated Lily Bart. It\nclosed with her in the darkness like some formless evil to be blindly\ngrappled with. Reason, judgment, renunciation, all the sane daylight\nforces, were beaten back in the sharp struggle for self-preservation. She\nwanted happiness--wanted it as fiercely and unscrupulously as Lily did,\nbut without Lily\'s power of obtaining it. And in her conscious impotence\nshe lay shivering, and hated her friend----\n\nA ring at the door-bell caught her to her feet. She struck a light and\nstood startled, listening. For a moment her heart beat incoherently, then\nshe felt the sobering touch of fact, and remembered that such calls were\nnot unknown in her charitable work. She flung on her dressing-gown to\nanswer the summons, and unlocking her door, confronted the shining vision\nof Lily Bart.\n\nGerty\'s first movement was one of revulsion. She shrank back as though\nLily\'s presence flashed too sudden a light upon her misery. Then she\nheard her name in a cry, had a glimpse of her friend\'s face, and felt\nherself caught and clung to.\n\n\"Lily--what is it?\" she exclaimed.\n\nMiss Bart released her, and stood breathing brokenly, like one who has\ngained shelter after a long flight.\n\n\"I was so cold--I couldn\'t go home. Have you a fire?\"\n\nGerty\'s compassionate instincts, responding to the swift call of habit,\nswept aside all her reluctances. Lily was simply some one who needed\nhelp--for what reason, there was no time to pause and conjecture:\ndisciplined sympathy checked the wonder on Gerty\'s lips, and made her\ndraw her friend silently into the sitting-room and seat her by the\ndarkened hearth.\n\n\"There is kindling wood here: the fire will burn in a minute.\"\n\nShe knelt down, and the flame leapt under her rapid hands. It flashed\nstrangely through the tears which still blurred her eyes, and smote on\nthe white ruin of Lily\'s face. The girls looked at each other in silence;\nthen Lily repeated: \"I couldn\'t go home.\"\n\n\"No--no--you came here, dear! You\'re cold and tired--sit quiet, and I\'ll\nmake you some tea.\"\n\nGerty had unconsciously adopted the soothing note of her trade: all\npersonal feeling was merged in the sense of ministry, and experience had\ntaught her that the bleeding must be stayed before the wound is probed.\n\nLily sat quiet, leaning to the fire: the clatter of cups behind her\nsoothed her as familiar noises hush a child whom silence has kept\nwakeful. But when Gerty stood at her side with the tea she pushed it\naway, and turned an estranged eye on the familiar room.\n\n\"I came here because I couldn\'t bear to be alone,\" she said.\n\nGerty set down the cup and knelt beside her.\n\n\"Lily! Something has happened--can\'t you tell me?\"\n\n\"I couldn\'t bear to lie awake in my room till morning. I hate my room at\nAunt Julia\'s--so I came here----\"\n\nShe stirred suddenly, broke from her apathy, and clung to Gerty in a\nfresh burst of fear.\n\n\"Oh, Gerty, the furies . . . you know the noise of their wings--alone, at\nnight, in the dark? But you don\'t know--there is nothing to make the dark\ndreadful to you----\"\n\nThe words, flashing back on Gerty\'s last hours, struck from her a faint\nderisive murmur; but Lily, in the blaze of her own misery, was blinded to\neverything outside it.\n\n\"You\'ll let me stay? I shan\'t mind when daylight comes--Is it late? Is\nthe night nearly over? It must be awful to be sleepless--everything\nstands by the bed and stares----\"\n\nMiss Farish caught her straying hands. \"Lily, look at me! Something has\nhappened--an accident? You have been frightened--what has frightened you?\nTell me if you can--a word or two--so that I can help you.\"\n\nLily shook her head.\n\n\"I am not frightened: that\'s not the word. Can you imagine looking into\nyour glass some morning and seeing a disfigurement--some hideous change\nthat has come to you while you slept? Well, I seem to myself like that--I\ncan\'t bear to see myself in my own thoughts--I hate ugliness, you\nknow--I\'ve always turned from it--but I can\'t explain to you--you\nwouldn\'t understand.\"\n\nShe lifted her head and her eyes fell on the clock.\n\n\"How long the night is! And I know I shan\'t sleep tomorrow. Some one told\nme my father used to lie sleepless and think of horrors. And he was not\nwicked, only unfortunate--and I see now how he must have suffered, lying\nalone with his thoughts! But I am bad--a bad girl--all my thoughts are\nbad--I have always had bad people about me. Is that any excuse? I thought\nI could manage my own life--I was proud--proud! but now I\'m on their\nlevel----\"\n\nSobs shook her, and she bowed to them like a tree in a dry storm.\n\nGerty knelt beside her, waiting, with the patience born of experience,\ntill this gust of misery should loosen fresh speech. She had first\nimagined some physical shock, some peril of the crowded streets, since\nLily was presumably on her way home from Carry Fisher\'s; but she now saw\nthat other nerve-centres were smitten, and her mind trembled back from\nconjecture.\n\nLily\'s sobs ceased, and she lifted her head.\n\n\"There are bad girls in your slums. Tell me--do they ever pick themselves\nup? Ever forget, and feel as they did before?\"\n\n\"Lily! you mustn\'t speak so--you\'re dreaming.\"\n\n\"Don\'t they always go from bad to worse? There\'s no turning back--your\nold self rejects you, and shuts you out.\"\n\nShe rose, stretching her arms as if in utter physical weariness. \"Go to\nbed, dear! You work hard and get up early. I\'ll watch here by the fire,\nand you\'ll leave the light, and your door open. All I want is to feel\nthat you are near me.\" She laid both hands on Gerty\'s shoulders, with a\nsmile that was like sunrise on a sea strewn with wreckage.\n\n\"I can\'t leave you, Lily. Come and lie on my bed. Your hands are\nfrozen--you must undress and be made warm.\" Gerty paused with sudden\ncompunction. \"But Mrs. Peniston--it\'s past midnight! What will she think?\"\n\n\"She goes to bed. I have a latch-key. It doesn\'t matter--I can\'t go back\nthere.\"\n\n\"There\'s no need to: you shall stay here. But you must tell me where you\nhave been. Listen, Lily--it will help you to speak!\" She regained Miss\nBart\'s hands, and pressed them against her. \"Try to tell me--it will\nclear your poor head. Listen--you were dining at Carry Fisher\'s.\" Gerty\npaused and added with a flash of heroism: \"Lawrence Selden went from here\nto find you.\"\n\nAt the word, Lily\'s face melted from locked anguish to the open misery of\na child. Her lips trembled and her gaze widened with tears.\n\n\"He went to find me? And I missed him! Oh, Gerty, he tried to help me.\nHe told me--he warned me long ago--he foresaw that I should grow hateful\nto myself!\"\n\nThe name, as Gerty saw with a clutch at the heart, had loosened the\nsprings of self-pity in her friend\'s dry breast, and tear by tear Lily\npoured out the measure of her anguish. She had dropped sideways in\nGerty\'s big arm-chair, her head buried where lately Selden\'s had leaned,\nin a beauty of abandonment that drove home to Gerty\'s aching senses the\ninevitableness of her own defeat. Ah, it needed no deliberate purpose on\nLily\'s part to rob her of her dream! To look on that prone loveliness was\nto see in it a natural force, to recognize that love and power belong to\nsuch as Lily, as renunciation and service are the lot of those they\ndespoil. But if Selden\'s infatuation seemed a fatal necessity, the effect\nthat his name produced shook Gerty\'s steadfastness with a last pang. Men\npass through such superhuman loves and outlive them: they are the\nprobation subduing the heart to human joys. How gladly Gerty would have\nwelcomed the ministry of healing: how willingly have soothed the sufferer\nback to tolerance of life! But Lily\'s self-betrayal took this last hope\nfrom her. The mortal maid on the shore is helpless against the siren who\nloves her prey: such victims are floated back dead from their adventure.\n\nLily sprang up and caught her with strong hands. \"Gerty, you know\nhim--you understand him--tell me; if I went to him, if I told him\neverything--if I said: \'I am bad through and through--I want admiration,\nI want excitement, I want money--\' yes, MONEY! That\'s my shame,\nGerty--and it\'s known, it\'s said of me--it\'s what men think of me--If I\nsaid it all to him--told him the whole story--said plainly: \'I\'ve sunk\nlower than the lowest, for I\'ve taken what they take, and not paid as\nthey pay\'--oh, Gerty, you know him, you can speak for him: if I told him\neverything would he loathe me? Or would he pity me, and understand me,\nand save me from loathing myself?\"\n\nGerty stood cold and passive. She knew the hour of her probation had\ncome, and her poor heart beat wildly against its destiny. As a dark river\nsweeps by under a lightning flash, she saw her chance of happiness surge\npast under a flash of temptation. What prevented her from saying: \"He is\nlike other men?\" She was not so sure of him, after all! But to do so\nwould have been like blaspheming her love. She could not put him before\nherself in any light but the noblest: she must trust him to the height of\nher own passion.\n\n\"Yes: I know him; he will help you,\" she said; and in a moment Lily\'s\npassion was weeping itself out against her breast.\n\nThere was but one bed in the little flat, and the two girls lay down on\nit side by side when Gerty had unlaced Lily\'s dress and persuaded her to\nput her lips to the warm tea. The light extinguished, they lay still in\nthe darkness, Gerty shrinking to the outer edge of the narrow couch to\navoid contact with her bed-fellow. Knowing that Lily disliked to be\ncaressed, she had long ago learned to check her demonstrative impulses\ntoward her friend. But tonight every fibre in her body shrank from Lily\'s\nnearness: it was torture to listen to her breathing, and feel the sheet\nstir with it. As Lily turned, and settled to completer rest, a strand of\nher hair swept Gerty\'s cheek with its fragrance. Everything about her was\nwarm and soft and scented: even the stains of her grief became her as\nrain-drops do the beaten rose. But as Gerty lay with arms drawn down her\nside, in the motionless narrowness of an effigy, she felt a stir of sobs\nfrom the breathing warmth beside her, and Lily flung out her hand, groped\nfor her friend\'s, and held it fast.\n\n\"Hold me, Gerty, hold me, or I shall think of things,\" she moaned; and\nGerty silently slipped an arm under her, pillowing her head in its hollow\nas a mother makes a nest for a tossing child. In the warm hollow Lily lay\nstill and her breathing grew low and regular. Her hand still clung to\nGerty\'s as if to ward off evil dreams, but the hold of her fingers\nrelaxed, her head sank deeper into its shelter, and Gerty felt that she\nslept.\n\n\n\nChapter 15\n\nWhen lily woke she had the bed to herself, and the winter light was in\nthe room.\n\nShe sat up, bewildered by the strangeness of her surroundings; then\nmemory returned, and she looked about her with a shiver. In the cold\nslant of light reflected from the back wall of a neighbouring building,\nshe saw her evening dress and opera cloak lying in a tawdry heap on a\nchair. Finery laid off is as unappetizing as the remains of a feast, and\nit occurred to Lily that, at home, her maid\'s vigilance had always spared\nher the sight of such incongruities. Her body ached with fatigue, and\nwith the constriction of her attitude in Gerty\'s bed. All through her\ntroubled sleep she had been conscious of having no space to toss in, and\nthe long effort to remain motionless made her feel as if she had spent\nher night in a train.\n\nThis sense of physical discomfort was the first to assert itself; then\nshe perceived, beneath it, a corresponding mental prostration, a languor\nof horror more insufferable than the first rush of her disgust. The\nthought of having to wake every morning with this weight on her breast\nroused her tired mind to fresh effort. She must find some way out of the\nslough into which she had stumbled: it was not so much compunction as the\ndread of her morning thoughts that pressed on her the need of action. But\nshe was unutterably tired; it was weariness to think connectedly. She lay\nback, looking about the poor slit of a room with a renewal of physical\ndistaste. The outer air, penned between high buildings, brought no\nfreshness through the window; steam-heat was beginning to sing in a coil\nof dingy pipes, and a smell of cooking penetrated the crack of the door.\n\nThe door opened, and Gerty, dressed and hatted, entered with a cup of\ntea. Her face looked sallow and swollen in the dreary light, and her dull\nhair shaded imperceptibly into the tones of her skin.\n\nShe glanced shyly at Lily, asking in an embarrassed tone how she felt;\nLily answered with the same constraint, and raised herself up to drink\nthe tea.\n\n\"I must have been over-tired last night; I think I had a nervous attack\nin the carriage,\" she said, as the drink brought clearness to her\nsluggish thoughts.\n\n\"You were not well; I am so glad you came here,\" Gerty returned.\n\n\"But how am I to get home? And Aunt Julia--?\"\n\n\"She knows; I telephoned early, and your maid has brought your things.\nBut won\'t you eat something? I scrambled the eggs myself.\"\n\nLily could not eat; but the tea strengthened her to rise and dress under\nher maid\'s searching gaze. It was a relief to her that Gerty was obliged\nto hasten away: the two kissed silently, but without a trace of the\nprevious night\'s emotion.\n\nLily found Mrs. Peniston in a state of agitation. She had sent for Grace\nStepney and was taking digitalis. Lily breasted the storm of enquiries as\nbest she could, explaining that she had had an attack of faintness on her\nway back from Carry Fisher\'s; that, fearing she would not have strength\nto reach home, she had gone to Miss Farish\'s instead; but that a quiet\nnight had restored her, and that she had no need of a doctor.\n\nThis was a relief to Mrs. Peniston, who could give herself up to her own\nsymptoms, and Lily was advised to go and lie down, her aunt\'s panacea for\nall physical and moral disorders. In the solitude of her own room she was\nbrought back to a sharp contemplation of facts. Her daylight view of them\nnecessarily differed from the cloudy vision of the night. The winged\nfuries were now prowling gossips who dropped in on each other for tea.\nBut her fears seemed the uglier, thus shorn of their vagueness; and\nbesides, she had to act, not rave. For the first time she forced herself\nto reckon up the exact amount of her debt to Trenor; and the result of\nthis hateful computation was the discovery that she had, in all, received\nnine thousand dollars from him. The flimsy pretext on which it had been\ngiven and received shrivelled up in the blaze of her shame: she knew that\nnot a penny of it was her own, and that to restore her self-respect she\nmust at once repay the whole amount. The inability thus to solace her\noutraged feelings gave her a paralyzing sense of insignificance. She was\nrealizing for the first time that a woman\'s dignity may cost more to keep\nup than her carriage; and that the maintenance of a moral attribute\nshould be dependent on dollars and cents, made the world appear a more\nsordid place than she had conceived it.\n\nAfter luncheon, when Grace Stepney\'s prying eyes had been removed, Lily\nasked for a word with her aunt. The two ladies went upstairs to the\nsitting-room, where Mrs. Peniston seated herself in her black satin\narm-chair tufted with yellow buttons, beside a bead-work table bearing a\nbronze box with a miniature of Beatrice Cenci in the lid. Lily felt for\nthese objects the same distaste which the prisoner may entertain for the\nfittings of the court-room. It was here that her aunt received her rare\nconfidences, and the pink-eyed smirk of the turbaned Beatrice was\nassociated in her mind with the gradual fading of the smile from Mrs.\nPeniston\'s lips. That lady\'s dread of a scene gave her an inexorableness\nwhich the greatest strength of character could not have produced, since\nit was independent of all considerations of right or wrong; and knowing\nthis, Lily seldom ventured to assail it. She had never felt less like\nmaking the attempt than on the present occasion; but she had sought in\nvain for any other means of escape from an intolerable situation.\n\nMrs. Peniston examined her critically. \"You\'re a bad colour, Lily: this\nincessant rushing about is beginning to tell on you,\" she said.\n\nMiss Bart saw an opening. \"I don\'t think it\'s that, Aunt Julia; I\'ve had\nworries,\" she replied.\n\n\"Ah,\" said Mrs. Peniston, shutting her lips with the snap of a purse\nclosing against a beggar.\n\n\"I\'m sorry to bother you with them,\" Lily continued, \"but I really\nbelieve my faintness last night was brought on partly by anxious\nthoughts--\"\n\n\"I should have said Carry Fisher\'s cook was enough to account for it.\nShe has a woman who was with Maria Melson in 1891--the spring of the year\nwe went to Aix--and I remember dining there two days before we sailed,\nand feeling SURE the coppers hadn\'t been scoured.\"\n\n\"I don\'t think I ate much; I can\'t eat or sleep.\" Lily paused, and then\nsaid abruptly: \"The fact is, Aunt Julia, I owe some money.\"\n\nMrs. Peniston\'s face clouded perceptibly, but did not express the\nastonishment her niece had expected. She was silent, and Lily was forced\nto continue: \"I have been foolish----\"\n\n\"No doubt you have: extremely foolish,\" Mrs. Peniston interposed. \"I\nfail to see how any one with your income, and no expenses--not to mention\nthe handsome presents I\'ve always given you----\"\n\n\"Oh, you\'ve been most generous, Aunt Julia; I shall never forget your\nkindness. But perhaps you don\'t quite realize the expense a girl is put\nto nowadays----\"\n\n\"I don\'t realize that YOU are put to any expense except for your clothes\nand your railway fares. I expect you to be handsomely dressed; but I paid\nCeleste\'s bill for you last October.\"\n\nLily hesitated: her aunt\'s implacable memory had never been more\ninconvenient. \"You were as kind as possible; but I have had to get a few\nthings since----\"\n\n\"What kind of things? Clothes? How much have you spent? Let me see the\nbill--I daresay the woman is swindling you.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, I think not: clothes have grown so frightfully expensive; and\none needs so many different kinds, with country visits, and golf and\nskating, and Aiken and Tuxedo----\"\n\n\"Let me see the bill,\" Mrs. Peniston repeated.\n\nLily hesitated again. In the first place, Mme. Celeste had not yet sent\nin her account, and secondly, the amount it represented was only a\nfraction of the sum that Lily needed.\n\n\"She hasn\'t sent in the bill for my winter things, but I KNOW it\'s large;\nand there are one or two other things; I\'ve been careless and\nimprudent--I\'m frightened to think of what I owe----\"\n\nShe raised the troubled loveliness of her face to Mrs. Peniston, vainly\nhoping that a sight so moving to the other sex might not be without\neffect upon her own. But the effect produced was that of making Mrs.\nPeniston shrink back apprehensively.\n\n\"Really, Lily, you are old enough to manage your own affairs, and after\nfrightening me to death by your performance of last night you might at\nleast choose a better time to worry me with such matters.\" Mrs. Peniston\nglanced at the clock, and swallowed a tablet of digitalis. \"If you owe\nCeleste another thousand, she may send me her account,\" she added, as\nthough to end the discussion at any cost.\n\n\"I am very sorry, Aunt Julia; I hate to trouble you at such a time; but I\nhave really no choice--I ought to have spoken sooner--I owe a great deal\nmore than a thousand dollars.\"\n\n\"A great deal more? Do you owe two? She must have robbed you!\"\n\n\"I told you it was not only Celeste. I--there are other bills--more\npressing--that must be settled.\"\n\n\"What on earth have you been buying? Jewelry? You must have gone off your\nhead,\" said Mrs. Peniston with asperity. \"But if you have run into debt,\nyou must suffer the consequences, and put aside your monthly income till\nyour bills are paid. If you stay quietly here until next spring, instead\nof racing about all over the country, you will have no expenses at all,\nand surely in four or five months you can settle the rest of your bills\nif I pay the dress-maker now.\"\n\nLily was again silent. She knew she could not hope to extract even a\nthousand dollars from Mrs. Peniston on the mere plea of paying Celeste\'s\nbill: Mrs. Peniston would expect to go over the dress-maker\'s account,\nand would make out the cheque to her and not to Lily. And yet the money\nmust be obtained before the day was over!\n\n\"The debts I speak of are--different--not like tradesmen\'s bills,\" she\nbegan confusedly; but Mrs. Peniston\'s look made her almost afraid to\ncontinue. Could it be that her aunt suspected anything? The idea\nprecipitated Lily\'s avowal.\n\n\"The fact is, I\'ve played cards a good deal--bridge; the women all do it;\ngirls too--it\'s expected. Sometimes I\'ve won--won a good deal--but lately\nI\'ve been unlucky--and of course such debts can\'t be paid off\ngradually----\"\n\nShe paused: Mrs. Peniston\'s face seemed to be petrifying as she listened.\n\n\"Cards--you\'ve played cards for money? It\'s true, then: when I was told\nso I wouldn\'t believe it. I won\'t ask if the other horrors I was told\nwere true too; I\'ve heard enough for the state of my nerves. When I think\nof the example you\'ve had in this house! But I suppose it\'s your foreign\nbringing-up--no one knew where your mother picked up her friends. And her\nSundays were a scandal--that I know.\"\n\nMrs. Peniston wheeled round suddenly. \"You play cards on Sunday?\"\n\nLily flushed with the recollection of certain rainy Sundays at Bellomont\nand with the Dorsets.\n\n\"You\'re hard on me, Aunt Julia: I have never really cared for cards, but\na girl hates to be thought priggish and superior, and one drifts into\ndoing what the others do. I\'ve had a dreadful lesson, and if you\'ll help\nme out this time I promise you--\"\n\nMrs. Peniston raised her hand warningly. \"You needn\'t make any promises:\nit\'s unnecessary. When I offered you a home I didn\'t undertake to pay\nyour gambling debts.\"\n\n\"Aunt Julia! You don\'t mean that you won\'t help me?\"\n\n\"I shall certainly not do anything to give the impression that I\ncountenance your behaviour. If you really owe your dress-maker, I will\nsettle with her--beyond that I recognize no obligation to assume your\ndebts.\"\n\nLily had risen, and stood pale and quivering before her aunt. Pride\nstormed in her, but humiliation forced the cry from her lips: \"Aunt\nJulia, I shall be disgraced--I--\" But she could go no farther. If her\naunt turned such a stony ear to the fiction of the gambling debts, in\nwhat spirit would she receive the terrible avowal of the truth?\n\n\"I consider that you ARE disgraced, Lily: disgraced by your conduct far\nmore than by its results. You say your friends have persuaded you to play\ncards with them; well, they may as well learn a lesson too. They can\nprobably afford to lose a little money--and at any rate, I am not going\nto waste any of mine in paying them. And now I must ask you to leave\nme--this scene has been extremely painful, and I have my own health to\nconsider. Draw down the blinds, please; and tell Jennings I will see no\none this afternoon but Grace Stepney.\"\n\nLily went up to her own room and bolted the door. She was trembling with\nfear and anger--the rush of the furies\' wings was in her ears. She walked\nup and down the room with blind irregular steps. The last door of escape\nwas closed--she felt herself shut in with her dishonour.\n\nSuddenly her wild pacing brought her before the clock on the\nchimney-piece. Its hands stood at half-past three, and she remembered\nthat Selden was to come to her at four. She had meant to put him off with\na word--but now her heart leaped at the thought of seeing him. Was there\nnot a promise of rescue in his love? As she had lain at Gerty\'s side the\nnight before, she had thought of his coming, and of the sweetness of\nweeping out her pain upon his breast. Of course she had meant to clear\nherself of its consequences before she met him--she had never really\ndoubted that Mrs. Peniston would come to her aid. And she had felt, even\nin the full storm of her misery, that Selden\'s love could not be her\nultimate refuge; only it would be so sweet to take a moment\'s shelter\nthere, while she gathered fresh strength to go on.\n\nBut now his love was her only hope, and as she sat alone with her\nwretchedness the thought of confiding in him became as seductive as the\nriver\'s flow to the suicide. The first plunge would be terrible--but\nafterward, what blessedness might come! She remembered Gerty\'s words: \"I\nknow him--he will help you\"; and her mind clung to them as a sick person\nmight cling to a healing relic. Oh, if he really understood--if he would\nhelp her to gather up her broken life, and put it together in some new\nsemblance in which no trace of the past should remain! He had always made\nher feel that she was worthy of better things, and she had never been in\ngreater need of such solace. Once and again she shrank at the thought of\nimperilling his love by her confession: for love was what she needed--it\nwould take the glow of passion to weld together the shattered fragments\nof her self-esteem. But she recurred to Gerty\'s words and held fast to\nthem. She was sure that Gerty knew Selden\'s feeling for her, and it had\nnever dawned upon her blindness that Gerty\'s own judgment of him was\ncoloured by emotions far more ardent than her own.\n\nFour o\'clock found her in the drawing-room: she was sure that Selden\nwould be punctual. But the hour came and passed--it moved on feverishly,\nmeasured by her impatient heart-beats. She had time to take a fresh\nsurvey of her wretchedness, and to fluctuate anew between the impulse to\nconfide in Selden and the dread of destroying his illusions. But as the\nminutes passed the need of throwing herself on his comprehension became\nmore urgent: she could not bear the weight of her misery alone. There\nwould be a perilous moment, perhaps: but could she not trust to her\nbeauty to bridge it over, to land her safe in the shelter of his devotion?\n\nBut the hour sped on and Selden did not come. Doubtless he had been\ndetained, or had misread her hurriedly scrawled note, taking the four for\na five. The ringing of the door-bell a few minutes after five confirmed\nthis supposition, and made Lily hastily resolve to write more legibly in\nfuture. The sound of steps in the hall, and of the butler\'s voice\npreceding them, poured fresh energy into her veins. She felt herself once\nmore the alert and competent moulder of emergencies, and the remembrance\nof her power over Selden flushed her with sudden confidence. But when the\ndrawing-room door opened it was Rosedale who came in.\n\nThe reaction caused her a sharp pang, but after a passing movement of\nirritation at the clumsiness of fate, and at her own carelessness in not\ndenying the door to all but Selden, she controlled herself and greeted\nRosedale amicably. It was annoying that Selden, when he came, should find\nthat particular visitor in possession, but Lily was mistress of the art\nof ridding herself of superfluous company, and to her present mood\nRosedale seemed distinctly negligible.\n\nHis own view of the situation forced itself upon her after a few moments\'\nconversation. She had caught at the Brys\' entertainment as an easy\nimpersonal subject, likely to tide them over the interval till Selden\nappeared, but Mr. Rosedale, tenaciously planted beside the tea-table, his\nhands in his pockets, his legs a little too freely extended, at once gave\nthe topic a personal turn.\n\n\"Pretty well done--well, yes, I suppose it was: Welly Bry\'s got his back\nup and don\'t mean to let go till he\'s got the hang of the thing. Of\ncourse, there were things here and there--things Mrs. Fisher couldn\'t be\nexpected to see to--the champagne wasn\'t cold, and the coats got mixed in\nthe coat-room. I would have spent more money on the music. But that\'s my\ncharacter: if I want a thing I\'m willing to pay: I don\'t go up to the\ncounter, and then wonder if the article\'s worth the price. I wouldn\'t be\nsatisfied to entertain like the Welly Brys; I\'d want something that would\nlook more easy and natural, more as if I took it in my stride. And it\ntakes just two things to do that, Miss Bart: money, and the right woman\nto spend it.\"\n\nHe paused, and examined her attentively while she affected to rearrange\nthe tea-cups.\n\n\"I\'ve got the money,\" he continued, clearing his throat, \"and what I want\nis the woman--and I mean to have her too.\"\n\nHe leaned forward a little, resting his hands on the head of his\nwalking-stick. He had seen men of Ned Van Alstyne\'s type bring their hats\nand sticks into a drawing-room, and he thought it added a touch of\nelegant familiarity to their appearance.\n\nLily was silent, smiling faintly, with her eyes absently resting on his\nface. She was in reality reflecting that a declaration would take some\ntime to make, and that Selden must surely appear before the moment of\nrefusal had been reached. Her brooding look, as of a mind withdrawn yet\nnot averted, seemed to Mr. Rosedale full of a subtle encouragement. He\nwould not have liked any evidence of eagerness.\n\n\"I mean to have her too,\" he repeated, with a laugh intended to\nstrengthen his self-assurance. \"I generally HAVE got what I wanted in\nlife, Miss Bart. I wanted money, and I\'ve got more than I know how to\ninvest; and now the money doesn\'t seem to be of any account unless I can\nspend it on the right woman. That\'s what I want to do with it: I want my\nwife to make all the other women feel small. I\'d never grudge a dollar\nthat was spent on that. But it isn\'t every woman can do it, no matter how\nmuch you spend on her. There was a girl in some history book who wanted\ngold shields, or something, and the fellows threw \'em at her, and she was\ncrushed under \'em: they killed her. Well, that\'s true enough: some women\nlooked buried under their jewelry. What I want is a woman who\'ll hold her\nhead higher the more diamonds I put on it. And when I looked at you the\nother night at the Brys\', in that plain white dress, looking as if you\nhad a crown on, I said to myself: \'By gad, if she had one she\'d wear it\nas if it grew on her.\'\"\n\nStill Lily did not speak, and he continued, warming with his theme: \"Tell\nyou what it is, though, that kind of woman costs more than all the rest\nof \'em put together. If a woman\'s going to ignore her pearls, they want\nto be better than anybody else\'s--and so it is with everything else. You\nknow what I mean--you know it\'s only the showy things that are cheap.\nWell, I should want my wife to be able to take the earth for granted if\nshe wanted to. I know there\'s one thing vulgar about money, and that\'s\nthe thinking about it; and my wife would never have to demean herself in\nthat way.\" He paused, and then added, with an unfortunate lapse to an\nearlier manner: \"I guess you know the lady I\'ve got in view, Miss Bart.\"\n\nLily raised her head, brightening a little under the challenge. Even\nthrough the dark tumult of her thoughts, the clink of Mr. Rosedale\'s\nmillions had a faintly seductive note. Oh, for enough of them to cancel\nher one miserable debt! But the man behind them grew increasingly\nrepugnant in the light of Selden\'s expected coming. The contrast was too\ngrotesque: she could scarcely suppress the smile it provoked. She decided\nthat directness would be best.\n\n\"If you mean me, Mr. Rosedale, I am very grateful--very much flattered;\nbut I don\'t know what I have ever done to make you think--\"\n\n\"Oh, if you mean you\'re not dead in love with me, I\'ve got sense enough\nleft to see that. And I ain\'t talking to you as if you were--I presume I\nknow the kind of talk that\'s expected under those circumstances. I\'m\nconfoundedly gone on you--that\'s about the size of it--and I\'m just\ngiving you a plain business statement of the consequences. You\'re not\nvery fond of me--YET--but you\'re fond of luxury, and style, and\namusement, and of not having to worry about cash. You like to have a good\ntime, and not have to settle for it; and what I propose to do is to\nprovide for the good time and do the settling.\"\n\nHe paused, and she returned with a chilling smile: \"You are mistaken in\none point, Mr. Rosedale: whatever I enjoy I am prepared to settle for.\"\n\nShe spoke with the intention of making him see that, if his words implied\na tentative allusion to her private affairs, she was prepared to meet and\nrepudiate it. But if he recognized her meaning it failed to abash him,\nand he went on in the same tone: \"I didn\'t mean to give offence; excuse\nme if I\'ve spoken too plainly. But why ain\'t you straight with me--why do\nyou put up that kind of bluff? You know there\'ve been times when you were\nbothered--damned bothered--and as a girl gets older, and things keep\nmoving along, why, before she knows it, the things she wants are liable\nto move past her and not come back. I don\'t say it\'s anywhere near that\nwith you yet; but you\'ve had a taste of bothers that a girl like yourself\nought never to have known about, and what I\'m offering you is the chance\nto turn your back on them once for all.\"\n\nThe colour burned in Lily\'s face as he ended; there was no mistaking the\npoint he meant to make, and to permit it to pass unheeded was a fatal\nconfession of weakness, while to resent it too openly was to risk\noffending him at a perilous moment. Indignation quivered on her lip; but\nit was quelled by the secret voice which warned her that she must not\nquarrel with him. He knew too much about her, and even at the moment when\nit was essential that he should show himself at his best, he did not\nscruple to let her see how much he knew. How then would he use his power\nwhen her expression of contempt had dispelled his one motive for\nrestraint? Her whole future might hinge on her way of answering him: she\nhad to stop and consider that, in the stress of her other anxieties, as a\nbreathless fugitive may have to pause at the cross-roads and try to\ndecide coolly which turn to take.\n\n\"You are quite right, Mr. Rosedale. I HAVE had bothers; and I am grateful\nto you for wanting to relieve me of them. It is not always easy to be\nquite independent and self-respecting when one is poor and lives among\nrich people; I have been careless about money, and have worried about my\nbills. But I should be selfish and ungrateful if I made that a reason for\naccepting all you offer, with no better return to make than the desire to\nbe free from my anxieties. You must give me time--time to think of your\nkindness--and of what I could give you in return for it----\"\n\nShe held out her hand with a charming gesture in which dismissal was\nshorn of its rigour. Its hint of future leniency made Rosedale rise in\nobedience to it, a little flushed with his unhoped-for success, and\ndisciplined by the tradition of his blood to accept what was conceded,\nwithout undue haste to press for more. Something in his prompt\nacquiescence frightened her; she felt behind it the stored force of a\npatience that might subdue the strongest will. But at least they had\nparted amicably, and he was out of the house without meeting\nSelden--Selden, whose continued absence now smote her with a new alarm.\nRosedale had remained over an hour, and she understood that it was now\ntoo late to hope for Selden. He would write explaining his absence, of\ncourse; there would be a note from him by the late post. But her\nconfession would have to be postponed; and the chill of the delay settled\nheavily on her fagged spirit.\n\nIt lay heavier when the postman\'s last ring brought no note for her, and\nshe had to go upstairs to a lonely night--a night as grim and sleepless\nas her tortured fancy had pictured it to Gerty. She had never learned to\nlive with her own thoughts, and to be confronted with them through such\nhours of lucid misery made the confused wretchedness of her previous\nvigil seem easily bearable.\n\nDaylight disbanded the phantom crew, and made it clear to her that she\nwould hear from Selden before noon; but the day passed without his\nwriting or coming. Lily remained at home, lunching and dining alone with\nher aunt, who complained of flutterings of the heart, and talked icily on\ngeneral topics. Mrs. Peniston went to bed early, and when she had gone\nLily sat down and wrote a note to Selden. She was about to ring for a\nmessenger to despatch it when her eye fell on a paragraph in the evening\npaper which lay at her elbow: \"Mr. Lawrence Selden was among the\npassengers sailing this afternoon for Havana and the West Indies on the\nWindward Liner Antilles.\"\n\nShe laid down the paper and sat motionless, staring at her note. She\nunderstood now that he was never coming--that he had gone away because he\nwas afraid that he might come. She rose, and walking across the floor\nstood gazing at herself for a long time in the brightly-lit mirror above\nthe mantel-piece. The lines in her face came out terribly--she looked\nold; and when a girl looks old to herself, how does she look to other\npeople? She moved away, and began to wander aimlessly about the room,\nfitting her steps with mechanical precision between the monstrous roses\nof Mrs. Peniston\'s Axminster. Suddenly she noticed that the pen with\nwhich she had written to Selden still rested against the uncovered\ninkstand. She seated herself again, and taking out an envelope, addressed\nit rapidly to Rosedale. Then she laid out a sheet of paper, and sat over\nit with suspended pen. It had been easy enough to write the date, and\n\"Dear Mr. Rosedale\"--but after that her inspiration flagged. She meant to\ntell him to come to her, but the words refused to shape themselves. At\nlength she began: \"I have been thinking----\" then she laid the pen down,\nand sat with her elbows on the table and her face hidden in her hands.\n\nSuddenly she started up at the sound of the door-bell. It was not\nlate--barely ten o\'clock--and there might still be a note from Selden, or\na message--or he might be there himself, on the other side of the door!\nThe announcement of his sailing might have been a mistake--it might be\nanother Lawrence Selden who had gone to Havana--all these possibilities\nhad time to flash through her mind, and build up the conviction that she\nwas after all to see or hear from him, before the drawing-room door\nopened to admit a servant carrying a telegram.\n\nLily tore it open with shaking hands, and read Bertha Dorset\'s name below\nthe message: \"Sailing unexpectedly tomorrow. Will you join us on a cruise\nin Mediterranean?\"\n\n\n\n\n BOOK TWO\n\n\nChapter 1\n\nIt came vividly to Selden on the Casino steps that Monte Carlo had, more\nthan any other place he knew, the gift of accommodating itself to each\nman\'s humour. His own, at the moment, lent it a festive readiness of\nwelcome that might well, in a disenchanted eye, have turned to paint and\nfacility. So frank an appeal for participation--so outspoken a\nrecognition of the holiday vein in human nature--struck refreshingly on a\nmind jaded by prolonged hard work in surroundings made for the discipline\nof the senses. As he surveyed the white square set in an exotic coquetry\nof architecture, the studied tropicality of the gardens, the groups\nloitering in the foreground against mauve mountains which suggested a\nsublime stage-setting forgotten in a hurried shifting of scenes--as he\ntook in the whole outspread effect of light and leisure, he felt a\nmovement of revulsion from the last few months of his life.\n\nThe New York winter had presented an interminable perspective of\nsnow-burdened days, reaching toward a spring of raw sunshine and furious\nair, when the ugliness of things rasped the eye as the gritty wind ground\ninto the skin. Selden, immersed in his work, had told himself that\nexternal conditions did not matter to a man in his state, and that cold\nand ugliness were a good tonic for relaxed sensibilities. When an urgent\ncase summoned him abroad to confer with a client in Paris, he broke\nreluctantly with the routine of the office; and it was only now that,\nhaving despatched his business, and slipped away for a week in the south,\nhe began to feel the renewed zest of spectatorship that is the solace of\nthose who take an objective interest in life.\n\nThe multiplicity of its appeals--the perpetual surprise of its contrasts\nand resemblances! All these tricks and turns of the show were upon him\nwith a spring as he descended the Casino steps and paused on the pavement\nat its doors. He had not been abroad for seven years--and what changes\nthe renewed contact produced! If the central depths were untouched,\nhardly a pin-point of surface remained the same. And this was the very\nplace to bring out the completeness of the renewal. The sublimities, the\nperpetuities, might have left him as he was: but this tent pitched for a\nday\'s revelry spread a roof of oblivion between himself and his fixed sky.\n\nIt was mid-April, and one felt that the revelry had reached its climax\nand that the desultory groups in the square and gardens would soon\ndissolve and re-form in other scenes. Meanwhile the last moments of the\nperformance seemed to gain an added brightness from the hovering threat\nof the curtain. The quality of the air, the exuberance of the flowers,\nthe blue intensity of sea and sky, produced the effect of a closing\nTABLEAU, when all the lights are turned on at once. This impression was\npresently heightened by the way in which a consciously conspicuous group\nof people advanced to the middle front, and stood before Selden with the\nair of the chief performers gathered together by the exigencies of the\nfinal effect. Their appearance confirmed the impression that the show had\nbeen staged regardless of expense, and emphasized its resemblance to one\nof those \"costume-plays\" in which the protagonists walk through the\npassions without displacing a drapery. The ladies stood in unrelated\nattitudes calculated to isolate their effects, and the men hung about\nthem as irrelevantly as stage heroes whose tailors are named in the\nprogramme. It was Selden himself who unwittingly fused the group by\narresting the attention of one of its members.\n\n\"Why, Mr. Selden!\" Mrs. Fisher exclaimed in surprise; and with a gesture\ntoward Mrs. Jack Stepney and Mrs. Wellington Bry, she added plaintively:\n\"We\'re starving to death because we can\'t decide where to lunch.\"\n\nWelcomed into their group, and made the confidant of their difficulty,\nSelden learned with amusement that there were several places where one\nmight miss something by not lunching, or forfeit something by lunching;\nso that eating actually became a minor consideration on the very spot\nconsecrated to its rites.\n\n\"Of course one gets the best things at the TERRASSE--but that looks as if\none hadn\'t any other reason for being there: the Americans who don\'t know\nany one always rush for the best food. And the Duchess of Beltshire has\ntaken up Becassin\'s lately,\" Mrs. Bry earnestly summed up.\n\nMrs. Bry, to Mrs. Fisher\'s despair, had not progressed beyond the point\nof weighing her social alternatives in public. She could not acquire the\nair of doing things because she wanted to, and making her choice the\nfinal seal of their fitness.\n\nMr. Bry, a short pale man, with a business face and leisure clothes, met\nthe dilemma hilariously.\n\n\"I guess the Duchess goes where it\'s cheapest, unless she can get her\nmeal paid for. If you offered to blow her off at the TERRASSE she\'d turn\nup fast enough.\"\n\nBut Mrs. Jack Stepney interposed. \"The Grand Dukes go to that little\nplace at the Condamine. Lord Hubert says it\'s the only restaurant in\nEurope where they can cook peas.\"\n\nLord Hubert Dacey, a slender shabby-looking man, with a charming worn\nsmile, and the air of having spent his best years in piloting the wealthy\nto the right restaurant, assented with gentle emphasis: \"It\'s quite that.\"\n\n\"PEAS?\" said Mr. Bry contemptuously. \"Can they cook terrapin? It just\nshows,\" he continued, \"what these European markets are, when a fellow can\nmake a reputation cooking peas!\"\n\nJack Stepney intervened with authority. \"I don\'t know that I quite agree\nwith Dacey: there\'s a little hole in Paris, off the Quai Voltaire--but in\nany case, I can\'t advise the Condamine GARGOTE; at least not with ladies.\"\n\nStepney, since his marriage, had thickened and grown prudish, as the Van\nOsburgh husbands were apt to do; but his wife, to his surprise and\ndiscomfiture, had developed an earth-shaking fastness of gait which left\nhim trailing breathlessly in her wake.\n\n\"That\'s where we\'ll go then!\" she declared, with a heavy toss of her\nplumage. \"I\'m so tired of the TERRASSE: it\'s as dull as one of mother\'s\ndinners. And Lord Hubert has promised to tell us who all the awful people\nare at the other place--hasn\'t he, Carry? Now, Jack, don\'t look so\nsolemn!\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Mrs. Bry, \"all I want to know is who their dress-makers are.\"\n\n\"No doubt Dacey can tell you that too,\" remarked Stepney, with an ironic\nintention which the other received with the light murmur, \"I can at least\nFIND OUT, my dear fellow\"; and Mrs. Bry having declared that she couldn\'t\nwalk another step, the party hailed two or three of the light phaetons\nwhich hover attentively on the confines of the gardens, and rattled off\nin procession toward the Condamine.\n\nTheir destination was one of the little restaurants overhanging the\nboulevard which dips steeply down from Monte Carlo to the low\nintermediate quarter along the quay. From the window in which they\npresently found themselves installed, they overlooked the intense blue\ncurve of the harbour, set between the verdure of twin promontories: to\nthe right, the cliff of Monaco, topped by the mediaeval silhouette of its\nchurch and castle, to the left the terraces and pinnacles of the\ngambling-house. Between the two, the waters of the bay were furrowed by a\nlight coming and going of pleasure-craft, through which, just at the\nculminating moment of luncheon, the majestic advance of a great\nsteam-yacht drew the company\'s attention from the peas.\n\n\"By Jove, I believe that\'s the Dorsets back!\" Stepney exclaimed; and Lord\nHubert, dropping his single eye-glass, corroborated: \"It\'s the\nSabrina--yes.\"\n\n\"So soon? They were to spend a month in Sicily,\" Mrs. Fisher observed.\n\n\"I guess they feel as if they had: there\'s only one up-to-date hotel in\nthe whole place,\" said Mr. Bry disparagingly.\n\n\"It was Ned Silverton\'s idea--but poor Dorset and Lily Bart must have\nbeen horribly bored.\" Mrs. Fisher added in an undertone to Selden: \"I do\nhope there hasn\'t been a row.\"\n\n\"It\'s most awfully jolly having Miss Bart back,\" said Lord Hubert, in his\nmild deliberate voice; and Mrs. Bry added ingenuously: \"I daresay the\nDuchess will dine with us, now that Lily\'s here.\"\n\n\"The Duchess admires her immensely: I\'m sure she\'d be charmed to have it\narranged,\" Lord Hubert agreed, with the professional promptness of the\nman accustomed to draw his profit from facilitating social contacts:\nSelden was struck by the businesslike change in his manner.\n\n\"Lily has been a tremendous success here,\" Mrs. Fisher continued, still\naddressing herself confidentially to Selden. \"She looks ten years\nyounger--I never saw her so handsome. Lady Skiddaw took her everywhere in\nCannes, and the Crown Princess of Macedonia had her to stop for a week at\nCimiez. People say that was one reason why Bertha whisked the yacht off\nto Sicily: the Crown Princess didn\'t take much notice of her, and she\ncouldn\'t bear to look on at Lily\'s triumph.\"\n\nSelden made no reply. He was vaguely aware that Miss Bart was cruising in\nthe Mediterranean with the Dorsets, but it had not occurred to him that\nthere was any chance of running across her on the Riviera, where the\nseason was virtually at an end. As he leaned back, silently contemplating\nhis filigree cup of Turkish coffee, he was trying to put some order in\nhis thoughts, to tell himself how the news of her nearness was really\naffecting him. He had a personal detachment enabling him, even in moments\nof emotional high-pressure, to get a fairly clear view of his feelings,\nand he was sincerely surprised by the disturbance which the sight of the\nSabrina had produced in him. He had reason to think that his three months\nof engrossing professional work, following on the sharp shock of his\ndisillusionment, had cleared his mind of its sentimental vapours. The\nfeeling he had nourished and given prominence to was one of thankfulness\nfor his escape: he was like a traveller so grateful for rescue from a\ndangerous accident that at first he is hardly conscious of his bruises.\nNow he suddenly felt the latent ache, and realized that after all he had\nnot come off unhurt.\n\nAn hour later, at Mrs. Fisher\'s side in the Casino gardens, he was trying\nto find fresh reasons for forgetting the injury received in the\ncontemplation of the peril avoided. The party had dispersed with the\nloitering indecision characteristic of social movements at Monte Carlo,\nwhere the whole place, and the long gilded hours of the day, seem to\noffer an infinity of ways of being idle. Lord Hubert Dacey had finally\ngone off in quest of the Duchess of Beltshire, charged by Mrs. Bry with\nthe delicate negotiation of securing that lady\'s presence at dinner, the\nStepneys had left for Nice in their motor-car, and Mr. Bry had departed\nto take his place in the pigeon shooting match which was at the moment\nengaging his highest faculties.\n\nMrs. Bry, who had a tendency to grow red and stertorous after luncheon,\nhad been judiciously prevailed upon by Carry Fisher to withdraw to her\nhotel for an hour\'s repose; and Selden and his companion were thus left\nto a stroll propitious to confidences. The stroll soon resolved itself\ninto a tranquil session on a bench overhung with laurel and Banksian\nroses, from which they caught a dazzle of blue sea between marble\nbalusters, and the fiery shafts of cactus-blossoms shooting meteor-like\nfrom the rock. The soft shade of their niche, and the adjacent glitter of\nthe air, were conducive to an easy lounging mood, and to the smoking of\nmany cigarettes; and Selden, yielding to these influences, suffered Mrs.\nFisher to unfold to him the history of her recent experiences. She had\ncome abroad with the Welly Brys at the moment when fashion flees the\ninclemency of the New York spring. The Brys, intoxicated by their first\nsuccess, already thirsted for new kingdoms, and Mrs. Fisher, viewing the\nRiviera as an easy introduction to London society, had guided their\ncourse thither. She had affiliations of her own in every capital, and a\nfacility for picking them up again after long absences; and the carefully\ndisseminated rumour of the Brys\' wealth had at once gathered about them a\ngroup of cosmopolitan pleasure-seekers.\n\n\"But things are not going as well as I expected,\" Mrs. Fisher frankly\nadmitted. \"It\'s all very well to say that every body with money can get\ninto society; but it would be truer to say that NEARLY everybody can.\nAnd the London market is so glutted with new Americans that, to succeed\nthere now, they must be either very clever or awfully queer. The Brys are\nneither. HE would get on well enough if she\'d let him alone; they like\nhis slang and his brag and his blunders. But Louisa spoils it all by\ntrying to repress him and put herself forward. If she\'d be natural\nherself--fat and vulgar and bouncing--it would be all right; but as soon\nas she meets anybody smart she tries to be slender and queenly. She\ntried it with the Duchess of Beltshire and Lady Skiddaw, and they fled.\nI\'ve done my best to make her see her mistake--I\'ve said to her again and\nagain: \'Just let yourself go, Louisa\'; but she keeps up the humbug even\nwith me--I believe she keeps on being queenly in her own room, with the\ndoor shut.\n\n\"The worst of it is,\" Mrs. Fisher went on, \"that she thinks it\'s all MY\nfault. When the Dorsets turned up here six weeks ago, and everybody began\nto make a fuss about Lily Bart, I could see Louisa thought that if she\'d\nhad Lily in tow instead of me she would have been hob-nobbing with all\nthe royalties by this time. She doesn\'t realize that it\'s Lily\'s beauty\nthat does it: Lord Hubert tells me Lily is thought even handsomer than\nwhen he knew her at Aix ten years ago. It seems she was tremendously\nadmired there. An Italian Prince, rich and the real thing, wanted to\nmarry her; but just at the critical moment a good-looking step-son turned\nup, and Lily was silly enough to flirt with him while her\nmarriage-settlements with the step-father were being drawn up. Some\npeople said the young man did it on purpose. You can fancy the scandal:\nthere was an awful row between the men, and people began to look at Lily\nso queerly that Mrs. Peniston had to pack up and finish her cure\nelsewhere. Not that SHE ever understood: to this day she thinks that Aix\ndidn\'t suit her, and mentions her having been sent there as proof of the\nincompetence of French doctors. That\'s Lily all over, you know: she works\nlike a slave preparing the ground and sowing her seed; but the day she\nought to be reaping the harvest she over-sleeps herself or goes off on a\npicnic.\"\n\nMrs. Fisher paused and looked reflectively at the deep shimmer of sea\nbetween the cactus-flowers. \"Sometimes,\" she added, \"I think it\'s just\nflightiness--and sometimes I think it\'s because, at heart, she despises\nthe things she\'s trying for. And it\'s the difficulty of deciding that\nmakes her such an interesting study.\" She glanced tentatively at Selden\'s\nmotionless profile, and resumed with a slight sigh: \"Well, all I can say\nis, I wish she\'d give ME some of her discarded opportunities. I wish we\ncould change places now, for instance. She could make a very good thing\nout of the Brys if she managed them properly, and I should know just how\nto look after George Dorset while Bertha is reading Verlaine with Neddy\nSilverton.\"\n\nShe met Selden\'s sound of protest with a sharp derisive glance. \"Well,\nwhat\'s the use of mincing matters? We all know that\'s what Bertha brought\nher abroad for. When Bertha wants to have a good time she has to provide\noccupation for George. At first I thought Lily was going to play her\ncards well THIS time, but there are rumours that Bertha is jealous of her\nsuccess here and at Cannes, and I shouldn\'t be surprised if there were a\nbreak any day. Lily\'s only safeguard is that Bertha needs her badly--oh,\nvery badly. The Silverton affair is in the acute stage: it\'s necessary\nthat George\'s attention should be pretty continuously distracted. And I\'m\nbound to say Lily DOES distract it: I believe he\'d marry her tomorrow if\nhe found out there was anything wrong with Bertha. But you know him--he\'s\nas blind as he\'s jealous; and of course Lily\'s present business is to\nkeep him blind. A clever woman might know just the right moment to tear\noff the bandage: but Lily isn\'t clever in that way, and when George does\nopen his eyes she\'ll probably contrive not to be in his line of vision.\"\n\nSelden tossed away his cigarette. \"By Jove--it\'s time for my train,\" he\nexclaimed, with a glance at his watch; adding, in reply to Mrs. Fisher\'s\nsurprised comment--\"Why, I thought of course you were at Monte!\"--a\nmurmured word to the effect that he was making Nice his head-quarters.\n\n\"The worst of it is, she snubs the Brys now,\" he heard irrelevantly flung\nafter him.\n\nTen minutes later, in the high-perched bedroom of an hotel overlooking\nthe Casino, he was tossing his effects into a couple of gaping\nportmanteaux, while the porter waited outside to transport them to the\ncab at the door. It took but a brief plunge down the steep white road to\nthe station to land him safely in the afternoon express for Nice; and not\ntill he was installed in the corner of an empty carriage, did he exclaim\nto himself, with a reaction of self-contempt: \"What the deuce am I\nrunning away from?\"\n\nThe pertinence of the question checked Selden\'s fugitive impulse before\nthe train had started. It was ridiculous to be flying like an emotional\ncoward from an infatuation his reason had conquered. He had instructed\nhis bankers to forward some important business letters to Nice, and at\nNice he would quietly await them. He was already annoyed with himself for\nhaving left Monte Carlo, where he had intended to pass the week which\nremained to him before sailing; but it would now be difficult to return\non his steps without an appearance of inconsistency from which his pride\nrecoiled. In his inmost heart he was not sorry to put himself beyond the\nprobability of meeting Miss Bart. Completely as he had detached himself\nfrom her, he could not yet regard her merely as a social instance; and\nviewed in a more personal ways she was not likely to be a reassuring\nobject of study. Chance encounters, or even the repeated mention of her\nname, would send his thoughts back into grooves from which he had\nresolutely detached them; whereas, if she could be entirely excluded from\nhis life, the pressure of new and varied impressions, with which no\nthought of her was connected, would soon complete the work of separation.\nMrs. Fisher\'s conversation had, indeed, operated to that end; but the\ntreatment was too painful to be voluntarily chosen while milder remedies\nwere untried; and Selden thought he could trust himself to return\ngradually to a reasonable view of Miss Bart, if only he did not see her.\n\nHaving reached the station early, he had arrived at this point in his\nreflections before the increasing throng on the platform warned him that\nhe could not hope to preserve his privacy; the next moment there was a\nhand on the door, and he turned to confront the very face he was fleeing.\n\nMiss Bart, glowing with the haste of a precipitate descent upon the\ntrain, headed a group composed of the Dorsets, young Silverton and Lord\nHubert Dacey, who had barely time to spring into the carriage, and\nenvelop Selden in ejaculations of surprise and welcome, before the\nwhistle of departure sounded. The party, it appeared, were hastening to\nNice in response to a sudden summons to dine with the Duchess of\nBeltshire and to see the water-fete in the bay; a plan evidently\nimprovised--in spite of Lord Hubert\'s protesting \"Oh, I say, you\nknow,\"--for the express purpose of defeating Mrs. Bry\'s endeavour to\ncapture the Duchess.\n\nDuring the laughing relation of this manoeuvre, Selden had time for a\nrapid impression of Miss Bart, who had seated herself opposite to him in\nthe golden afternoon light. Scarcely three months had elapsed since he\nhad parted from her on the threshold of the Brys\' conservatory; but a\nsubtle change had passed over the quality of her beauty. Then it had had\na transparency through which the fluctuations of the spirit were\nsometimes tragically visible; now its impenetrable surface suggested a\nprocess of crystallization which had fused her whole being into one hard\nbrilliant substance. The change had struck Mrs. Fisher as a rejuvenation:\nto Selden it seemed like that moment of pause and arrest when the warm\nfluidity of youth is chilled into its final shape.\n\nHe felt it in the way she smiled on him, and in the readiness and\ncompetence with which, flung unexpectedly into his presence, she took up\nthe thread of their intercourse as though that thread had not been\nsnapped with a violence from which he still reeled. Such facility\nsickened him--but he told himself that it was with the pang which\nprecedes recovery. Now he would really get well--would eject the last\ndrop of poison from his blood. Already he felt himself calmer in her\npresence than he had learned to be in the thought of her. Her assumptions\nand elisions, her short-cuts and long DETOURS, the skill with which she\ncontrived to meet him at a point from which no inconvenient glimpses of\nthe past were visible, suggested what opportunities she had had for\npractising such arts since their last meeting. He felt that she had at\nlast arrived at an understanding with herself: had made a pact with her\nrebellious impulses, and achieved a uniform system of self-government,\nunder which all vagrant tendencies were either held captive or forced\ninto the service of the state.\n\nAnd he saw other things too in her manner: saw how it had adjusted itself\nto the hidden intricacies of a situation in which, even after Mrs.\nFisher\'s elucidating flashes, he still felt himself agrope. Surely Mrs.\nFisher could no longer charge Miss Bart with neglecting her\nopportunities! To Selden\'s exasperated observation she was only too\ncompletely alive to them. She was \"perfect\" to every one: subservient to\nBertha\'s anxious predominance, good-naturedly watchful of Dorset\'s moods,\nbrightly companionable to Silverton and Dacey, the latter of whom met her\non an evident footing of old admiration, while young Silverton,\nportentously self-absorbed, seemed conscious of her only as of something\nvaguely obstructive. And suddenly, as Selden noted the fine shades of\nmanner by which she harmonized herself with her surroundings, it flashed\non him that, to need such adroit handling, the situation must indeed be\ndesperate. She was on the edge of something--that was the impression left\nwith him. He seemed to see her poised on the brink of a chasm, with one\ngraceful foot advanced to assert her unconsciousness that the ground was\nfailing her.\n\nOn the Promenade des Anglais, where Ned Silverton hung on him for the\nhalf hour before dinner, he received a deeper impression of the general\ninsecurity. Silverton was in a mood of Titanic pessimism. How any one\ncould come to such a damned hole as the Riviera--any one with a grain of\nimagination--with the whole Mediterranean to choose from: but then, if\none\'s estimate of a place depended on the way they broiled a spring\nchicken! Gad! what a study might be made of the tyranny of the\nstomach--the way a sluggish liver or insufficient gastric juices might\naffect the whole course of the universe, overshadow everything in\nreach--chronic dyspepsia ought to be among the \"statutory causes\"; a\nwoman\'s life might be ruined by a man\'s inability to digest fresh bread.\nGrotesque? Yes--and tragic--like most absurdities. There\'s nothing\ngrimmer than the tragedy that wears a comic mask.... Where was he?\nOh--the reason they chucked Sicily and rushed back? Well--partly, no\ndoubt, Miss Bart\'s desire to get back to bridge and smartness. Dead as a\nstone to art and poetry--the light never WAS on sea or land for her! And\nof course she persuaded Dorset that the Italian food was bad for him. Oh,\nshe could make him believe anything--ANYTHING! Mrs. Dorset was aware of\nit--oh, perfectly: nothing SHE didn\'t see! But she could hold her\ntongue--she\'d had to, often enough. Miss Bart was an intimate friend--she\nwouldn\'t hear a word against her. Only it hurts a woman\'s pride--there\nare some things one doesn\'t get used to . . . All this in confidence, of\ncourse? Ah--and there were the ladies signalling from the balcony of the\nhotel.... He plunged across the Promenade, leaving Selden to a meditative\ncigar.\n\nThe conclusions it led him to were fortified, later in the evening, by\nsome of those faint corroborative hints that generate a light of their\nown in the dusk of a doubting mind. Selden, stumbling on a chance\nacquaintance, had dined with him, and adjourned, still in his company, to\nthe brightly lit Promenade, where a line of crowded stands commanded the\nglittering darkness of the waters. The night was soft and persuasive.\nOverhead hung a summer sky furrowed with the rush of rockets; and from\nthe east a late moon, pushing up beyond the lofty bend of the coast, sent\nacross the bay a shaft of brightness which paled to ashes in the red\nglitter of the illuminated boats. Down the lantern-hung Promenade,\nsnatches of band-music floated above the hum of the crowd and the soft\ntossing of boughs in dusky gardens; and between these gardens and the\nbacks of the stands there flowed a stream of people in whom the\nvociferous carnival mood seemed tempered by the growing languor of the\nseason.\n\nSelden and his companion, unable to get seats on one of the stands facing\nthe bay, had wandered for a while with the throng, and then found a point\nof vantage on a high garden-parapet above the Promenade. Thence they\ncaught but a triangular glimpse of the water, and of the flashing play of\nboats across its surface; but the crowd in the street was under their\nimmediate view, and seemed to Selden, on the whole, of more interest than\nthe show itself. After a while, however, he wearied of his perch and,\ndropping alone to the pavement, pushed his way to the first corner and\nturned into the moonlit silence of a side street. Long garden-walls\noverhung by trees made a dark boundary to the pavement; an empty cab\ntrailed along the deserted thoroughfare, and presently Selden saw two\npersons emerge from the opposite shadows, signal to the cab, and drive\noff in it toward the centre of the town. The moonlight touched them as\nthey paused to enter the carriage, and he recognized Mrs. Dorset and\nyoung Silverton.\n\nBeneath the nearest lamp-post he glanced at his watch and saw that the\ntime was close on eleven. He took another cross street, and without\nbreasting the throng on the Promenade, made his way to the fashionable\nclub which overlooks that thoroughfare. Here, amid the blaze of crowded\nbaccarat tables, he caught sight of Lord Hubert Dacey, seated with his\nhabitual worn smile behind a rapidly dwindling heap of gold. The heap\nbeing in due course wiped out, Lord Hubert rose with a shrug, and joining\nSelden, adjourned with him to the deserted terrace of the club. It was\nnow past midnight, and the throng on the stands was dispersing, while the\nlong trails of red-lit boats scattered and faded beneath a sky\nrepossessed by the tranquil splendour of the moon.\n\nLord Hubert looked at his watch. \"By Jove, I promised to join the Duchess\nfor supper at the LONDON HOUSE; but it\'s past twelve, and I suppose\nthey\'ve all scattered. The fact is, I lost them in the crowd soon after\ndinner, and took refuge here, for my sins. They had seats on one of the\nstands, but of course they couldn\'t stop quiet: the Duchess never can.\nShe and Miss Bart went off in quest of what they call adventures--gad, it\nain\'t their fault if they don\'t have some queer ones!\" He added\ntentatively, after pausing to grope for a cigarette: \"Miss Bart\'s an old\nfriend of yours, I believe? So she told me.--Ah, thanks--I don\'t seem to\nhave one left.\" He lit Selden\'s proffered cigarette, and continued, in\nhis high-pitched drawling tone: \"None of my business, of course, but I\ndidn\'t introduce her to the Duchess. Charming woman, the Duchess, you\nunderstand; and a very good friend of mine; but RATHER a liberal\neducation.\"\n\nSelden received this in silence, and after a few puffs Lord Hubert broke\nout again: \"Sort of thing one can\'t communicate to the young lady--though\nyoung ladies nowadays are so competent to judge for themselves; but in\nthis case--I\'m an old friend too, you know . . . and there seemed no one\nelse to speak to. The whole situation\'s a little mixed, as I see it--but\nthere used to be an aunt somewhere, a diffuse and innocent person, who\nwas great at bridging over chasms she didn\'t see . . . Ah, in New York,\nis she? Pity New York\'s such a long way off!\"\n\n\n\nChapter 2\n\nMiss Bart, emerging late the next morning from her cabin, found herself\nalone on the deck of the Sabrina. The cushioned chairs, disposed\nexpectantly under the wide awning, showed no signs of recent occupancy,\nand she presently learned from a steward that Mrs. Dorset had not yet\nappeared, and that the gentlemen--separately--had gone ashore as soon as\nthey had breakfasted. Supplied with these facts, Lily leaned awhile over\nthe side, giving herself up to a leisurely enjoyment of the spectacle\nbefore her. Unclouded sunlight enveloped sea and shore in a bath of\npurest radiancy. The purpling waters drew a sharp white line of foam at\nthe base of the shore; against its irregular eminences, hotels and villas\nflashed from the greyish verdure of olive and eucalyptus; and the\nbackground of bare and finely-pencilled mountains quivered in a pale\nintensity of light.\n\n\nHow beautiful it was--and how she loved beauty! She had always felt that\nher sensibility in this direction made up for certain obtusenesses of\nfeeling of which she was less proud; and during the last three months she\nhad indulged it passionately. The Dorsets\' invitation to go abroad with\nthem had come as an almost miraculous release from crushing difficulties;\nand her faculty for renewing herself in new scenes, and casting off\nproblems of conduct as easily as the surroundings in which they had\narisen, made the mere change from one place to another seem, not merely a\npostponement, but a solution of her troubles. Moral complications existed\nfor her only in the environment that had produced them; she did not mean\nto slight or ignore them, but they lost their reality when they changed\ntheir background. She could not have remained in New York without\nrepaying the money she owed to Trenor; to acquit herself of that odious\ndebt she might even have faced a marriage with Rosedale; but the accident\nof placing the Atlantic between herself and her obligations made them\ndwindle out of sight as if they had been milestones and she had travelled\npast them.\n\nHer two months on the Sabrina had been especially calculated to aid this\nillusion of distance. She had been plunged into new scenes, and had found\nin them a renewal of old hopes and ambitions. The cruise itself charmed\nher as a romantic adventure. She was vaguely touched by the names and\nscenes amid which she moved, and had listened to Ned Silverton reading\nTheocritus by moonlight, as the yacht rounded the Sicilian promontories,\nwith a thrill of the nerves that confirmed her belief in her intellectual\nsuperiority. But the weeks at Cannes and Nice had really given her more\npleasure. The gratification of being welcomed in high company, and of\nmaking her own ascendency felt there, so that she found herself figuring\nonce more as the \"beautiful Miss Bart\" in the interesting journal devoted\nto recording the least movements of her cosmopolitan companions--all\nthese experiences tended to throw into the extreme background of memory\nthe prosaic and sordid difficulties from which she had escaped.\n\nIf she was faintly aware of fresh difficulties ahead, she was sure of her\nability to meet them: it was characteristic of her to feel that the only\nproblems she could not solve were those with which she was familiar.\nMeanwhile she could honestly be proud of the skill with which she had\nadapted herself to somewhat delicate conditions. She had reason to think\nthat she had made herself equally necessary to her host and hostess; and\nif only she had seen any perfectly irreproachable means of drawing a\nfinancial profit from the situation, there would have been no cloud on\nher horizon. The truth was that her funds, as usual, were inconveniently\nlow; and to neither Dorset nor his wife could this vulgar embarrassment\nbe safely hinted. Still, the need was not a pressing one; she could worry\nalong, as she had so often done before, with the hope of some happy\nchange of fortune to sustain her; and meanwhile life was gay and\nbeautiful and easy, and she was conscious of figuring not unworthily in\nsuch a setting.\n\nShe was engaged to breakfast that morning with the Duchess of Beltshire,\nand at twelve o\'clock she asked to be set ashore in the gig. Before this\nshe had sent her maid to enquire if she might see Mrs. Dorset; but the\nreply came back that the latter was tired, and trying to sleep. Lily\nthought she understood the reason of the rebuff. Her hostess had not been\nincluded in the Duchess\'s invitation, though she herself had made the\nmost loyal efforts in that direction. But her grace was impervious to\nhints, and invited or omitted as she chose. It was not Lily\'s fault if\nMrs. Dorset\'s complicated attitudes did not fall in with the Duchess\'s\neasy gait. The Duchess, who seldom explained herself, had not formulated\nher objection beyond saying: \"She\'s rather a bore, you know. The only one\nof your friends I like is that little Mr. Bry--HE\'S funny--\" but Lily\nknew enough not to press the point, and was not altogether sorry to be\nthus distinguished at her friend\'s expense. Bertha certainly HAD grown\ntiresome since she had taken to poetry and Ned Silverton.\n\nOn the whole, it was a relief to break away now and then from the\nSabrina; and the Duchess\'s little breakfast, organized by Lord Hubert\nwith all his usual virtuosity, was the pleasanter to Lily for not\nincluding her travelling-companions. Dorset, of late, had grown more than\nusually morose and incalculable, and Ned Silverton went about with an air\nthat seemed to challenge the universe. The freedom and lightness of the\nducal intercourse made an agreeable change from these complications, and\nLily was tempted, after luncheon, to adjourn in the wake of her\ncompanions to the hectic atmosphere of the Casino. She did not mean to\nplay; her diminished pocket-money offered small scope for the adventure;\nbut it amused her to sit on a divan, under the doubtful protection of the\nDuchess\'s back, while the latter hung above her stakes at a neighbouring\ntable.\n\nThe rooms were packed with the gazing throng which, in the afternoon\nhours, trickles heavily between the tables, like the Sunday crowd in a\nlion-house. In the stagnant flow of the mass, identities were hardly\ndistinguishable; but Lily presently saw Mrs. Bry cleaving her determined\nway through the doors, and, in the broad wake she left, the light figure\nof Mrs. Fisher bobbing after her like a row-boat at the stern of a tug.\nMrs. Bry pressed on, evidently animated by the resolve to reach a certain\npoint in the rooms; but Mrs. Fisher, as she passed Lily, broke from her\ntowing-line, and let herself float to the girl\'s side.\n\n\"Lose her?\" she echoed the latter\'s query, with an indifferent glance at\nMrs. Bry\'s retreating back. \"I daresay--it doesn\'t matter: I HAVE lost\nher already.\" And, as Lily exclaimed, she added: \"We had an awful row\nthis morning. You know, of course, that the Duchess chucked her at dinner\nlast night, and she thinks it was my fault--my want of management. The\nworst of it is, the message--just a mere word by telephone--came so late\nthat the dinner HAD to be paid for; and Becassin HAD run it up--it had\nbeen so drummed into him that the Duchess was coming!\" Mrs. Fisher\nindulged in a faint laugh at the remembrance. \"Paying for what she\ndoesn\'t get rankles so dreadfully with Louisa: I can\'t make her see that\nit\'s one of the preliminary steps to getting what you haven\'t paid\nfor--and as I was the nearest thing to smash, she smashed me to atoms,\npoor dear!\"\n\nLily murmured her commiseration. Impulses of sympathy came naturally to\nher, and it was instinctive to proffer her help to Mrs. Fisher.\n\n\"If there\'s anything I can do--if it\'s only a question of meeting the\nDuchess! I heard her say she thought Mr. Bry amusing----\"\n\nBut Mrs. Fisher interposed with a decisive gesture. \"My dear, I have my\npride: the pride of my trade. I couldn\'t manage the Duchess, and I can\'t\npalm off your arts on Louisa Bry as mine. I\'ve taken the final step: I\ngo to Paris tonight with the Sam Gormers. THEY\'RE still in the elementary\nstage; an Italian Prince is a great deal more than a Prince to them, and\nthey\'re always on the brink of taking a courier for one. To save them\nfrom that is my present mission.\" She laughed again at the picture. \"But\nbefore I go I want to make my last will and testament--I want to leave\nyou the Brys.\"\n\n\"Me?\" Miss Bart joined in her amusement. \"It\'s charming of you to\nremember me, dear; but really----\"\n\n\"You\'re already so well provided for?\" Mrs. Fisher flashed a sharp glance\nat her. \"ARE you, though, Lily--to the point of rejecting my offer?\"\n\nMiss Bart coloured slowly. \"What I really meant was, that the Brys\nwouldn\'t in the least care to be so disposed of.\"\n\nMrs. Fisher continued to probe her embarrassment with an unflinching eye.\n\"What you really meant was that you\'ve snubbed the Brys horribly; and you\nknow that they know----\"\n\n\"Carry!\"\n\n\"Oh, on certain sides Louisa bristles with perceptions. If you\'d even\nmanaged to have them asked once on the Sabrina--especially when royalties\nwere coming! But it\'s not too late,\" she ended earnestly, \"it\'s not too\nlate for either of you.\"\n\nLily smiled. \"Stay over, and I\'ll get the Duchess to dine with them.\"\n\n\"I shan\'t stay over--the Gormers have paid for my SALON-LIT,\" said Mrs.\nFisher with simplicity. \"But get the Duchess to dine with them all the\nsame.\"\n\nLily\'s smile again flowed into a slight laugh: her friend\'s importunity\nwas beginning to strike her as irrelevant. \"I\'m sorry I have been\nnegligent about the Brys----\" she began.\n\n\"Oh, as to the Brys--it\'s you I\'m thinking of,\" said Mrs. Fisher\nabruptly. She paused, and then, bending forward, with a lowered voice:\n\"You know we all went on to Nice last night when the Duchess chucked us.\nIt was Louisa\'s idea--I told her what I thought of it.\"\n\nMiss Bart assented. \"Yes--I caught sight of you on the way back, at the\nstation.\"\n\n\"Well, the man who was in the carriage with you and George Dorset--that\nhorrid little Dabham who does \'Society Notes from the Riviera\'--had been\ndining with us at Nice. And he\'s telling everybody that you and Dorset\ncame back alone after midnight.\"\n\n\"Alone--? When he was with us?\" Lily laughed, but her laugh faded into\ngravity under the prolonged implication of Mrs. Fisher\'s look. \"We DID\ncome back alone--if that\'s so very dreadful! But whose fault was it? The\nDuchess was spending the night at Cimiez with the Crown Princess; Bertha\ngot bored with the show, and went off early, promising to meet us at the\nstation. We turned up on time, but she didn\'t--she didn\'t turn up at all!\"\n\nMiss Bart made this announcement in the tone of one who presents, with\ncareless assurance, a complete vindication; but Mrs. Fisher received it\nin a manner almost inconsequent. She seemed to have lost sight of her\nfriend\'s part in the incident: her inward vision had taken another slant.\n\n\"Bertha never turned up at all? Then how on earth did she get back?\"\n\n\"Oh, by the next train, I suppose; there were two extra ones for the\nFETE. At any rate, I know she\'s safe on the yacht, though I haven\'t yet\nseen her; but you see it was not my fault,\" Lily summed up.\n\n\"Not your fault that Bertha didn\'t turn up? My poor child, if only you\ndon\'t have to pay for it!\" Mrs. Fisher rose--she had seen Mrs. Bry\nsurging back in her direction. \"There\'s Louisa, and I must be off--oh,\nwe\'re on the best of terms externally; we\'re lunching together; but at\nheart it\'s ME she\'s lunching on,\" she explained; and with a last\nhand-clasp and a last look, she added: \"Remember, I leave her to you;\nshe\'s hovering now, ready to take you in.\"\n\n\n\nLily carried the impression of Mrs. Fisher\'s leave-taking away with her\nfrom the Casino doors. She had accomplished, before leaving, the first\nstep toward her reinstatement in Mrs. Bry\'s good graces. An affable\nadvance--a vague murmur that they must see more of each other--an\nallusive glance to a near future that was felt to include the Duchess as\nwell as the Sabrina--how easily it was all done, if one possessed the\nknack of doing it! She wondered at herself, as she had so often\nwondered, that, possessing the knack, she did not more consistently\nexercise it. But sometimes she was forgetful--and sometimes, could it be\nthat she was proud? Today, at any rate, she had been vaguely conscious of\na reason for sinking her pride, had in fact even sunk it to the point of\nsuggesting to Lord Hubert Dacey, whom she ran across on the Casino steps,\nthat he might really get the Duchess to dine with the Brys, if SHE\nundertook to have them asked on the Sabrina. Lord Hubert had promised his\nhelp, with the readiness on which she could always count: it was his only\nway of ever reminding her that he had once been ready to do so much more\nfor her. Her path, in short, seemed to smooth itself before her as she\nadvanced; yet the faint stir of uneasiness persisted. Had it been\nproduced, she wondered, by her chance meeting with Selden? She thought\nnot--time and change seemed so completely to have relegated him to his\nproper distance. The sudden and exquisite reaction from her anxieties had\nhad the effect of throwing the recent past so far back that even Selden,\nas part of it, retained a certain air of unreality. And he had made it so\nclear that they were not to meet again; that he had merely dropped down\nto Nice for a day or two, and had almost his foot on the next steamer.\nNo--that part of the past had merely surged up for a moment on the\nfleeing surface of events; and now that it was submerged again, the\nuncertainty, the apprehension persisted.\n\nThey grew to sudden acuteness as she caught sight of George Dorset\ndescending the steps of the Hotel de Paris and making for her across the\nsquare. She had meant to drive down to the quay and regain the yacht; but\nshe now had the immediate impression that something more was to happen\nfirst.\n\n\"Which way are you going? Shall we walk a bit?\" he began, putting the\nsecond question before the first was answered, and not waiting for a\nreply to either before he directed her silently toward the comparative\nseclusion of the lower gardens.\n\nShe detected in him at once all the signs of extreme nervous tension.\nThe skin was puffed out under his sunken eyes, and its sallowness had\npaled to a leaden white against which his irregular eyebrows and long\nreddish moustache were relieved with a saturnine effect. His appearance,\nin short, presented an odd mixture of the bedraggled and the ferocious.\n\nHe walked beside her in silence, with quick precipitate steps, till they\nreached the embowered slopes to the east of the Casino; then, pulling up\nabruptly, he said: \"Have you seen Bertha?\"\n\n\"No--when I left the yacht she was not yet up.\"\n\nHe received this with a laugh like the whirring sound in a disabled\nclock. \"Not yet up? Had she gone to bed? Do you know at what time she\ncame on board? This morning at seven!\" he exclaimed.\n\n\"At seven?\" Lily started. \"What happened--an accident to the train?\"\n\nHe laughed again. \"They missed the train--all the trains--they had to\ndrive back.\"\n\n\"Well----?\" She hesitated, feeling at once how little even this necessity\naccounted for the fatal lapse of hours.\n\n\"Well, they couldn\'t get a carriage at once--at that time of night, you\nknow--\" the explanatory note made it almost seem as though he were\nputting the case for his wife--\"and when they finally did, it was only a\none-horse cab, and the horse was lame!\"\n\n\"How tiresome! I see,\" she affirmed, with the more earnestness because\nshe was so nervously conscious that she did not; and after a pause she\nadded: \"I\'m so sorry--but ought we to have waited?\"\n\n\"Waited for the one-horse cab? It would scarcely have carried the four of\nus, do you think?\"\n\nShe took this in what seemed the only possible way, with a laugh intended\nto sink the question itself in his humorous treatment of it. \"Well, it\nwould have been difficult; we should have had to walk by turns. But it\nwould have been jolly to see the sunrise.\"\n\n\"Yes: the sunrise WAS jolly,\" he agreed.\n\n\"Was it? You saw it, then?\"\n\n\"I saw it, yes; from the deck. I waited up for them.\"\n\n\"Naturally--I suppose you were worried. Why didn\'t you call on me to\nshare your vigil?\"\n\nHe stood still, dragging at his moustache with a lean weak hand. \"I\ndon\'t think you would have cared for its DENOUEMENT,\" he said with sudden\ngrimness.\n\nAgain she was disconcerted by the abrupt change in his tone, and as in\none flash she saw the peril of the moment, and the need of keeping her\nsense of it out of her eyes.\n\n\"DENOUEMENT--isn\'t that too big a word for such a small incident? The\nworst of it, after all, is the fatigue which Bertha has probably slept\noff by this time.\"\n\nShe clung to the note bravely, though its futility was now plain to her\nin the glare of his miserable eyes.\n\n\"Don\'t--don\'t----!\" he broke out, with the hurt cry of a child; and while\nshe tried to merge her sympathy, and her resolve to ignore any cause for\nit, in one ambiguous murmur of deprecation, he dropped down on the bench\nnear which they had paused, and poured out the wretchedness of his soul.\n\nIt was a dreadful hour--an hour from which she emerged shrinking and\nseared, as though her lids had been scorched by its actual glare. It was\nnot that she had never had premonitory glimpses of such an outbreak; but\nrather because, here and there throughout the three months, the surface\nof life had shown such ominous cracks and vapours that her fears had\nalways been on the alert for an upheaval. There had been moments when the\nsituation had presented itself under a homelier yet more vivid\nimage--that of a shaky vehicle, dashed by unbroken steeds over a bumping\nroad, while she cowered within, aware that the harness wanted mending,\nand wondering what would give way first. Well--everything had given way\nnow; and the wonder was that the crazy outfit had held together so long.\nHer sense of being involved in the crash, instead of merely witnessing it\nfrom the road, was intensified by the way in which Dorset, through his\nfuries of denunciation and wild reactions of self-contempt, made her feel\nthe need he had of her, the place she had taken in his life. But for her,\nwhat ear would have been open to his cries? And what hand but hers could\ndrag him up again to a footing of sanity and self-respect? All through\nthe stress of the struggle with him, she had been conscious of something\nfaintly maternal in her efforts to guide and uplift him. But for the\npresent, if he clung to her, it was not in order to be dragged up, but to\nfeel some one floundering in the depths with him: he wanted her to suffer\nwith him, not to help him to suffer less.\n\nHappily for both, there was little physical strength to sustain his\nfrenzy. It left him, collapsed and breathing heavily, to an apathy so\ndeep and prolonged that Lily almost feared the passers-by would think it\nthe result of a seizure, and stop to offer their aid. But Monte Carlo is,\nof all places, the one where the human bond is least close, and odd\nsights are the least arresting. If a glance or two lingered on the\ncouple, no intrusive sympathy disturbed them; and it was Lily herself who\nbroke the silence by rising from her seat. With the clearing of her\nvision the sweep of peril had extended, and she saw that the post of\ndanger was no longer at Dorset\'s side.\n\n\"If you won\'t go back, I must--don\'t make me leave you!\" she urged.\n\nBut he remained mutely resistant, and she added: \"What are you going to\ndo? You really can\'t sit here all night.\"\n\n\"I can go to an hotel. I can telegraph my lawyers.\" He sat up, roused by\na new thought. \"By Jove, Selden\'s at Nice--I\'ll send for Selden!\"\n\nLily, at this, reseated herself with a cry of alarm. \"No, no, NO!\" she\nprotested.\n\nHe swung round on her distrustfully. \"Why not Selden? He\'s a lawyer isn\'t\nhe? One will do as well as another in a case like this.\"\n\n\"As badly as another, you mean. I thought you relied on ME to help you.\"\n\n\"You do--by being so sweet and patient with me. If it hadn\'t been for you\nI\'d have ended the thing long ago. But now it\'s got to end.\" He rose\nsuddenly, straightening himself with an effort. \"You can\'t want to see\nme ridiculous.\"\n\nShe looked at him kindly. \"That\'s just it.\" Then, after a moment\'s\npondering, almost to her own surprise she broke out with a flash of\ninspiration: \"Well, go over and see Mr. Selden. You\'ll have time to do it\nbefore dinner.\"\n\n\"Oh, DINNER----\" he mocked her; but she left him with the smiling\nrejoinder: \"Dinner on board, remember; we\'ll put it off till nine if you\nlike.\"\n\nIt was past four already; and when a cab had dropped her at the quay, and\nshe stood waiting for the gig to put off for her, she began to wonder\nwhat had been happening on the yacht. Of Silverton\'s whereabouts there\nhad been no mention. Had he returned to the Sabrina? Or could Bertha--the\ndread alternative sprang on her suddenly--could Bertha, left to herself,\nhave gone ashore to rejoin him? Lily\'s heart stood still at the thought.\nAll her concern had hitherto been for young Silverton, not only because,\nin such affairs, the woman\'s instinct is to side with the man, but\nbecause his case made a peculiar appeal to her sympathies. He was so\ndesperately in earnest, poor youth, and his earnestness was of so\ndifferent a quality from Bertha\'s, though hers too was desperate enough.\nThe difference was that Bertha was in earnest only about herself, while\nhe was in earnest about her. But now, at the actual crisis, this\ndifference seemed to throw the weight of destitution on Bertha\'s side,\nsince at least he had her to suffer for, and she had only herself. At any\nrate, viewed less ideally, all the disadvantages of such a situation were\nfor the woman; and it was to Bertha that Lily\'s sympathies now went out.\nShe was not fond of Bertha Dorset, but neither was she without a sense of\nobligation, the heavier for having so little personal liking to sustain\nit. Bertha had been kind to her, they had lived together, during the last\nmonths, on terms of easy friendship, and the sense of friction of which\nLily had recently become aware seemed to make it the more urgent that she\nshould work undividedly in her friend\'s interest.\n\nIt was in Bertha\'s interest, certainly, that she had despatched Dorset to\nconsult with Lawrence Selden. Once the grotesqueness of the situation\naccepted, she had seen at a glance that it was the safest in which Dorset\ncould find himself. Who but Selden could thus miraculously combine the\nskill to save Bertha with the obligation of doing so? The consciousness\nthat much skill would be required made Lily rest thankfully in the\ngreatness of the obligation. Since he would HAVE to pull Bertha through\nshe could trust him to find a way; and she put the fulness of her trust\nin the telegram she managed to send him on her way to the quay.\n\nThus far, then, Lily felt that she had done well; and the conviction\nstrengthened her for the task that remained. She and Bertha had never\nbeen on confidential terms, but at such a crisis the barriers of reserve\nmust surely fall: Dorset\'s wild allusions to the scene of the morning\nmade Lily feel that they were down already, and that any attempt to\nrebuild them would be beyond Bertha\'s strength. She pictured the poor\ncreature shivering behind her fallen defences and awaiting with suspense\nthe moment when she could take refuge in the first shelter that offered.\nIf only that shelter had not already offered itself elsewhere! As the gig\ntraversed the short distance between the quay and the yacht, Lily grew\nmore than ever alarmed at the possible consequences of her long absence.\nWhat if the wretched Bertha, finding in all the long hours no soul to\nturn to--but by this time Lily\'s eager foot was on the side-ladder, and\nher first step on the Sabrina showed the worst of her apprehensions to be\nunfounded; for there, in the luxurious shade of the after-deck, the\nwretched Bertha, in full command of her usual attenuated elegance, sat\ndispensing tea to the Duchess of Beltshire and Lord Hubert.\n\nThe sight filled Lily with such surprise that she felt that Bertha, at\nleast, must read its meaning in her look, and she was proportionately\ndisconcerted by the blankness of the look returned. But in an instant she\nsaw that Mrs. Dorset had, of necessity, to look blank before the others,\nand that, to mitigate the effect of her own surprise, she must at once\nproduce some simple reason for it. The long habit of rapid transitions\nmade it easy for her to exclaim to the Duchess: \"Why, I thought you\'d\ngone back to the Princess!\" and this sufficed for the lady she addressed,\nif it was hardly enough for Lord Hubert.\n\nAt least it opened the way to a lively explanation of how the Duchess\nwas, in fact, going back the next moment, but had first rushed out to the\nyacht for a word with Mrs. Dorset on the subject of tomorrow\'s\ndinner--the dinner with the Brys, to which Lord Hubert had finally\ninsisted on dragging them.\n\n\"To save my neck, you know!\" he explained, with a glance that appealed to\nLily for some recognition of his promptness; and the Duchess added, with\nher noble candour: \"Mr. Bry has promised him a tip, and he says if we go\nhe\'ll pass it onto us.\"\n\nThis led to some final pleasantries, in which, as it seemed to Lily, Mrs.\nDorset bore her part with astounding bravery, and at the close of which\nLord Hubert, from half way down the side-ladder, called back, with an air\nof numbering heads: \"And of course we may count on Dorset too?\"\n\n\"Oh, count on him,\" his wife assented gaily. She was keeping up well to\nthe last--but as she turned back from waving her adieux over the side,\nLily said to herself that the mask must drop and the soul of fear look\nout.\n\nMrs. Dorset turned back slowly; perhaps she wanted time to steady her\nmuscles; at any rate, they were still under perfect control when,\ndropping once more into her seat behind the tea-table, she remarked to\nMiss Bart with a faint touch of irony: \"I suppose I ought to say good\nmorning.\"\n\nIf it was a cue, Lily was ready to take it, though with only the vaguest\nsense of what was expected of her in return. There was something\nunnerving in the contemplation of Mrs. Dorset\'s composure, and she had to\nforce the light tone in which she answered: \"I tried to see you this\nmorning, but you were not yet up.\"\n\n\"No--I got to bed late. After we missed you at the station I thought we\nought to wait for you till the last train.\" She spoke very gently, but\nwith just the least tinge of reproach.\n\n\"You missed us? You waited for us at the station?\" Now indeed Lily was\ntoo far adrift in bewilderment to measure the other\'s words or keep watch\non her own. \"But I thought you didn\'t get to the station till after the\nlast train had left!\"\n\nMrs. Dorset, examining her between lowered lids, met this with the\nimmediate query: \"Who told you that?\"\n\n\"George--I saw him just now in the gardens.\"\n\n\"Ah, is that George\'s version? Poor George--he was in no state to\nremember what I told him. He had one of his worst attacks this morning,\nand I packed him off to see the doctor. Do you know if he found him?\"\n\nLily, still lost in conjecture, made no reply, and Mrs. Dorset settled\nherself indolently in her seat. \"He\'ll wait to see him; he was horribly\nfrightened about himself. It\'s very bad for him to be worried, and\nwhenever anything upsetting happens, it always brings on an attack.\"\n\nThis time Lily felt sure that a cue was being pressed on her; but it was\nput forth with such startling suddenness, and with so incredible an air\nof ignoring what it led up to, that she could only falter out doubtfully:\n\"Anything upsetting?\"\n\n\"Yes--such as having you so conspicuously on his hands in the small\nhours. You know, my dear, you\'re rather a big responsibility in such a\nscandalous place after midnight.\"\n\nAt that--at the complete unexpectedness and the inconceivable audacity of\nit--Lily could not restrain the tribute of an astonished laugh.\n\n\"Well, really--considering it was you who burdened him with the\nresponsibility!\"\n\nMrs. Dorset took this with an exquisite mildness. \"By not having the\nsuperhuman cleverness to discover you in that frightful rush for the\ntrain? Or the imagination to believe that you\'d take it without us--you\nand he all alone--instead of waiting quietly in the station till we DID\nmanage to meet you?\"\n\nLily\'s colour rose: it was growing clear to her that Bertha was pursuing\nan object, following a line she had marked out for herself. Only, with\nsuch a doom impending, why waste time in these childish efforts to avert\nit? The puerility of the attempt disarmed Lily\'s indignation: did it not\nprove how horribly the poor creature was frightened?\n\n\"No; by our simply all keeping together at Nice,\" she returned.\n\n\"Keeping together? When it was you who seized the first opportunity to\nrush off with the Duchess and her friends? My dear Lily, you are not a\nchild to be led by the hand!\"\n\n\"No--nor to be lectured, Bertha, really; if that\'s what you are doing to\nme now.\"\n\nMrs. Dorset smiled on her reproachfully. \"Lecture you--I? Heaven forbid!\nI was merely trying to give you a friendly hint. But it\'s usually the\nother way round, isn\'t it? I\'m expected to take hints, not to give them:\nI\'ve positively lived on them all these last months.\"\n\n\"Hints--from me to you?\" Lily repeated.\n\n\"Oh, negative ones merely--what not to be and to do and to see. And I\nthink I\'ve taken them to admiration. Only, my dear, if you\'ll let me say\nso, I didn\'t understand that one of my negative duties was NOT to warn\nyou when you carried your imprudence too far.\"\n\nA chill of fear passed over Miss Bart: a sense of remembered treachery\nthat was like the gleam of a knife in the dusk. But compassion, in a\nmoment, got the better of her instinctive recoil. What was this\noutpouring of senseless bitterness but the tracked creature\'s attempt to\ncloud the medium through which it was fleeing? It was on Lily\'s lips to\nexclaim: \"You poor soul, don\'t double and turn--come straight back to me,\nand we\'ll find a way out!\" But the words died under the impenetrable\ninsolence of Bertha\'s smile. Lily sat silent, taking the brunt of it\nquietly, letting it spend itself on her to the last drop of its\naccumulated falseness; then, without a word, she rose and went down to\nher cabin.\n\n\n\nChapter 3\n\nMiss Bart\'s telegram caught Lawrence Selden at the door of his hotel; and\nhaving read it, he turned back to wait for Dorset. The message\nnecessarily left large gaps for conjecture; but all that he had recently\nheard and seen made these but too easy to fill in. On the whole he was\nsurprised; for though he had perceived that the situation contained all\nthe elements of an explosion, he had often enough, in the range of his\npersonal experience, seen just such combinations subside into\nharmlessness. Still, Dorset\'s spasmodic temper, and his wife\'s reckless\ndisregard of appearances, gave the situation a peculiar insecurity; and\nit was less from the sense of any special relation to the case than from\na purely professional zeal, that Selden resolved to guide the pair to\nsafety. Whether, in the present instance, safety for either lay in\nrepairing so damaged a tie, it was no business of his to consider: he had\nonly, on general principles, to think of averting a scandal, and his\ndesire to avert it was increased by his fear of its involving Miss Bart.\nThere was nothing specific in this apprehension; he merely wished to\nspare her the embarrassment of being ever so remotely connected with the\npublic washing of the Dorset linen.\n\nHow exhaustive and unpleasant such a process would be, he saw even more\nvividly after his two hours\' talk with poor Dorset. If anything came out\nat all, it would be such a vast unpacking of accumulated moral rags as\nleft him, after his visitor had gone, with the feeling that he must fling\nopen the windows and have his room swept out. But nothing should come\nout; and happily for his side of the case, the dirty rags, however pieced\ntogether, could not, without considerable difficulty, be turned into a\nhomogeneous grievance. The torn edges did not always fit--there were\nmissing bits, there were disparities of size and colour, all of which it\nwas naturally Selden\'s business to make the most of in putting them under\nhis client\'s eye. But to a man in Dorset\'s mood the completest\ndemonstration could not carry conviction, and Selden saw that for the\nmoment all he could do was to soothe and temporize, to offer sympathy and\nto counsel prudence. He let Dorset depart charged to the brim with the\nsense that, till their next meeting, he must maintain a strictly\nnoncommittal attitude; that, in short, his share in the game consisted\nfor the present in looking on. Selden knew, however, that he could not\nlong keep such violences in equilibrium; and he promised to meet Dorset,\nthe next morning, at an hotel in Monte Carlo. Meanwhile he counted not a\nlittle on the reaction of weakness and self-distrust that, in such\nnatures, follows on every unwonted expenditure of moral force; and his\ntelegraphic reply to Miss Bart consisted simply in the injunction:\n\"Assume that everything is as usual.\"\n\nOn this assumption, in fact, the early part of the following day was\nlived through. Dorset, as if in obedience to Lily\'s imperative bidding,\nhad actually returned in time for a late dinner on the yacht. The repast\nhad been the most difficult moment of the day. Dorset was sunk in one of\nthe abysmal silences which so commonly followed on what his wife called\nhis \"attacks\" that it was easy, before the servants, to refer it to this\ncause; but Bertha herself seemed, perversely enough, little disposed to\nmake use of this obvious means of protection. She simply left the brunt\nof the situation on her husband\'s hands, as if too absorbed in a\ngrievance of her own to suspect that she might be the object of one\nherself. To Lily this attitude was the most ominous, because the most\nperplexing, element in the situation. As she tried to fan the weak\nflicker of talk, to build up, again and again, the crumbling structure of\n\"appearances,\" her own attention was perpetually distracted by the\nquestion: \"What on earth can she be driving at?\" There was something\npositively exasperating in Bertha\'s attitude of isolated defiance. If\nonly she would have given her friend a hint they might still have worked\ntogether successfully; but how could Lily be of use, while she was thus\nobstinately shut out from participation? To be of use was what she\nhonestly wanted; and not for her own sake but for the Dorsets\'. She had\nnot thought of her own situation at all: she was simply engrossed in\ntrying to put a little order in theirs. But the close of the short dreary\nevening left her with a sense of effort hopelessly wasted. She had not\ntried to see Dorset alone: she had positively shrunk from a renewal of\nhis confidences. It was Bertha whose confidence she sought, and who\nshould as eagerly have invited her own; and Bertha, as if in the\ninfatuation of self-destruction, was actually pushing away her rescuing\nhand.\n\nLily, going to bed early, had left the couple to themselves; and it\nseemed part of the general mystery in which she moved that more than an\nhour should elapse before she heard Bertha walk down the silent passage\nand regain her room. The morrow, rising on an apparent continuance of the\nsame conditions, revealed nothing of what had occurred between the\nconfronted pair. One fact alone outwardly proclaimed the change they were\nall conspiring to ignore; and that was the non-appearance of Ned\nSilverton. No one referred to it, and this tacit avoidance of the subject\nkept it in the immediate foreground of consciousness. But there was\nanother change, perceptible only to Lily; and that was that Dorset now\navoided her almost as pointedly as his wife. Perhaps he was repenting his\nrash outpourings of the previous day; perhaps only trying, in his clumsy\nway, to conform to Selden\'s counsel to behave \"as usual.\" Such\ninstructions no more make for easiness of attitude than the\nphotographer\'s behest to \"look natural\"; and in a creature as unconscious\nas poor Dorset of the appearance he habitually presented, the struggle to\nmaintain a pose was sure to result in queer contortions.\n\nIt resulted, at any rate, in throwing Lily strangely on her own\nresources. She had learned, on leaving her room, that Mrs. Dorset was\nstill invisible, and that Dorset had left the yacht early; and feeling\ntoo restless to remain alone, she too had herself ferried ashore.\nStraying toward the Casino, she attached herself to a group of\nacquaintances from Nice, with whom she lunched, and in whose company she\nwas returning to the rooms when she encountered Selden crossing the\nsquare. She could not, at the moment, separate herself definitely from\nher party, who had hospitably assumed that she would remain with them\ntill they took their departure; but she found time for a momentary pause\nof enquiry, to which he promptly returned: \"I\'ve seen him again--he\'s\njust left me.\"\n\nShe waited before him anxiously. \"Well? what has happened? What WILL\nhappen?\"\n\n\"Nothing as yet--and nothing in the future, I think.\"\n\n\"It\'s over, then? It\'s settled? You\'re sure?\"\n\nHe smiled. \"Give me time. I\'m not sure--but I\'m a good deal surer.\" And\nwith that she had to content herself, and hasten on to the expectant\ngroup on the steps.\n\nSelden had in fact given her the utmost measure of his sureness, had even\nstretched it a shade to meet the anxiety in her eyes. And now, as he\nturned away, strolling down the hill toward the station, that anxiety\nremained with him as the visible justification of his own. It was not,\nindeed, anything specific that he feared: there had been a literal truth\nin his declaration that he did not think anything would happen. What\ntroubled him was that, though Dorset\'s attitude had perceptibly changed,\nthe change was not clearly to be accounted for. It had certainly not been\nproduced by Selden\'s arguments, or by the action of his own soberer\nreason. Five minutes\' talk sufficed to show that some alien influence had\nbeen at work, and that it had not so much subdued his resentment as\nweakened his will, so that he moved under it in a state of apathy, like a\ndangerous lunatic who has been drugged. Temporarily, no doubt, however\nexerted, it worked for the general safety: the question was how long it\nwould last, and by what kind of reaction it was likely to be followed. On\nthese points Selden could gain no light; for he saw that one effect of\nthe transformation had been to shut him off from free communion with\nDorset. The latter, indeed, was still moved by the irresistible desire to\ndiscuss his wrong; but, though he revolved about it with the same forlorn\ntenacity, Selden was aware that something always restrained him from full\nexpression. His state was one to produce first weariness and then\nimpatience in his hearer; and when their talk was over, Selden began to\nfeel that he had done his utmost, and might justifiably wash his hands of\nthe sequel.\n\nIt was in this mind that he had been making his way back to the station\nwhen Miss Bart crossed his path; but though, after his brief word with\nher, he kept mechanically on his course, he was conscious of a gradual\nchange in his purpose. The change had been produced by the look in her\neyes; and in his eagerness to define the nature of that look, he dropped\ninto a seat in the gardens, and sat brooding upon the question. It was\nnatural enough, in all conscience, that she should appear anxious: a\nyoung woman placed, in the close intimacy of a yachting-cruise, between a\ncouple on the verge of disaster, could hardly, aside from her concern for\nher friends, be insensible to the awkwardness of her own position. The\nworst of it was that, in interpreting Miss Bart\'s state of mind, so many\nalternative readings were possible; and one of these, in Selden\'s\ntroubled mind, took the ugly form suggested by Mrs. Fisher. If the girl\nwas afraid, was she afraid for herself or for her friends? And to what\ndegree was her dread of a catastrophe intensified by the sense of being\nfatally involved in it? The burden of offence lying manifestly with Mrs.\nDorset, this conjecture seemed on the face of it gratuitously unkind; but\nSelden knew that in the most one-sided matrimonial quarrel there are\ngenerally counter-charges to be brought, and that they are brought with\nthe greater audacity where the original grievance is so emphatic. Mrs.\nFisher had not hesitated to suggest the likelihood of Dorset\'s marrying\nMiss Bart if \"anything happened\"; and though Mrs. Fisher\'s conclusions\nwere notoriously rash, she was shrewd enough in reading the signs from\nwhich they were drawn. Dorset had apparently shown marked interest in the\ngirl, and this interest might be used to cruel advantage in his wife\'s\nstruggle for rehabilitation. Selden knew that Bertha would fight to the\nlast round of powder: the rashness of her conduct was illogically\ncombined with a cold determination to escape its consequences. She could\nbe as unscrupulous in fighting for herself as she was reckless in\ncourting danger, and whatever came to her hand at such moments was likely\nto be used as a defensive missile. He did not, as yet, see clearly just\nwhat course she was likely to take, but his perplexity increased his\napprehension, and with it the sense that, before leaving, he must speak\nagain with Miss Bart. Whatever her share in the situation--and he had\nalways honestly tried to resist judging her by her surroundings--however\nfree she might be from any personal connection with it, she would be\nbetter out of the way of a possible crash; and since she had appealed to\nhim for help, it was clearly his business to tell her so.\n\nThis decision at last brought him to his feet, and carried him back to\nthe gambling rooms, within whose doors he had seen her disappearing; but\na prolonged exploration of the crowd failed to put him on her traces. He\nsaw instead, to his surprise, Ned Silverton loitering somewhat\nostentatiously about the tables; and the discovery that this actor in the\ndrama was not only hovering in the wings, but actually inviting the\nexposure of the footlights, though it might have seemed to imply that all\nperil was over, served rather to deepen Selden\'s sense of foreboding.\nCharged with this impression he returned to the square, hoping to see\nMiss Bart move across it, as every one in Monte Carlo seemed inevitably\nto do at least a dozen times a day; but here again he waited vainly for a\nglimpse of her, and the conclusion was slowly forced on him that she had\ngone back to the Sabrina. It would be difficult to follow her there, and\nstill more difficult, should he do so, to contrive the opportunity for a\nprivate word; and he had almost decided on the unsatisfactory alternative\nof writing, when the ceaseless diorama of the square suddenly unrolled\nbefore him the figures of Lord Hubert and Mrs. Bry.\n\nHailing them at once with his question, he learned from Lord Hubert that\nMiss Bart had just returned to the Sabrina in Dorset\'s company; an\nannouncement so evidently disconcerting to him that Mrs. Bry, after a\nglance from her companion, which seemed to act like the pressure on a\nspring, brought forth the prompt proposal that he should come and meet\nhis friends at dinner that evening--\"At Becassin\'s--a little dinner to\nthe Duchess,\" she flashed out before Lord Hubert had time to remove the\npressure.\n\nSelden\'s sense of the privilege of being included in such company brought\nhim early in the evening to the door of the restaurant, where he paused\nto scan the ranks of diners approaching down the brightly lit terrace.\nThere, while the Brys hovered within over the last agitating alternatives\nof the MENU, he kept watch for the guests from the Sabrina, who at length\nrose on the horizon in company with the Duchess, Lord and Lady Skiddaw\nand the Stepneys. From this group it was easy for him to detach Miss\nBart on the pretext of a moment\'s glance into one of the brilliant shops\nalong the terrace, and to say to her, while they lingered together in the\nwhite dazzle of a jeweller\'s window: \"I stopped over to see you--to beg\nof you to leave the yacht.\"\n\nThe eyes she turned on him showed a quick gleam of her former fear. \"To\nleave--? What do you mean? What has happened?\"\n\n\"Nothing. But if anything should, why be in the way of it?\"\n\nThe glare from the jeweller\'s window, deepening the pallour of her face,\ngave to its delicate lines the sharpness of a tragic mask. \"Nothing\nwill, I am sure; but while there\'s even a doubt left, how can you think I\nwould leave Bertha?\"\n\nThe words rang out on a note of contempt--was it possibly of contempt for\nhimself? Well, he was willing to risk its renewal to the extent of\ninsisting, with an undeniable throb of added interest: \"You have yourself\nto think of, you know--\" to which, with a strange fall of sadness in her\nvoice, she answered, meeting his eyes: \"If you knew how little difference\nthat makes!\"\n\n\"Oh, well, nothing WILL happen,\" he said, more for his own reassurance\nthan for hers; and \"Nothing, nothing, of course!\" she valiantly assented,\nas they turned to overtake their companions.\n\nIn the thronged restaurant, taking their places about Mrs. Bry\'s\nilluminated board, their confidence seemed to gain support from the\nfamiliarity of their surroundings. Here were Dorset and his wife once\nmore presenting their customary faces to the world, she engrossed in\nestablishing her relation with an intensely new gown, he shrinking with\ndyspeptic dread from the multiplied solicitations of the MENU. The mere\nfact that they thus showed themselves together, with the utmost openness\nthe place afforded, seemed to declare beyond a doubt that their\ndifferences were composed. How this end had been attained was still\nmatter for wonder, but it was clear that for the moment Miss Bart rested\nconfidently in the result; and Selden tried to achieve the same view by\ntelling himself that her opportunities for observation had been ampler\nthan his own.\n\nMeanwhile, as the dinner advanced through a labyrinth of courses, in\nwhich it became clear that Mrs. Bry had occasionally broken away from\nLord Hubert\'s restraining hand, Selden\'s general watchfulness began to\nlose itself in a particular study of Miss Bart. It was one of the days\nwhen she was so handsome that to be handsome was enough, and all the\nrest--her grace, her quickness, her social felicities--seemed the\noverflow of a bounteous nature. But what especially struck him was the\nway in which she detached herself, by a hundred undefinable shades, from\nthe persons who most abounded in her own style. It was in just such\ncompany, the fine flower and complete expression of the state she aspired\nto, that the differences came out with special poignancy, her grace\ncheapening the other women\'s smartness as her finely-discriminated\nsilences made their chatter dull. The strain of the last hours had\nrestored to her face the deeper eloquence which Selden had lately missed\nin it, and the bravery of her words to him still fluttered in her voice\nand eyes. Yes, she was matchless--it was the one word for her; and he\ncould give his admiration the freer play because so little personal\nfeeling remained in it. His real detachment from her had taken place, not\nat the lurid moment of disenchantment, but now, in the sober after-light\nof discrimination, where he saw her definitely divided from him by the\ncrudeness of a choice which seemed to deny the very differences he felt\nin her. It was before him again in its completeness--the choice in which\nshe was content to rest: in the stupid costliness of the food and the\nshowy dulness of the talk, in the freedom of speech which never arrived\nat wit and the freedom of act which never made for romance. The strident\nsetting of the restaurant, in which their table seemed set apart in a\nspecial glare of publicity, and the presence at it of little Dabham of\nthe \"Riviera Notes,\" emphasized the ideals of a world where\nconspicuousness passed for distinction, and the society column had become\nthe roll of fame.\n\nIt was as the immortalizer of such occasions that little Dabham, wedged\nin modest watchfulness between two brilliant neighbours, suddenly became\nthe centre of Selden\'s scrutiny. How much did he know of what was going\non, and how much, for his purpose, was still worth finding out? His\nlittle eyes were like tentacles thrown out to catch the floating\nintimations with which, to Selden, the air at moments seemed thick; then\nagain it cleared to its normal emptiness, and he could see nothing in it\nfor the journalist but leisure to note the elegance of the ladies\' gowns.\nMrs. Dorset\'s, in particular, challenged all the wealth of Mr. Dabham\'s\nvocabulary: it had surprises and subtleties worthy of what he would have\ncalled \"the literary style.\" At first, as Selden had noticed, it had been\nalmost too preoccupying to its wearer; but now she was in full command of\nit, and was even producing her effects with unwonted freedom. Was she\nnot, indeed, too free, too fluent, for perfect naturalness? And was not\nDorset, to whom his glance had passed by a natural transition, too\njerkily wavering between the same extremes? Dorset indeed was always\njerky; but it seemed to Selden that tonight each vibration swung him\nfarther from his centre.\n\nThe dinner, meanwhile, was moving to its triumphant close, to the evident\nsatisfaction of Mrs. Bry, who, throned in apoplectic majesty between Lord\nSkiddaw and Lord Hubert, seemed in spirit to be calling on Mrs. Fisher to\nwitness her achievement. Short of Mrs. Fisher her audience might have\nbeen called complete; for the restaurant was crowded with persons mainly\ngathered there for the purpose of spectatorship, and accurately posted as\nto the names and faces of the celebrities they had come to see. Mrs. Bry,\nconscious that all her feminine guests came under that heading, and that\neach one looked her part to admiration, shone on Lily with all the\npent-up gratitude that Mrs. Fisher had failed to deserve. Selden,\ncatching the glance, wondered what part Miss Bart had played in\norganizing the entertainment. She did, at least, a great deal to adorn\nit; and as he watched the bright security with which she bore herself, he\nsmiled to think that he should have fancied her in need of help. Never\nhad she appeared more serenely mistress of the situation than when, at\nthe moment of dispersal, detaching herself a little from the group about\nthe table, she turned with a smile and a graceful slant of the shoulders\nto receive her cloak from Dorset.\n\nThe dinner had been protracted over Mr. Bry\'s exceptional cigars and a\nbewildering array of liqueurs, and many of the other tables were empty;\nbut a sufficient number of diners still lingered to give relief to the\nleave-taking of Mrs. Bry\'s distinguished guests. This ceremony was drawn\nout and complicated by the fact that it involved, on the part of the\nDuchess and Lady Skiddaw, definite farewells, and pledges of speedy\nreunion in Paris, where they were to pause and replenish their wardrobes\non the way to England. The quality of Mrs. Bry\'s hospitality, and of the\ntips her husband had presumably imparted, lent to the manner of the\nEnglish ladies a general effusiveness which shed the rosiest light over\ntheir hostess\'s future. In its glow Mrs. Dorset and the Stepneys were\nalso visibly included, and the whole scene had touches of intimacy worth\ntheir weight in gold to the watchful pen of Mr. Dabham.\n\nA glance at her watch caused the Duchess to exclaim to her sister that\nthey had just time to dash for their train, and the flurry of this\ndeparture over, the Stepneys, who had their motor at the door, offered to\nconvey the Dorsets and Miss Bart to the quay. The offer was accepted,\nand Mrs. Dorset moved away with her husband in attendance. Miss Bart had\nlingered for a last word with Lord Hubert, and Stepney, on whom Mr. Bry\nwas pressing a final, and still more expensive, cigar, called out: \"Come\non, Lily, if you\'re going back to the yacht.\"\n\nLily turned to obey; but as she did so, Mrs. Dorset, who had paused on\nher way out, moved a few steps back toward the table.\n\n\"Miss Bart is not going back to the yacht,\" she said in a voice of\nsingular distinctness.\n\nA startled look ran from eye to eye; Mrs. Bry crimsoned to the verge of\ncongestion, Mrs. Stepney slipped nervously behind her husband, and\nSelden, in the general turmoil of his sensations, was mainly conscious of\na longing to grip Dabham by the collar and fling him out into the street.\n\nDorset, meanwhile, had stepped back to his wife\'s side. His face was\nwhite, and he looked about him with cowed angry eyes. \"Bertha!--Miss\nBart . . . this is some misunderstanding . . . some mistake . . .\"\n\n\"Miss Bart remains here,\" his wife rejoined incisively. \"And, I think,\nGeorge, we had better not detain Mrs. Stepney any longer.\"\n\nMiss Bart, during this brief exchange of words, remained in admirable\nerectness, slightly isolated from the embarrassed group about her. She\nhad paled a little under the shock of the insult, but the discomposure of\nthe surrounding faces was not reflected in her own. The faint disdain of\nher smile seemed to lift her high above her antagonist\'s reach, and it\nwas not till she had given Mrs. Dorset the full measure of the distance\nbetween them that she turned and extended her hand to her hostess.\n\n\"I am joining the Duchess tomorrow,\" she explained, \"and it seemed easier\nfor me to remain on shore for the night.\"\n\nShe held firmly to Mrs. Bry\'s wavering eye while she gave this\nexplanation, but when it was over Selden saw her send a tentative glance\nfrom one to another of the women\'s faces. She read their incredulity in\ntheir averted looks, and in the mute wretchedness of the men behind them,\nand for a miserable half-second he thought she quivered on the brink of\nfailure. Then, turning to him with an easy gesture, and the pale bravery\nof her recovered smile--\"Dear Mr. Selden,\" she said, \"you promised to see\nme to my cab.\"\n\n\n\nOutside, the sky was gusty and overcast, and as Lily and Selden moved\ntoward the deserted gardens below the restaurant, spurts of warm rain\nblew fitfully against their faces. The fiction of the cab had been\ntacitly abandoned; they walked on in silence, her hand on his arm, till\nthe deeper shade of the gardens received them, and pausing beside a\nbench, he said: \"Sit down a moment.\"\n\nShe dropped to the seat without answering, but the electric lamp at the\nbend of the path shed a gleam on the struggling misery of her face.\nSelden sat down beside her, waiting for her to speak, fearful lest any\nword he chose should touch too roughly on her wound, and kept also from\nfree utterance by the wretched doubt which had slowly renewed itself\nwithin him. What had brought her to this pass? What weakness had placed\nher so abominably at her enemy\'s mercy? And why should Bertha Dorset have\nturned into an enemy at the very moment when she so obviously needed the\nsupport of her sex? Even while his nerves raged at the subjection of\nhusbands to their wives, and at the cruelty of women to their kind,\nreason obstinately harped on the proverbial relation between smoke and\nfire. The memory of Mrs. Fisher\'s hints, and the corroboration of his own\nimpressions, while they deepened his pity also increased his constraint,\nsince, whichever way he sought a free outlet for sympathy, it was blocked\nby the fear of committing a blunder.\n\nSuddenly it struck him that his silence must seem almost as accusatory as\nthat of the men he had despised for turning from her; but before he could\nfind the fitting word she had cut him short with a question.\n\n\"Do you know of a quiet hotel? I can send for my maid in the morning.\"\n\n\"An hotel--HERE--that you can go to alone? It\'s not possible.\"\n\nShe met this with a pale gleam of her old playfulness. \"What IS, then?\nIt\'s too wet to sleep in the gardens.\"\n\n\"But there must be some one----\"\n\n\"Some one to whom I can go? Of course--any number--but at THIS hour? You\nsee my change of plan was rather sudden----\"\n\n\"Good God--if you\'d listened to me!\" he cried, venting his helplessness\nin a burst of anger.\n\nShe still held him off with the gentle mockery of her smile. \"But haven\'t\nI?\" she rejoined. \"You advised me to leave the yacht, and I\'m leaving it.\"\n\nHe saw then, with a pang of self-reproach, that she meant neither to\nexplain nor to defend herself; that by his miserable silence he had\nforfeited all chance of helping her, and that the decisive hour was past.\n\nShe had risen, and stood before him in a kind of clouded majesty, like\nsome deposed princess moving tranquilly to exile.\n\n\"Lily!\" he exclaimed, with a note of despairing appeal; but--\"Oh, not\nnow,\" she gently admonished him; and then, in all the sweetness of her\nrecovered composure: \"Since I must find shelter somewhere, and since\nyou\'re so kindly here to help me----\"\n\nHe gathered himself up at the challenge. \"You will do as I tell you?\nThere\'s but one thing, then; you must go straight to your cousins, the\nStepneys.\"\n\n\"Oh--\" broke from her with a movement of instinctive resistance; but he\ninsisted: \"Come--it\'s late, and you must appear to have gone there\ndirectly.\"\n\nHe had drawn her hand into his arm, but she held him back with a last\ngesture of protest. \"I can\'t--I can\'t--not that--you don\'t know Gwen: you\nmustn\'t ask me!\"\n\n\"I MUST ask you--you must obey me,\" he persisted, though infected at\nheart by her own fear.\n\nHer voice sank to a whisper: \"And if she refuses?\"--but, \"Oh, trust\nme--trust me!\" he could only insist in return; and yielding to his touch,\nshe let him lead her back in silence to the edge of the square.\n\nIn the cab they continued to remain silent through the brief drive which\ncarried them to the illuminated portals of the Stepneys\' hotel. Here he\nleft her outside, in the darkness of the raised hood, while his name was\nsent up to Stepney, and he paced the showy hall, awaiting the latter\'s\ndescent. Ten minutes later the two men passed out together between the\ngold-laced custodians of the threshold; but in the vestibule Stepney drew\nup with a last flare of reluctance.\n\n\"It\'s understood, then?\" he stipulated nervously, with his hand on\nSelden\'s arm. \"She leaves tomorrow by the early train--and my wife\'s\nasleep, and can\'t be disturbed.\"\n\n\n\nChapter 4\n\nThe blinds of Mrs. Peniston\'s drawing-room were drawn down against the\noppressive June sun, and in the sultry twilight the faces of her\nassembled relatives took on a fitting shadow of bereavement. They were\nall there: Van Alstynes, Stepneys and Melsons--even a stray Peniston or\ntwo, indicating, by a greater latitude in dress and manner, the fact of\nremoter relationship and more settled hopes. The Peniston side was, in\nfact, secure in the knowledge that the bulk of Mr. Peniston\'s property\n\"went back\"; while the direct connection hung suspended on the disposal\nof his widow\'s private fortune and on the uncertainty of its extent.\nJack Stepney, in his new character as the richest nephew, tacitly took\nthe lead, emphasizing his importance by the deeper gloss of his mourning\nand the subdued authority of his manner; while his wife\'s bored attitude\nand frivolous gown proclaimed the heiress\'s disregard of the\ninsignificant interests at stake. Old Ned Van Alstyne, seated next to her\nin a coat that made affliction dapper, twirled his white moustache to\nconceal the eager twitch of his lips; and Grace Stepney, red-nosed and\nsmelling of crape, whispered emotionally to Mrs. Herbert Melson: \"I\ncouldn\'t BEAR to see the Niagara anywhere else!\"\n\nA rustle of weeds and quick turning of heads hailed the opening of the\ndoor, and Lily Bart appeared, tall and noble in her black dress, with\nGerty Farish at her side. The women\'s faces, as she paused\ninterrogatively on the threshold, were a study in hesitation. One or two\nmade faint motions of recognition, which might have been subdued either\nby the solemnity of the scene, or by the doubt as to how far the others\nmeant to go; Mrs. Jack Stepney gave a careless nod, and Grace Stepney,\nwith a sepulchral gesture, indicated a seat at her side. But Lily,\nignoring the invitation, as well as Jack Stepney\'s official attempt to\ndirect her, moved across the room with her smooth free gait, and seated\nherself in a chair which seemed to have been purposely placed apart from\nthe others.\n\nIt was the first time that she had faced her family since her return from\nEurope, two weeks earlier; but if she perceived any uncertainty in their\nwelcome, it served only to add a tinge of irony to the usual composure of\nher bearing. The shock of dismay with which, on the dock, she had heard\nfrom Gerty Farish of Mrs. Peniston\'s sudden death, had been mitigated,\nalmost at once, by the irrepressible thought that now, at last, she would\nbe able to pay her debts. She had looked forward with considerable\nuneasiness to her first encounter with her aunt. Mrs. Peniston had\nvehemently opposed her niece\'s departure with the Dorsets, and had marked\nher continued disapproval by not writing during Lily\'s absence. The\ncertainty that she had heard of the rupture with the Dorsets made the\nprospect of the meeting more formidable; and how should Lily have\nrepressed a quick sense of relief at the thought that, instead of\nundergoing the anticipated ordeal, she had only to enter gracefully on a\nlong-assured inheritance? It had been, in the consecrated phrase, \"always\nunderstood\" that Mrs. Peniston was to provide handsomely for her niece;\nand in the latter\'s mind the understanding had long since crystallized\ninto fact.\n\n\"She gets everything, of course--I don\'t see what we\'re here for,\" Mrs.\nJack Stepney remarked with careless loudness to Ned Van Alstyne; and the\nlatter\'s deprecating murmur--\"Julia was always a just woman\"--might have\nbeen interpreted as signifying either acquiescence or doubt.\n\n\"Well, it\'s only about four hundred thousand,\" Mrs. Stepney rejoined with\na yawn; and Grace Stepney, in the silence produced by the lawyer\'s\npreliminary cough, was heard to sob out: \"They won\'t find a towel\nmissing--I went over them with her the very day----\"\n\nLily, oppressed by the close atmosphere, and the stifling odour of fresh\nmourning, felt her attention straying as Mrs. Peniston\'s lawyer, solemnly\nerect behind the Buhl table at the end of the room, began to rattle\nthrough the preamble of the will.\n\n\"It\'s like being in church,\" she reflected, wondering vaguely where Gwen\nStepney had got such an awful hat. Then she noticed how stout Jack had\ngrown--he would soon be almost as plethoric as Herbert Melson, who sat a\nfew feet off, breathing puffily as he leaned his black-gloved hands on\nhis stick.\n\n\"I wonder why rich people always grow fat--I suppose it\'s because there\'s\nnothing to worry them. If I inherit, I shall have to be careful of my\nfigure,\" she mused, while the lawyer droned on through a labyrinth of\nlegacies. The servants came first, then a few charitable institutions,\nthen several remoter Melsons and Stepneys, who stirred consciously as\ntheir names rang out, and then subsided into a state of impassiveness\nbefitting the solemnity of the occasion. Ned Van Alstyne, Jack Stepney,\nand a cousin or two followed, each coupled with the mention of a few\nthousands: Lily wondered that Grace Stepney was not among them. Then she\nheard her own name--\"to my niece Lily Bart ten thousand dollars--\" and\nafter that the lawyer again lost himself in a coil of unintelligible\nperiods, from which the concluding phrase flashed out with startling\ndistinctness: \"and the residue of my estate to my dear cousin and\nname-sake, Grace Julia Stepney.\"\n\nThere was a subdued gasp of surprise, a rapid turning of heads, and a\nsurging of sable figures toward the corner in which Miss Stepney wailed\nout her sense of unworthiness through the crumpled ball of a black-edged\nhandkerchief.\n\nLily stood apart from the general movement, feeling herself for the first\ntime utterly alone. No one looked at her, no one seemed aware of her\npresence; she was probing the very depths of insignificance. And under\nher sense of the collective indifference came the acuter pang of hopes\ndeceived. Disinherited--she had been disinherited--and for Grace\nStepney! She met Gerty\'s lamentable eyes, fixed on her in a despairing\neffort at consolation, and the look brought her to herself. There was\nsomething to be done before she left the house: to be done with all the\nnobility she knew how to put into such gestures. She advanced to the\ngroup about Miss Stepney, and holding out her hand said simply: \"Dear\nGrace, I am so glad.\"\n\nThe other ladies had fallen back at her approach, and a space created\nitself about her. It widened as she turned to go, and no one advanced to\nfill it up. She paused a moment, glancing about her, calmly taking the\nmeasure of her situation. She heard some one ask a question about the\ndate of the will; she caught a fragment of the lawyer\'s answer--something\nabout a sudden summons, and an \"earlier instrument.\" Then the tide of\ndispersal began to drift past her; Mrs. Jack Stepney and Mrs. Herbert\nMelson stood on the doorstep awaiting their motor; a sympathizing group\nescorted Grace Stepney to the cab it was felt to be fitting she should\ntake, though she lived but a street or two away; and Miss Bart and Gerty\nfound themselves almost alone in the purple drawing-room, which more than\never, in its stuffy dimness, resembled a well-kept family vault, in which\nthe last corpse had just been decently deposited.\n\n\n\nIn Gerty Farish\'s sitting-room, whither a hansom had carried the two\nfriends, Lily dropped into a chair with a faint sound of laughter: it\nstruck her as a humorous coincidence that her aunt\'s legacy should so\nnearly represent the amount of her debt to Trenor. The need of\ndischarging that debt had reasserted itself with increased urgency since\nher return to America, and she spoke her first thought in saying to the\nanxiously hovering Gerty: \"I wonder when the legacies will be paid.\"\n\nBut Miss Farish could not pause over the legacies; she broke into a\nlarger indignation. \"Oh, Lily, it\'s unjust; it\'s cruel--Grace Stepney\nmust FEEL she has no right to all that money!\"\n\n\"Any one who knew how to please Aunt Julia has a right to her money,\"\nMiss Bart rejoined philosophically.\n\n\"But she was devoted to you--she led every one to think--\" Gerty checked\nherself in evident embarrassment, and Miss Bart turned to her with a\ndirect look. \"Gerty, be honest: this will was made only six weeks ago.\nShe had heard of my break with the Dorsets?\"\n\n\"Every one heard, of course, that there had been some disagreement--some\nmisunderstanding----\"\n\n\"Did she hear that Bertha turned me off the yacht?\"\n\n\"Lily!\"\n\n\"That was what happened, you know. She said I was trying to marry George\nDorset. She did it to make him think she was jealous. Isn\'t that what\nshe told Gwen Stepney?\"\n\n\"I don\'t know--I don\'t listen to such horrors.\"\n\n\"I MUST listen to them--I must know where I stand.\" She paused, and again\nsounded a faint note of derision. \"Did you notice the women? They were\nafraid to snub me while they thought I was going to get the\nmoney--afterward they scuttled off as if I had the plague.\" Gerty\nremained silent, and she continued: \"I stayed on to see what would\nhappen. They took their cue from Gwen Stepney and Lulu Melson--I saw them\nwatching to see what Gwen would do.--Gerty, I must know just what is\nbeing said of me.\"\n\n\"I tell you I don\'t listen----\"\n\n\"One hears such things without listening.\" She rose and laid her resolute\nhands on Miss Farish\'s shoulders. \"Gerty, are people going to cut me?\"\n\n\"Your FRIENDS, Lily--how can you think it?\"\n\n\"Who are one\'s friends at such a time? Who, but you, you poor trustful\ndarling? And heaven knows what YOU suspect me of!\" She kissed Gerty with\na whimsical murmur. \"You\'d never let it make any difference--but then\nyou\'re fond of criminals, Gerty! How about the irreclaimable ones,\nthough? For I\'m absolutely impenitent, you know.\"\n\nShe drew herself up to the full height of her slender majesty, towering\nlike some dark angel of defiance above the troubled Gerty, who could only\nfalter out: \"Lily, Lily--how can you laugh about such things?\"\n\n\"So as not to weep, perhaps. But no--I\'m not of the tearful order. I\ndiscovered early that crying makes my nose red, and the knowledge has\nhelped me through several painful episodes.\" She took a restless turn\nabout the room, and then, reseating herself, lifted the bright mockery of\nher eyes to Gerty\'s anxious countenance.\n\n\"I shouldn\'t have minded, you know, if I\'d got the money--\" and at Miss\nFarish\'s protesting \"Oh!\" she repeated calmly: \"Not a straw, my dear;\nfor, in the first place, they wouldn\'t have quite dared to ignore me; and\nif they had, it wouldn\'t have mattered, because I should have been\nindependent of them. But now--!\" The irony faded from her eyes, and she\nbent a clouded face upon her friend.\n\n\"How can you talk so, Lily? Of course the money ought to have been yours,\nbut after all that makes no difference. The important thing----\" Gerty\npaused, and then continued firmly: \"The important thing is that you\nshould clear yourself--should tell your friends the whole truth.\"\n\n\"The whole truth?\" Miss Bart laughed. \"What is truth? Where a woman is\nconcerned, it\'s the story that\'s easiest to believe. In this case it\'s a\ngreat deal easier to believe Bertha Dorset\'s story than mine, because she\nhas a big house and an opera box, and it\'s convenient to be on good terms\nwith her.\"\n\nMiss Farish still fixed her with an anxious gaze. \"But what IS your\nstory, Lily? I don\'t believe any one knows it yet.\"\n\n\"My story?--I don\'t believe I know it myself. You see I never thought of\npreparing a version in advance as Bertha did--and if I had, I don\'t think\nI should take the trouble to use it now.\"\n\nBut Gerty continued with her quiet reasonableness: \"I don\'t want a\nversion prepared in advance--but I want you to tell me exactly what\nhappened from the beginning.\"\n\n\"From the beginning?\" Miss Bart gently mimicked her. \"Dear Gerty, how\nlittle imagination you good people have! Why, the beginning was in my\ncradle, I suppose--in the way I was brought up, and the things I was\ntaught to care for. Or no--I won\'t blame anybody for my faults: I\'ll say\nit was in my blood, that I got it from some wicked pleasure-loving\nancestress, who reacted against the homely virtues of New Amsterdam, and\nwanted to be back at the court of the Charleses!\" And as Miss Farish\ncontinued to press her with troubled eyes, she went on impatiently: \"You\nasked me just now for the truth--well, the truth about any girl is that\nonce she\'s talked about she\'s done for; and the more she explains her\ncase the worse it looks.--My good Gerty, you don\'t happen to have a\ncigarette about you?\"\n\n\n\nIn her stuffy room at the hotel to which she had gone on landing, Lily\nBart that evening reviewed her situation. It was the last week in June,\nand none of her friends were in town. The few relatives who had stayed\non, or returned, for the reading of Mrs. Peniston\'s will, had taken\nflight again that afternoon to Newport or Long Island; and not one of\nthem had made any proffer of hospitality to Lily. For the first time in\nher life she found herself utterly alone except for Gerty Farish. Even at\nthe actual moment of her break with the Dorsets she had not had so keen a\nsense of its consequences, for the Duchess of Beltshire, hearing of the\ncatastrophe from Lord Hubert, had instantly offered her protection, and\nunder her sheltering wing Lily had made an almost triumphant progress to\nLondon. There she had been sorely tempted to linger on in a society which\nasked of her only to amuse and charm it, without enquiring too curiously\nhow she had acquired her gift for doing so; but Selden, before they\nparted, had pressed on her the urgent need of returning at once to her\naunt, and Lord Hubert, when he presently reappeared in London, abounded\nin the same counsel. Lily did not need to be told that the Duchess\'s\nchampionship was not the best road to social rehabilitation, and as she\nwas besides aware that her noble defender might at any moment drop her in\nfavour of a new PROTEGEE, she reluctantly decided to return to America.\nBut she had not been ten minutes on her native shore before she realized\nthat she had delayed too long to regain it. The Dorsets, the Stepneys,\nthe Brys--all the actors and witnesses in the miserable drama--had\npreceded her with their version of the case; and, even had she seen the\nleast chance of gaining a hearing for her own, some obscure disdain and\nreluctance would have restrained her. She knew it was not by\nexplanations and counter-charges that she could ever hope to recover her\nlost standing; but even had she felt the least trust in their efficacy,\nshe would still have been held back by the feeling which had kept her\nfrom defending herself to Gerty Farish--a feeling that was half pride and\nhalf humiliation. For though she knew she had been ruthlessly sacrificed\nto Bertha Dorset\'s determination to win back her husband, and though her\nown relation to Dorset had been that of the merest good-fellowship, yet\nshe had been perfectly aware from the outset that her part in the affair\nwas, as Carry Fisher brutally put it, to distract Dorset\'s attention from\nhis wife. That was what she was \"there for\": it was the price she had\nchosen to pay for three months of luxury and freedom from care. Her\nhabit of resolutely facing the facts, in her rare moments of\nintrospection, did not now allow her to put any false gloss on the\nsituation. She had suffered for the very faithfulness with which she had\ncarried out her part of the tacit compact, but the part was not a\nhandsome one at best, and she saw it now in all the ugliness of failure.\n\nShe saw, too, in the same uncompromising light, the train of consequences\nresulting from that failure; and these became clearer to her with every\nday of her weary lingering in town. She stayed on partly for the comfort\nof Gerty Farish\'s nearness, and partly for lack of knowing where to go.\nShe understood well enough the nature of the task before her. She must\nset out to regain, little by little, the position she had lost; and the\nfirst step in the tedious task was to find out, as soon as possible, on\nhow many of her friends she could count. Her hopes were mainly centred on\nMrs. Trenor, who had treasures of easy-going tolerance for those who were\namusing or useful to her, and in the noisy rush of whose existence the\nstill small voice of detraction was slow to make itself heard. But Judy,\nthough she must have been apprised of Miss Bart\'s return, had not even\nrecognized it by the formal note of condolence which her friend\'s\nbereavement demanded. Any advance on Lily\'s side might have been\nperilous: there was nothing to do but to trust to the happy chance of an\naccidental meeting, and Lily knew that, even so late in the season, there\nwas always a hope of running across her friends in their frequent\npassages through town.\n\nTo this end she assiduously showed herself at the restaurants they\nfrequented, where, attended by the troubled Gerty, she lunched\nluxuriously, as she said, on her expectations.\n\n\"My dear Gerty, you wouldn\'t have me let the head-waiter see that I\'ve\nnothing to live on but Aunt Julia\'s legacy? Think of Grace Stepney\'s\nsatisfaction if she came in and found us lunching on cold mutton and tea!\nWhat sweet shall we have today, dear--COUPE JACQUES or PECHES A LA MELBA?\"\n\nShe dropped the MENU abruptly, with a quick heightening of colour, and\nGerty, following her glance, was aware of the advance, from an inner\nroom, of a party headed by Mrs. Trenor and Carry Fisher. It was\nimpossible for these ladies and their companions--among whom Lily had at\nonce distinguished both Trenor and Rosedale--not to pass, in going out,\nthe table at which the two girls were seated; and Gerty\'s sense of the\nfact betrayed itself in the helpless trepidation of her manner. Miss\nBart, on the contrary, borne forward on the wave of her buoyant grace,\nand neither shrinking from her friends nor appearing to lie in wait for\nthem, gave to the encounter the touch of naturalness which she could\nimpart to the most strained situations. Such embarrassment as was shown\nwas on Mrs. Trenor\'s side, and manifested itself in the mingling of\nexaggerated warmth with imperceptible reservations. Her loudly affirmed\npleasure at seeing Miss Bart took the form of a nebulous generalization,\nwhich included neither enquiries as to her future nor the expression of a\ndefinite wish to see her again. Lily, well-versed in the language of\nthese omissions, knew that they were equally intelligible to the other\nmembers of the party: even Rosedale, flushed as he was with the\nimportance of keeping such company, at once took the temperature of Mrs.\nTrenor\'s cordiality, and reflected it in his off-hand greeting of Miss\nBart. Trenor, red and uncomfortable, had cut short his salutations on the\npretext of a word to say to the head-waiter; and the rest of the group\nsoon melted away in Mrs. Trenor\'s wake.\n\nIt was over in a moment--the waiter, MENU in hand, still hung on the\nresult of the choice between COUPE JACQUES and PECHES A LA MELBA--but\nMiss Bart, in the interval, had taken the measure of her fate. Where Judy\nTrenor led, all the world would follow; and Lily had the doomed sense of\nthe castaway who has signalled in vain to fleeing sails.\n\nIn a flash she remembered Mrs. Trenor\'s complaints of Carry Fisher\'s\nrapacity, and saw that they denoted an unexpected acquaintance with her\nhusband\'s private affairs. In the large tumultuous disorder of the life\nat Bellomont, where no one seemed to have time to observe any one else,\nand private aims and personal interests were swept along unheeded in the\nrush of collective activities, Lily had fancied herself sheltered from\ninconvenient scrutiny; but if Judy knew when Mrs. Fisher borrowed money\nof her husband, was she likely to ignore the same transaction on Lily\'s\npart? If she was careless of his affections she was plainly jealous of\nhis pocket; and in that fact Lily read the explanation of her rebuff. The\nimmediate result of these conclusions was the passionate resolve to pay\nback her debt to Trenor. That obligation discharged, she would have but a\nthousand dollars of Mrs. Peniston\'s legacy left, and nothing to live on\nbut her own small income, which was considerably less than Gerty Farish\'s\nwretched pittance; but this consideration gave way to the imperative\nclaim of her wounded pride. She must be quits with the Trenors first;\nafter that she would take thought for the future.\n\nIn her ignorance of legal procrastinations she had supposed that her\nlegacy would be paid over within a few days of the reading of her aunt\'s\nwill; and after an interval of anxious suspense, she wrote to enquire the\ncause of the delay. There was another interval before Mrs. Peniston\'s\nlawyer, who was also one of the executors, replied to the effect that,\nsome questions having arisen relative to the interpretation of the will,\nhe and his associates might not be in a position to pay the legacies till\nthe close of the twelvemonth legally allotted for their settlement.\nBewildered and indignant, Lily resolved to try the effect of a personal\nappeal; but she returned from her expedition with a sense of the\npowerlessness of beauty and charm against the unfeeling processes of the\nlaw. It seemed intolerable to live on for another year under the weight\nof her debt; and in her extremity she decided to turn to Miss Stepney,\nwho still lingered in town, immersed in the delectable duty of \"going\nover\" her benefactress\'s effects. It was bitter enough for Lily to ask a\nfavour of Grace Stepney, but the alternative was bitterer still; and one\nmorning she presented herself at Mrs. Peniston\'s, where Grace, for the\nfacilitation of her pious task, had taken up a provisional abode.\n\nThe strangeness of entering as a suppliant the house where she had so\nlong commanded, increased Lily\'s desire to shorten the ordeal; and when\nMiss Stepney entered the darkened drawing-room, rustling with the best\nquality of crape, her visitor went straight to the point: would she be\nwilling to advance the amount of the expected legacy?\n\nGrace, in reply, wept and wondered at the request, bemoaned the\ninexorableness of the law, and was astonished that Lily had not realized\nthe exact similarity of their positions. Did she think that only the\npayment of the legacies had been delayed? Why, Miss Stepney herself had\nnot received a penny of her inheritance, and was paying rent--yes,\nactually!--for the privilege of living in a house that belonged to her.\nShe was sure it was not what poor dear cousin Julia would have\nwished--she had told the executors so to their faces; but they were\ninaccessible to reason, and there was nothing to do but to wait. Let Lily\ntake example by her, and be patient--let them both remember how\nbeautifully patient cousin Julia had always been.\n\nLily made a movement which showed her imperfect assimilation of this\nexample. \"But you will have everything, Grace--it would be easy for you\nto borrow ten times the amount I am asking for.\"\n\n\"Borrow--easy for me to borrow?\" Grace Stepney rose up before her in\nsable wrath. \"Do you imagine for a moment that I would raise money on my\nexpectations from cousin Julia, when I know so well her unspeakable\nhorror of every transaction of the sort? Why, Lily, if you must know the\ntruth, it was the idea of your being in debt that brought on her\nillness--you remember she had a slight attack before you sailed. Oh, I\ndon\'t know the particulars, of course--I don\'t WANT to know them--but\nthere were rumours about your affairs that made her most unhappy--no one\ncould be with her without seeing that. I can\'t help it if you are\noffended by my telling you this now--if I can do anything to make you\nrealize the folly of your course, and how deeply SHE disapproved of it, I\nshall feel it is the truest way of making up to you for her loss.\"\n\n\n\nChapter 5\n\nIt seemed to Lily, as Mrs. Peniston\'s door closed on her, that she was\ntaking a final leave of her old life. The future stretched before her\ndull and bare as the deserted length of Fifth Avenue, and opportunities\nshowed as meagrely as the few cabs trailing in quest of fares that did\nnot come. The completeness of the analogy was, however, disturbed as she\nreached the sidewalk by the rapid approach of a hansom which pulled up at\nsight of her.\n\nFrom beneath its luggage-laden top, she caught the wave of a signalling\nhand; and the next moment Mrs. Fisher, springing to the street, had\nfolded her in a demonstrative embrace.\n\n\"My dear, you don\'t mean to say you\'re still in town? When I saw you the\nother day at Sherry\'s I didn\'t have time to ask----\" She broke off, and\nadded with a burst of frankness: \"The truth is I was HORRID, Lily, and\nI\'ve wanted to tell you so ever since.\"\n\n\"Oh----\" Miss Bart protested, drawing back from her penitent clasp; but\nMrs. Fisher went on with her usual directness: \"Look here, Lily, don\'t\nlet\'s beat about the bush: half the trouble in life is caused by\npretending there isn\'t any. That\'s not my way, and I can only say I\'m\nthoroughly ashamed of myself for following the other women\'s lead. But\nwe\'ll talk of that by and bye--tell me now where you\'re staying and what\nyour plans are. I don\'t suppose you\'re keeping house in there with Grace\nStepney, eh?--and it struck me you might be rather at loose ends.\"\n\nIn Lily\'s present mood there was no resisting the honest friendliness of\nthis appeal, and she said with a smile: \"I am at loose ends for the\nmoment, but Gerty Farish is still in town, and she\'s good enough to let\nme be with her whenever she can spare the time.\"\n\nMrs. Fisher made a slight grimace. \"H\'m--that\'s a temperate joy. Oh, I\nknow--Gerty\'s a trump, and worth all the rest of us put together; but A\nLA LONGUE you\'re used to a little higher seasoning, aren\'t you, dear?\nAnd besides, I suppose she\'ll be off herself before long--the first of\nAugust, you say? Well, look here, you can\'t spend your summer in town;\nwe\'ll talk of that later too. But meanwhile, what do you say to putting a\nfew things in a trunk and coming down with me to the Sam Gormers\'\ntonight?\"\n\nAnd as Lily stared at the breathless suddenness of the suggestion, she\ncontinued with her easy laugh: \"You don\'t know them and they don\'t know\nyou; but that don\'t make a rap of difference. They\'ve taken the Van\nAlstyne place at Roslyn, and I\'ve got CARTE BLANCHE to bring my friends\ndown there--the more the merrier. They do things awfully well, and\nthere\'s to be rather a jolly party there this week----\" she broke off,\nchecked by an undefinable change in Miss Bart\'s expression. \"Oh, I don\'t\nmean YOUR particular set, you know: rather a different crowd, but very\ngood fun. The fact is, the Gormers have struck out on a line of their\nown: what they want is to have a good time, and to have it in their own\nway. They gave the other thing a few months\' trial, under my\ndistinguished auspices, and they were really doing extremely\nwell--getting on a good deal faster than the Brys, just because they\ndidn\'t care as much--but suddenly they decided that the whole business\nbored them, and that what they wanted was a crowd they could really feel\nat home with. Rather original of them, don\'t you think so? Mattie Gormer\nHAS got aspirations still; women always have; but she\'s awfully\neasy-going, and Sam won\'t be bothered, and they both like to be the most\nimportant people in sight, so they\'ve started a sort of continuous\nperformance of their own, a kind of social Coney Island, where everybody\nis welcome who can make noise enough and doesn\'t put on airs. I think\nit\'s awfully good fun myself--some of the artistic set, you know, any\npretty actress that\'s going, and so on. This week, for instance, they\nhave Audrey Anstell, who made such a hit last spring in \'The Winning of\nWinny\'; and Paul Morpeth--he\'s painting Mattie Gormer--and the Dick\nBellingers, and Kate Corby--well, every one you can think of who\'s jolly\nand makes a row. Now don\'t stand there with your nose in the air, my\ndear--it will be a good deal better than a broiling Sunday in town, and\nyou\'ll find clever people as well as noisy ones--Morpeth, who admires\nMattie enormously, always brings one or two of his set.\"\n\nMrs. Fisher drew Lily toward the hansom with friendly authority. \"Jump\nin now, there\'s a dear, and we\'ll drive round to your hotel and have your\nthings packed, and then we\'ll have tea, and the two maids can meet us at\nthe train.\"\n\n\n\nIt was a good deal better than a broiling Sunday in town--of that no\ndoubt remained to Lily as, reclining in the shade of a leafy verandah,\nshe looked seaward across a stretch of greensward picturesquely dotted\nwith groups of ladies in lace raiment and men in tennis flannels. The\nhuge Van Alstyne house and its rambling dependencies were packed to their\nfullest capacity with the Gormers\' week-end guests, who now, in the\nradiance of the Sunday forenoon, were dispersing themselves over the\ngrounds in quest of the various distractions the place afforded:\ndistractions ranging from tennis-courts to shooting-galleries, from\nbridge and whiskey within doors to motors and steam-launches without.\nLily had the odd sense of having been caught up into the crowd as\ncarelessly as a passenger is gathered in by an express train. The blonde\nand genial Mrs. Gormer might, indeed, have figured the conductor, calmly\nassigning seats to the rush of travellers, while Carry Fisher represented\nthe porter pushing their bags into place, giving them their numbers for\nthe dining-car, and warning them when their station was at hand. The\ntrain, meanwhile, had scarcely slackened speed--life whizzed on with a\ndeafening\' rattle and roar, in which one traveller at least found a\nwelcome refuge from the sound of her own thoughts. The Gormer MILIEU\nrepresented a social out-skirt which Lily had always fastidiously\navoided; but it struck her, now that she was in it, as only a flamboyant\ncopy of her own world, a caricature approximating the real thing as the\n\"society play\" approaches the manners of the drawing-room. The people\nabout her were doing the same things as the Trenors, the Van Osburghs and\nthe Dorsets: the difference lay in a hundred shades of aspect and manner,\nfrom the pattern of the men\'s waistcoats to the inflexion of the women\'s\nvoices. Everything was pitched in a higher key, and there was more of\neach thing: more noise, more colour, more champagne, more\nfamiliarity--but also greater good-nature, less rivalry, and a fresher\ncapacity for enjoyment.\n\nMiss Bart\'s arrival had been welcomed with an uncritical friendliness\nthat first irritated her pride and then brought her to a sharp sense of\nher own situation--of the place in life which, for the moment, she must\naccept and make the best of. These people knew her story--of that her\nfirst long talk with Carry Fisher had left no doubt: she was publicly\nbranded as the heroine of a \"queer\" episode--but instead of shrinking\nfrom her as her own friends had done, they received her without question\ninto the easy promiscuity of their lives. They swallowed her past as\neasily as they did Miss Anstell\'s, and with no apparent sense of any\ndifference in the size of the mouthful: all they asked was that she\nshould--in her own way, for they recognized a diversity of\ngifts--contribute as much to the general amusement as that graceful\nactress, whose talents, when off the stage, were of the most varied\norder. Lily felt at once that any tendency to be \"stuck-up,\" to mark a\nsense of differences and distinctions, would be fatal to her continuance\nin the Gormer set. To be taken in on such terms--and into such a\nworld!--was hard enough to the lingering pride in her; but she realized,\nwith a pang of self-contempt, that to be excluded from it would, after\nall, be harder still. For, almost at once, she had felt the insidious\ncharm of slipping back into a life where every material difficulty was\nsmoothed away. The sudden escape from a stifling hotel in a dusty\ndeserted city to the space and luxury of a great country-house fanned by\nsea breezes, had produced a state of moral lassitude agreeable enough\nafter the nervous tension and physical discomfort of the past weeks. For\nthe moment she must yield to the refreshment her senses craved--after\nthat she would reconsider her situation, and take counsel with her\ndignity. Her enjoyment of her surroundings was, indeed, tinged by the\nunpleasant consideration that she was accepting the hospitality and\ncourting the approval of people she had disdained under other conditions.\nBut she was growing less sensitive on such points: a hard glaze of\nindifference was fast forming over her delicacies and susceptibilities,\nand each concession to expediency hardened the surface a little more.\n\nOn the Monday, when the party disbanded with uproarious adieux, the\nreturn to town threw into stronger relief the charms of the life she was\nleaving. The other guests were dispersing to take up the same existence\nin a different setting: some at Newport, some at Bar Harbour, some in the\nelaborate rusticity of an Adirondack camp. Even Gerty Farish, who\nwelcomed Lily\'s return with tender solicitude, would soon be preparing to\njoin the aunt with whom she spent her summers on Lake George: only Lily\nherself remained without plan or purpose, stranded in a backwater of the\ngreat current of pleasure. But Carry Fisher, who had insisted on\ntransporting her to her own house, where she herself was to perch for a\nday or two on the way to the Brys\' camp, came to the rescue with a new\nsuggestion.\n\n\"Look here, Lily--I\'ll tell you what it is: I want you to take my place\nwith Mattie Gormer this summer. They\'re taking a party out to Alaska next\nmonth in their private car, and Mattie, who is the laziest woman alive,\nwants me to go with them, and relieve her of the bother of arranging\nthings; but the Brys want me too--oh, yes, we\'ve made it up: didn\'t I\ntell you?--and, to put it frankly, though I like the Gormers best,\nthere\'s more profit for me in the Brys. The fact is, they want to try\nNewport this summer, and if I can make it a success for them they--well,\nthey\'ll make it a success for me.\" Mrs. Fisher clasped her hands\nenthusiastically. \"Do you know, Lily, the more I think of my idea the\nbetter I like it--quite as much for you as for myself. The Gormers have\nboth taken a tremendous fancy to you, and the trip to Alaska\nis--well--the very thing I should want for you just at present.\"\n\nMiss Bart lifted her eyes with a keen glance. \"To take me out of my\nfriends\' way, you mean?\" she said quietly; and Mrs. Fisher responded with\na deprecating kiss: \"To keep you out of their sight till they realize how\nmuch they miss you.\"\n\n\n\nMiss Bart went with the Gormers to Alaska; and the expedition, if it did\nnot produce the effect anticipated by her friend, had at least the\nnegative advantage of removing her from the fiery centre of criticism and\ndiscussion. Gerty Farish had opposed the plan with all the energy of her\nsomewhat inarticulate nature. She had even offered to give up her visit\nto Lake George, and remain in town with Miss Bart, if the latter would\nrenounce her journey; but Lily could disguise her real distaste for this\nplan under a sufficiently valid reason.\n\n\"You dear innocent, don\'t you see,\" she protested, \"that Carry is quite\nright, and that I must take up my usual life, and go about among people\nas much as possible? If my old friends choose to believe lies about me I\nshall have to make new ones, that\'s all; and you know beggars mustn\'t be\nchoosers. Not that I don\'t like Mattie Gormer--I DO like her: she\'s kind\nand honest and unaffected; and don\'t you suppose I feel grateful to her\nfor making me welcome at a time when, as you\'ve yourself seen, my own\nfamily have unanimously washed their hands of me?\"\n\nGerty shook her head, mutely unconvinced. She felt not only that Lily was\ncheapening herself by making use of an intimacy she would never have\ncultivated from choice, but that, in drifting back now to her former\nmanner of life, she was forfeiting her last chance of ever escaping from\nit. Gerty had but an obscure conception of what Lily\'s actual experience\nhad been: but its consequences had established a lasting hold on her pity\nsince the memorable night when she had offered up her own secret hope to\nher friend\'s extremity. To characters like Gerty\'s such a sacrifice\nconstitutes a moral claim on the part of the person in whose behalf it\nhas been made. Having once helped Lily, she must continue to help her;\nand helping her, must believe in her, because faith is the main-spring of\nsuch natures. But even if Miss Bart, after her renewed taste of the\namenities of life, could have returned to the barrenness of a New York\nAugust, mitigated only by poor Gerty\'s presence, her worldly wisdom would\nhave counselled her against such an act of abnegation. She knew that\nCarry Fisher was right: that an opportune absence might be the first step\ntoward rehabilitation, and that, at any rate, to linger on in town out of\nseason was a fatal admission of defeat. From the Gormers\' tumultuous\nprogress across their native continent, she returned with an altered view\nof her situation. The renewed habit of luxury--the daily waking to an\nassured absence of care and presence of material ease--gradually blunted\nher appreciation of these values, and left her more conscious of the void\nthey could not fill. Mattie Gormer\'s undiscriminating good-nature, and\nthe slap-dash sociability of her friends, who treated Lily precisely as\nthey treated each other--all these characteristic notes of difference\nbegan to wear upon her endurance; and the more she saw to criticize in\nher companions, the less justification she found for making use of them.\nThe longing to get back to her former surroundings hardened to a fixed\nidea; but with the strengthening of her purpose came the inevitable\nperception that, to attain it, she must exact fresh concessions from her\npride. These, for the moment, took the unpleasant form of continuing to\ncling to her hosts after their return from Alaska. Little as she was in\nthe key of their MILIEU, her immense social facility, her long habit of\nadapting herself to others without suffering her own outline to be\nblurred, the skilled manipulation of all the polished implements of her\ncraft, had won for her an important place in the Gormer group. If their\nresonant hilarity could never be hers, she contributed a note of easy\nelegance more valuable to Mattie Gormer than the louder passages of the\nband. Sam Gormer and his special cronies stood indeed a little in awe of\nher; but Mattie\'s following, headed by Paul Morpeth, made her feel that\nthey prized her for the very qualities they most conspicuously lacked. If\nMorpeth, whose social indolence was as great as his artistic activity,\nhad abandoned himself to the easy current of the Gormer existence, where\nthe minor exactions of politeness were unknown or ignored, and a man\ncould either break his engagements, or keep them in a painting-jacket and\nslippers, he still preserved his sense of differences, and his\nappreciation of graces he had no time to cultivate. During the\npreparations for the Brys\' TABLEAUX he had been immensely struck by\nLily\'s plastic possibilities--\"not the face: too self-controlled for\nexpression; but the rest of her--gad, what a model she\'d make!\"--and\nthough his abhorrence of the world in which he had seen her was too great\nfor him to think of seeking her there, he was fully alive to the\nprivilege of having her to look at and listen to while he lounged in\nMattie Gormer\'s dishevelled drawing-room.\n\nLily had thus formed, in the tumult of her surroundings, a little nucleus\nof friendly relations which mitigated the crudeness of her course in\nlingering with the Gormers after their return. Nor was she without pale\nglimpses of her own world, especially since the breaking-up of the\nNewport season had set the social current once more toward Long Island.\nKate Corby, whose tastes made her as promiscuous as Carry Fisher was\nrendered by her necessities, occasionally descended on the Gormers,\nwhere, after a first stare of surprise, she took Lily\'s presence almost\ntoo much as a matter of course. Mrs. Fisher, too, appearing frequently in\nthe neighbourhood, drove over to impart her experiences and give Lily\nwhat she called the latest report from the weather-bureau; and the\nlatter, who had never directly invited her confidence, could yet talk\nwith her more freely than with Gerty Farish, in whose presence it was\nimpossible even to admit the existence of much that Mrs. Fisher\nconveniently took for granted.\n\nMrs. Fisher, moreover, had no embarrassing curiosity. She did not wish to\nprobe the inwardness of Lily\'s situation, but simply to view it from the\noutside, and draw her conclusions accordingly; and these conclusions, at\nthe end of a confidential talk, she summed up to her friend in the\nsuccinct remark: \"You must marry as soon as you can.\"\n\nLily uttered a faint laugh--for once Mrs. Fisher lacked originality. \"Do\nyou mean, like Gerty Farish, to recommend the unfailing panacea of \'a\ngood man\'s love\'?\"\n\n\"No--I don\'t think either of my candidates would answer to that\ndescription,\" said Mrs. Fisher after a pause of reflection.\n\n\"Either? Are there actually two?\"\n\n\"Well, perhaps I ought to say one and a half--for the moment.\"\n\nMiss Bart received this with increasing amusement. \"Other things being\nequal, I think I should prefer a half-husband: who is he?\"\n\n\"Don\'t fly out at me till you hear my reasons--George Dorset.\"\n\n\"Oh----\" Lily murmured reproachfully; but Mrs. Fisher pressed on\nunrebuffed. \"Well, why not? They had a few weeks\' honeymoon when they\nfirst got back from Europe, but now things are going badly with them\nagain. Bertha has been behaving more than ever like a madwoman, and\nGeorge\'s powers of credulity are very nearly exhausted. They\'re at their\nplace here, you know, and I spent last Sunday with them. It was a ghastly\nparty--no one else but poor Neddy Silverton, who looks like a\ngalley-slave (they used to talk of my making that poor boy unhappy!)--and\nafter luncheon George carried me off on a long walk, and told me the end\nwould have to come soon.\"\n\nMiss Bart made an incredulous gesture. \"As far as that goes, the end will\nnever come--Bertha will always know how to get him back when she wants\nhim.\"\n\nMrs. Fisher continued to observe her tentatively. \"Not if he has any one\nelse to turn to! Yes--that\'s just what it comes to: the poor creature\ncan\'t stand alone. And I remember him such a good fellow, full of life\nand enthusiasm.\" She paused, and went on, dropping her glance from\nLily\'s: \"He wouldn\'t stay with her ten minutes if he KNEW----\"\n\n\"Knew----?\" Miss Bart repeated.\n\n\"What YOU must, for instance--with the opportunities you\'ve had! If he\nhad positive proof, I mean----\"\n\nLily interrupted her with a deep blush of displeasure. \"Please let us\ndrop the subject, Carry: it\'s too odious to me.\" And to divert her\ncompanion\'s attention she added, with an attempt at lightness: \"And your\nsecond candidate? We must not forget him.\"\n\nMrs. Fisher echoed her laugh. \"I wonder if you\'ll cry out just as loud if\nI say--Sim Rosedale?\"\n\nMiss Bart did not cry out: she sat silent, gazing thoughtfully at her\nfriend. The suggestion, in truth, gave expression to a possibility which,\nin the last weeks, had more than once recurred to her; but after a moment\nshe said carelessly: \"Mr. Rosedale wants a wife who can establish him in\nthe bosom of the Van Osburghs and Trenors.\"\n\nMrs. Fisher caught her up eagerly. \"And so YOU could--with his money!\nDon\'t you see how beautifully it would work out for you both?\"\n\n\"I don\'t see any way of making him see it,\" Lily returned, with a laugh\nintended to dismiss the subject.\n\nBut in reality it lingered with her long after Mrs. Fisher had taken\nleave. She had seen very little of Rosedale since her annexation by the\nGormers, for he was still steadily bent on penetrating to the inner\nParadise from which she was now excluded; but once or twice, when nothing\nbetter offered, he had turned up for a Sunday, and on these occasions he\nhad left her in no doubt as to his view of her situation. That he still\nadmired her was, more than ever, offensively evident; for in the Gormer\ncircle, where he expanded as in his native element, there were no\npuzzling conventions to check the full expression of his approval. But it\nwas in the quality of his admiration that she read his shrewd estimate of\nher case. He enjoyed letting the Gormers see that he had known \"Miss\nLily\"--she was \"Miss Lily\" to him now--before they had had the faintest\nsocial existence: enjoyed more especially impressing Paul Morpeth with\nthe distance to which their intimacy dated back. But he let it be felt\nthat that intimacy was a mere ripple on the surface of a rushing social\ncurrent, the kind of relaxation which a man of large interests and\nmanifold preoccupations permits himself in his hours of ease.\n\nThe necessity of accepting this view of their past relation, and of\nmeeting it in the key of pleasantry prevalent among her new friends, was\ndeeply humiliating to Lily. But she dared less than ever to quarrel with\nRosedale. She suspected that her rejection rankled among the most\nunforgettable of his rebuffs, and the fact that he knew something of her\nwretched transaction with Trenor, and was sure to put the basest\nconstruction on it, seemed to place her hopelessly in his power. Yet at\nCarry Fisher\'s suggestion a new hope had stirred in her. Much as she\ndisliked Rosedale, she no longer absolutely despised him. For he was\ngradually attaining his object in life, and that, to Lily, was always\nless despicable than to miss it. With the slow unalterable persistency\nwhich she had always felt in him, he was making his way through the dense\nmass of social antagonisms. Already his wealth, and the masterly use he\nhad made of it, were giving him an enviable prominence in the world of\naffairs, and placing Wall Street under obligations which only Fifth\nAvenue could repay. In response to these claims, his name began to figure\non municipal committees and charitable boards; he appeared at banquets to\ndistinguished strangers, and his candidacy at one of the fashionable\nclubs was discussed with diminishing opposition. He had figured once or\ntwice at the Trenor dinners, and had learned to speak with just the right\nnote of disdain of the big Van Osburgh crushes; and all he now needed was\na wife whose affiliations would shorten the last tedious steps of his\nascent. It was with that object that, a year earlier, he had fixed his\naffections on Miss Bart; but in the interval he had mounted nearer to the\ngoal, while she had lost the power to abbreviate the remaining steps of\nthe way. All this she saw with the clearness of vision that came to her\nin moments of despondency. It was success that dazzled her--she could\ndistinguish facts plainly enough in the twilight of failure. And the\ntwilight, as she now sought to pierce it, was gradually lighted by a\nfaint spark of reassurance. Under the utilitarian motive of Rosedale\'s\nwooing she had felt, clearly enough, the heat of personal inclination.\nShe would not have detested him so heartily had she not known that he\ndared to admire her. What, then, if the passion persisted, though the\nother motive had ceased to sustain it? She had never even tried to please\nhim--he had been drawn to her in spite of her manifest disdain. What if\nshe now chose to exert the power which, even in its passive state, he had\nfelt so strongly? What if she made him marry her for love, now that he\nhad no other reason for marrying her?\n\n\n\nChapter 6\n\nAs became persons of their rising consequence, the Gormers were engaged\nin building a country-house on Long Island; and it was a part of Miss\nBart\'s duty to attend her hostess on frequent visits of inspection to the\nnew estate. There, while Mrs. Gormer plunged into problems of lighting\nand sanitation, Lily had leisure to wander, in the bright autumn air,\nalong the tree-fringed bay to which the land declined. Little as she was\naddicted to solitude, there had come to be moments when it seemed a\nwelcome escape from the empty noises of her life. She was weary of being\nswept passively along a current of pleasure and business in which she had\nno share; weary of seeing other people pursue amusement and squander\nmoney, while she felt herself of no more account among them than an\nexpensive toy in the hands of a spoiled child.\n\nIt was in this frame of mind that, striking back from the shore one\nmorning into the windings of an unfamiliar lane, she came suddenly upon\nthe figure of George Dorset. The Dorset place was in the immediate\nneighbourhood of the Gormers\' newly-acquired estate, and in her\nmotor-flights thither with Mrs. Gormer, Lily had caught one or two\npassing glimpses of the couple; but they moved in so different an orbit\nthat she had not considered the possibility of a direct encounter.\n\nDorset, swinging along with bent head, in moody abstraction, did not see\nMiss Bart till he was close upon her; but the sight, instead of bringing\nhim to a halt, as she had half-expected, sent him toward her with an\neagerness which found expression in his opening words.\n\n\"Miss Bart!--You\'ll shake hands, won\'t you? I\'ve been hoping to meet\nyou--I should have written to you if I\'d dared.\" His face, with its\ntossed red hair and straggling moustache, had a driven uneasy look, as\nthough life had become an unceasing race between himself and the thoughts\nat his heels.\n\nThe look drew a word of compassionate greeting from Lily, and he pressed\non, as if encouraged by her tone: \"I wanted to apologize--to ask you to\nforgive me for the miserable part I played----\"\n\nShe checked him with a quick gesture. \"Don\'t let us speak of it: I was\nvery sorry for you,\" she said, with a tinge of disdain which, as she\ninstantly perceived, was not lost on him.\n\nHe flushed to his haggard eyes, flushed so cruelly that she repented the\nthrust. \"You might well be; you don\'t know--you must let me explain. I\nwas deceived: abominably deceived----\"\n\n\"I am still more sorry for you, then,\" she interposed, without irony;\n\"but you must see that I am not exactly the person with whom the subject\ncan be discussed.\"\n\nHe met this with a look of genuine wonder. \"Why not? Isn\'t it to you, of\nall people, that I owe an explanation----\"\n\n\"No explanation is necessary: the situation was perfectly clear to me.\"\n\n\"Ah----\" he murmured, his head drooping again, and his irresolute hand\nswitching at the underbrush along the lane. But as Lily made a movement\nto pass on, he broke out with fresh vehemence: \"Miss Bart, for God\'s sake\ndon\'t turn from me! We used to be good friends--you were always kind to\nme--and you don\'t know how I need a friend now.\"\n\nThe lamentable weakness of the words roused a motion of pity in Lily\'s\nbreast. She too needed friends--she had tasted the pang of loneliness;\nand her resentment of Bertha Dorset\'s cruelty softened her heart to the\npoor wretch who was after all the chief of Bertha\'s victims.\n\n\"I still wish to be kind; I feel no ill-will toward you,\" she said. \"But\nyou must understand that after what has happened we can\'t be friends\nagain--we can\'t see each other.\"\n\n\"Ah, you ARE kind--you\'re merciful--you always were!\" He fixed his\nmiserable gaze on her. \"But why can\'t we be friends--why not, when I\'ve\nrepented in dust and ashes? Isn\'t it hard that you should condemn me to\nsuffer for the falseness, the treachery of others? I was punished enough\nat the time--is there to be no respite for me?\"\n\n\"I should have thought you had found complete respite in the\nreconciliation which was effected at my expense,\" Lily began, with\nrenewed impatience; but he broke in imploringly: \"Don\'t put it in that\nway--when that\'s been the worst of my punishment. My God! what could I\ndo--wasn\'t I powerless? You were singled out as a sacrifice: any word I\nmight have said would have been turned against you----\"\n\n\"I have told you I don\'t blame you; all I ask you to understand is that,\nafter the use Bertha chose to make of me--after all that her behaviour\nhas since implied--it\'s impossible that you and I should meet.\"\n\nHe continued to stand before her, in his dogged weakness. \"Is it--need it\nbe? Mightn\'t there be circumstances----?\" he checked himself, slashing at\nthe wayside weeds in a wider radius. Then he began again: \"Miss Bart,\nlisten--give me a minute. If we\'re not to meet again, at least let me\nhave a hearing now. You say we can\'t be friends after--after what has\nhappened. But can\'t I at least appeal to your pity? Can\'t I move you if I\nask you to think of me as a prisoner--a prisoner you alone can set free?\"\n\nLily\'s inward start betrayed itself in a quick blush: was it possible\nthat this was really the sense of Carry Fisher\'s adumbrations?\n\n\"I can\'t see how I can possibly be of any help to you,\" she murmured,\ndrawing back a little from the mounting excitement of his look.\n\nHer tone seemed to sober him, as it had so often done in his stormiest\nmoments. The stubborn lines of his face relaxed, and he said, with an\nabrupt drop to docility: \"You WOULD see, if you\'d be as merciful as you\nused to be: and heaven knows I\'ve never needed it more!\"\n\nShe paused a moment, moved in spite of herself by this reminder of her\ninfluence over him. Her fibres had been softened by suffering, and the\nsudden glimpse into his mocked and broken life disarmed her contempt for\nhis weakness.\n\n\"I am very sorry for you--I would help you willingly; but you must have\nother friends, other advisers.\"\n\n\"I never had a friend like you,\" he answered simply. \"And besides--can\'t\nyou see?--you\'re the only person\"--his voice dropped to a whisper--\"the\nonly person who knows.\"\n\nAgain she felt her colour change; again her heart rose in precipitate\nthrobs to meet what she felt was coming. He lifted his eyes to her\nentreatingly. \"You do see, don\'t you? You understand? I\'m desperate--I\'m\nat the end of my tether. I want to be free, and you can free me. I know\nyou can. You don\'t want to keep me bound fast in hell, do you? You can\'t\nwant to take such a vengeance as that. You were always kind--your eyes\nare kind now. You say you\'re sorry for me. Well, it rests with you to\nshow it; and heaven knows there\'s nothing to keep you back. You\nunderstand, of course--there wouldn\'t be a hint of publicity--not a sound\nor a syllable to connect you with the thing. It would never come to that,\nyou know: all I need is to be able to say definitely: \'I know this--and\nthis--and this\'--and the fight would drop, and the way be cleared, and\nthe whole abominable business swept out of sight in a second.\"\n\nHe spoke pantingly, like a tired runner, with breaks of exhaustion\nbetween his words; and through the breaks she caught, as through the\nshifting rents of a fog, great golden vistas of peace and safety. For\nthere was no mistaking the definite intention behind his vague appeal;\nshe could have filled up the blanks without the help of Mrs. Fisher\'s\ninsinuations. Here was a man who turned to her in the extremity of his\nloneliness and his humiliation: if she came to him at such a moment he\nwould be hers with all the force of his deluded faith. And the power to\nmake him so lay in her hand--lay there in a completeness he could not\neven remotely conjecture. Revenge and rehabilitation might be hers at a\nstroke--there was something dazzling in the completeness of the\nopportunity.\n\nShe stood silent, gazing away from him down the autumnal stretch of the\ndeserted lane. And suddenly fear possessed her--fear of herself, and of\nthe terrible force of the temptation. All her past weaknesses were like\nso many eager accomplices drawing her toward the path their feet had\nalready smoothed. She turned quickly, and held out her hand to Dorset.\n\n\"Goodbye--I\'m sorry; there\'s nothing in the world that I can do.\"\n\n\"Nothing? Ah, don\'t say that,\" he cried; \"say what\'s true: that you\nabandon me like the others. You, the only creature who could have saved\nme!\"\n\n\"Goodbye--goodbye,\" she repeated hurriedly; and as she moved away she\nheard him cry out on a last note of entreaty: \"At least you\'ll let me see\nyou once more?\"\n\n\n\nLily, on regaining the Gormer grounds, struck rapidly across the lawn\ntoward the unfinished house, where she fancied that her hostess might be\nspeculating, not too resignedly, on the cause of her delay; for, like\nmany unpunctual persons, Mrs. Gormer disliked to be kept waiting.\n\nAs Miss Bart reached the avenue, however, she saw a smart phaeton with a\nhigh-stepping pair disappear behind the shrubbery in the direction of the\ngate; and on the doorstep stood Mrs. Gormer, with a glow of retrospective\npleasure on her open countenance. At sight of Lily the glow deepened to\nan embarrassed red, and she said with a slight laugh: \"Did you see my\nvisitor? Oh, I thought you came back by the avenue. It was Mrs. George\nDorset--she said she\'d dropped in to make a neighbourly call.\"\n\nLily met the announcement with her usual composure, though her experience\nof Bertha\'s idiosyncrasies would not have led her to include the\nneighbourly instinct among them; and Mrs. Gormer, relieved to see that\nshe gave no sign of surprise, went on with a deprecating laugh: \"Of\ncourse what really brought her was curiosity--she made me take her all\nover the house. But no one could have been nicer--no airs, you know, and\nso good-natured: I can quite see why people think her so fascinating.\"\n\nThis surprising event, coinciding too completely with her meeting with\nDorset to be regarded as contingent upon it, had yet immediately struck\nLily with a vague sense of foreboding. It was not in Bertha\'s habits to\nbe neighbourly, much less to make advances to any one outside the\nimmediate circle of her affinities. She had always consistently ignored\nthe world of outer aspirants, or had recognized its individual members\nonly when prompted by motives of self-interest; and the very\ncapriciousness of her condescensions had, as Lily was aware, given them\nspecial value in the eyes of the persons she distinguished. Lily saw this\nnow in Mrs. Gormer\'s unconcealable complacency, and in the happy\nirrelevance with which, for the next day or two, she quoted Bertha\'s\nopinions and speculated on the origin of her gown. All the secret\nambitions which Mrs. Gormer\'s native indolence, and the attitude of her\ncompanions, kept in habitual abeyance, were now germinating afresh in the\nglow of Bertha\'s advances; and whatever the cause of the latter, Lily saw\nthat, if they were followed up, they were likely to have a disturbing\neffect upon her own future.\n\nShe had arranged to break the length of her stay with her new friends by\none or two visits to other acquaintances as recent; and on her return\nfrom this somewhat depressing excursion she was immediately conscious\nthat Mrs. Dorset\'s influence was still in the air. There had been another\nexchange of visits, a tea at a country-club, an encounter at a hunt ball;\nthere was even a rumour of an approaching dinner, which Mattie Gormer,\nwith an unnatural effort at discretion, tried to smuggle out of the\nconversation whenever Miss Bart took part in it.\n\nThe latter had already planned to return to town after a farewell Sunday\nwith her friends; and, with Gerty Farish\'s aid, had discovered a small\nprivate hotel where she might establish herself for the winter. The\nhotel being on the edge of a fashionable neighbourhood, the price of the\nfew square feet she was to occupy was considerably in excess of her\nmeans; but she found a justification for her dislike of poorer quarters\nin the argument that, at this particular juncture, it was of the utmost\nimportance to keep up a show of prosperity. In reality, it was impossible\nfor her, while she had the means to pay her way for a week ahead, to\nlapse into a form of existence like Gerty Farish\'s. She had never been so\nnear the brink of insolvency; but she could at least manage to meet her\nweekly hotel bill, and having settled the heaviest of her previous debts\nout of the money she had received from Trenor, she had a still fair\nmargin of credit to go upon. The situation, however, was not agreeable\nenough to lull her to complete unconsciousness of its insecurity. Her\nrooms, with their cramped outlook down a sallow vista of brick walls and\nfire-escapes, her lonely meals in the dark restaurant with its surcharged\nceiling and haunting smell of coffee--all these material discomforts,\nwhich were yet to be accounted as so many privileges soon to be\nwithdrawn, kept constantly before her the disadvantages of her state; and\nher mind reverted the more insistently to Mrs. Fisher\'s counsels. Beat\nabout the question as she would, she knew the outcome of it was that she\nmust try to marry Rosedale; and in this conviction she was fortified by\nan unexpected visit from George Dorset.\n\nShe found him, on the first Sunday after her return to town, pacing her\nnarrow sitting-room to the imminent peril of the few knick-knacks with\nwhich she had tried to disguise its plush exuberances; but the sight of\nher seemed to quiet him, and he said meekly that he hadn\'t come to bother\nher--that he asked only to be allowed to sit for half an hour and talk of\nanything she liked. In reality, as she knew, he had but one subject:\nhimself and his wretchedness; and it was the need of her sympathy that\nhad drawn him back. But he began with a pretence of questioning her about\nherself, and as she replied, she saw that, for the first time, a faint\nrealization of her plight penetrated the dense surface of his\nself-absorption. Was it possible that her old beast of an aunt had\nactually cut her off? That she was living alone like this because there\nwas no one else for her to go to, and that she really hadn\'t more than\nenough to keep alive on till the wretched little legacy was paid? The\nfibres of sympathy were nearly atrophied in him, but he was suffering so\nintensely that he had a faint glimpse of what other sufferings might\nmean--and, as she perceived, an almost simultaneous perception of the way\nin which her particular misfortunes might serve him.\n\nWhen at length she dismissed him, on the pretext that she must dress for\ndinner, he lingered entreatingly on the threshold to blurt out: \"It\'s\nbeen such a comfort--do say you\'ll let me see you again--\" But to this\ndirect appeal it was impossible to give an assent; and she said with\nfriendly decisiveness: \"I\'m sorry--but you know why I can\'t.\"\n\nHe coloured to the eyes, pushed the door shut, and stood before her\nembarrassed but insistent. \"I know how you might, if you would--if things\nwere different--and it lies with you to make them so. It\'s just a word to\nsay, and you put me out of my misery!\"\n\nTheir eyes met, and for a second she trembled again with the nearness of\nthe temptation. \"You\'re mistaken; I know nothing; I saw nothing,\" she\nexclaimed, striving, by sheer force of reiteration, to build a barrier\nbetween herself and her peril; and as he turned away, groaning out \"You\nsacrifice us both,\" she continued to repeat, as if it were a charm: \"I\nknow nothing--absolutely nothing.\"\n\n\n\nLily had seen little of Rosedale since her illuminating talk with Mrs.\nFisher, but on the two or three occasions when they had met she was\nconscious of having distinctly advanced in his favour. There could be no\ndoubt that he admired her as much as ever, and she believed it rested\nwith herself to raise his admiration to the point where it should bear\ndown the lingering counsels of expediency. The task was not an easy one;\nbut neither was it easy, in her long sleepless nights, to face the\nthought of what George Dorset was so clearly ready to offer. Baseness\nfor baseness, she hated the other least: there were even moments when a\nmarriage with Rosedale seemed the only honourable solution of her\ndifficulties. She did not indeed let her imagination range beyond the day\nof plighting: after that everything faded into a haze of material\nwell-being, in which the personality of her benefactor remained\nmercifully vague. She had learned, in her long vigils, that there were\ncertain things not good to think of, certain midnight images that must at\nany cost be exorcised--and one of these was the image of herself as\nRosedale\'s wife.\n\nCarry Fisher, on the strength, as she frankly owned, of the Brys\' Newport\nsuccess, had taken for the autumn months a small house at Tuxedo; and\nthither Lily was bound on the Sunday after Dorset\'s visit. Though it was\nnearly dinner-time when she arrived, her hostess was still out, and the\nfirelit quiet of the small silent house descended on her spirit with a\nsense of peace and familiarity. It may be doubted if such an emotion had\never before been evoked by Carry Fisher\'s surroundings; but, contrasted\nto the world in which Lily had lately lived, there was an air of repose\nand stability in the very placing of the furniture, and in the quiet\ncompetence of the parlour-maid who led her up to her room. Mrs. Fisher\'s\nunconventionality was, after all, a merely superficial divergence from an\ninherited social creed, while the manners of the Gormer circle\nrepresented their first attempt to formulate such a creed for themselves.\n\nIt was the first time since her return from Europe that Lily had found\nherself in a congenial atmosphere, and the stirring of familiar\nassociations had almost prepared her, as she descended the stairs before\ndinner, to enter upon a group of her old acquaintances. But this\nexpectation was instantly checked by the reflection that the friends who\nremained loyal were precisely those who would be least willing to expose\nher to such encounters; and it was hardly with surprise that she found,\ninstead, Mr. Rosedale kneeling domestically on the drawing-room hearth\nbefore his hostess\'s little girl.\n\nRosedale in the paternal role was hardly a figure to soften Lily; yet she\ncould not but notice a quality of homely goodness in his advances to the\nchild. They were not, at any rate, the premeditated and perfunctory\nendearments of the guest under his hostess\'s eye, for he and the little\ngirl had the room to themselves; and something in his attitude made him\nseem a simple and kindly being compared to the small critical creature\nwho endured his homage. Yes, he would be kind--Lily, from the threshold,\nhad time to feel--kind in his gross, unscrupulous, rapacious way, the way\nof the predatory creature with his mate. She had but a moment in which\nto consider whether this glimpse of the fireside man mitigated her\nrepugnance, or gave it, rather, a more concrete and intimate form; for at\nsight of her he was immediately on his feet again, the florid and\ndominant Rosedale of Mattie Gormer\'s drawing-room.\n\nIt was no surprise to Lily to find that he had been selected as her only\nfellow-guest. Though she and her hostess had not met since the latter\'s\ntentative discussion of her future, Lily knew that the acuteness which\nenabled Mrs. Fisher to lay a safe and pleasant course through a world of\nantagonistic forces was not infrequently exercised for the benefit of her\nfriends. It was, in fact, characteristic of Carry that, while she\nactively gleaned her own stores from the fields of affluence, her real\nsympathies were on the other side--with the unlucky, the unpopular, the\nunsuccessful, with all her hungry fellow-toilers in the shorn stubble of\nsuccess.\n\nMrs. Fisher\'s experience guarded her against the mistake of exposing\nLily, for the first evening, to the unmitigated impression of Rosedale\'s\npersonality. Kate Corby and two or three men dropped in to dinner, and\nLily, alive to every detail of her friend\'s method, saw that such\nopportunities as had been contrived for her were to be deferred till she\nhad, as it were, gained courage to make effectual use of them. She had a\nsense of acquiescing in this plan with the passiveness of a sufferer\nresigned to the surgeon\'s touch; and this feeling of almost lethargic\nhelplessness continued when, after the departure of the guests, Mrs.\nFisher followed her upstairs.\n\n\"May I come in and smoke a cigarette over your fire? If we talk in my\nroom we shall disturb the child.\" Mrs. Fisher looked about her with the\neye of the solicitous hostess. \"I hope you\'ve managed to make yourself\ncomfortable, dear? Isn\'t it a jolly little house? It\'s such a blessing to\nhave a few quiet weeks with the baby.\"\n\nCarry, in her rare moments of prosperity, became so expansively maternal\nthat Miss Bart sometimes wondered whether, if she could ever get time and\nmoney enough, she would not end by devoting them both to her daughter.\n\n\"It\'s a well-earned rest: I\'ll say that for myself,\" she continued,\nsinking down with a sigh of content on the pillowed lounge near the fire.\n\"Louisa Bry is a stern task-master: I often used to wish myself back with\nthe Gormers. Talk of love making people jealous and suspicious--it\'s\nnothing to social ambition! Louisa used to lie awake at night wondering\nwhether the women who called on us called on ME because I was with her,\nor on HER because she was with me; and she was always laying traps to\nfind out what I thought. Of course I had to disown my oldest friends,\nrather than let her suspect she owed me the chance of making a single\nacquaintance--when, all the while, that was what she had me there for,\nand what she wrote me a handsome cheque for when the season was over!\"\n\nMrs. Fisher was not a woman who talked of herself without cause, and the\npractice of direct speech, far from precluding in her an occasional\nresort to circuitous methods, served rather, at crucial moments, the\npurpose of the juggler\'s chatter while he shifts the contents of his\nsleeves. Through the haze of her cigarette smoke she continued to gaze\nmeditatively at Miss Bart, who, having dismissed her maid, sat before the\ntoilet-table shaking out over her shoulders the loosened undulations of\nher hair.\n\n\"Your hair\'s wonderful, Lily. Thinner--? What does that matter, when it\'s\nso light and alive? So many women\'s worries seem to go straight to their\nhair--but yours looks as if there had never been an anxious thought under\nit. I never saw you look better than you did this evening. Mattie Gormer\ntold me that Morpeth wanted to paint you--why don\'t you let him?\"\n\nMiss Bart\'s immediate answer was to address a critical glance to the\nreflection of the countenance under discussion. Then she said, with a\nslight touch of irritation: \"I don\'t care to accept a portrait from Paul\nMorpeth.\"\n\nMrs. Fisher mused. \"N--no. And just now, especially--well, he can do you\nafter you\'re married.\" She waited a moment, and then went on: \"By the\nway, I had a visit from Mattie the other day. She turned up here last\nSunday--and with Bertha Dorset, of all people in the world!\"\n\nShe paused again to measure the effect of this announcement on her\nhearer, but the brush in Miss Bart\'s lifted hand maintained its\nunwavering stroke from brow to nape.\n\n\"I never was more astonished,\" Mrs. Fisher pursued. \"I don\'t know two\nwomen less predestined to intimacy--from Bertha\'s standpoint, that is;\nfor of course poor Mattie thinks it natural enough that she should be\nsingled out--I\'ve no doubt the rabbit always thinks it is fascinating the\nanaconda. Well, you know I\'ve always told you that Mattie secretly longed\nto bore herself with the really fashionable; and now that the chance has\ncome, I see that she\'s capable of sacrificing all her old friends to it.\"\n\nLily laid aside her brush and turned a penetrating glance upon her\nfriend. \"Including ME?\" she suggested.\n\n\"Ah, my dear,\" murmured Mrs. Fisher, rising to push back a log from the\nhearth.\n\n\"That\'s what Bertha means, isn\'t it?\" Miss Bart went on steadily. \"For\nof course she always means something; and before I left Long Island I saw\nthat she was beginning to lay her toils for Mattie.\"\n\nMrs. Fisher sighed evasively. \"She has her fast now, at any rate. To\nthink of that loud independence of Mattie\'s being only a subtler form of\nsnobbishness! Bertha can already make her believe anything she\npleases--and I\'m afraid she\'s begun, my poor child, by insinuating\nhorrors about you.\"\n\nLily flushed under the shadow of her drooping hair. \"The world is too\nvile,\" she murmured, averting herself from Mrs. Fisher\'s anxious scrutiny.\n\n\"It\'s not a pretty place; and the only way to keep a footing in it is to\nfight it on its own terms--and above all, my dear, not alone!\" Mrs.\nFisher gathered up her floating implications in a resolute grasp.\n\"You\'ve told me so little that I can only guess what has been happening;\nbut in the rush we all live in there\'s no time to keep on hating any one\nwithout a cause, and if Bertha is still nasty enough to want to injure\nyou with other people it must be because she\'s still afraid of you. From\nher standpoint there\'s only one reason for being afraid of you; and my\nown idea is that, if you want to punish her, you hold the means in your\nhand. I believe you can marry George Dorset tomorrow; but if you don\'t\ncare for that particular form of retaliation, the only thing to save you\nfrom Bertha is to marry somebody else.\"\n\n\n\nChapter 7\n\nThe light projected on the situation by Mrs. Fisher had the cheerless\ndistinctness of a winter dawn. It outlined the facts with a cold\nprecision unmodified by shade or colour, and refracted, as it were, from\nthe blank walls of the surrounding limitations: she had opened windows\nfrom which no sky was ever visible. But the idealist subdued to vulgar\nnecessities must employ vulgar minds to draw the inferences to which he\ncannot stoop; and it was easier for Lily to let Mrs. Fisher formulate her\ncase than to put it plainly to herself. Once confronted with it, however,\nshe went the full length of its consequences; and these had never been\nmore clearly present to her than when, the next afternoon, she set out\nfor a walk with Rosedale.\n\nIt was one of those still November days when the air is haunted with the\nlight of summer, and something in the lines of the landscape, and in the\ngolden haze which bathed them, recalled to Miss Bart the September\nafternoon when she had climbed the slopes of Bellomont with Selden. The\nimportunate memory was kept before her by its ironic contrast to her\npresent situation, since her walk with Selden had represented an\nirresistible flight from just such a climax as the present excursion was\ndesigned to bring about. But other memories importuned her also; the\nrecollection of similar situations, as skillfully led up to, but through\nsome malice of fortune, or her own unsteadiness of purpose, always\nfailing of the intended result. Well, her purpose was steady enough now.\nShe saw that the whole weary work of rehabilitation must begin again, and\nagainst far greater odds, if Bertha Dorset should succeed in breaking up\nher friendship with the Gormers; and her longing for shelter and security\nwas intensified by the passionate desire to triumph over Bertha, as only\nwealth and predominance could triumph over her. As the wife of\nRosedale--the Rosedale she felt it in her power to create--she would at\nleast present an invulnerable front to her enemy.\n\nShe had to draw upon this thought, as upon some fiery stimulant, to keep\nup her part in the scene toward which Rosedale was too frankly tending.\nAs she walked beside him, shrinking in every nerve from the way in which\nhis look and tone made free of her, yet telling herself that this\nmomentary endurance of his mood was the price she must pay for her\nultimate power over him, she tried to calculate the exact point at which\nconcession must turn to resistance, and the price HE would have to pay be\nmade equally clear to him. But his dapper self-confidence seemed\nimpenetrable to such hints, and she had a sense of something hard and\nself-contained behind the superficial warmth of his manner.\n\nThey had been seated for some time in the seclusion of a rocky glen above\nthe lake, when she suddenly cut short the culmination of an impassioned\nperiod by turning upon him the grave loveliness of her gaze.\n\n\"I DO believe what you say, Mr. Rosedale,\" she said quietly; \"and I am\nready to marry you whenever you wish.\"\n\nRosedale, reddening to the roots of his glossy hair, received this\nannouncement with a recoil which carried him to his feet, where he halted\nbefore her in an attitude of almost comic discomfiture.\n\n\"For I suppose that is what you do wish,\" she continued, in the same\nquiet tone. \"And, though I was unable to consent when you spoke to me in\nthis way before, I am ready, now that I know you so much better, to trust\nmy happiness to your hands.\"\n\nShe spoke with the noble directness which she could command on such\noccasions, and which was like a large steady light thrown across the\ntortuous darkness of the situation. In its inconvenient brightness\nRosedale seemed to waver a moment, as though conscious that every avenue\nof escape was unpleasantly illuminated.\n\nThen he gave a short laugh, and drew out a gold cigarette-case, in which,\nwith plump jewelled fingers, he groped for a gold-tipped cigarette.\nSelecting one, he paused to contemplate it a moment before saying: \"My\ndear Miss Lily, I\'m sorry if there\'s been any little misapprehension\nbetween us-but you made me feel my suit was so hopeless that I had really\nno intention of renewing it.\"\n\nLily\'s blood tingled with the grossness of the rebuff; but she checked\nthe first leap of her anger, and said in a tone of gentle dignity: \"I\nhave no one but myself to blame if I gave you the impression that my\ndecision was final.\"\n\nHer word-play was always too quick for him, and this reply held him in\npuzzled silence while she extended her hand and added, with the faintest\ninflection of sadness in her voice: \"Before we bid each other goodbye, I\nwant at least to thank you for having once thought of me as you did.\"\n\nThe touch of her hand, the moving softness of her look, thrilled a\nvulnerable fibre in Rosedale. It was her exquisite inaccessibleness, the\nsense of distance she could convey without a hint of disdain, that made\nit most difficult for him to give her up.\n\n\"Why do you talk of saying goodbye? Ain\'t we going to be good friends all\nthe same?\" he urged, without releasing her hand.\n\nShe drew it away quietly. \"What is your idea of being good friends?\" she\nreturned with a slight smile. \"Making love to me without asking me to\nmarry you?\" Rosedale laughed with a recovered sense of ease.\n\n\"Well, that\'s about the size of it, I suppose. I can\'t help making love\nto you--I don\'t see how any man could; but I don\'t mean to ask you to\nmarry me as long as I can keep out of it.\"\n\nShe continued to smile. \"I like your frankness; but I am afraid our\nfriendship can hardly continue on those terms.\" She turned away, as\nthough to mark that its final term had in fact been reached, and he\nfollowed her for a few steps with a baffled sense of her having after all\nkept the game in her own hands.\n\n\"Miss Lily----\" he began impulsively; but she walked on without seeming\nto hear him.\n\nHe overtook her in a few quick strides, and laid an entreating hand on\nher arm. \"Miss Lily--don\'t hurry away like that. You\'re beastly hard on a\nfellow; but if you don\'t mind speaking the truth I don\'t see why you\nshouldn\'t allow me to do the same.\"\n\nShe had paused a moment with raised brows, drawing away instinctively\nfrom his touch, though she made no effort to evade his words.\n\n\"I was under the impression,\" she rejoined, \"that you had done so without\nwaiting for my permission.\"\n\n\"Well--why shouldn\'t you hear my reasons for doing it, then? We\'re\nneither of us such new hands that a little plain speaking is going to\nhurt us. I\'m all broken up on you: there\'s nothing new in that. I\'m more\nin love with you than I was this time last year; but I\'ve got to face the\nfact that the situation is changed.\"\n\nShe continued to confront him with the same air of ironic composure.\n\"You mean to say that I\'m not as desirable a match as you thought me?\"\n\n\"Yes; that\'s what I do mean,\" he answered resolutely. \"I won\'t go into\nwhat\'s happened. I don\'t believe the stories about you--I don\'t WANT to\nbelieve them. But they\'re there, and my not believing them ain\'t going to\nalter the situation.\"\n\nShe flushed to her temples, but the extremity of her need checked the\nretort on her lip and she continued to face him composedly. \"If they are\nnot true,\" she said, \"doesn\'t THAT alter the situation?\"\n\nHe met this with a steady gaze of his small stock-taking eyes, which made\nher feel herself no more than some superfine human merchandise. \"I\nbelieve it does in novels; but I\'m certain it don\'t in real life. You\nknow that as well as I do: if we\'re speaking the truth, let\'s speak the\nwhole truth. Last year I was wild to marry you, and you wouldn\'t look at\nme: this year--well, you appear to be willing. Now, what has changed in\nthe interval? Your situation, that\'s all. Then you thought you could do\nbetter; now----\"\n\n\"You think you can?\" broke from her ironically.\n\n\"Why, yes, I do: in one way, that is.\" He stood before her, his hands in\nhis pockets, his chest sturdily expanded under its vivid waistcoat.\n\"It\'s this way, you see: I\'ve had a pretty steady grind of it these last\nyears, working up my social position. Think it\'s funny I should say\nthat? Why should I mind saying I want to get into society? A man ain\'t\nashamed to say he wants to own a racing stable or a picture gallery.\nWell, a taste for society\'s just another kind of hobby. Perhaps I want\nto get even with some of the people who cold-shouldered me last year--put\nit that way if it sounds better. Anyhow, I want to have the run of the\nbest houses; and I\'m getting it too, little by little. But I know the\nquickest way to queer yourself with the right people is to be seen with\nthe wrong ones; and that\'s the reason I want to avoid mistakes.\"\n\nMiss Bart continued to stand before him in a silence that might have\nexpressed either mockery or a half-reluctant respect for his candour, and\nafter a moment\'s pause he went on: \"There it is, you see. I\'m more in\nlove with you than ever, but if I married you now I\'d queer myself for\ngood and all, and everything I\'ve worked for all these years would be\nwasted.\"\n\nShe received this with a look from which all tinge of resentment had\nfaded. After the tissue of social falsehoods in which she had so long\nmoved it was refreshing to step into the open daylight of an avowed\nexpediency.\n\n\"I understand you,\" she said. \"A year ago I should have been of use to\nyou, and now I should be an encumbrance; and I like you for telling me so\nquite honestly.\" She extended her hand with a smile.\n\nAgain the gesture had a disturbing effect upon Mr. Rosedale\'s\nself-command. \"By George, you\'re a dead game sport, you are!\" he\nexclaimed; and as she began once more to move away, he broke out\nsuddenly--\"Miss Lily--stop. You know I don\'t believe those stories--I\nbelieve they were all got up by a woman who didn\'t hesitate to sacrifice\nyou to her own convenience----\"\n\nLily drew away with a movement of quick disdain: it was easier to endure\nhis insolence than his commiseration.\n\n\"You are very kind; but I don\'t think we need discuss the matter farther.\"\n\nBut Rosedale\'s natural imperviousness to hints made it easy for him to\nbrush such resistance aside. \"I don\'t want to discuss anything; I just\nwant to put a plain case before you,\" he persisted.\n\nShe paused in spite of herself, held by the note of a new purpose in his\nlook and tone; and he went on, keeping his eyes firmly upon her: \"The\nwonder to me is that you\'ve waited so long to get square with that woman,\nwhen you\'ve had the power in your hands.\" She continued silent under the\nrush of astonishment that his words produced, and he moved a step closer\nto ask with low-toned directness: \"Why don\'t you use those letters of\nhers you bought last year?\"\n\nLily stood speechless under the shock of the interrogation. In the words\npreceding it she had conjectured, at most, an allusion to her supposed\ninfluence over George Dorset; nor did the astonishing indelicacy of the\nreference diminish the likelihood of Rosedale\'s resorting to it. But now\nshe saw how far short of the mark she had fallen; and the surprise of\nlearning that he had discovered the secret of the letters left her, for\nthe moment, unconscious of the special use to which he was in the act of\nputting his knowledge.\n\nHer temporary loss of self-possession gave him time to press his point;\nand he went on quickly, as though to secure completer control of the\nsituation: \"You see I know where you stand--I know how completely she\'s\nin your power. That sounds like stage-talk, don\'t it?--but there\'s a lot\nof truth in some of those old gags; and I don\'t suppose you bought those\nletters simply because you\'re collecting autographs.\"\n\nShe continued to look at him with a deepening bewilderment: her only\nclear impression resolved itself into a scared sense of his power.\n\n\"You\'re wondering how I found out about \'em?\" he went on, answering her\nlook with a note of conscious pride. \"Perhaps you\'ve forgotten that I\'m\nthe owner of the Benedick--but never mind about that now. Getting on to\nthings is a mighty useful accomplishment in business, and I\'ve simply\nextended it to my private affairs. For this IS partly my affair, you\nsee--at least, it depends on you to make it so. Let\'s look the situation\nstraight in the eye. Mrs. Dorset, for reasons we needn\'t go into, did you\na beastly bad turn last spring. Everybody knows what Mrs. Dorset is, and\nher best friends wouldn\'t believe her on oath where their own interests\nwere concerned; but as long as they\'re out of the row it\'s much easier to\nfollow her lead than to set themselves against it, and you\'ve simply been\nsacrificed to their laziness and selfishness. Isn\'t that a pretty fair\nstatement of the case?--Well, some people say you\'ve got the neatest kind\nof an answer in your hands: that George Dorset would marry you tomorrow,\nif you\'d tell him all you know, and give him the chance to show the lady\nthe door. I daresay he would; but you don\'t seem to care for that\nparticular form of getting even, and, taking a purely business view of\nthe question, I think you\'re right. In a deal like that, nobody comes out\nwith perfectly clean hands, and the only way for you to start fresh is to\nget Bertha Dorset to back you up, instead of trying to fight her.\"\n\nHe paused long enough to draw breath, but not to give her time for the\nexpression of her gathering resistance; and as he pressed on, expounding\nand elucidating his idea with the directness of the man who has no doubts\nof his cause, she found the indignation gradually freezing on her lip,\nfound herself held fast in the grasp of his argument by the mere cold\nstrength of its presentation. There was no time now to wonder how he had\nheard of her obtaining the letters: all her world was dark outside the\nmonstrous glare of his scheme for using them. And it was not, after the\nfirst moment, the horror of the idea that held her spell-bound, subdued\nto his will; it was rather its subtle affinity to her own inmost\ncravings. He would marry her tomorrow if she could regain Bertha Dorset\'s\nfriendship; and to induce the open resumption of that friendship, and the\ntacit retractation of all that had caused its withdrawal, she had only to\nput to the lady the latent menace contained in the packet so miraculously\ndelivered into her hands. Lily saw in a flash the advantage of this\ncourse over that which poor Dorset had pressed upon her. The other plan\ndepended for its success on the infliction of an open injury, while this\nreduced the transaction to a private understanding, of which no third\nperson need have the remotest hint. Put by Rosedale in terms of\nbusiness-like give-and-take, this understanding took on the harmless air\nof a mutual accommodation, like a transfer of property or a revision of\nboundary lines. It certainly simplified life to view it as a perpetual\nadjustment, a play of party politics, in which every concession had its\nrecognized equivalent: Lily\'s tired mind was fascinated by this escape\nfrom fluctuating ethical estimates into a region of concrete weights and\nmeasures.\n\nRosedale, as she listened, seemed to read in her silence not only a\ngradual acquiescence in his plan, but a dangerously far-reaching\nperception of the chances it offered; for as she continued to stand\nbefore him without speaking, he broke out, with a quick return upon\nhimself: \"You see how simple it is, don\'t you? Well, don\'t be carried\naway by the idea that it\'s TOO simple. It isn\'t exactly as if you\'d\nstarted in with a clean bill of health. Now we\'re talking let\'s call\nthings by their right names, and clear the whole business up. You know\nwell enough that Bertha Dorset couldn\'t have touched you if there hadn\'t\nbeen--well--questions asked before--little points of interrogation, eh?\nBound to happen to a good-looking girl with stingy relatives, I suppose;\nanyhow, they DID happen, and she found the ground prepared for her. Do\nyou see where I\'m coming out? You don\'t want these little questions\ncropping up again. It\'s one thing to get Bertha Dorset into line--but\nwhat you want is to keep her there. You can frighten her fast enough--but\nhow are you going to keep her frightened? By showing her that you\'re as\npowerful as she is. All the letters in the world won\'t do that for you as\nyou are now; but with a big backing behind you, you\'ll keep her just\nwhere you want her to be. That\'s MY share in the business--that\'s what\nI\'m offering you. You can\'t put the thing through without me--don\'t run\naway with any idea that you can. In six months you\'d be back again among\nyour old worries, or worse ones; and here I am, ready to lift you out of\n\'em tomorrow if you say so. DO you say so, Miss Lily?\" he added, moving\nsuddenly nearer.\n\nThe words, and the movement which accompanied them, combined to startle\nLily out of the state of tranced subservience into which she had\ninsensibly slipped. Light comes in devious ways to the groping\nconsciousness, and it came to her now through the disgusted perception\nthat her would-be accomplice assumed, as a matter of course, the\nlikelihood of her distrusting him and perhaps trying to cheat him of his\nshare of the spoils. This glimpse of his inner mind seemed to present the\nwhole transaction in a new aspect, and she saw that the essential\nbaseness of the act lay in its freedom from risk.\n\nShe drew back with a quick gesture of rejection, saying, in a voice that\nwas a surprise to her own ears: \"You are mistaken--quite mistaken--both\nin the facts and in what you infer from them.\"\n\nRosedale stared a moment, puzzled by her sudden dash in a direction so\ndifferent from that toward which she had appeared to be letting him guide\nher.\n\n\"Now what on earth does that mean? I thought we understood each other!\"\nhe exclaimed; and to her murmur of \"Ah, we do NOW,\" he retorted with a\nsudden burst of violence: \"I suppose it\'s because the letters are to HIM,\nthen? Well, I\'ll be damned if I see what thanks you\'ve got from him!\"\n\n\n\nChapter 8\n\nThe autumn days declined to winter. Once more the leisure world was in\ntransition between country and town, and Fifth Avenue, still deserted at\nthe week-end, showed from Monday to Friday a broadening stream of\ncarriages between house-fronts gradually restored to consciousness.\n\nThe Horse Show, some two weeks earlier, had produced a passing semblance\nof reanimation, filling the theatres and restaurants with a human display\nof the same costly and high-stepping kind as circled daily about its\nring. In Miss Bart\'s world the Horse Show, and the public it attracted,\nhad ostensibly come to be classed among the spectacles disdained of the\nelect; but, as the feudal lord might sally forth to join in the dance on\nhis village green, so society, unofficially and incidentally, still\ncondescended to look in upon the scene. Mrs. Gormer, among the rest, was\nnot above seizing such an occasion for the display of herself and her\nhorses; and Lily was given one or two opportunities of appearing at her\nfriend\'s side in the most conspicuous box the house afforded. But this\nlingering semblance of intimacy made her only the more conscious of a\nchange in the relation between Mattie and herself, of a dawning\ndiscrimination, a gradually formed social standard, emerging from Mrs.\nGormer\'s chaotic view of life. It was inevitable that Lily herself should\nconstitute the first sacrifice to this new ideal, and she knew that, once\nthe Gormers were established in town, the whole drift of fashionable life\nwould facilitate Mattie\'s detachment from her. She had, in short, failed\nto make herself indispensable; or rather, her attempt to do so had been\nthwarted by an influence stronger than any she could exert. That\ninfluence, in its last analysis, was simply the power of money: Bertha\nDorset\'s social credit was based on an impregnable bank-account.\n\nLily knew that Rosedale had overstated neither the difficulty of her own\nposition nor the completeness of the vindication he offered: once\nBertha\'s match in material resources, her superior gifts would make it\neasy for her to dominate her adversary. An understanding of what such\ndomination would mean, and of the disadvantages accruing from her\nrejection of it, was brought home to Lily with increasing clearness\nduring the early weeks of the winter. Hitherto, she had kept up a\nsemblance of movement outside the main flow of the social current; but\nwith the return to town, and the concentrating of scattered activities,\nthe mere fact of not slipping back naturally into her old habits of life\nmarked her as being unmistakably excluded from them. If one were not a\npart of the season\'s fixed routine, one swung unsphered in a void of\nsocial non-existence. Lily, for all her dissatisfied dreaming, had never\nreally conceived the possibility of revolving about a different centre:\nit was easy enough to despise the world, but decidedly difficult to find\nany other habitable region. Her sense of irony never quite deserted her,\nand she could still note, with self-directed derision, the abnormal value\nsuddenly acquired by the most tiresome and insignificant details of her\nformer life. Its very drudgeries had a charm now that she was\ninvoluntarily released from them: card-leaving, note-writing, enforced\ncivilities to the dull and elderly, and the smiling endurance of tedious\ndinners--how pleasantly such obligations would have filled the emptiness\nof her days! She did indeed leave cards in plenty; she kept herself, with\na smiling and valiant persistence, well in the eye of her world; nor did\nshe suffer any of those gross rebuffs which sometimes produce a wholesome\nreaction of contempt in their victim. Society did not turn away from her,\nit simply drifted by, preoccupied and inattentive, letting her feel, to\nthe full measure of her humbled pride, how completely she had been the\ncreature of its favour.\n\nShe had rejected Rosedale\'s suggestion with a promptness of scorn almost\nsurprising to herself: she had not lost her capacity for high flashes of\nindignation. But she could not breathe long on the heights; there had\nbeen nothing in her training to develop any continuity of moral strength:\nwhat she craved, and really felt herself entitled to, was a situation in\nwhich the noblest attitude should also be the easiest. Hitherto her\nintermittent impulses of resistance had sufficed to maintain her\nself-respect. If she slipped she recovered her footing, and it was only\nafterward that she was aware of having recovered it each time on a\nslightly lower level. She had rejected Rosedale\'s offer without conscious\neffort; her whole being had risen against it; and she did not yet\nperceive that, by the mere act of listening to him, she had learned to\nlive with ideas which would once have been intolerable to her.\n\n\n\n\nTo Gerty Farish, keeping watch over her with a tenderer if less\ndiscerning eye than Mrs. Fisher\'s, the results of the struggle were\nalready distinctly visible. She did not, indeed, know what hostages Lily\nhad already given to expediency; but she saw her passionately and\nirretrievably pledged to the ruinous policy of \"keeping up.\" Gerty could\nsmile now at her own early dream of her friend\'s renovation through\nadversity: she understood clearly enough that Lily was not of those to\nwhom privation teaches the unimportance of what they have lost. But this\nvery fact, to Gerty, made her friend the more piteously in want of aid,\nthe more exposed to the claims of a tenderness she was so little\nconscious of needing.\n\nLily, since her return to town, had not often climbed Miss Farish\'s\nstairs. There was something irritating to her in the mute interrogation\nof Gerty\'s sympathy: she felt the real difficulties of her situation to\nbe incommunicable to any one whose theory of values was so different from\nher own, and the restrictions of Gerty\'s life, which had once had the\ncharm of contrast, now reminded her too painfully of the limits to which\nher own existence was shrinking. When at length, one afternoon, she put\ninto execution the belated resolve to visit her friend, this sense of\nshrunken opportunities possessed her with unusual intensity. The walk up\nFifth Avenue, unfolding before her, in the brilliance of the hard winter\nsunlight, an interminable procession of fastidiously-equipped\ncarriages--giving her, through the little squares of brougham-windows,\npeeps of familiar profiles bent above visiting-lists, of hurried hands\ndispensing notes and cards to attendant footmen--this glimpse of the\never-revolving wheels of the great social machine made Lily more than\never conscious of the steepness and narrowness of Gerty\'s stairs, and of\nthe cramped blind alley of life to which they led. Dull stairs destined\nto be mounted by dull people: how many thousands of insignificant figures\nwere going up and down such stairs all over the world at that very\nmoment--figures as shabby and uninteresting as that of the middle-aged\nlady in limp black who descended Gerty\'s flight as Lily climbed to it!\n\n\"That was poor Miss Jane Silverton--she came to talk things over with me:\nshe and her sister want to do something to support themselves,\" Gerty\nexplained, as Lily followed her into the sitting-room.\n\n\"To support themselves? Are they so hard up?\" Miss Bart asked with a\ntouch of irritation: she had not come to listen to the woes of other\npeople.\n\n\"I\'m afraid they have nothing left: Ned\'s debts have swallowed up\neverything. They had such hopes, you know, when he broke away from Carry\nFisher; they thought Bertha Dorset would be such a good influence,\nbecause she doesn\'t care for cards, and--well, she talked quite\nbeautifully to poor Miss Jane about feeling as if Ned were her younger\nbrother, and wanting to carry him off on the yacht, so that he might have\na chance to drop cards and racing, and take up his literary work again.\"\n\nMiss Farish paused with a sigh which reflected the perplexity of her\ndeparting visitor. \"But that isn\'t all; it isn\'t even the worst. It seems\nthat Ned has quarrelled with the Dorsets; or at least Bertha won\'t allow\nhim to see her, and he is so unhappy about it that he has taken to\ngambling again, and going about with all sorts of queer people. And\ncousin Grace Van Osburgh accuses him of having had a very bad influence\non Freddy, who left Harvard last spring, and has been a great deal with\nNed ever since. She sent for Miss Jane, and made a dreadful scene; and\nJack Stepney and Herbert Melson, who were there too, told Miss Jane that\nFreddy was threatening to marry some dreadful woman to whom Ned had\nintroduced him, and that they could do nothing with him because now he\'s\nof age he has his own money. You can fancy how poor Miss Jane felt--she\ncame to me at once, and seemed to think that if I could get her something\nto do she could earn enough to pay Ned\'s debts and send him away--I\'m\nafraid she has no idea how long it would take her to pay for one of his\nevenings at bridge. And he was horribly in debt when he came back from\nthe cruise--I can\'t see why he should have spent so much more money under\nBertha\'s influence than Carry\'s: can you?\"\n\nLily met this query with an impatient gesture. \"My dear Gerty, I always\nunderstand how people can spend much more money--never how they can spend\nany less!\"\n\nShe loosened her furs and settled herself in Gerty\'s easy-chair, while\nher friend busied herself with the tea-cups.\n\n\"But what can they do--the Miss Silvertons? How do they mean to support\nthemselves?\" she asked, conscious that the note of irritation still\npersisted in her voice. It was the very last topic she had meant to\ndiscuss--it really did not interest her in the least--but she was seized\nby a sudden perverse curiosity to know how the two colourless shrinking\nvictims of young Silverton\'s sentimental experiments meant to cope with\nthe grim necessity which lurked so close to her own threshold.\n\n\"I don\'t know--I am trying to find something for them. Miss Jane reads\naloud very nicely--but it\'s so hard to find any one who is willing to be\nread to. And Miss Annie paints a little----\"\n\n\"Oh, I know--apple-blossoms on blotting-paper; just the kind of thing I\nshall be doing myself before long!\" exclaimed Lily, starting up with a\nvehemence of movement that threatened destruction to Miss Farish\'s\nfragile tea-table.\n\nLily bent over to steady the cups; then she sank back into her seat.\n\"I\'d forgotten there was no room to dash about in--how beautifully one\ndoes have to behave in a small flat! Oh, Gerty, I wasn\'t meant to be\ngood,\" she sighed out incoherently.\n\nGerty lifted an apprehensive look to her pale face, in which the eyes\nshone with a peculiar sleepless lustre.\n\n\"You look horribly tired, Lily; take your tea, and let me give you this\ncushion to lean against.\"\n\nMiss Bart accepted the cup of tea, but put back the cushion with an\nimpatient hand.\n\n\"Don\'t give me that! I don\'t want to lean back--I shall go to sleep if I\ndo.\"\n\n\"Well, why not, dear? I\'ll be as quiet as a mouse,\" Gerty urged\naffectionately.\n\n\"No--no; don\'t be quiet; talk to me--keep me awake! I don\'t sleep at\nnight, and in the afternoon a dreadful drowsiness creeps over me.\"\n\n\"You don\'t sleep at night? Since when?\"\n\n\"I don\'t know--I can\'t remember.\" She rose and put the empty cup on the\ntea-tray. \"Another, and stronger, please; if I don\'t keep awake now I\nshall see horrors tonight--perfect horrors!\"\n\n\"But they\'ll be worse if you drink too much tea.\"\n\n\"No, no--give it to me; and don\'t preach, please,\" Lily returned\nimperiously. Her voice had a dangerous edge, and Gerty noticed that her\nhand shook as she held it out to receive the second cup.\n\n\"But you look so tired: I\'m sure you must be ill----\"\n\nMiss Bart set down her cup with a start. \"Do I look ill? Does my face\nshow it?\" She rose and walked quickly toward the little mirror above the\nwriting-table. \"What a horrid looking-glass--it\'s all blotched and\ndiscoloured. Any one would look ghastly in it!\" She turned back, fixing\nher plaintive eyes on Gerty. \"You stupid dear, why do you say such odious\nthings to me? It\'s enough to make one ill to be told one looks so! And\nlooking ill means looking ugly.\" She caught Gerty\'s wrists, and drew her\nclose to the window. \"After all, I\'d rather know the truth. Look me\nstraight in the face, Gerty, and tell me: am I perfectly frightful?\"\n\n\"You\'re perfectly beautiful now, Lily: your eyes are shining, and your\ncheeks have grown so pink all of a sudden----\"\n\n\"Ah, they WERE pale, then--ghastly pale, when I came in? Why don\'t you\ntell me frankly that I\'m a wreck? My eyes are bright now because I\'m so\nnervous--but in the mornings they look like lead. And I can see the lines\ncoming in my face--the lines of worry and disappointment and failure!\nEvery sleepless night leaves a new one--and how can I sleep, when I have\nsuch dreadful things to think about?\"\n\n\"Dreadful things--what things?\" asked Gerty, gently detaching her wrists\nfrom her friend\'s feverish fingers.\n\n\"What things? Well, poverty, for one--and I don\'t know any that\'s more\ndreadful.\" Lily turned away and sank with sudden weariness into the\neasy-chair near the tea-table. \"You asked me just now if I could\nunderstand why Ned Silverton spent so much money. Of course I\nunderstand--he spends it on living with the rich. You think we live ON\nthe rich, rather than with them: and so we do, in a sense--but it\'s a\nprivilege we have to pay for! We eat their dinners, and drink their wine,\nand smoke their cigarettes, and use their carriages and their opera-boxes\nand their private cars--yes, but there\'s a tax to pay on every one of\nthose luxuries. The man pays it by big tips to the servants, by playing\ncards beyond his means, by flowers and presents--and--and--lots of other\nthings that cost; the girl pays it by tips and cards too--oh, yes, I\'ve\nhad to take up bridge again--and by going to the best dress-makers, and\nhaving just the right dress for every occasion, and always keeping\nherself fresh and exquisite and amusing!\"\n\nShe leaned back for a moment, closing her eyes, and as she sat there, her\npale lips slightly parted, and the lids dropped above her fagged\nbrilliant gaze, Gerty had a startled perception of the change in her\nface--of the way in which an ashen daylight seemed suddenly to extinguish\nits artificial brightness. She looked up, and the vision vanished.\n\n\"It doesn\'t sound very amusing, does it? And it isn\'t--I\'m sick to death\nof it! And yet the thought of giving it all up nearly kills me--it\'s what\nkeeps me awake at night, and makes me so crazy for your strong tea. For I\ncan\'t go on in this way much longer, you know--I\'m nearly at the end of\nmy tether. And then what can I do--how on earth am I to keep myself\nalive? I see myself reduced to the fate of that poor Silverton\nwoman--slinking about to employment agencies, and trying to sell painted\nblotting-pads to Women\'s Exchanges! And there are thousands and thousands\nof women trying to do the same thing already, and not one of the number\nwho has less idea how to earn a dollar than I have!\"\n\nShe rose again with a hurried glance at the clock. \"It\'s late, and I must\nbe off--I have an appointment with Carry Fisher. Don\'t look so worried,\nyou dear thing--don\'t think too much about the nonsense I\'ve been\ntalking.\" She was before the mirror again, adjusting her hair with a\nlight hand, drawing down her veil, and giving a dexterous touch to her\nfurs. \"Of course, you know, it hasn\'t come to the employment agencies and\nthe painted blotting-pads yet; but I\'m rather hard-up just for the\nmoment, and if I could find something to do--notes to write and\nvisiting-lists to make up, or that kind of thing--it would tide me over\ntill the legacy is paid. And Carry has promised to find somebody who\nwants a kind of social secretary--you know she makes a specialty of the\nhelpless rich.\"\n\n\n\n\nMiss Bart had not revealed to Gerty the full extent of her anxiety. She\nwas in fact in urgent and immediate need of money: money to meet the\nvulgar weekly claims which could neither be deferred nor evaded. To give\nup her apartment, and shrink to the obscurity of a boarding-house, or the\nprovisional hospitality of a bed in Gerty Farish\'s sitting-room, was an\nexpedient which could only postpone the problem confronting her; and it\nseemed wiser as well as more agreeable to remain where she was and find\nsome means of earning her living. The possibility of having to do this\nwas one which she had never before seriously considered, and the\ndiscovery that, as a bread-winner, she was likely to prove as helpless\nand ineffectual as poor Miss Silverton, was a severe shock to her\nself-confidence.\n\nHaving been accustomed to take herself at the popular valuation, as a\nperson of energy and resource, naturally fitted to dominate any situation\nin which she found herself, she vaguely imagined that such gifts would be\nof value to seekers after social guidance; but there was unfortunately no\nspecific head under which the art of saying and doing the right thing\ncould be offered in the market, and even Mrs. Fisher\'s resourcefulness\nfailed before the difficulty of discovering a workable vein in the vague\nwealth of Lily\'s graces. Mrs. Fisher was full of indirect expedients for\nenabling her friends to earn a living, and could conscientiously assert\nthat she had put several opportunities of this kind before Lily; but more\nlegitimate methods of bread-winning were as much out of her line as they\nwere beyond the capacity of the sufferers she was generally called upon\nto assist. Lily\'s failure to profit by the chances already afforded her\nmight, moreover, have justified the abandonment of farther effort on her\nbehalf; but Mrs. Fisher\'s inexhaustible good-nature made her an adept at\ncreating artificial demands in response to an actual supply. In the\npursuance of this end she at once started on a voyage of discovery in\nMiss Bart\'s behalf; and as the result of her explorations she now\nsummoned the latter with the announcement that she had \"found something.\"\n\n\n\n\nLeft to herself, Gerty mused distressfully upon her friend\'s plight, and\nher own inability to relieve it. It was clear to her that Lily, for the\npresent, had no wish for the kind of help she could give. Miss Farish\ncould see no hope for her friend but in a life completely reorganized and\ndetached from its old associations; whereas all Lily\'s energies were\ncentred in the determined effort to hold fast to those associations, to\nkeep herself visibly identified with them, as long as the illusion could\nbe maintained. Pitiable as such an attitude seemed to Gerty, she could\nnot judge it as harshly as Selden, for instance, might have done. She had\nnot forgotten the night of emotion when she and Lily had lain in each\nother\'s arms, and she had seemed to feel her very heart\'s blood passing\ninto her friend. The sacrifice she had made had seemed unavailing enough;\nno trace remained in Lily of the subduing influences of that hour; but\nGerty\'s tenderness, disciplined by long years of contact with obscure and\ninarticulate suffering, could wait on its object with a silent\nforbearance which took no account of time. She could not, however, deny\nherself the solace of taking anxious counsel with Lawrence Selden, with\nwhom, since his return from Europe, she had renewed her old relation of\ncousinly confidence.\n\nSelden himself had never been aware of any change in their relation. He\nfound Gerty as he had left her, simple, undemanding and devoted, but with\na quickened intelligence of the heart which he recognized without seeking\nto explain it. To Gerty herself it would once have seemed impossible that\nshe should ever again talk freely with him of Lily Bart; but what had\npassed in the secrecy of her own breast seemed to resolve itself, when\nthe mist of the struggle cleared, into a breaking down of the bounds of\nself, a deflecting of the wasted personal emotion into the general\ncurrent of human understanding.\n\nIt was not till some two weeks after her visit from Lily that Gerty had\nthe opportunity of communicating her fears to Selden. The latter, having\npresented himself on a Sunday afternoon, had lingered on through the\ndowdy animation of his cousin\'s tea-hour, conscious of something in her\nvoice and eye which solicited a word apart; and as soon as the last\nvisitor was gone Gerty opened her case by asking how lately he had seen\nMiss Bart.\n\nSelden\'s perceptible pause gave her time for a slight stir of surprise.\n\n\"I haven\'t seen her at all--I\'ve perpetually missed seeing her since she\ncame back.\"\n\nThis unexpected admission made Gerty pause too; and she was still\nhesitating on the brink of her subject when he relieved her by adding:\n\"I\'ve wanted to see her--but she seems to have been absorbed by the\nGormer set since her return from Europe.\"\n\n\"That\'s all the more reason: she\'s been very unhappy.\"\n\n\"Unhappy at being with the Gormers?\"\n\n\"Oh, I don\'t defend her intimacy with the Gormers; but that too is at an\nend now, I think. You know people have been very unkind since Bertha\nDorset quarrelled with her.\"\n\n\"Ah----\" Selden exclaimed, rising abruptly to walk to the window, where\nhe remained with his eyes on the darkening street while his cousin\ncontinued to explain: \"Judy Trenor and her own family have deserted her\ntoo--and all because Bertha Dorset has said such horrible things. And she\nis very poor--you know Mrs. Peniston cut her off with a small legacy,\nafter giving her to understand that she was to have everything.\"\n\n\"Yes--I know,\" Selden assented curtly, turning back into the room, but\nonly to stir about with restless steps in the circumscribed space between\ndoor and window. \"Yes--she\'s been abominably treated; but it\'s\nunfortunately the precise thing that a man who wants to show his sympathy\ncan\'t say to her.\"\n\nHis words caused Gerty a slight chill of disappointment. \"There would be\nother ways of showing your sympathy,\" she suggested.\n\nSelden, with a slight laugh, sat down beside her on the little sofa which\nprojected from the hearth. \"What are you thinking of, you incorrigible\nmissionary?\" he asked.\n\nGerty\'s colour rose, and her blush was for a moment her only answer.\nThen she made it more explicit by saying: \"I am thinking of the fact that\nyou and she used to be great friends--that she used to care immensely for\nwhat you thought of her--and that, if she takes your staying away as a\nsign of what you think now, I can imagine its adding a great deal to her\nunhappiness.\"\n\n\"My dear child, don\'t add to it still more--at least to your conception\nof it--by attributing to her all sorts of susceptibilities of your own.\"\nSelden, for his life, could not keep a note of dryness out of his voice;\nbut he met Gerty\'s look of perplexity by saying more mildly: \"But, though\nyou immensely exaggerate the importance of anything I could do for Miss\nBart, you can\'t exaggerate my readiness to do it--if you ask me to.\" He\nlaid his hand for a moment on hers, and there passed between them, on the\ncurrent of the rare contact, one of those exchanges of meaning which fill\nthe hidden reservoirs of affection. Gerty had the feeling that he\nmeasured the cost of her request as plainly as she read the significance\nof his reply; and the sense of all that was suddenly clear between them\nmade her next words easier to find.\n\n\"I do ask you, then; I ask you because she once told me that you had been\na help to her, and because she needs help now as she has never needed it\nbefore. You know how dependent she has always been on ease and\nluxury--how she has hated what was shabby and ugly and uncomfortable. She\ncan\'t help it--she was brought up with those ideas, and has never been\nable to find her way out of them. But now all the things she cared for\nhave been taken from her, and the people who taught her to care for them\nhave abandoned her too; and it seems to me that if some one could reach\nout a hand and show her the other side--show her how much is left in life\nand in herself----\" Gerty broke off, abashed at the sound of her own\neloquence, and impeded by the difficulty of giving precise expression to\nher vague yearning for her friend\'s retrieval. \"I can\'t help her myself:\nshe\'s passed out of my reach,\" she continued. \"I think she\'s afraid of\nbeing a burden to me. When she was last here, two weeks ago, she seemed\ndreadfully worried about her future: she said Carry Fisher was trying to\nfind something for her to do. A few days later she wrote me that she had\ntaken a position as private secretary, and that I was not to be anxious,\nfor everything was all right, and she would come in and tell me about it\nwhen she had time; but she has never come, and I don\'t like to go to her,\nbecause I am afraid of forcing myself on her when I\'m not wanted. Once,\nwhen we were children, and I had rushed up after a long separation, and\nthrown my arms about her, she said: \'Please don\'t kiss me unless I ask\nyou to, Gerty\'--and she DID ask me, a minute later; but since then I\'ve\nalways waited to be asked.\"\n\nSelden had listened in silence, with the concentrated look which his thin\ndark face could assume when he wished to guard it against any involuntary\nchange of expression. When his cousin ended, he said with a slight smile:\n\"Since you\'ve learned the wisdom of waiting, I don\'t see why you urge me\nto rush in--\" but the troubled appeal of her eyes made him add, as he\nrose to take leave: \"Still, I\'ll do what you wish, and not hold you\nresponsible for my failure.\"\n\nSelden\'s avoidance of Miss Bart had not been as unintentional as he had\nallowed his cousin to think. At first, indeed, while the memory of their\nlast hour at Monte Carlo still held the full heat of his indignation, he\nhad anxiously watched for her return; but she had disappointed him by\nlingering in England, and when she finally reappeared it happened that\nbusiness had called him to the West, whence he came back only to learn\nthat she was starting for Alaska with the Gormers. The revelation of this\nsuddenly-established intimacy effectually chilled his desire to see her.\nIf, at a moment when her whole life seemed to be breaking up, she could\ncheerfully commit its reconstruction to the Gormers, there was no reason\nwhy such accidents should ever strike her as irreparable. Every step she\ntook seemed in fact to carry her farther from the region where, once or\ntwice, he and she had met for an illumined moment; and the recognition of\nthis fact, when its first pang had been surmounted, produced in him a\nsense of negative relief. It was much simpler for him to judge Miss Bart\nby her habitual conduct than by the rare deviations from it which had\nthrown her so disturbingly in his way; and every act of hers which made\nthe recurrence of such deviations more unlikely, confirmed the sense of\nrelief with which he returned to the conventional view of her.\n\nBut Gerty Farish\'s words had sufficed to make him see how little this\nview was really his, and how impossible it was for him to live quietly\nwith the thought of Lily Bart. To hear that she was in need of help--even\nsuch vague help as he could offer--was to be at once repossessed by that\nthought; and by the time he reached the street he had sufficiently\nconvinced himself of the urgency of his cousin\'s appeal to turn his steps\ndirectly toward Lily\'s hotel.\n\nThere his zeal met a check in the unforeseen news that Miss Bart had\nmoved away; but, on his pressing his enquiries, the clerk remembered that\nshe had left an address, for which he presently began to search through\nhis books.\n\nIt was certainly strange that she should have taken this step without\nletting Gerty Farish know of her decision; and Selden waited with a vague\nsense of uneasiness while the address was sought for. The process lasted\nlong enough for uneasiness to turn to apprehension; but when at length a\nslip of paper was handed him, and he read on it: \"Care of Mrs. Norma\nHatch, Emporium Hotel,\" his apprehension passed into an incredulous\nstare, and this into the gesture of disgust with which he tore the paper\nin two, and turned to walk quickly homeward.\n\n\n\nChapter 9\n\nWhen Lily woke on the morning after her translation to the Emporium\nHotel, her first feeling was one of purely physical satisfaction. The\nforce of contrast gave an added keenness to the luxury of lying once more\nin a soft-pillowed bed, and looking across a spacious sunlit room at a\nbreakfast-table set invitingly near the fire. Analysis and introspection\nmight come later; but for the moment she was not even troubled by the\nexcesses of the upholstery or the restless convolutions of the furniture.\nThe sense of being once more lapped and folded in ease, as in some dense\nmild medium impenetrable to discomfort, effectually stilled the faintest\nnote of criticism.\n\nWhen, the afternoon before, she had presented herself to the lady to whom\nCarry Fisher had directed her, she had been conscious of entering a new\nworld. Carry\'s vague presentment of Mrs. Norma Hatch (whose reversion to\nher Christian name was explained as the result of her latest divorce),\nleft her under the implication of coming \"from the West,\" with the not\nunusual extenuation of having brought a great deal of money with her. She\nwas, in short, rich, helpless, unplaced: the very subject for Lily\'s\nhand. Mrs. Fisher had not specified the line her friend was to take; she\nowned herself unacquainted with Mrs. Hatch, whom she \"knew about\" through\nMelville Stancy, a lawyer in his leisure moments, and the Falstaff of a\ncertain section of festive dub life. Socially, Mr. Stancy might have\nbeen said to form a connecting link between the Gormer world and the more\ndimly-lit region on which Miss Bart now found herself entering. It was,\nhowever, only figuratively that the illumination of Mrs. Hatch\'s world\ncould be described as dim: in actual fact, Lily found her seated in a\nblaze of electric light, impartially projected from various ornamental\nexcrescences on a vast concavity of pink damask and gilding, from which\nshe rose like Venus from her shell. The analogy was justified by the\nappearance of the lady, whose large-eyed prettiness had the fixity of\nsomething impaled and shown under glass. This did not preclude the\nimmediate discovery that she was some years younger than her visitor, and\nthat under her showiness, her ease, the aggression of her dress and\nvoice, there persisted that ineradicable innocence which, in ladies of\nher nationality, so curiously coexists with startling extremes of\nexperience.\n\nThe environment in which Lily found herself was as strange to her as its\ninhabitants. She was unacquainted with the world of the fashionable New\nYork hotel--a world over-heated, over-upholstered, and over-fitted with\nmechanical appliances for the gratification of fantastic requirements,\nwhile the comforts of a civilized life were as unattainable as in a\ndesert. Through this atmosphere of torrid splendour moved wan beings as\nrichly upholstered as the furniture, beings without definite pursuits or\npermanent relations, who drifted on a languid tide of curiosity from\nrestaurant to concert-hall, from palm-garden to music-room, from \"art\nexhibit\" to dress-maker\'s opening. High-stepping horses or elaborately\nequipped motors waited to carry these ladies into vague metropolitan\ndistances, whence they returned, still more wan from the weight of their\nsables, to be sucked back into the stifling inertia of the hotel routine.\nSomewhere behind them, in the background of their lives, there was\ndoubtless a real past, peopled by real human activities: they themselves\nwere probably the product of strong ambitions, persistent energies,\ndiversified contacts with the wholesome roughness of life; yet they had\nno more real existence than the poet\'s shades in limbo.\n\nLily had not been long in this pallid world without discovering that Mrs.\nHatch was its most substantial figure. That lady, though still floating\nin the void, showed faint symptoms of developing an outline; and in this\nendeavour she was actively seconded by Mr. Melville Stancy. It was Mr.\nStancy, a man of large resounding presence, suggestive of convivial\noccasions and of a chivalry finding expression in \"first-night\" boxes and\nthousand dollar bonbonnieres, who had transplanted Mrs. Hatch from the\nscene of her first development to the higher stage of hotel life in the\nmetropolis. It was he who had selected the horses with which she had\ntaken the blue ribbon at the Show, had introduced her to the photographer\nwhose portraits of her formed the recurring ornament of \"Sunday\nSupplements,\" and had got together the group which constituted her social\nworld. It was a small group still, with heterogeneous figures suspended\nin large unpeopled spaces; but Lily did not take long to learn that its\nregulation was no longer in Mr. Stancy\'s hands. As often happens, the\npupil had outstripped the teacher, and Mrs. Hatch was already aware of\nheights of elegance as well as depths of luxury beyond the world of the\nEmporium. This discovery at once produced in her a craving for higher\nguidance, for the adroit feminine hand which should give the right turn\nto her correspondence, the right \"look\" to her hats, the right succession\nto the items of her MENUS. It was, in short, as the regulator of a\ngerminating social life that Miss Bart\'s guidance was required; her\nostensible duties as secretary being restricted by the fact that Mrs.\nHatch, as yet, knew hardly any one to write to.\n\nThe daily details of Mrs. Hatch\'s existence were as strange to Lily as\nits general tenor. The lady\'s habits were marked by an Oriental indolence\nand disorder peculiarly trying to her companion. Mrs. Hatch and her\nfriends seemed to float together outside the bounds of time and space. No\ndefinite hours were kept; no fixed obligations existed: night and day\nflowed into one another in a blur of confused and retarded engagements,\nso that one had the impression of lunching at the tea-hour, while dinner\nwas often merged in the noisy after-theatre supper which prolonged Mrs.\nHatch\'s vigil till daylight.\n\nThrough this jumble of futile activities came and went a strange throng\nof hangers-on--manicures, beauty-doctors, hair-dressers, teachers of\nbridge, of French, of \"physical development\": figures sometimes\nindistinguishable, by their appearance, or by Mrs. Hatch\'s relation to\nthem, from the visitors constituting her recognized society. But\nstrangest of all to Lily was the encounter, in this latter group, of\nseveral of her acquaintances. She had supposed, and not without relief,\nthat she was passing, for the moment, completely out of her own circle;\nbut she found that Mr. Stancy, one side of whose sprawling existence\noverlapped the edge of Mrs. Fisher\'s world, had drawn several of its\nbrightest ornaments into the circle of the Emporium. To find Ned\nSilverton among the habitual frequenters of Mrs. Hatch\'s drawing-room was\none of Lily\'s first astonishments; but she soon discovered that he was\nnot Mr. Stancy\'s most important recruit. It was on little Freddy Van\nOsburgh, the small slim heir of the Van Osburgh millions, that the\nattention of Mrs. Hatch\'s group was centred. Freddy, barely out of\ncollege, had risen above the horizon since Lily\'s eclipse, and she now\nsaw with surprise what an effulgence he shed on the outer twilight of\nMrs. Hatch\'s existence. This, then, was one of the things that young men\n\"went in\" for when released from the official social routine; this was\nthe kind of \"previous engagement\" that so frequently caused them to\ndisappoint the hopes of anxious hostesses. Lily had an odd sense of being\nbehind the social tapestry, on the side where the threads were knotted\nand the loose ends hung. For a moment she found a certain amusement in\nthe show, and in her own share of it: the situation had an ease and\nunconventionality distinctly refreshing after her experience of the irony\nof conventions. But these flashes of amusement were but brief reactions\nfrom the long disgust of her days. Compared with the vast gilded void of\nMrs. Hatch\'s existence, the life of Lily\'s former friends seemed packed\nwith ordered activities. Even the most irresponsible pretty woman of her\nacquaintance had her inherited obligations, her conventional\nbenevolences, her share in the working of the great civic machine; and\nall hung together in the solidarity of these traditional functions. The\nperformance of specific duties would have simplified Miss Bart\'s\nposition; but the vague attendance on Mrs. Hatch was not without its\nperplexities.\n\nIt was not her employer who created these perplexities. Mrs. Hatch showed\nfrom the first an almost touching desire for Lily\'s approval. Far from\nasserting the superiority of wealth, her beautiful eyes seemed to urge\nthe plea of inexperience: she wanted to do what was \"nice,\" to be taught\nhow to be \"lovely.\" The difficulty was to find any point of contact\nbetween her ideals and Lily\'s.\n\nMrs. Hatch swam in a haze of indeterminate enthusiasms, of aspirations\nculled from the stage, the newspapers, the fashion journals, and a gaudy\nworld of sport still more completely beyond her companion\'s ken. To\nseparate from these confused conceptions those most likely to advance the\nlady on her way, was Lily\'s obvious duty; but its performance was\nhampered by rapidly-growing doubts. Lily was in fact becoming more and\nmore aware of a certain ambiguity in her situation. It was not that she\nhad, in the conventional sense, any doubt of Mrs. Hatch\'s\nirreproachableness. The lady\'s offences were always against taste rather\nthan conduct; her divorce record seemed due to geographical rather than\nethical conditions; and her worst laxities were likely to proceed from a\nwandering and extravagant good-nature. But if Lily did not mind her\ndetaining her manicure for luncheon, or offering the \"Beauty-Doctor\" a\nseat in Freddy Van Osburgh\'s box at the play, she was not equally at ease\nin regard to some less apparent lapses from convention. Ned Silverton\'s\nrelation to Stancy seemed, for instance, closer and less clear than any\nnatural affinities would warrant; and both appeared united in the effort\nto cultivate Freddy Van Osburgh\'s growing taste for Mrs. Hatch. There was\nas yet nothing definable in the situation, which might well resolve\nitself into a huge joke on the part of the other two; but Lily had a\nvague sense that the subject of their experiment was too young, too rich\nand too credulous. Her embarrassment was increased by the fact that\nFreddy seemed to regard her as cooperating with himself in the social\ndevelopment of Mrs. Hatch: a view that suggested, on his part, a\npermanent interest in the lady\'s future. There were moments when Lily\nfound an ironic amusement in this aspect of the case. The thought of\nlaunching such a missile as Mrs. Hatch at the perfidious bosom of society\nwas not without its charm: Miss Bart had even beguiled her leisure with\nvisions of the fair Norma introduced for the first time to a family\nbanquet at the Van Osburghs\'. But the thought of being personally\nconnected with the transaction was less agreeable; and her momentary\nflashes of amusement were followed by increasing periods of doubt.\n\nThe sense of these doubts was uppermost when, late one afternoon, she was\nsurprised by a visit from Lawrence Selden. He found her alone in the\nwilderness of pink damask, for in Mrs. Hatch\'s world the tea-hour was not\ndedicated to social rites, and the lady was in the hands of her masseuse.\n\nSelden\'s entrance had caused Lily an inward start of embarrassment; but\nhis air of constraint had the effect of restoring her self-possession,\nand she took at once the tone of surprise and pleasure, wondering frankly\nthat he should have traced her to so unlikely a place, and asking what\nhad inspired him to make the search.\n\nSelden met this with an unusual seriousness: she had never seen him so\nlittle master of the situation, so plainly at the mercy of any\nobstructions she might put in his way. \"I wanted to see you,\" he said;\nand she could not resist observing in reply that he had kept his wishes\nunder remarkable control. She had in truth felt his long absence as one\nof the chief bitternesses of the last months: his desertion had wounded\nsensibilities far below the surface of her pride.\n\nSelden met the challenge with directness. \"Why should I have come, unless\nI thought I could be of use to you? It is my only excuse for imagining\nyou could want me.\"\n\nThis struck her as a clumsy evasion, and the thought gave a flash of\nkeenness to her answer. \"Then you have come now because you think you can\nbe of use to me?\"\n\nHe hesitated again. \"Yes: in the modest capacity of a person to talk\nthings over with.\"\n\nFor a clever man it was certainly a stupid beginning; and the idea that\nhis awkwardness was due to the fear of her attaching a personal\nsignificance to his visit, chilled her pleasure in seeing him. Even under\nthe most adverse conditions, that pleasure always made itself felt: she\nmight hate him, but she had never been able to wish him out of the room.\nShe was very near hating him now; yet the sound of his voice, the way the\nlight fell on his thin dark hair, the way he sat and moved and wore his\nclothes--she was conscious that even these trivial things were inwoven\nwith her deepest life. In his presence a sudden stillness came upon her,\nand the turmoil of her spirit ceased; but an impulse of resistance to\nthis stealing influence now prompted her to say: \"It\'s very good of you\nto present yourself in that capacity; but what makes you think I have\nanything particular to talk about?\"\n\nThough she kept the even tone of light intercourse, the question was\nframed in a way to remind him that his good offices were unsought; and\nfor a moment Selden was checked by it. The situation between them was one\nwhich could have been cleared up only by a sudden explosion of feeling;\nand their whole training and habit of mind were against the chances of\nsuch an explosion. Selden\'s calmness seemed rather to harden into\nresistance, and Miss Bart\'s into a surface of glittering irony, as they\nfaced each other from the opposite corners of one of Mrs. Hatch\'s\nelephantine sofas. The sofa in question, and the apartment peopled by its\nmonstrous mates, served at length to suggest the turn of Selden\'s reply.\n\n\"Gerty told me that you were acting as Mrs. Hatch\'s secretary; and I knew\nshe was anxious to hear how you were getting on.\"\n\nMiss Bart received this explanation without perceptible softening. \"Why\ndidn\'t she look me up herself, then?\" she asked.\n\n\"Because, as you didn\'t send her your address, she was afraid of being\nimportunate.\" Selden continued with a smile: \"You see no such scruples\nrestrained me; but then I haven\'t as much to risk if I incur your\ndispleasure.\"\n\nLily answered his smile. \"You haven\'t incurred it as yet; but I have an\nidea that you are going to.\"\n\n\"That rests with you, doesn\'t it? You see my initiative doesn\'t go beyond\nputting myself at your disposal.\"\n\n\"But in what capacity? What am I to do with you?\" she asked in the same\nlight tone.\n\nSelden again glanced about Mrs. Hatch\'s drawing-room; then he said, with\na decision which he seemed to have gathered from this final inspection:\n\"You are to let me take you away from here.\"\n\nLily flushed at the suddenness of the attack; then she stiffened under it\nand said coldly: \"And may I ask where you mean me to go?\"\n\n\"Back to Gerty in the first place, if you will; the essential thing is\nthat it should be away from here.\"\n\nThe unusual harshness of his tone might have shown her how much the words\ncost him; but she was in no state to measure his feelings while her own\nwere in a flame of revolt. To neglect her, perhaps even to avoid her, at\na time when she had most need of her friends, and then suddenly and\nunwarrantably to break into her life with this strange assumption of\nauthority, was to rouse in her every instinct of pride and self-defence.\n\n\"I am very much obliged to you,\" she said, \"for taking such an interest\nin my plans; but I am quite contented where I am, and have no intention\nof leaving.\"\n\nSelden had risen, and was standing before her in an attitude of\nuncontrollable expectancy.\n\n\"That simply means that you don\'t know where you are!\" he exclaimed.\n\nLily rose also, with a quick flash of anger. \"If you have come here to\nsay disagreeable things about Mrs. Hatch----\"\n\n\"It is only with your relation to Mrs. Hatch that I am concerned.\"\n\n\"My relation to Mrs. Hatch is one I have no reason to be ashamed of. She\nhas helped me to earn a living when my old friends were quite resigned to\nseeing me starve.\"\n\n\"Nonsense! Starvation is not the only alternative. You know you can\nalways find a home with Gerty till you are independent again.\"\n\n\"You show such an intimate acquaintance with my affairs that I suppose\nyou mean--till my aunt\'s legacy is paid?\"\n\n\"I do mean that; Gerty told me of it,\" Selden acknowledged without\nembarrassment. He was too much in earnest now to feel any false\nconstraint in speaking his mind.\n\n\"But Gerty does not happen to know,\" Miss Bart rejoined, \"that I owe\nevery penny of that legacy.\"\n\n\"Good God!\" Selden exclaimed, startled out of his composure by the\nabruptness of the statement.\n\n\"Every penny of it, and more too,\" Lily repeated; \"and you now perhaps\nsee why I prefer to remain with Mrs. Hatch rather than take advantage of\nGerty\'s kindness. I have no money left, except my small income, and I\nmust earn something more to keep myself alive.\"\n\nSelden hesitated a moment; then he rejoined in a quieter tone: \"But with\nyour income and Gerty\'s--since you allow me to go so far into the details\nof the situation--you and she could surely contrive a life together which\nwould put you beyond the need of having to support yourself. Gerty, I\nknow, is eager to make such an arrangement, and would be quite happy in\nit----\"\n\n\"But I should not,\" Miss Bart interposed. \"There are many reasons why it\nwould be neither kind to Gerty nor wise for myself.\" She paused a moment,\nand as he seemed to await a farther explanation, added with a quick lift\nof her head: \"You will perhaps excuse me from giving you these reasons.\"\n\n\"I have no claim to know them,\" Selden answered, ignoring her tone; \"no\nclaim to offer any comment or suggestion beyond the one I have already\nmade. And my right to make that is simply the universal right of a man to\nenlighten a woman when he sees her unconsciously placed in a false\nposition.\"\n\nLily smiled. \"I suppose,\" she rejoined, \"that by a false position you\nmean one outside of what we call society; but you must remember that I\nhad been excluded from those sacred precincts long before I met Mrs.\nHatch. As far as I can see, there is very little real difference in being\ninside or out, and I remember your once telling me that it was only those\ninside who took the difference seriously.\"\n\nShe had not been without intention in making this allusion to their\nmemorable talk at Bellomont, and she waited with an odd tremor of the\nnerves to see what response it would bring; but the result of the\nexperiment was disappointing. Selden did not allow the allusion to\ndeflect him from his point; he merely said with completer fulness of\nemphasis: \"The question of being inside or out is, as you say, a small\none, and it happens to have nothing to do with the case, except in so far\nas Mrs. Hatch\'s desire to be inside may put you in the position I call\nfalse.\"\n\nIn spite of the moderation of his tone, each word he spoke had the effect\nof confirming Lily\'s resistance. The very apprehensions he aroused\nhardened her against him: she had been on the alert for the note of\npersonal sympathy, for any sign of recovered power over him; and his\nattitude of sober impartiality, the absence of all response to her\nappeal, turned her hurt pride to blind resentment of his interference.\nThe conviction that he had been sent by Gerty, and that, whatever straits\nhe conceived her to be in, he would never voluntarily have come to her\naid, strengthened her resolve not to admit him a hair\'s breadth farther\ninto her confidence. However doubtful she might feel her situation to be,\nshe would rather persist in darkness than owe her enlightenment to Selden.\n\n\"I don\'t know,\" she said, when he had ceased to speak, \"why you imagine\nme to be situated as you describe; but as you have always told me that\nthe sole object of a bringing-up like mine was to teach a girl to get\nwhat she wants, why not assume that that is precisely what I am doing?\"\n\nThe smile with which she summed up her case was like a clear barrier\nraised against farther confidences: its brightness held him at such a\ndistance that he had a sense of being almost out of hearing as he\nrejoined: \"I am not sure that I have ever called you a successful example\nof that kind of bringing-up.\"\n\nHer colour rose a little at the implication, but she steeled herself with\na light laugh. \"Ah, wait a little longer--give me a little more time\nbefore you decide!\" And as he wavered before her, still watching for a\nbreak in the impenetrable front she presented: \"Don\'t give me up; I may\nstill do credit to my training!\" she affirmed.\n\n\n\nChapter 10\n\n\"Look at those spangles, Miss Bart--every one of \'em sewed on crooked.\"\n\nThe tall forewoman, a pinched perpendicular figure, dropped the condemned\nstructure of wire and net on the table at Lily\'s side, and passed on to\nthe next figure in the line.\n\nThere were twenty of them in the work-room, their fagged profiles, under\nexaggerated hair, bowed in the harsh north light above the utensils of\ntheir art; for it was something more than an industry, surely, this\ncreation of ever-varied settings for the face of fortunate womanhood.\nTheir own faces were sallow with the unwholesomeness of hot air and\nsedentary toil, rather than with any actual signs of want: they were\nemployed in a fashionable millinery establishment, and were fairly well\nclothed and well paid; but the youngest among them was as dull and\ncolourless as the middle-aged. In the whole work-room there was only one\nskin beneath which the blood still visibly played; and that now burned\nwith vexation as Miss Bart, under the lash of the forewoman\'s comment,\nbegan to strip the hat-frame of its over-lapping spangles.\n\nTo Gerty Farish\'s hopeful spirit a solution appeared to have been reached\nwhen she remembered how beautifully Lily could trim hats. Instances of\nyoung lady-milliners establishing themselves under fashionable patronage,\nand imparting to their \"creations\" that indefinable touch which the\nprofessional hand can never give, had flattered Gerty\'s visions of the\nfuture, and convinced even Lily that her separation from Mrs. Norma Hatch\nneed not reduce her to dependence on her friends.\n\nThe parting had occurred a few weeks after Selden\'s visit, and would have\ntaken place sooner had it not been for the resistance set up in Lily by\nhis ill-starred offer of advice. The sense of being involved in a\ntransaction she would not have cared to examine too closely had soon\nafterward defined itself in the light of a hint from Mr. Stancy that, if\nshe \"saw them through,\" she would have no reason to be sorry. The\nimplication that such loyalty would meet with a direct reward had\nhastened her flight, and flung her back, ashamed and penitent, on the\nbroad bosom of Gerty\'s sympathy. She did not, however, propose to lie\nthere prone, and Gerty\'s inspiration about the hats at once revived her\nhopes of profitable activity. Here was, after all, something that her\ncharming listless hands could really do; she had no doubt of their\ncapacity for knotting a ribbon or placing a flower to advantage. And of\ncourse only these finishing touches would be expected of her: subordinate\nfingers, blunt, grey, needle-pricked fingers, would prepare the shapes\nand stitch the linings, while she presided over the charming little front\nshop--a shop all white panels, mirrors, and moss-green hangings--where\nher finished creations, hats, wreaths, aigrettes and the rest, perched on\ntheir stands like birds just poising for flight.\n\nBut at the very outset of Gerty\'s campaign this vision of the\ngreen-and-white shop had been dispelled. Other young ladies of fashion\nhad been thus \"set-up,\" selling their hats by the mere attraction of a\nname and the reputed knack of tying a bow; but these privileged beings\ncould command a faith in their powers materially expressed by the\nreadiness to pay their shop-rent and advance a handsome sum for current\nexpenses. Where was Lily to find such support? And even could it have\nbeen found, how were the ladies on whose approval she depended to be\ninduced to give her their patronage? Gerty learned that whatever sympathy\nher friend\'s case might have excited a few months since had been\nimperilled, if not lost, by her association with Mrs. Hatch. Once again,\nLily had withdrawn from an ambiguous situation in time to save her\nself-respect, but too late for public vindication. Freddy Van Osburgh\nwas not to marry Mrs. Hatch; he had been rescued at the eleventh\nhour--some said by the efforts of Gus Trenor and Rosedale--and despatched\nto Europe with old Ned Van Alstyne; but the risk he had run would always\nbe ascribed to Miss Bart\'s connivance, and would somehow serve as a\nsumming-up and corroboration of the vague general distrust of her. It was\na relief to those who had hung back from her to find themselves thus\njustified, and they were inclined to insist a little on her connection\nwith the Hatch case in order to show that they had been right.\n\nGerty\'s quest, at any rate, brought up against a solid wall of\nresistance; and even when Carry Fisher, momentarily penitent for her\nshare in the Hatch affair, joined her efforts to Miss Farish\'s, they met\nwith no better success. Gerty had tried to veil her failure in tender\nambiguities; but Carry, always the soul of candour, put the case squarely\nto her friend.\n\n\"I went straight to Judy Trenor; she has fewer prejudices than the\nothers, and besides she\'s always hated Bertha Dorset. But what HAVE you\ndone to her, Lily? At the very first word about giving you a start she\nflamed out about some money you\'d got from Gus; I never knew her so hot\nbefore. You know she\'ll let him do anything but spend money on his\nfriends: the only reason she\'s decent to me now is that she knows I\'m not\nhard up.--He speculated for you, you say? Well, what\'s the harm? He had\nno business to lose. He DIDN\'T lose? Then what on earth--but I never\nCOULD understand you, Lily!\"\n\nThe end of it was that, after anxious enquiry and much deliberation, Mrs.\nFisher and Gerty, for once oddly united in their effort to help their\nfriend, decided on placing her in the work-room of Mme. Regina\'s renowned\nmillinery establishment. Even this arrangement was not effected without\nconsiderable negotiation, for Mme. Regina had a strong prejudice against\nuntrained assistance, and was induced to yield only by the fact that she\nowed the patronage of Mrs. Bry and Mrs. Gormer to Carry Fisher\'s\ninfluence. She had been willing from the first to employ Lily in the\nshow-room: as a displayer of hats, a fashionable beauty might be a\nvaluable asset. But to this suggestion Miss Bart opposed a negative which\nGerty emphatically supported, while Mrs. Fisher, inwardly unconvinced,\nbut resigned to this latest proof of Lily\'s unreason, agreed that perhaps\nin the end it would be more useful that she should learn the trade. To\nRegina\'s work-room Lily was therefore committed by her friends, and there\nMrs. Fisher left her with a sigh of relief, while Gerty\'s watchfulness\ncontinued to hover over her at a distance.\n\nLily had taken up her work early in January: it was now two months later,\nand she was still being rebuked for her inability to sew spangles on a\nhat-frame. As she returned to her work she heard a titter pass down the\ntables. She knew she was an object of criticism and amusement to the\nother work-women. They were, of course, aware of her history--the exact\nsituation of every girl in the room was known and freely discussed by all\nthe others--but the knowledge did not produce in them any awkward sense\nof class distinction: it merely explained why her untutored fingers were\nstill blundering over the rudiments of the trade. Lily had no desire\nthat they should recognize any social difference in her; but she had\nhoped to be received as their equal, and perhaps before long to show\nherself their superior by a special deftness of touch, and it was\nhumiliating to find that, after two months of drudgery, she still\nbetrayed her lack of early training. Remote was the day when she might\naspire to exercise the talents she felt confident of possessing; only\nexperienced workers were entrusted with the delicate art of shaping and\ntrimming the hat, and the forewoman still held her inexorably to the\nroutine of preparatory work.\n\nShe began to rip the spangles from the frame, listening absently to the\nbuzz of talk which rose and fell with the coming and going of Miss\nHaines\'s active figure. The air was closer than usual, because Miss\nHaines, who had a cold, had not allowed a window to be opened even during\nthe noon recess; and Lily\'s head was so heavy with the weight of a\nsleepless night that the chatter of her companions had the incoherence of\na dream.\n\n\"I TOLD her he\'d never look at her again; and he didn\'t. I wouldn\'t have,\neither--I think she acted real mean to him. He took her to the Arion\nBall, and had a hack for her both ways.... She\'s taken ten bottles, and\nher headaches don\'t seem no better--but she\'s written a testimonial to\nsay the first bottle cured her, and she got five dollars and her picture\nin the paper.... Mrs. Trenor\'s hat? The one with the green Paradise?\nHere, Miss Haines--it\'ll be ready right off.... That was one of the\nTrenor girls here yesterday with Mrs. George Dorset. How\'d I know? Why,\nMadam sent for me to alter the flower in that Virot hat--the blue tulle:\nshe\'s tall and slight, with her hair fuzzed out--a good deal like Mamie\nLeach, on\'y thinner....\"\n\nOn and on it flowed, a current of meaningless sound, on which,\nstartlingly enough, a familiar name now and then floated to the surface.\nIt was the strangest part of Lily\'s strange experience, the hearing of\nthese names, the seeing the fragmentary and distorted image of the world\nshe had lived in reflected in the mirror of the working-girls\' minds. She\nhad never before suspected the mixture of insatiable curiosity and\ncontemptuous freedom with which she and her kind were discussed in this\nunderworld of toilers who lived on their vanity and self-indulgence.\nEvery girl in Mme. Regina\'s work-room knew to whom the headgear in her\nhands was destined, and had her opinion of its future wearer, and a\ndefinite knowledge of the latter\'s place in the social system. That Lily\nwas a star fallen from that sky did not, after the first stir of\ncuriosity had subsided, materially add to their interest in her. She had\nfallen, she had \"gone under,\" and true to the ideal of their race, they\nwere awed only by success--by the gross tangible image of material\nachievement. The consciousness of her different point of view merely kept\nthem at a little distance from her, as though she were a foreigner with\nwhom it was an effort to talk.\n\n\"Miss Bart, if you can\'t sew those spangles on more regular I guess you\'d\nbetter give the hat to Miss Kilroy.\"\n\nLily looked down ruefully at her handiwork. The forewoman was right: the\nsewing on of the spangles was inexcusably bad. What made her so much more\nclumsy than usual? Was it a growing distaste for her task, or actual\nphysical disability? She felt tired and confused: it was an effort to put\nher thoughts together. She rose and handed the hat to Miss Kilroy, who\ntook it with a suppressed smile.\n\n\"I\'m sorry; I\'m afraid I am not well,\" she said to the forewoman.\n\nMiss Haines offered no comment. From the first she had augured ill of\nMme. Regina\'s consenting to include a fashionable apprentice among her\nworkers. In that temple of art no raw beginners were wanted, and Miss\nHaines would have been more than human had she not taken a certain\npleasure in seeing her forebodings confirmed.\n\n\"You\'d better go back to binding edges,\" she said drily. Lily slipped out\nlast among the band of liberated work-women. She did not care to be\nmingled in their noisy dispersal: once in the street, she always felt an\nirresistible return to her old standpoint, an instinctive shrinking from\nall that was unpolished and promiscuous. In the days--how distant they\nnow seemed!--when she had visited the Girls\' Club with Gerty Farish, she\nhad felt an enlightened interest in the working-classes; but that was\nbecause she looked down on them from above, from the happy altitude of\nher grace and her beneficence. Now that she was on a level with them, the\npoint of view was less interesting.\n\nShe felt a touch on her arm, and met the penitent eye of Miss Kilroy.\n\"Miss Bart, I guess you can sew those spangles on as well as I can when\nyou\'re feeling right. Miss Haines didn\'t act fair to you.\"\n\nLily\'s colour rose at the unexpected advance: it was a long time since\nreal kindness had looked at her from any eyes but Gerty\'s.\n\n\"Oh, thank you: I\'m not particularly well, but Miss Haines was right. I\nAM clumsy.\"\n\n\"Well, it\'s mean work for anybody with a headache.\" Miss Kilroy paused\nirresolutely. \"You ought to go right home and lay down. Ever try\norangeine?\"\n\n\"Thank you.\" Lily held out her hand. \"It\'s very kind of you--I mean to go\nhome.\"\n\nShe looked gratefully at Miss Kilroy, but neither knew what more to say.\nLily was aware that the other was on the point of offering to go home\nwith her, but she wanted to be alone and silent--even kindness, the sort\nof kindness that Miss Kilroy could give, would have jarred on her just\nthen.\n\n\"Thank you,\" she repeated as she turned away.\n\nShe struck westward through the dreary March twilight, toward the street\nwhere her boarding-house stood. She had resolutely refused Gerty\'s offer\nof hospitality. Something of her mother\'s fierce shrinking from\nobservation and sympathy was beginning to develop in her, and the\npromiscuity of small quarters and close intimacy seemed, on the whole,\nless endurable than the solitude of a hall bedroom in a house where she\ncould come and go unremarked among other workers. For a while she had\nbeen sustained by this desire for privacy and independence; but now,\nperhaps from increasing physical weariness, the lassitude brought about\nby hours of unwonted confinement, she was beginning to feel acutely the\nugliness and discomfort of her surroundings. The day\'s task done, she\ndreaded to return to her narrow room, with its blotched wallpaper and\nshabby paint; and she hated every step of the walk thither, through the\ndegradation of a New York street in the last stages of decline from\nfashion to commerce.\n\nBut what she dreaded most of all was having to pass the chemist\'s at the\ncorner of Sixth Avenue. She had meant to take another street: she had\nusually done so of late. But today her steps were irresistibly drawn\ntoward the flaring plate-glass corner; she tried to take the lower\ncrossing, but a laden dray crowded her back, and she struck across the\nstreet obliquely, reaching the sidewalk just opposite the chemist\'s door.\n\nOver the counter she caught the eye of the clerk who had waited on her\nbefore, and slipped the prescription into his hand. There could be no\nquestion about the prescription: it was a copy of one of Mrs. Hatch\'s,\nobligingly furnished by that lady\'s chemist. Lily was confident that the\nclerk would fill it without hesitation; yet the nervous dread of a\nrefusal, or even of an expression of doubt, communicated itself to her\nrestless hands as she affected to examine the bottles of perfume stacked\non the glass case before her.\n\nThe clerk had read the prescription without comment; but in the act of\nhanding out the bottle he paused.\n\n\"You don\'t want to increase the dose, you know,\" he remarked. Lily\'s\nheart contracted.\n\nWhat did he mean by looking at her in that way?\n\n\"Of course not,\" she murmured, holding out her hand.\n\n\"That\'s all right: it\'s a queer-acting drug. A drop or two more, and off\nyou go--the doctors don\'t know why.\"\n\nThe dread lest he should question her, or keep the bottle back, choked\nthe murmur of acquiescence in her throat; and when at length she emerged\nsafely from the shop she was almost dizzy with the intensity of her\nrelief. The mere touch of the packet thrilled her tired nerves with the\ndelicious promise of a night of sleep, and in the reaction from her\nmomentary fear she felt as if the first fumes of drowsiness were already\nstealing over her.\n\nIn her confusion she stumbled against a man who was hurrying down the\nlast steps of the elevated station. He drew back, and she heard her name\nuttered with surprise. It was Rosedale, fur-coated, glossy and\nprosperous--but why did she seem to see him so far off, and as if through\na mist of splintered crystals? Before she could account for the\nphenomenon she found herself shaking hands with him. They had parted with\nscorn on her side and anger upon his; but all trace of these emotions\nseemed to vanish as their hands met, and she was only aware of a confused\nwish that she might continue to hold fast to him.\n\n\"Why, what\'s the matter, Miss Lily? You\'re not well!\" he exclaimed; and\nshe forced her lips into a pallid smile of reassurance.\n\n\"I\'m a little tired--it\'s nothing. Stay with me a moment, please,\" she\nfaltered. That she should be asking this service of Rosedale!\n\nHe glanced at the dirty and unpropitious corner on which they stood, with\nthe shriek of the \"elevated\" and the tumult of trams and waggons\ncontending hideously in their ears.\n\n\"We can\'t stay here; but let me take you somewhere for a cup of tea. The\nLONGWORTH is only a few yards off, and there\'ll be no one there at this\nhour.\"\n\nA cup of tea in quiet, somewhere out of the noise and ugliness, seemed\nfor the moment the one solace she could bear. A few steps brought them to\nthe ladies\' door of the hotel he had named, and a moment later he was\nseated opposite to her, and the waiter had placed the tea-tray between\nthem.\n\n\"Not a drop of brandy or whiskey first? You look regularly done up, Miss\nLily. Well, take your tea strong, then; and, waiter, get a cushion for\nthe lady\'s back.\"\n\nLily smiled faintly at the injunction to take her tea strong. It was the\ntemptation she was always struggling to resist. Her craving for the keen\nstimulant was forever conflicting with that other craving for sleep--the\nmidnight craving which only the little phial in her hand could still. But\ntoday, at any rate, the tea could hardly be too strong: she counted on it\nto pour warmth and resolution into her empty veins.\n\nAs she leaned back before him, her lids drooping in utter lassitude,\nthough the first warm draught already tinged her face with returning\nlife, Rosedale was seized afresh by the poignant surprise of her beauty.\nThe dark pencilling of fatigue under her eyes, the morbid blue-veined\npallour of the temples, brought out the brightness of her hair and lips,\nas though all her ebbing vitality were centred there. Against the dull\nchocolate-coloured background of the restaurant, the purity of her head\nstood out as it had never done in the most brightly-lit ball-room. He\nlooked at her with a startled uncomfortable feeling, as though her beauty\nwere a forgotten enemy that had lain in ambush and now sprang out on him\nunawares.\n\nTo clear the air he tried to take an easy tone with her. \"Why, Miss Lily,\nI haven\'t seen you for an age. I didn\'t know what had become of you.\"\n\nAs he spoke, he was checked by an embarrassing sense of the complications\nto which this might lead. Though he had not seen her he had heard of her;\nhe knew of her connection with Mrs. Hatch, and of the talk resulting from\nit. Mrs. Hatch\'s MILIEU was one which he had once assiduously frequented,\nand now as devoutly shunned.\n\nLily, to whom the tea had restored her usual clearness of mind, saw what\nwas in his thoughts and said with a slight smile: \"You would not be\nlikely to know about me. I have joined the working classes.\"\n\nHe stared in genuine wonder. \"You don\'t mean--? Why, what on earth are\nyou doing?\"\n\n\"Learning to be a milliner--at least TRYING to learn,\" she hastily\nqualified the statement.\n\nRosedale suppressed a low whistle of surprise. \"Come off--you ain\'t\nserious, are you?\"\n\n\"Perfectly serious. I\'m obliged to work for my living.\"\n\n\"But I understood--I thought you were with Norma Hatch.\"\n\n\"You heard I had gone to her as her secretary?\"\n\n\"Something of the kind, I believe.\" He leaned forward to refill her cup.\n\nLily guessed the possibilities of embarrassment which the topic held for\nhim, and raising her eyes to his, she said suddenly: \"I left her two\nmonths ago.\"\n\nRosedale continued to fumble awkwardly with the tea-pot, and she felt\nsure that he had heard what had been said of her. But what was there that\nRosedale did not hear?\n\n\"Wasn\'t it a soft berth?\" he enquired, with an attempt at lightness.\n\n\"Too soft--one might have sunk in too deep.\" Lily rested one arm on the\nedge of the table, and sat looking at him more intently than she had ever\nlooked before. An uncontrollable impulse was urging her to put her case\nto this man, from whose curiosity she had always so fiercely defended\nherself.\n\n\"You know Mrs. Hatch, I think? Well, perhaps you can understand that she\nmight make things too easy for one.\"\n\nRosedale looked faintly puzzled, and she remembered that allusiveness was\nlost on him.\n\n\"It was no place for you, anyhow,\" he agreed, so suffused and immersed in\nthe light of her full gaze that he found himself being drawn into strange\ndepths of intimacy. He who had had to subsist on mere fugitive glances,\nlooks winged in flight and swiftly lost under covert, now found her eyes\nsettling on him with a brooding intensity that fairly dazzled him.\n\n\"I left,\" Lily continued, \"lest people should say I was helping Mrs.\nHatch to marry Freddy Van Osburgh--who is not in the least too good for\nher--and as they still continue to say it, I see that I might as well\nhave stayed where I was.\"\n\n\"Oh, Freddy----\" Rosedale brushed aside the topic with an air of its\nunimportance which gave a sense of the immense perspective he had\nacquired. \"Freddy don\'t count--but I knew YOU weren\'t mixed up in that.\nIt ain\'t your style.\"\n\nLily coloured slightly: she could not conceal from herself that the words\ngave her pleasure. She would have liked to sit there, drinking more tea,\nand continuing to talk of herself to Rosedale. But the old habit of\nobserving the conventions reminded her that it was time to bring their\ncolloquy to an end, and she made a faint motion to push back her chair.\n\nRosedale stopped her with a protesting gesture. \"Wait a minute--don\'t go\nyet; sit quiet and rest a little longer. You look thoroughly played out.\nAnd you haven\'t told me----\" He broke off, conscious of going farther\nthan he had meant. She saw the struggle and understood it; understood\nalso the nature of the spell to which he yielded as, with his eyes on her\nface, he began again abruptly: \"What on earth did you mean by saying just\nnow that you were learning to be a milliner?\"\n\n\"Just what I said. I am an apprentice at Regina\'s.\"\n\n\"Good Lord--YOU? But what for? I knew your aunt had turned you down: Mrs.\nFisher told me about it. But I understood you got a legacy from her----\"\n\n\"I got ten thousand dollars; but the legacy is not to be paid till next\nsummer.\"\n\n\"Well, but--look here: you could BORROW on it any time you wanted.\"\n\nShe shook her head gravely. \"No; for I owe it already.\"\n\n\"Owe it? The whole ten thousand?\"\n\n\"Every penny.\" She paused, and then continued abruptly, with her eyes on\nhis face: \"I think Gus Trenor spoke to you once about having made some\nmoney for me in stocks.\"\n\nShe waited, and Rosedale, congested with embarrassment, muttered that he\nremembered something of the kind.\n\n\"He made about nine thousand dollars,\" Lily pursued, in the same tone of\neager communicativeness. \"At the time, I understood that he was\nspeculating with my own money: it was incredibly stupid of me, but I knew\nnothing of business. Afterward I found out that he had NOT used my\nmoney--that what he said he had made for me he had really given me. It\nwas meant in kindness, of course; but it was not the sort of obligation\none could remain under. Unfortunately I had spent the money before I\ndiscovered my mistake; and so my legacy will have to go to pay it back.\nThat is the reason why I am trying to learn a trade.\"\n\nShe made the statement clearly, deliberately, with pauses between the\nsentences, so that each should have time to sink deeply into her hearer\'s\nmind. She had a passionate desire that some one should know the truth\nabout this transaction, and also that the rumour of her intention to\nrepay the money should reach Judy Trenor\'s ears. And it had suddenly\noccurred to her that Rosedale, who had surprised Trenor\'s confidence, was\nthe fitting person to receive and transmit her version of the facts. She\nhad even felt a momentary exhilaration at the thought of thus relieving\nherself of her detested secret; but the sensation gradually faded in the\ntelling, and as she ended her pallour was suffused with a deep blush of\nmisery.\n\nRosedale continued to stare at her in wonder; but the wonder took the\nturn she had least expected.\n\n\"But see here--if that\'s the case, it cleans you out altogether?\"\n\nHe put it to her as if she had not grasped the consequences of her act;\nas if her incorrigible ignorance of business were about to precipitate\nher into a fresh act of folly.\n\n\"Altogether--yes,\" she calmly agreed.\n\nHe sat silent, his thick hands clasped on the table, his little puzzled\neyes exploring the recesses of the deserted restaurant.\n\n\"See here--that\'s fine,\" he exclaimed abruptly.\n\nLily rose from her seat with a deprecating laugh. \"Oh, no--it\'s merely a\nbore,\" she asserted, gathering together the ends of her feather scarf.\n\nRosedale remained seated, too intent on his thoughts to notice her\nmovement. \"Miss Lily, if you want any backing--I like pluck----\" broke\nfrom him disconnectedly.\n\n\"Thank you.\" She held out her hand. \"Your tea has given me a tremendous\nbacking. I feel equal to anything now.\"\n\nHer gesture seemed to show a definite intention of dismissal, but her\ncompanion had tossed a bill to the waiter, and was slipping his short\narms into his expensive overcoat.\n\n\"Wait a minute--you\'ve got to let me walk home with you,\" he said.\n\nLily uttered no protest, and when he had paused to make sure of his\nchange they emerged from the hotel and crossed Sixth Avenue again. As she\nled the way westward past a long line of areas which, through the\ndistortion of their paintless rails, revealed with increasing candour the\nDISJECTA MEMBRA of bygone dinners, Lily felt that Rosedale was taking\ncontemptuous note of the neighbourhood; and before the doorstep at which\nshe finally paused he looked up with an air of incredulous disgust.\n\n\"This isn\'t the place? Some one told me you were living with Miss Farish.\"\n\n\"No: I am boarding here. I have lived too long on my friends.\"\n\nHe continued to scan the blistered brown stone front, the windows draped\nwith discoloured lace, and the Pompeian decoration of the muddy\nvestibule; then he looked back at her face and said with a visible\neffort: \"You\'ll let me come and see you some day?\"\n\nShe smiled, recognizing the heroism of the offer to the point of being\nfrankly touched by it. \"Thank you--I shall be very glad,\" she made\nanswer, in the first sincere words she had ever spoken to him.\n\n\n\nThat evening in her own room Miss Bart--who had fled early from the heavy\nfumes of the basement dinner-table--sat musing upon the impulse which had\nled her to unbosom herself to Rosedale. Beneath it she discovered an\nincreasing sense of loneliness--a dread of returning to the solitude of\nher room, while she could be anywhere else, or in any company but her\nown. Circumstances, of late, had combined to cut her off more and more\nfrom her few remaining friends. On Carry Fisher\'s part the withdrawal was\nperhaps not quite involuntary. Having made her final effort on Lily\'s\nbehalf, and landed her safely in Mme. Regina\'s work-room, Mrs. Fisher\nseemed disposed to rest from her labours; and Lily, understanding the\nreason, could not condemn her. Carry had in fact come dangerously near to\nbeing involved in the episode of Mrs. Norma Hatch, and it had taken some\nverbal ingenuity to extricate herself. She frankly owned to having\nbrought Lily and Mrs. Hatch together, but then she did not know Mrs.\nHatch--she had expressly warned Lily that she did not know Mrs.\nHatch--and besides, she was not Lily\'s keeper, and really the girl was\nold enough to take care of herself. Carry did not put her own case so\nbrutally, but she allowed it to be thus put for her by her latest bosom\nfriend, Mrs. Jack Stepney: Mrs. Stepney, trembling over the narrowness of\nher only brother\'s escape, but eager to vindicate Mrs. Fisher, at whose\nhouse she could count on the \"jolly parties\" which had become a necessity\nto her since marriage had emancipated her from the Van Osburgh point of\nview.\n\nLily understood the situation and could make allowances for it. Carry\nhad been a good friend to her in difficult days, and perhaps only a\nfriendship like Gerty\'s could be proof against such an increasing strain.\nGerty\'s friendship did indeed hold fast; yet Lily was beginning to avoid\nher also. For she could not go to Gerty\'s without risk of meeting Selden;\nand to meet him now would be pure pain. It was pain enough even to think\nof him, whether she considered him in the distinctness of her waking\nthoughts, or felt the obsession of his presence through the blur of her\ntormented nights. That was one of the reasons why she had turned again to\nMrs. Hatch\'s prescription. In the uneasy snatches of her natural dreams\nhe came to her sometimes in the old guise of fellowship and tenderness;\nand she would rise from the sweet delusion mocked and emptied of her\ncourage. But in the sleep which the phial procured she sank far below\nsuch half-waking visitations, sank into depths of dreamless annihilation\nfrom which she woke each morning with an obliterated past.\n\nGradually, to be sure, the stress of the old thoughts would return; but\nat least they did not importune her waking hour. The drug gave her a\nmomentary illusion of complete renewal, from which she drew strength to\ntake up her daily work. The strength was more and more needed as the\nperplexities of her future increased. She knew that to Gerty and Mrs.\nFisher she was only passing through a temporary period of probation,\nsince they believed that the apprenticeship she was serving at Mme.\nRegina\'s would enable her, when Mrs. Peniston\'s legacy was paid, to\nrealize the vision of the green-and-white shop with the fuller competence\nacquired by her preliminary training. But to Lily herself, aware that the\nlegacy could not be put to such a use, the preliminary training seemed a\nwasted effort. She understood clearly enough that, even if she could ever\nlearn to compete with hands formed from childhood for their special work,\nthe small pay she received would not be a sufficient addition to her\nincome to compensate her for such drudgery. And the realization of this\nfact brought her recurringly face to face with the temptation to use the\nlegacy in establishing her business. Once installed, and in command of\nher own work-women, she believed she had sufficient tact and ability to\nattract a fashionable CLIENTELE; and if the business succeeded she could\ngradually lay aside money enough to discharge her debt to Trenor. But the\ntask might take years to accomplish, even if she continued to stint\nherself to the utmost; and meanwhile her pride would be crushed under the\nweight of an intolerable obligation.\n\nThese were her superficial considerations; but under them lurked the\nsecret dread that the obligation might not always remain intolerable.\nShe knew she could not count on her continuity of purpose, and what\nreally frightened her was the thought that she might gradually\naccommodate herself to remaining indefinitely in Trenor\'s debt, as she\nhad accommodated herself to the part allotted her on the Sabrina, and as\nshe had so nearly drifted into acquiescing with Stancy\'s scheme for the\nadvancement of Mrs. Hatch. Her danger lay, as she knew, in her old\nincurable dread of discomfort and poverty; in the fear of that mounting\ntide of dinginess against which her mother had so passionately warned\nher. And now a new vista of peril opened before her. She understood that\nRosedale was ready to lend her money; and the longing to take advantage\nof his offer began to haunt her insidiously. It was of course impossible\nto accept a loan from Rosedale; but proximate possibilities hovered\ntemptingly before her. She was quite sure that he would come and see her\nagain, and almost sure that, if he did, she could bring him to the point\nof offering to marry her on the terms she had previously rejected. Would\nshe still reject them if they were offered? More and more, with every\nfresh mischance befalling her, did the pursuing furies seem to take the\nshape of Bertha Dorset; and close at hand, safely locked among her\npapers, lay the means of ending their pursuit. The temptation, which her\nscorn of Rosedale had once enabled her to reject, now insistently\nreturned upon her; and how much strength was left her to oppose it?\n\nWhat little there was must at any rate be husbanded to the utmost; she\ncould not trust herself again to the perils of a sleepless night.\nThrough the long hours of silence the dark spirit of fatigue and\nloneliness crouched upon her breast, leaving her so drained of bodily\nstrength that her morning thoughts swam in a haze of weakness. The only\nhope of renewal lay in the little bottle at her bed-side; and how much\nlonger that hope would last she dared not conjecture.\n\n\n\nChapter 11\n\nLily, lingering for a moment on the corner, looked out on the afternoon\nspectacle of Fifth Avenue. It was a day in late April, and the sweetness\nof spring was in the air. It mitigated the ugliness of the long crowded\nthoroughfare, blurred the gaunt roof-lines, threw a mauve veil over the\ndiscouraging perspective of the side streets, and gave a touch of poetry\nto the delicate haze of green that marked the entrance to the Park.\n\nAs Lily stood there, she recognized several familiar faces in the passing\ncarriages. The season was over, and its ruling forces had disbanded; but\na few still lingered, delaying their departure for Europe, or passing\nthrough town on their return from the South. Among them was Mrs. Van\nOsburgh, swaying majestically in her C-spring barouche, with Mrs. Percy\nGryce at her side, and the new heir to the Gryce millions enthroned\nbefore them on his nurse\'s knees. They were succeeded by Mrs. Hatch\'s\nelectric victoria, in which that lady reclined in the lonely splendour of\na spring toilet obviously designed for company; and a moment or two later\ncame Judy Trenor, accompanied by Lady Skiddaw, who had come over for her\nannual tarpon fishing and a dip into \"the street.\"\n\nThis fleeting glimpse of her past served to emphasize the sense of\naimlessness with which Lily at length turned toward home. She had nothing\nto do for the rest of the day, nor for the days to come; for the season\nwas over in millinery as well as in society, and a week earlier Mme.\nRegina had notified her that her services were no longer required. Mme.\nRegina always reduced her staff on the first of May, and Miss Bart\'s\nattendance had of late been so irregular--she had so often been unwell,\nand had done so little work when she came--that it was only as a favour\nthat her dismissal had hitherto been deferred.\n\nLily did not question the justice of the decision. She was conscious of\nhaving been forgetful, awkward and slow to learn. It was bitter to\nacknowledge her inferiority even to herself, but the fact had been\nbrought home to her that as a bread-winner she could never compete with\nprofessional ability. Since she had been brought up to be ornamental,\nshe could hardly blame herself for failing to serve any practical\npurpose; but the discovery put an end to her consoling sense of universal\nefficiency.\n\nAs she turned homeward her thoughts shrank in anticipation from the fact\nthat there would be nothing to get up for the next morning. The luxury of\nlying late in bed was a pleasure belonging to the life of ease; it had no\npart in the utilitarian existence of the boarding-house. She liked to\nleave her room early, and to return to it as late as possible; and she\nwas walking slowly now in order to postpone the detested approach to her\ndoorstep.\n\nBut the doorstep, as she drew near it, acquired a sudden interest from\nthe fact that it was occupied--and indeed filled--by the conspicuous\nfigure of Mr. Rosedale, whose presence seemed to take on an added\namplitude from the meanness of his surroundings.\n\nThe sight stirred Lily with an irresistible sense of triumph. Rosedale,\na day or two after their chance meeting, had called to enquire if she had\nrecovered from her indisposition; but since then she had not seen or\nheard from him, and his absence seemed to betoken a struggle to keep\naway, to let her pass once more out of his life. If this were the case,\nhis return showed that the struggle had been unsuccessful, for Lily knew\nhe was not the man to waste his time in an ineffectual sentimental\ndalliance. He was too busy, too practical, and above all too much\npreoccupied with his own advancement, to indulge in such unprofitable\nasides.\n\nIn the peacock-blue parlour, with its bunches of dried pampas grass, and\ndiscoloured steel engravings of sentimental episodes, he looked about him\nwith unconcealed disgust, laying his hat distrustfully on the dusty\nconsole adorned with a Rogers statuette.\n\nLily sat down on one of the plush and rosewood sofas, and he deposited\nhimself in a rocking-chair draped with a starched antimacassar which\nscraped unpleasantly against the pink fold of skin above his collar.\n\n\"My goodness--you can\'t go on living here!\" he exclaimed.\n\nLily smiled at his tone. \"I am not sure that I can; but I have gone over\nmy expenses very carefully, and I rather think I shall be able to manage\nit.\"\n\n\"Be able to manage it? That\'s not what I mean--it\'s no place for you!\"\n\n\"It\'s what I mean; for I have been out of work for the last week.\"\n\n\"Out of work--out of work! What a way for you to talk! The idea of your\nhaving to work--it\'s preposterous.\" He brought out his sentences in short\nviolent jerks, as though they were forced up from a deep inner crater of\nindignation. \"It\'s a farce--a crazy farce,\" he repeated, his eyes fixed\non the long vista of the room reflected in the blotched glass between the\nwindows.\n\nLily continued to meet his expostulations with a smile. \"I don\'t know why\nI should regard myself as an exception----\" she began.\n\n\"Because you ARE; that\'s why; and your being in a place like this is a\ndamnable outrage. I can\'t talk of it calmly.\"\n\nShe had in truth never seen him so shaken out of his usual glibness; and\nthere was something almost moving to her in his inarticulate struggle\nwith his emotions.\n\nHe rose with a start which left the rocking-chair quivering on its beam\nends, and placed himself squarely before her.\n\n\"Look here, Miss Lily, I\'m going to Europe next week: going over to Paris\nand London for a couple of months--and I can\'t leave you like this. I\ncan\'t do it. I know it\'s none of my business--you\'ve let me understand\nthat often enough; but things are worse with you now than they have been\nbefore, and you must see that you\'ve got to accept help from somebody.\nYou spoke to me the other day about some debt to Trenor. I know what you\nmean--and I respect you for feeling as you do about it.\"\n\nA blush of surprise rose to Lily\'s pale face, but before she could\ninterrupt him he had continued eagerly: \"Well, I\'ll lend you the money to\npay Trenor; and I won\'t--I--see here, don\'t take me up till I\'ve\nfinished. What I mean is, it\'ll be a plain business arrangement, such as\none man would make with another. Now, what have you got to say against\nthat?\"\n\nLily\'s blush deepened to a glow in which humiliation and gratitude were\nmingled; and both sentiments revealed themselves in the unexpected\ngentleness of her reply.\n\n\"Only this: that it is exactly what Gus Trenor proposed; and that I can\nnever again be sure of understanding the plainest business arrangement.\"\nThen, realizing that this answer contained a germ of injustice, she\nadded, even more kindly: \"Not that I don\'t appreciate your kindness--that\nI\'m not grateful for it. But a business arrangement between us would in\nany case be impossible, because I shall have no security to give when my\ndebt to Gus Trenor has been paid.\"\n\nRosedale received this statement in silence: he seemed to feel the note\nof finality in her voice, yet to be unable to accept it as closing the\nquestion between them.\n\nIn the silence Lily had a clear perception of what was passing through\nhis mind. Whatever perplexity he felt as to the inexorableness of her\ncourse--however little he penetrated its motive--she saw that it\nunmistakably tended to strengthen her hold over him. It was as though the\nsense in her of unexplained scruples and resistances had the same\nattraction as the delicacy of feature, the fastidiousness of manner,\nwhich gave her an external rarity, an air of being impossible to match.\nAs he advanced in social experience this uniqueness had acquired a\ngreater value for him, as though he were a collector who had learned to\ndistinguish minor differences of design and quality in some long-coveted\nobject.\n\nLily, perceiving all this, understood that he would marry her at once, on\nthe sole condition of a reconciliation with Mrs. Dorset; and the\ntemptation was the less easy to put aside because, little by little,\ncircumstances were breaking down her dislike for Rosedale. The dislike,\nindeed, still subsisted; but it was penetrated here and there by the\nperception of mitigating qualities in him: of a certain gross kindliness,\na rather helpless fidelity of sentiment, which seemed to be struggling\nthrough the hard surface of his material ambitions.\n\nReading his dismissal in her eyes, he held out his hand with a gesture\nwhich conveyed something of this inarticulate conflict.\n\n\"If you\'d only let me, I\'d set you up over them all--I\'d put you where\nyou could wipe your feet on \'em!\" he declared; and it touched her oddly\nto see that his new passion had not altered his old standard of values.\n\n\n\nLily took no sleeping-drops that night. She lay awake viewing her\nsituation in the crude light which Rosedale\'s visit had shed on it. In\nfending off the offer he was so plainly ready to renew, had she not\nsacrificed to one of those abstract notions of honour that might be\ncalled the conventionalities of the moral life? What debt did she owe to\na social order which had condemned and banished her without trial? She\nhad never been heard in her own defence; she was innocent of the charge\non which she had been found guilty; and the irregularity of her\nconviction might seem to justify the use of methods as irregular in\nrecovering her lost rights. Bertha Dorset, to save herself, had not\nscrupled to ruin her by an open falsehood; why should she hesitate to\nmake private use of the facts that chance had put in her way? After all,\nhalf the opprobrium of such an act lies in the name attached to it. Call\nit blackmail and it becomes unthinkable; but explain that it injures no\none, and that the rights regained by it were unjustly forfeited, and he\nmust be a formalist indeed who can find no plea in its defence.\n\nThe arguments pleading for it with Lily were the old unanswerable ones of\nthe personal situation: the sense of injury, the sense of failure, the\npassionate craving for a fair chance against the selfish despotism of\nsociety. She had learned by experience that she had neither the aptitude\nnor the moral constancy to remake her life on new lines; to become a\nworker among workers, and let the world of luxury and pleasure sweep by\nher unregarded. She could not hold herself much to blame for this\nineffectiveness, and she was perhaps less to blame than she believed.\nInherited tendencies had combined with early training to make her the\nhighly specialized product she was: an organism as helpless out of its\nnarrow range as the sea-anemone torn from the rock. She had been\nfashioned to adorn and delight; to what other end does nature round the\nrose-leaf and paint the humming-bird\'s breast? And was it her fault that\nthe purely decorative mission is less easily and harmoniously fulfilled\namong social beings than in the world of nature? That it is apt to be\nhampered by material necessities or complicated by moral scruples?\n\nThese last were the two antagonistic forces which fought out their battle\nin her breast during the long watches of the night; and when she rose the\nnext morning she hardly knew where the victory lay. She was exhausted by\nthe reaction of a night without sleep, coming after many nights of rest\nartificially obtained; and in the distorting light of fatigue the future\nstretched out before her grey, interminable and desolate.\n\nShe lay late in bed, refusing the coffee and fried eggs which the\nfriendly Irish servant thrust through her door, and hating the intimate\ndomestic noises of the house and the cries and rumblings of the street.\nHer week of idleness had brought home to her with exaggerated force these\nsmall aggravations of the boarding-house world, and she yearned for that\nother luxurious world, whose machinery is so carefully concealed that one\nscene flows into another without perceptible agency.\n\nAt length she rose and dressed. Since she had left Mme. Regina\'s she had\nspent her days in the streets, partly to escape from the uncongenial\npromiscuities of the boarding-house, and partly in the hope that physical\nfatigue would help her to sleep. But once out of the house, she could not\ndecide where to go; for she had avoided Gerty since her dismissal from\nthe milliner\'s, and she was not sure of a welcome anywhere else.\n\nThe morning was in harsh contrast to the previous day. A cold grey sky\nthreatened rain, and a high wind drove the dust in wild spirals up and\ndown the streets. Lily walked up Fifth Avenue toward the Park, hoping to\nfind a sheltered nook where she might sit; but the wind chilled her, and\nafter an hour\'s wandering under the tossing boughs she yielded to her\nincreasing weariness, and took refuge in a little restaurant in\nFifty-ninth Street. She was not hungry, and had meant to go without\nluncheon; but she was too tired to return home, and the long perspective\nof white tables showed alluringly through the windows.\n\nThe room was full of women and girls, all too much engaged in the rapid\nabsorption of tea and pie to remark her entrance. A hum of shrill voices\nreverberated against the low ceiling, leaving Lily shut out in a little\ncircle of silence. She felt a sudden pang of profound loneliness. She had\nlost the sense of time, and it seemed to her as though she had not spoken\nto any one for days. Her eyes sought the faces about her, craving a\nresponsive glance, some sign of an intuition of her trouble. But the\nsallow preoccupied women, with their bags and note-books and rolls of\nmusic, were all engrossed in their own affairs, and even those who sat by\nthemselves were busy running over proof-sheets or devouring magazines\nbetween their hurried gulps of tea. Lily alone was stranded in a great\nwaste of disoccupation.\n\nShe drank several cups of the tea which was served with her portion of\nstewed oysters, and her brain felt clearer and livelier when she emerged\nonce more into the street. She realized now that, as she sat in the\nrestaurant, she had unconsciously arrived at a final decision. The\ndiscovery gave her an immediate illusion of activity: it was exhilarating\nto think that she had actually a reason for hurrying home. To prolong\nher enjoyment of the sensation she decided to walk; but the distance was\nso great that she found herself glancing nervously at the clocks on the\nway. One of the surprises of her unoccupied state was the discovery that\ntime, when it is left to itself and no definite demands are made on it,\ncannot be trusted to move at any recognized pace. Usually it loiters;\nbut just when one has come to count upon its slowness, it may suddenly\nbreak into a wild irrational gallop.\n\nShe found, however, on reaching home, that the hour was still early\nenough for her to sit down and rest a few minutes before putting her plan\ninto execution. The delay did not perceptibly weaken her resolve. She\nwas frightened and yet stimulated by the reserved force of resolution\nwhich she felt within herself: she saw it was going to be easier, a great\ndeal easier, than she had imagined.\n\nAt five o\'clock she rose, unlocked her trunk, and took out a sealed\npacket which she slipped into the bosom of her dress. Even the contact\nwith the packet did not shake her nerves as she had half-expected it\nwould. She seemed encased in a strong armour of indifference, as though\nthe vigorous exertion of her will had finally benumbed her finer\nsensibilities.\n\nShe dressed herself once more for the street, locked her door and went\nout. When she emerged on the pavement, the day was still high, but a\nthreat of rain darkened the sky and cold gusts shook the signs projecting\nfrom the basement shops along the street. She reached Fifth Avenue and\nbegan to walk slowly northward. She was sufficiently familiar with Mrs.\nDorset\'s habits to know that she could always be found at home after\nfive. She might not, indeed, be accessible to visitors, especially to a\nvisitor so unwelcome, and against whom it was quite possible that she had\nguarded herself by special orders; but Lily had written a note which she\nmeant to send up with her name, and which she thought would secure her\nadmission.\n\nShe had allowed herself time to walk to Mrs. Dorset\'s, thinking that the\nquick movement through the cold evening air would help to steady her\nnerves; but she really felt no need of being tranquillized. Her survey of\nthe situation remained calm and unwavering.\n\nAs she reached Fiftieth Street the clouds broke abruptly, and a rush of\ncold rain slanted into her face. She had no umbrella and the moisture\nquickly penetrated her thin spring dress. She was still half a mile from\nher destination, and she decided to walk across to Madison Avenue and\ntake the electric car. As she turned into the side street, a vague memory\nstirred in her. The row of budding trees, the new brick and limestone\nhouse-fronts, the Georgian flat-house with flowerboxes on its balconies,\nwere merged together into the setting of a familiar scene. It was down\nthis street that she had walked with Selden, that September day two years\nago; a few yards ahead was the doorway they had entered together. The\nrecollection loosened a throng of benumbed sensations--longings, regrets,\nimaginings, the throbbing brood of the only spring her heart had ever\nknown. It was strange to find herself passing his house on such an\nerrand. She seemed suddenly to see her action as he would see it--and the\nfact of his own connection with it, the fact that, to attain her end, she\nmust trade on his name, and profit by a secret of his past, chilled her\nblood with shame. What a long way she had travelled since the day of\ntheir first talk together! Even then her feet had been set in the path\nshe was now following--even then she had resisted the hand he had held\nout.\n\nAll her resentment of his fancied coldness was swept away in this\noverwhelming rush of recollection. Twice he had been ready to help\nher--to help her by loving her, as he had said--and if, the third time,\nhe had seemed to fail her, whom but herself could she accuse? . . .\nWell, that part of her life was over; she did not know why her thoughts\nstill clung to it. But the sudden longing to see him remained; it grew to\nhunger as she paused on the pavement opposite his door. The street was\ndark and empty, swept by the rain. She had a vision of his quiet room, of\nthe bookshelves, and the fire on the hearth. She looked up and saw a\nlight in his window; then she crossed the street and entered the house.\n\n\n\nChapter 12\n\nThe library looked as she had pictured it. The green-shaded lamps made\ntranquil circles of light in the gathering dusk, a little fire flickered\non the hearth, and Selden\'s easy-chair, which stood near it, had been\npushed aside when he rose to admit her.\n\nHe had checked his first movement of surprise, and stood silent, waiting\nfor her to speak, while she paused a moment on the threshold, assailed by\na rush of memories.\n\nThe scene was unchanged. She recognized the row of shelves from which he\nhad taken down his La Bruyere, and the worn arm of the chair he had\nleaned against while she examined the precious volume. But then the wide\nSeptember light had filled the room, making it seem a part of the outer\nworld: now the shaded lamps and the warm hearth, detaching it from the\ngathering darkness of the street, gave it a sweeter touch of intimacy.\n\nBecoming gradually aware of the surprise under Selden\'s silence, Lily\nturned to him and said simply: \"I came to tell you that I was sorry for\nthe way we parted--for what I said to you that day at Mrs. Hatch\'s.\"\n\nThe words rose to her lips spontaneously. Even on her way up the stairs,\nshe had not thought of preparing a pretext for her visit, but she now\nfelt an intense longing to dispel the cloud of misunderstanding that hung\nbetween them.\n\nSelden returned her look with a smile. \"I was sorry too that we should\nhave parted in that way; but I am not sure I didn\'t bring it on myself.\nLuckily I had foreseen the risk I was taking----\"\n\n\"So that you really didn\'t care----?\" broke from her with a flash of her\nold irony.\n\n\"So that I was prepared for the consequences,\" he corrected\ngood-humouredly. \"But we\'ll talk of all this later. Do come and sit by\nthe fire. I can recommend that arm-chair, if you\'ll let me put a cushion\nbehind you.\"\n\nWhile he spoke she had moved slowly to the middle of the room, and paused\nnear his writing-table, where the lamp, striking upward, cast exaggerated\nshadows on the pallour of her delicately-hollowed face.\n\n\"You look tired--do sit down,\" he repeated gently.\n\nShe did not seem to hear the request. \"I wanted you to know that I left\nMrs. Hatch immediately after I saw you,\" she said, as though continuing\nher confession.\n\n\"Yes--yes; I know,\" he assented, with a rising tinge of embarrassment.\n\n\"And that I did so because you told me to. Before you came I had already\nbegun to see that it would be impossible to remain with her--for the\nreasons you gave me; but I wouldn\'t admit it--I wouldn\'t let you see that\nI understood what you meant.\"\n\n\"Ah, I might have trusted you to find your own way out--don\'t overwhelm\nme with the sense of my officiousness!\"\n\nHis light tone, in which, had her nerves been steadier, she would have\nrecognized the mere effort to bridge over an awkward moment, jarred on\nher passionate desire to be understood. In her strange state of\nextra-lucidity, which gave her the sense of being already at the heart of\nthe situation, it seemed incredible that any one should think it\nnecessary to linger in the conventional outskirts of word-play and\nevasion.\n\n\"It was not that--I was not ungrateful,\" she insisted. But the power of\nexpression failed her suddenly; she felt a tremor in her throat, and two\ntears gathered and fell slowly from her eyes.\n\nSelden moved forward and took her hand. \"You are very tired. Why won\'t\nyou sit down and let me make you comfortable?\"\n\nHe drew her to the arm-chair near the fire, and placed a cushion behind\nher shoulders.\n\n\"And now you must let me make you some tea: you know I always have that\namount of hospitality at my command.\"\n\nShe shook her head, and two more tears ran over. But she did not weep\neasily, and the long habit of self-control reasserted itself, though she\nwas still too tremulous to speak.\n\n\"You know I can coax the water to boil in five minutes,\" Selden\ncontinued, speaking as though she were a troubled child.\n\nHis words recalled the vision of that other afternoon when they had sat\ntogether over his tea-table and talked jestingly of her future. There\nwere moments when that day seemed more remote than any other event in her\nlife; and yet she could always relive it in its minutest detail.\n\nShe made a gesture of refusal. \"No: I drink too much tea. I would rather\nsit quiet--I must go in a moment,\" she added confusedly.\n\nSelden continued to stand near her, leaning against the mantelpiece. The\ntinge of constraint was beginning to be more distinctly perceptible under\nthe friendly ease of his manner. Her self-absorption had not allowed her\nto perceive it at first; but now that her consciousness was once more\nputting forth its eager feelers, she saw that her presence was becoming\nan embarrassment to him. Such a situation can be saved only by an\nimmediate outrush of feeling; and on Selden\'s side the determining\nimpulse was still lacking.\n\nThe discovery did not disturb Lily as it might once have done. She had\npassed beyond the phase of well-bred reciprocity, in which every\ndemonstration must be scrupulously proportioned to the emotion it\nelicits, and generosity of feeling is the only ostentation condemned.\nBut the sense of loneliness returned with redoubled force as she saw\nherself forever shut out from Selden\'s inmost self. She had come to him\nwith no definite purpose; the mere longing to see him had directed her;\nbut the secret hope she had carried with her suddenly revealed itself in\nits death-pang.\n\n\"I must go,\" she repeated, making a motion to rise from her chair. \"But I\nmay not see you again for a long time, and I wanted to tell you that I\nhave never forgotten the things you said to me at Bellomont, and that\nsometimes--sometimes when I seemed farthest from remembering them--they\nhave helped me, and kept me from mistakes; kept me from really becoming\nwhat many people have thought me.\"\n\nStrive as she would to put some order in her thoughts, the words would\nnot come more clearly; yet she felt that she could not leave him without\ntrying to make him understand that she had saved herself whole from the\nseeming ruin of her life.\n\nA change had come over Selden\'s face as she spoke. Its guarded look had\nyielded to an expression still untinged by personal emotion, but full of\na gentle understanding.\n\n\"I am glad to have you tell me that; but nothing I have said has really\nmade the difference. The difference is in yourself--it will always be\nthere. And since it IS there, it can\'t really matter to you what people\nthink: you are so sure that your friends will always understand you.\"\n\n\"Ah, don\'t say that--don\'t say that what you have told me has made no\ndifference. It seems to shut me out--to leave me all alone with the other\npeople.\" She had risen and stood before him, once more completely\nmastered by the inner urgency of the moment. The consciousness of his\nhalf-divined reluctance had vanished. Whether he wished it or not, he\nmust see her wholly for once before they parted.\n\nHer voice had gathered strength, and she looked him gravely in the eyes\nas she continued. \"Once--twice--you gave me the chance to escape from my\nlife, and I refused it: refused it because I was a coward. Afterward I\nsaw my mistake--I saw I could never be happy with what had contented me\nbefore. But it was too late: you had judged me--I understood. It was too\nlate for happiness--but not too late to be helped by the thought of what\nI had missed. That is all I have lived on--don\'t take it from me now!\nEven in my worst moments it has been like a little light in the darkness.\nSome women are strong enough to be good by themselves, but I needed the\nhelp of your belief in me. Perhaps I might have resisted a great\ntemptation, but the little ones would have pulled me down. And then I\nremembered--I remembered your saying that such a life could never satisfy\nme; and I was ashamed to admit to myself that it could. That is what you\ndid for me--that is what I wanted to thank you for. I wanted to tell you\nthat I have always remembered; and that I have tried--tried hard . . .\"\n\nShe broke off suddenly. Her tears had risen again, and in drawing out her\nhandkerchief her fingers touched the packet in the folds of her dress. A\nwave of colour suffused her, and the words died on her lips. Then she\nlifted her eyes to his and went on in an altered voice.\n\n\"I have tried hard--but life is difficult, and I am a very useless\nperson. I can hardly be said to have an independent existence. I was just\na screw or a cog in the great machine I called life, and when I dropped\nout of it I found I was of no use anywhere else. What can one do when one\nfinds that one only fits into one hole? One must get back to it or be\nthrown out into the rubbish heap--and you don\'t know what it\'s like in\nthe rubbish heap!\"\n\nHer lips wavered into a smile--she had been distracted by the whimsical\nremembrance of the confidences she had made to him, two years earlier, in\nthat very room. Then she had been planning to marry Percy Gryce--what was\nit she was planning now?\n\nThe blood had risen strongly under Selden\'s dark skin, but his emotion\nshowed itself only in an added seriousness of manner.\n\n\"You have something to tell me--do you mean to marry?\" he said abruptly.\n\nLily\'s eyes did not falter, but a look of wonder, of puzzled\nself-interrogation, formed itself slowly in their depths. In the light of\nhis question, she had paused to ask herself if her decision had really\nbeen taken when she entered the room.\n\n\"You always told me I should have to come to it sooner or later!\" she\nsaid with a faint smile.\n\n\"And you have come to it now?\"\n\n\"I shall have to come to it--presently. But there is something else I\nmust come to first.\" She paused again, trying to transmit to her voice\nthe steadiness of her recovered smile. \"There is some one I must say\ngoodbye to. Oh, not YOU--we are sure to see each other again--but the\nLily Bart you knew. I have kept her with me all this time, but now we are\ngoing to part, and I have brought her back to you--I am going to leave\nher here. When I go out presently she will not go with me. I shall like\nto think that she has stayed with you--and she\'ll be no trouble, she\'ll\ntake up no room.\"\n\nShe went toward him, and put out her hand, still smiling. \"Will you let\nher stay with you?\" she asked.\n\nHe caught her hand, and she felt in his the vibration of feeling that had\nnot yet risen to his lips. \"Lily--can\'t I help you?\" he exclaimed.\n\nShe looked at him gently. \"Do you remember what you said to me once?\nThat you could help me only by loving me? Well--you did love me for a\nmoment; and it helped me. It has always helped me. But the moment is\ngone--it was I who let it go. And one must go on living. Goodbye.\"\n\nShe laid her other hand on his, and they looked at each other with a kind\nof solemnity, as though they stood in the presence of death. Something\nin truth lay dead between them--the love she had killed in him and could\nno longer call to life. But something lived between them also, and leaped\nup in her like an imperishable flame: it was the love his love had\nkindled, the passion of her soul for his.\n\nIn its light everything else dwindled and fell away from her. She\nunderstood now that she could not go forth and leave her old self with\nhim: that self must indeed live on in his presence, but it must still\ncontinue to be hers.\n\nSelden had retained her hand, and continued to scrutinize her with a\nstrange sense of foreboding. The external aspect of the situation had\nvanished for him as completely as for her: he felt it only as one of\nthose rare moments which lift the veil from their faces as they pass.\n\n\"Lily,\" he said in a low voice, \"you mustn\'t speak in this way. I can\'t\nlet you go without knowing what you mean to do. Things may change--but\nthey don\'t pass. You can never go out of my life.\"\n\nShe met his eyes with an illumined look. \"No,\" she said. \"I see that now.\nLet us always be friends. Then I shall feel safe, whatever happens.\"\n\n\"Whatever happens? What do you mean? What is going to happen?\"\n\nShe turned away quietly and walked toward the hearth.\n\n\"Nothing at present--except that I am very cold, and that before I go you\nmust make up the fire for me.\"\n\nShe knelt on the hearth-rug, stretching her hands to the embers. Puzzled\nby the sudden change in her tone, he mechanically gathered a handful of\nwood from the basket and tossed it on the fire. As he did so, he noticed\nhow thin her hands looked against the rising light of the flames. He saw\ntoo, under the loose lines of her dress, how the curves of her figure had\nshrunk to angularity; he remembered long afterward how the red play of\nthe flame sharpened the depression of her nostrils, and intensified the\nblackness of the shadows which struck up from her cheekbones to her eyes.\nShe knelt there for a few moments in silence; a silence which he dared\nnot break. When she rose he fancied that he saw her draw something from\nher dress and drop it into the fire; but he hardly noticed the gesture at\nthe time. His faculties seemed tranced, and he was still groping for the\nword to break the spell. She went up to him and laid her hands on his\nshoulders. \"Goodbye,\" she said, and as he bent over her she touched his\nforehead with her lips.\n\n\n\nChapter 13\n\nThe street-lamps were lit, but the rain had ceased, and there was a\nmomentary revival of light in the upper sky. Lily walked on unconscious\nof her surroundings. She was still treading the buoyant ether which\nemanates from the high moments of life. But gradually it shrank away from\nher and she felt the dull pavement beneath her feet. The sense of\nweariness returned with accumulated force, and for a moment she felt that\nshe could walk no farther. She had reached the corner of Forty-first\nStreet and Fifth Avenue, and she remembered that in Bryant Park there\nwere seats where she might rest.\n\nThat melancholy pleasure-ground was almost deserted when she entered it,\nand she sank down on an empty bench in the glare of an electric\nstreet-lamp. The warmth of the fire had passed out of her veins, and she\ntold herself that she must not sit long in the penetrating dampness which\nstruck up from the wet asphalt. But her will-power seemed to have spent\nitself in a last great effort, and she was lost in the blank reaction\nwhich follows on an unwonted expenditure of energy. And besides, what was\nthere to go home to? Nothing but the silence of her cheerless room--that\nsilence of the night which may be more racking to tired nerves than the\nmost discordant noises: that, and the bottle of chloral by her bed. The\nthought of the chloral was the only spot of light in the dark prospect:\nshe could feel its lulling influence stealing over her already. But she\nwas troubled by the thought that it was losing its power--she dared not\ngo back to it too soon. Of late the sleep it had brought her had been\nmore broken and less profound; there had been nights when she was\nperpetually floating up through it to consciousness. What if the effect\nof the drug should gradually fail, as all narcotics were said to fail?\nShe remembered the chemist\'s warning against increasing the dose; and she\nhad heard before of the capricious and incalculable action of the drug.\nHer dread of returning to a sleepless night was so great that she\nlingered on, hoping that excessive weariness would reinforce the waning\npower of the chloral.\n\nNight had now closed in, and the roar of traffic in Forty-second Street\nwas dying out. As complete darkness fell on the square the lingering\noccupants of the benches rose and dispersed; but now and then a stray\nfigure, hurrying homeward, struck across the path where Lily sat, looming\nblack for a moment in the white circle of electric light. One or two of\nthese passers-by slackened their pace to glance curiously at her lonely\nfigure; but she was hardly conscious of their scrutiny.\n\nSuddenly, however, she became aware that one of the passing shadows\nremained stationary between her line of vision and the gleaming asphalt;\nand raising her eyes she saw a young woman bending over her.\n\n\"Excuse me--are you sick?--Why, it\'s Miss Bart!\" a half-familiar voice\nexclaimed.\n\nLily looked up. The speaker was a poorly-dressed young woman with a\nbundle under her arm. Her face had the air of unwholesome refinement\nwhich ill-health and over-work may produce, but its common prettiness was\nredeemed by the strong and generous curve of the lips.\n\n\"You don\'t remember me,\" she continued, brightening with the pleasure of\nrecognition, \"but I\'d know you anywhere, I\'ve thought of you such a lot.\nI guess my folks all know your name by heart. I was one of the girls at\nMiss Farish\'s club--you helped me to go to the country that time I had\nlung-trouble. My name\'s Nettie Struther. It was Nettie Crane then--but I\ndaresay you don\'t remember that either.\"\n\nYes: Lily was beginning to remember. The episode of Nettie Crane\'s timely\nrescue from disease had been one of the most satisfying incidents of her\nconnection with Gerty\'s charitable work. She had furnished the girl with\nthe means to go to a sanatorium in the mountains: it struck her now with\na peculiar irony that the money she had used had been Gus Trenor\'s.\n\nShe tried to reply, to assure the speaker that she had not forgotten; but\nher voice failed in the effort, and she felt herself sinking under a\ngreat wave of physical weakness. Nettie Struther, with a startled\nexclamation, sat down and slipped a shabbily-clad arm behind her back.\n\n\"Why, Miss Bart, you ARE sick. Just lean on me a little till you feel\nbetter.\"\n\nA faint glow of returning strength seemed to pass into Lily from the\npressure of the supporting arm.\n\n\"I\'m only tired--it is nothing,\" she found voice to say in a moment; and\nthen, as she met the timid appeal of her companion\'s eyes, she added\ninvoluntarily: \"I have been unhappy--in great trouble.\"\n\n\"YOU in trouble? I\'ve always thought of you as being so high up, where\neverything was just grand. Sometimes, when I felt real mean, and got to\nwondering why things were so queerly fixed in the world, I used to\nremember that you were having a lovely time, anyhow, and that seemed to\nshow there was a kind of justice somewhere. But you mustn\'t sit here too\nlong--it\'s fearfully damp. Don\'t you feel strong enough to walk on a\nlittle ways now?\" she broke off.\n\n\"Yes--yes; I must go home,\" Lily murmured, rising.\n\nHer eyes rested wonderingly on the thin shabby figure at her side. She\nhad known Nettie Crane as one of the discouraged victims of over-work and\nanaemic parentage: one of the superfluous fragments of life destined to\nbe swept prematurely into that social refuse-heap of which Lily had so\nlately expressed her dread. But Nettie Struther\'s frail envelope was now\nalive with hope and energy: whatever fate the future reserved for her,\nshe would not be cast into the refuse-heap without a struggle.\n\n\"I am very glad to have seen you,\" Lily continued, summoning a smile to\nher unsteady lips. \"It\'ll be my turn to think of you as happy--and the\nworld will seem a less unjust place to me too.\"\n\n\"Oh, but I can\'t leave you like this--you\'re not fit to go home alone.\nAnd I can\'t go with you either!\" Nettie Struther wailed with a start of\nrecollection. \"You see, it\'s my husband\'s night-shift--he\'s a\nmotor-man--and the friend I leave the baby with has to step upstairs to\nget HER husband\'s supper at seven. I didn\'t tell you I had a baby, did I?\nShe\'ll be four months old day after tomorrow, and to look at her you\nwouldn\'t think I\'d ever had a sick day. I\'d give anything to show you the\nbaby, Miss Bart, and we live right down the street here--it\'s only three\nblocks off.\" She lifted her eyes tentatively to Lily\'s face, and then\nadded with a burst of courage: \"Why won\'t you get right into the cars and\ncome home with me while I get baby\'s supper? It\'s real warm in our\nkitchen, and you can rest there, and I\'ll take YOU home as soon as ever\nshe drops off to sleep.\"\n\nIt WAS warm in the kitchen, which, when Nettie Struther\'s match had made\na flame leap from the gas-jet above the table, revealed itself to Lily as\nextraordinarily small and almost miraculously clean. A fire shone through\nthe polished flanks of the iron stove, and near it stood a crib in which\na baby was sitting upright, with incipient anxiety struggling for\nexpression on a countenance still placid with sleep.\n\nHaving passionately celebrated her reunion with her offspring, and\nexcused herself in cryptic language for the lateness of her return,\nNettie restored the baby to the crib and shyly invited Miss Bart to the\nrocking-chair near the stove.\n\n\"We\'ve got a parlour too,\" she explained with pardonable pride; \"but I\nguess it\'s warmer in here, and I don\'t want to leave you alone while I\'m\ngetting baby\'s supper.\"\n\nOn receiving Lily\'s assurance that she much preferred the friendly\nproximity of the kitchen fire, Mrs. Struther proceeded to prepare a\nbottle of infantile food, which she tenderly applied to the baby\'s\nimpatient lips; and while the ensuing degustation went on, she seated\nherself with a beaming countenance beside her visitor.\n\n\"You\'re sure you won\'t let me warm up a drop of coffee for you, Miss\nBart? There\'s some of baby\'s fresh milk left over--well, maybe you\'d\nrather just sit quiet and rest a little while. It\'s too lovely having you\nhere. I\'ve thought of it so often that I can\'t believe it\'s really come\ntrue. I\'ve said to George again and again: \'I just wish Miss Bart could\nsee me NOW--\' and I used to watch for your name in the papers, and we\'d\ntalk over what you were doing, and read the descriptions of the dresses\nyou wore. I haven\'t seen your name for a long time, though, and I began\nto be afraid you were sick, and it worried me so that George said I\'d get\nsick myself, fretting about it.\" Her lips broke into a reminiscent smile.\n\"Well, I can\'t afford to be sick again, that\'s a fact: the last spell\nnearly finished me. When you sent me off that time I never thought I\'d\ncome back alive, and I didn\'t much care if I did. You see I didn\'t know\nabout George and the baby then.\"\n\nShe paused to readjust the bottle to the child\'s bubbling mouth.\n\n\"You precious--don\'t you be in too much of a hurry! Was it mad with\nmommer for getting its supper so late? Marry Anto\'nette--that\'s what we\ncall her: after the French queen in that play at the Garden--I told\nGeorge the actress reminded me of you, and that made me fancy the\nname . . . I never thought I\'d get married, you know, and I\'d never have\nhad the heart to go on working just for myself.\"\n\nShe broke off again, and meeting the encouragement in Lily\'s eyes, went\non, with a flush rising under her anaemic skin: \"You see I wasn\'t only\njust SICK that time you sent me off--I was dreadfully unhappy too. I\'d\nknown a gentleman where I was employed--I don\'t know as you remember I\ndid type-writing in a big importing firm--and--well--I thought we were to\nbe married: he\'d gone steady with me six months and given me his mother\'s\nwedding ring. But I presume he was too stylish for me--he travelled for\nthe firm, and had seen a great deal of society. Work girls aren\'t looked\nafter the way you are, and they don\'t always know how to look after\nthemselves. I didn\'t . . . and it pretty near killed me when he went away\nand left off writing . . .\n\n\"It was then I came down sick--I thought it was the end of everything. I\nguess it would have been if you hadn\'t sent me off. But when I found I\nwas getting well I began to take heart in spite of myself. And then,\nwhen I got back home, George came round and asked me to marry him. At\nfirst I thought I couldn\'t, because we\'d been brought up together, and I\nknew he knew about me. But after a while I began to see that that made it\neasier. I never could have told another man, and I\'d never have married\nwithout telling; but if George cared for me enough to have me as I was, I\ndidn\'t see why I shouldn\'t begin over again--and I did.\"\n\nThe strength of the victory shone forth from her as she lifted her\nirradiated face from the child on her knees. \"But, mercy, I didn\'t mean\nto go on like this about myself, with you sitting there looking so fagged\nout. Only it\'s so lovely having you here, and letting you see just how\nyou\'ve helped me.\" The baby had sunk back blissfully replete, and Mrs.\nStruther softly rose to lay the bottle aside. Then she paused before Miss\nBart.\n\n\"I only wish I could help YOU--but I suppose there\'s nothing on earth I\ncould do,\" she murmured wistfully.\n\nLily, instead of answering, rose with a smile and held out her arms; and\nthe mother, understanding the gesture, laid her child in them.\n\nThe baby, feeling herself detached from her habitual anchorage, made an\ninstinctive motion of resistance; but the soothing influences of\ndigestion prevailed, and Lily felt the soft weight sink trustfully\nagainst her breast. The child\'s confidence in its safety thrilled her\nwith a sense of warmth and returning life, and she bent over, wondering\nat the rosy blur of the little face, the empty clearness of the eyes, the\nvague tendrilly motions of the folding and unfolding fingers. At first\nthe burden in her arms seemed as light as a pink cloud or a heap of down,\nbut as she continued to hold it the weight increased, sinking deeper, and\npenetrating her with a strange sense of weakness, as though the child\nentered into her and became a part of herself.\n\nShe looked up, and saw Nettie\'s eyes resting on her with tenderness and\nexultation.\n\n\"Wouldn\'t it be too lovely for anything if she could grow up to be just\nlike you? Of course I know she never COULD--but mothers are always\ndreaming the craziest things for their children.\"\n\nLily clasped the child close for a moment and laid her back in her\nmother\'s arms.\n\n\"Oh, she must not do that--I should be afraid to come and see her too\noften!\" she said with a smile; and then, resisting Mrs. Struther\'s\nanxious offer of companionship, and reiterating the promise that of\ncourse she would come back soon, and make George\'s acquaintance, and see\nthe baby in her bath, she passed out of the kitchen and went alone down\nthe tenement stairs.\n\n\n\nAs she reached the street she realized that she felt stronger and\nhappier: the little episode had done her good. It was the first time she\nhad ever come across the results of her spasmodic benevolence, and the\nsurprised sense of human fellowship took the mortal chill from her heart.\n\nIt was not till she entered her own door that she felt the reaction of a\ndeeper loneliness. It was long after seven o\'clock, and the light and\nodours proceeding from the basement made it manifest that the\nboarding-house dinner had begun. She hastened up to her room, lit the\ngas, and began to dress. She did not mean to pamper herself any longer,\nto go without food because her surroundings made it unpalatable. Since it\nwas her fate to live in a boarding-house, she must learn to fall in with\nthe conditions of the life. Nevertheless she was glad that, when she\ndescended to the heat and glare of the dining-room, the repast was nearly\nover.\n\n\n\nIn her own room again, she was seized with a sudden fever of activity.\nFor weeks past she had been too listless and indifferent to set her\npossessions in order, but now she began to examine systematically the\ncontents of her drawers and cupboard. She had a few handsome dresses\nleft--survivals of her last phase of splendour, on the Sabrina and in\nLondon--but when she had been obliged to part with her maid she had given\nthe woman a generous share of her cast-off apparel. The remaining\ndresses, though they had lost their freshness, still kept the long\nunerring lines, the sweep and amplitude of the great artist\'s stroke, and\nas she spread them out on the bed the scenes in which they had been worn\nrose vividly before her. An association lurked in every fold: each fall\nof lace and gleam of embroidery was like a letter in the record of her\npast. She was startled to find how the atmosphere of her old life\nenveloped her. But, after all, it was the life she had been made for:\nevery dawning tendency in her had been carefully directed toward it, all\nher interests and activities had been taught to centre around it. She\nwas like some rare flower grown for exhibition, a flower from which every\nbud had been nipped except the crowning blossom of her beauty.\n\nLast of all, she drew forth from the bottom of her trunk a heap of white\ndrapery which fell shapelessly across her arm. It was the Reynolds dress\nshe had worn in the Bry TABLEAUX. It had been impossible for her to give\nit away, but she had never seen it since that night, and the long\nflexible folds, as she shook them out, gave forth an odour of violets\nwhich came to her like a breath from the flower-edged fountain where she\nhad stood with Lawrence Selden and disowned her fate. She put back the\ndresses one by one, laying away with each some gleam of light, some note\nof laughter, some stray waft from the rosy shores of pleasure. She was\nstill in a state of highly-wrought impressionability, and every hint of\nthe past sent a lingering tremor along her nerves.\n\nShe had just closed her trunk on the white folds of the Reynolds dress\nwhen she heard a tap at her door, and the red fist of the Irish\nmaid-servant thrust in a belated letter. Carrying it to the light, Lily\nread with surprise the address stamped on the upper corner of the\nenvelope. It was a business communication from the office of her aunt\'s\nexecutors, and she wondered what unexpected development had caused them\nto break silence before the appointed time. She opened the envelope and a\ncheque fluttered to the floor. As she stooped to pick it up the blood\nrushed to her face. The cheque represented the full amount of Mrs.\nPeniston\'s legacy, and the letter accompanying it explained that the\nexecutors, having adjusted the business of the estate with less delay\nthan they had expected, had decided to anticipate the date fixed for the\npayment of the bequests.\n\nLily sat down beside the desk at the foot of her bed, and spreading out\nthe cheque, read over and over the TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS written across it\nin a steely business hand. Ten months earlier the amount it stood for had\nrepresented the depths of penury; but her standard of values had changed\nin the interval, and now visions of wealth lurked in every flourish of\nthe pen. As she continued to gaze at it, she felt the glitter of the\nvisions mounting to her brain, and after a while she lifted the lid of\nthe desk and slipped the magic formula out of sight. It was easier to\nthink without those five figures dancing before her eyes; and she had a\ngreat deal of thinking to do before she slept.\n\nShe opened her cheque-book, and plunged into such anxious calculations as\nhad prolonged her vigil at Bellomont on the night when she had decided to\nmarry Percy Gryce. Poverty simplifies book-keeping, and her financial\nsituation was easier to ascertain than it had been then; but she had not\nyet learned the control of money, and during her transient phase of\nluxury at the Emporium she had slipped back into habits of extravagance\nwhich still impaired her slender balance. A careful examination of her\ncheque-book, and of the unpaid bills in her desk, showed that, when the\nlatter had been settled, she would have barely enough to live on for the\nnext three or four months; and even after that, if she were to continue\nher present way of living, without earning any additional money, all\nincidental expenses must be reduced to the vanishing point. She hid her\neyes with a shudder, beholding herself at the entrance of that\never-narrowing perspective down which she had seen Miss Silverton\'s dowdy\nfigure take its despondent way.\n\nIt was no longer, however, from the vision of material poverty that she\nturned with the greatest shrinking. She had a sense of deeper\nempoverishment--of an inner destitution compared to which outward\nconditions dwindled into insignificance. It was indeed miserable to be\npoor--to look forward to a shabby, anxious middle-age, leading by dreary\ndegrees of economy and self-denial to gradual absorption in the dingy\ncommunal existence of the boarding-house. But there was something more\nmiserable still--it was the clutch of solitude at her heart, the sense of\nbeing swept like a stray uprooted growth down the heedless current of the\nyears. That was the feeling which possessed her now--the feeling of being\nsomething rootless and ephemeral, mere spin-drift of the whirling surface\nof existence, without anything to which the poor little tentacles of self\ncould cling before the awful flood submerged them. And as she looked back\nshe saw that there had never been a time when she had had any real\nrelation to life. Her parents too had been rootless, blown hither and\nthither on every wind of fashion, without any personal existence to\nshelter them from its shifting gusts. She herself had grown up without\nany one spot of earth being dearer to her than another: there was no\ncentre of early pieties, of grave endearing traditions, to which her\nheart could revert and from which it could draw strength for itself and\ntenderness for others. In whatever form a slowly-accumulated past lives\nin the blood--whether in the concrete image of the old house stored with\nvisual memories, or in the conception of the house not built with hands,\nbut made up of inherited passions and loyalties--it has the same power of\nbroadening and deepening the individual existence, of attaching it by\nmysterious links of kinship to all the mighty sum of human striving.\n\nSuch a vision of the solidarity of life had never before come to Lily.\nShe had had a premonition of it in the blind motions of her\nmating-instinct; but they had been checked by the disintegrating\ninfluences of the life about her. All the men and women she knew were\nlike atoms whirling away from each other in some wild centrifugal dance:\nher first glimpse of the continuity of life had come to her that evening\nin Nettie Struther\'s kitchen.\n\nThe poor little working-girl who had found strength to gather up the\nfragments of her life, and build herself a shelter with them, seemed to\nLily to have reached the central truth of existence. It was a meagre\nenough life, on the grim edge of poverty, with scant margin for\npossibilities of sickness or mischance, but it had the frail audacious\npermanence of a bird\'s nest built on the edge of a cliff--a mere wisp of\nleaves and straw, yet so put together that the lives entrusted to it may\nhang safely over the abyss.\n\nYes--but it had taken two to build the nest; the man\'s faith as well as\nthe woman\'s courage. Lily remembered Nettie\'s words: I KNEW HE KNEW ABOUT\nME. Her husband\'s faith in her had made her renewal possible--it is so\neasy for a woman to become what the man she loves believes her to be!\nWell--Selden had twice been ready to stake his faith on Lily Bart; but\nthe third trial had been too severe for his endurance. The very quality\nof his love had made it the more impossible to recall to life. If it had\nbeen a simple instinct of the blood, the power of her beauty might have\nrevived it. But the fact that it struck deeper, that it was inextricably\nwound up with inherited habits of thought and feeling, made it as\nimpossible to restore to growth as a deep-rooted plant torn from its bed.\nSelden had given her of his best; but he was as incapable as herself of\nan uncritical return to former states of feeling.\n\nThere remained to her, as she had told him, the uplifting memory of his\nfaith in her; but she had not reached the age when a woman can live on\nher memories. As she held Nettie Struther\'s child in her arms the frozen\ncurrents of youth had loosed themselves and run warm in her veins: the\nold life-hunger possessed her, and all her being clamoured for its share\nof personal happiness. Yes--it was happiness she still wanted, and the\nglimpse she had caught of it made everything else of no account. One by\none she had detached herself from the baser possibilities, and she saw\nthat nothing now remained to her but the emptiness of renunciation.\n\nIt was growing late, and an immense weariness once more possessed her.\nIt was not the stealing sense of sleep, but a vivid wakeful fatigue, a\nwan lucidity of mind against which all the possibilities of the future\nwere shadowed forth gigantically. She was appalled by the intense\ncleanness of the vision; she seemed to have broken through the merciful\nveil which intervenes between intention and action, and to see exactly\nwhat she would do in all the long days to come. There was the cheque in\nher desk, for instance--she meant to use it in paying her debt to Trenor;\nbut she foresaw that when the morning came she would put off doing so,\nwould slip into gradual tolerance of the debt. The thought terrified\nher--she dreaded to fall from the height of her last moment with Lawrence\nSelden. But how could she trust herself to keep her footing? She knew the\nstrength of the opposing impulses-she could feel the countless hands of\nhabit dragging her back into some fresh compromise with fate. She felt an\nintense longing to prolong, to perpetuate, the momentary exaltation of\nher spirit. If only life could end now--end on this tragic yet sweet\nvision of lost possibilities, which gave her a sense of kinship with all\nthe loving and foregoing in the world!\n\nShe reached out suddenly and, drawing the cheque from her writing-desk,\nenclosed it in an envelope which she addressed to her bank. She then\nwrote out a cheque for Trenor, and placing it, without an accompanying\nword, in an envelope inscribed with his name, laid the two letters side\nby side on her desk. After that she continued to sit at the table,\nsorting her papers and writing, till the intense silence of the house\nreminded her of the lateness of the hour. In the street the noise of\nwheels had ceased, and the rumble of the \"elevated\" came only at long\nintervals through the deep unnatural hush. In the mysterious nocturnal\nseparation from all outward signs of life, she felt herself more\nstrangely confronted with her fate. The sensation made her brain reel,\nand she tried to shut out consciousness by pressing her hands against her\neyes. But the terrible silence and emptiness seemed to symbolize her\nfuture--she felt as though the house, the street, the world were all\nempty, and she alone left sentient in a lifeless universe.\n\nBut this was the verge of delirium . . . she had never hung so near the\ndizzy brink of the unreal. Sleep was what she wanted--she remembered that\nshe had not closed her eyes for two nights. The little bottle was at her\nbed-side, waiting to lay its spell upon her. She rose and undressed\nhastily, hungering now for the touch of her pillow. She felt so\nprofoundly tired that she thought she must fall asleep at once; but as\nsoon as she had lain down every nerve started once more into separate\nwakefulness. It was as though a great blaze of electric light had been\nturned on in her head, and her poor little anguished self shrank and\ncowered in it, without knowing where to take refuge.\n\nShe had not imagined that such a multiplication of wakefulness was\npossible: her whole past was reenacting itself at a hundred different\npoints of consciousness. Where was the drug that could still this legion\nof insurgent nerves? The sense of exhaustion would have been sweet\ncompared to this shrill beat of activities; but weariness had dropped\nfrom her as though some cruel stimulant had been forced into her veins.\n\nShe could bear it--yes, she could bear it; but what strength would be\nleft her the next day? Perspective had disappeared--the next day pressed\nclose upon her, and on its heels came the days that were to follow--they\nswarmed about her like a shrieking mob. She must shut them out for a few\nhours; she must take a brief bath of oblivion. She put out her hand, and\nmeasured the soothing drops into a glass; but as she did so, she knew\nthey would be powerless against the supernatural lucidity of her brain.\nShe had long since raised the dose to its highest limit, but tonight she\nfelt she must increase it. She knew she took a slight risk in doing\nso--she remembered the chemist\'s warning. If sleep came at all, it might\nbe a sleep without waking. But after all that was but one chance in a\nhundred: the action of the drug was incalculable, and the addition of a\nfew drops to the regular dose would probably do no more than procure for\nher the rest she so desperately needed....\n\nShe did not, in truth, consider the question very closely--the physical\ncraving for sleep was her only sustained sensation. Her mind shrank from\nthe glare of thought as instinctively as eyes contract in a blaze of\nlight--darkness, darkness was what she must have at any cost. She raised\nherself in bed and swallowed the contents of the glass; then she blew out\nher candle and lay down.\n\nShe lay very still, waiting with a sensuous pleasure for the first\neffects of the soporific. She knew in advance what form they would\ntake--the gradual cessation of the inner throb, the soft approach of\npassiveness, as though an invisible hand made magic passes over her in\nthe darkness. The very slowness and hesitancy of the effect increased its\nfascination: it was delicious to lean over and look down into the dim\nabysses of unconsciousness. Tonight the drug seemed to work more slowly\nthan usual: each passionate pulse had to be stilled in turn, and it was\nlong before she felt them dropping into abeyance, like sentinels falling\nasleep at their posts. But gradually the sense of complete subjugation\ncame over her, and she wondered languidly what had made her feel so\nuneasy and excited. She saw now that there was nothing to be excited\nabout--she had returned to her normal view of life. Tomorrow would not be\nso difficult after all: she felt sure that she would have the strength to\nmeet it. She did not quite remember what it was that she had been afraid\nto meet, but the uncertainty no longer troubled her. She had been\nunhappy, and now she was happy--she had felt herself alone, and now the\nsense of loneliness had vanished.\n\nShe stirred once, and turned on her side, and as she did so, she suddenly\nunderstood why she did not feel herself alone. It was odd--but Nettie\nStruther\'s child was lying on her arm: she felt the pressure of its\nlittle head against her shoulder. She did not know how it had come there,\nbut she felt no great surprise at the fact, only a gentle penetrating\nthrill of warmth and pleasure. She settled herself into an easier\nposition, hollowing her arm to pillow the round downy head, and holding\nher breath lest a sound should disturb the sleeping child.\n\nAs she lay there she said to herself that there was something she must\ntell Selden, some word she had found that should make life clear between\nthem. She tried to repeat the word, which lingered vague and luminous on\nthe far edge of thought--she was afraid of not remembering it when she\nwoke; and if she could only remember it and say it to him, she felt that\neverything would be well.\n\nSlowly the thought of the word faded, and sleep began to enfold her. She\nstruggled faintly against it, feeling that she ought to keep awake on\naccount of the baby; but even this feeling was gradually lost in an\nindistinct sense of drowsy peace, through which, of a sudden, a dark\nflash of loneliness and terror tore its way.\n\nShe started up again, cold and trembling with the shock: for a moment she\nseemed to have lost her hold of the child. But no--she was mistaken--the\ntender pressure of its body was still close to hers: the recovered warmth\nflowed through her once more, she yielded to it, sank into it, and slept.\n\n\n\nChapter 14\n\nThe next morning rose mild and bright, with a promise of summer in the\nair. The sunlight slanted joyously down Lily\'s street, mellowed the\nblistered house-front, gilded the paintless railings of the door-step,\nand struck prismatic glories from the panes of her darkened window.\n\nWhen such a day coincides with the inner mood there is intoxication in\nits breath; and Selden, hastening along the street through the squalor of\nits morning confidences, felt himself thrilling with a youthful sense of\nadventure. He had cut loose from the familiar shores of habit, and\nlaunched himself on uncharted seas of emotion; all the old tests and\nmeasures were left behind, and his course was to be shaped by new stars.\n\nThat course, for the moment, led merely to Miss Bart\'s boarding-house;\nbut its shabby door-step had suddenly become the threshold of the\nuntried. As he approached he looked up at the triple row of windows,\nwondering boyishly which one of them was hers. It was nine o\'clock, and\nthe house, being tenanted by workers, already showed an awakened front to\nthe street. He remembered afterward having noticed that only one blind\nwas down. He noticed too that there was a pot of pansies on one of the\nwindow sills, and at once concluded that the window must be hers: it was\ninevitable that he should connect her with the one touch of beauty in the\ndingy scene.\n\nNine o\'clock was an early hour for a visit, but Selden had passed beyond\nall such conventional observances. He only knew that he must see Lily\nBart at once--he had found the word he meant to say to her, and it could\nnot wait another moment to be said. It was strange that it had not come\nto his lips sooner--that he had let her pass from him the evening before\nwithout being able to speak it. But what did that matter, now that a new\nday had come? It was not a word for twilight, but for the morning.\n\nSelden ran eagerly up the steps and pulled the bell; and even in his\nstate of self-absorption it came as a sharp surprise to him that the door\nshould open so promptly. It was still more of a surprise to see, as he\nentered, that it had been opened by Gerty Farish--and that behind her, in\nan agitated blur, several other figures ominously loomed.\n\n\"Lawrence!\" Gerty cried in a strange voice, \"how could you get here so\nquickly?\"--and the trembling hand she laid on him seemed instantly to\nclose about his heart.\n\nHe noticed the other faces, vague with fear and conjecture--he saw the\nlandlady\'s imposing bulk sway professionally toward him; but he shrank\nback, putting up his hand, while his eyes mechanically mounted the steep\nblack walnut stairs, up which he was immediately aware that his cousin\nwas about to lead him.\n\nA voice in the background said that the doctor might be back at any\nminute--and that nothing, upstairs, was to be disturbed. Some one else\nexclaimed: \"It was the greatest mercy--\" then Selden felt that Gerty had\ntaken him gently by the hand, and that they were to be suffered to go up\nalone.\n\nIn silence they mounted the three flights, and walked along the passage\nto a closed door. Gerty opened the door, and Selden went in after her.\nThough the blind was down, the irresistible sunlight poured a tempered\ngolden flood into the room, and in its light Selden saw a narrow bed\nalong the wall, and on the bed, with motionless hands and calm\nunrecognizing face, the semblance of Lily Bart.\n\nThat it was her real self, every pulse in him ardently denied. Her real\nself had lain warm on his heart but a few hours earlier--what had he to\ndo with this estranged and tranquil face which, for the first time,\nneither paled nor brightened at his coming?\n\nGerty, strangely tranquil too, with the conscious self-control of one who\nhas ministered to much pain, stood by the bed, speaking gently, as if\ntransmitting a final message.\n\n\"The doctor found a bottle of chloral--she had been sleeping badly for a\nlong time, and she must have taken an overdose by mistake.... There is no\ndoubt of that--no doubt--there will be no question--he has been very\nkind. I told him that you and I would like to be left alone with her--to\ngo over her things before any one else comes. I know it is what she would\nhave wished.\"\n\nSelden was hardly conscious of what she said. He stood looking down on\nthe sleeping face which seemed to lie like a delicate impalpable mask\nover the living lineaments he had known. He felt that the real Lily was\nstill there, close to him, yet invisible and inaccessible; and the\ntenuity of the barrier between them mocked him with a sense of\nhelplessness. There had never been more than a little impalpable barrier\nbetween them--and yet he had suffered it to keep them apart! And now,\nthough it seemed slighter and frailer than ever, it had suddenly hardened\nto adamant, and he might beat his life out against it in vain.\n\nHe had dropped on his knees beside the bed, but a touch from Gerty\naroused him. He stood up, and as their eyes met he was struck by the\nextraordinary light in his cousin\'s face.\n\n\"You understand what the doctor has gone for? He has promised that there\nshall be no trouble--but of course the formalities must be gone through.\nAnd I asked him to give us time to look through her things first----\"\n\nHe nodded, and she glanced about the small bare room. \"It won\'t take\nlong,\" she concluded.\n\n\"No--it won\'t take long,\" he agreed.\n\nShe held his hand in hers a moment longer, and then, with a last look at\nthe bed, moved silently toward the door. On the threshold she paused to\nadd: \"You will find me downstairs if you want me.\"\n\nSelden roused himself to detain her. \"But why are you going? She would\nhave wished----\"\n\nGerty shook her head with a smile. \"No: this is what she would have\nwished----\" and as she spoke a light broke through Selden\'s stony misery,\nand he saw deep into the hidden things of love.\n\nThe door closed on Gerty, and he stood alone with the motionless sleeper\non the bed. His impulse was to return to her side, to fall on his knees,\nand rest his throbbing head against the peaceful cheek on the pillow.\nThey had never been at peace together, they two; and now he felt himself\ndrawn downward into the strange mysterious depths of her tranquillity.\n\nBut he remembered Gerty\'s warning words--he knew that, though time had\nceased in this room, its feet were hastening relentlessly toward the\ndoor. Gerty had given him this supreme half-hour, and he must use it as\nshe willed.\n\nHe turned and looked about him, sternly compelling himself to regain his\nconsciousness of outward things. There was very little furniture in the\nroom. The shabby chest of drawers was spread with a lace cover, and set\nout with a few gold-topped boxes and bottles, a rose-coloured\npin-cushion, a glass tray strewn with tortoise-shell hair-pins--he shrank\nfrom the poignant intimacy of these trifles, and from the blank surface\nof the toilet-mirror above them.\n\nThese were the only traces of luxury, of that clinging to the minute\nobservance of personal seemliness, which showed what her other\nrenunciations must have cost. There was no other token of her personality\nabout the room, unless it showed itself in the scrupulous neatness of the\nscant articles of furniture: a washing-stand, two chairs, a small\nwriting-desk, and the little table near the bed. On this table stood the\nempty bottle and glass, and from these also he averted his eyes.\n\nThe desk was closed, but on its slanting lid lay two letters which he\ntook up. One bore the address of a bank, and as it was stamped and\nsealed, Selden, after a moment\'s hesitation, laid it aside. On the other\nletter he read Gus Trenor\'s name; and the flap of the envelope was still\nungummed.\n\nTemptation leapt on him like the stab of a knife. He staggered under it,\nsteadying himself against the desk. Why had she been writing to\nTrenor--writing, presumably, just after their parting of the previous\nevening? The thought unhallowed the memory of that last hour, made a mock\nof the word he had come to speak, and defiled even the reconciling\nsilence upon which it fell. He felt himself flung back on all the ugly\nuncertainties from which he thought he had cast loose forever. After all,\nwhat did he know of her life? Only as much as she had chosen to show him,\nand measured by the world\'s estimate, how little that was! By what\nright--the letter in his hand seemed to ask--by what right was it he who\nnow passed into her confidence through the gate which death had left\nunbarred? His heart cried out that it was by right of their last hour\ntogether, the hour when she herself had placed the key in his hand.\nYes--but what if the letter to Trenor had been written afterward?\n\nHe put it from him with sudden loathing, and setting his lips, addressed\nhimself resolutely to what remained of his task. After all, that task\nwould be easier to perform, now that his personal stake in it was\nannulled.\n\nHe raised the lid of the desk, and saw within it a cheque-book and a few\npackets of bills and letters, arranged with the orderly precision which\ncharacterized all her personal habits. He looked through the letters\nfirst, because it was the most difficult part of the work. They proved to\nbe few and unimportant, but among them he found, with a strange commotion\nof the heart, the note he had written her the day after the Brys\'\nentertainment.\n\n\"When may I come to you?\"--his words overwhelmed him with a realization\nof the cowardice which had driven him from her at the very moment of\nattainment. Yes--he had always feared his fate, and he was too honest to\ndisown his cowardice now; for had not all his old doubts started to life\nagain at the mere sight of Trenor\'s name?\n\nHe laid the note in his card-case, folding it away carefully, as\nsomething made precious by the fact that she had held it so; then,\ngrowing once more aware of the lapse of time, he continued his\nexamination of the papers.\n\nTo his surprise, he found that all the bills were receipted; there was\nnot an unpaid account among them. He opened the cheque-book, and saw\nthat, the very night before, a cheque of ten thousand dollars from Mrs.\nPeniston\'s executors had been entered in it. The legacy, then, had been\npaid sooner than Gerty had led him to expect. But, turning another page\nor two, he discovered with astonishment that, in spite of this recent\naccession of funds, the balance had already declined to a few dollars. A\nrapid glance at the stubs of the last cheques, all of which bore the date\nof the previous day, showed that between four or five hundred dollars of\nthe legacy had been spent in the settlement of bills, while the remaining\nthousands were comprehended in one cheque, made out, at the same time, to\nCharles Augustus Trenor.\n\nSelden laid the book aside, and sank into the chair beside the desk. He\nleaned his elbows on it, and hid his face in his hands. The bitter waters\nof life surged high about him, their sterile taste was on his lips. Did\nthe cheque to Trenor explain the mystery or deepen it? At first his mind\nrefused to act--he felt only the taint of such a transaction between a\nman like Trenor and a girl like Lily Bart. Then, gradually, his troubled\nvision cleared, old hints and rumours came back to him, and out of the\nvery insinuations he had feared to probe, he constructed an explanation\nof the mystery. It was true, then, that she had taken money from Trenor;\nbut true also, as the contents of the little desk declared, that the\nobligation had been intolerable to her, and that at the first opportunity\nshe had freed herself from it, though the act left her face to face with\nbare unmitigated poverty.\n\nThat was all he knew--all he could hope to unravel of the story. The\nmute lips on the pillow refused him more than this--unless indeed they\nhad told him the rest in the kiss they had left upon his forehead. Yes,\nhe could now read into that farewell all that his heart craved to find\nthere; he could even draw from it courage not to accuse himself for\nhaving failed to reach the height of his opportunity.\n\nHe saw that all the conditions of life had conspired to keep them apart;\nsince his very detachment from the external influences which swayed her\nhad increased his spiritual fastidiousness, and made it more difficult\nfor him to live and love uncritically. But at least he HAD loved her--had\nbeen willing to stake his future on his faith in her--and if the moment\nhad been fated to pass from them before they could seize it, he saw now\nthat, for both, it had been saved whole out of the ruin of their lives.\n\nIt was this moment of love, this fleeting victory over themselves, which\nhad kept them from atrophy and extinction; which, in her, had reached out\nto him in every struggle against the influence of her surroundings, and\nin him, had kept alive the faith that now drew him penitent and\nreconciled to her side.\n\nHe knelt by the bed and bent over her, draining their last moment to its\nlees; and in the silence there passed between them the word which made\nall clear.'"