einrichtung wohnzimmer rustikal

chapter 1 selden paused in surprise.in the afternoon rush of the grand central station his eyes had been refreshed by thesight of miss lily bart. it was a monday in early september, and hewas returning to his work from a hurried dip into the country; but what was missbart doing in town at that season? if she had appeared to be catching a train,he might have inferred that he had come on her in the act of transition between oneand another of the country-houses which disputed her presence after the close of the newport season; but her desultory airperplexed him.

she stood apart from the crowd, letting itdrift by her to the platform or the street, and wearing an air of irresolution whichmight, as he surmised, be the mask of a very definite purpose. it struck him at once that she was waitingfor some one, but he hardly knew why the idea arrested him. there was nothing new about lily bart, yethe could never see her without a faint movement of interest: it was characteristicof her that she always roused speculation, that her simplest acts seemed the result offar-reaching intentions. an impulse of curiosity made him turn outof his direct line to the door, and stroll

past her. he knew that if she did not wish to be seenshe would contrive to elude him; and it amused him to think of putting her skill tothe test. "mr. selden--what good luck!" she came forward smiling, eager almost, inher resolve to intercept him. one or two persons, in brushing past them,lingered to look; for miss bart was a figure to arrest even the suburbantraveller rushing to his last train. selden had never seen her more radiant. her vivid head, relieved against the dulltints of the crowd, made her more

conspicuous than in a ball-room, and underher dark hat and veil she regained the girlish smoothness, the purity of tint, that she was beginning to lose after elevenyears of late hours and indefatigable dancing. was it really eleven years, selden foundhimself wondering, and had she indeed reached the nine-and-twentieth birthdaywith which her rivals credited her? "what luck!" she repeated. "how nice of you to come to my rescue!"he responded joyfully that to do so was his mission in life, and asked what form therescue was to take.

"oh, almost any--even to sitting on a benchand talking to me. one sits out a cotillion--why not sit out atrain? it isn't a bit hotter here than in mrs. vanosburgh's conservatory--and some of the women are not a bit uglier." she broke off, laughing, to explain thatshe had come up to town from tuxedo, on her way to the gus trenors' at bellomont, andhad missed the three-fifteen train to rhinebeck. "and there isn't another till half-pastfive." she consulted the little jewelled watchamong her laces.

"just two hours to wait. and i don't know what to do with myself. my maid came up this morning to do someshopping for me, and was to go on to bellomont at one o'clock, and my aunt'shouse is closed, and i don't know a soul in town." she glanced plaintively about the station."it is hotter than mrs. van osburgh's, after all.if you can spare the time, do take me somewhere for a breath of air." he declared himself entirely at herdisposal: the adventure struck him as

diverting. as a spectator, he had always enjoyed lilybart; and his course lay so far out of her orbit that it amused him to be drawn for amoment into the sudden intimacy which her proposal implied. "shall we go over to sherry's for a cup oftea?" she smiled assentingly, and then made aslight grimace. "so many people come up to town on amonday--one is sure to meet a lot of bores. i'm as old as the hills, of course, and itought not to make any difference; but if i'm old enough, you're not," she objectedgaily.

"i'm dying for tea--but isn't there aquieter place?" he answered her smile, which rested on himvividly. her discretions interested him almost asmuch as her imprudences: he was so sure that both were part of the same carefully-elaborated plan. in judging miss bart, he had always madeuse of the "argument from design." "the resources of new york are rathermeagre," he said; "but i'll find a hansom first, and then we'll invent something." he led her through the throng of returningholiday-makers, past sallow-faced girls in preposterous hats, and flat-chested womenstruggling with paper bundles and palm-leaf

fans. was it possible that she belonged to thesame race? the dinginess, the crudity of this averagesection of womanhood made him feel how highly specialized she was. a rapid shower had cooled the air, andclouds still hung refreshingly over the moist street."how delicious! let us walk a little," she said as theyemerged from the station. they turned into madison avenue and beganto stroll northward. as she moved beside him, with her longlight step, selden was conscious of taking

a luxurious pleasure in her nearness: inthe modelling of her little ear, the crisp upward wave of her hair--was it ever so slightly brightened by art?--and the thickplanting of her straight black lashes. everything about her was at once vigorousand exquisite, at once strong and fine. he had a confused sense that she must havecost a great deal to make, that a great many dull and ugly people must, in somemysterious way, have been sacrificed to produce her. he was aware that the qualitiesdistinguishing her from the herd of her sex were chiefly external: as though a fineglaze of beauty and fastidiousness had been

applied to vulgar clay. yet the analogy left him unsatisfied, for acoarse texture will not take a high finish; and was it not possible that the materialwas fine, but that circumstance had fashioned it into a futile shape? as he reached this point in hisspeculations the sun came out, and her lifted parasol cut off his enjoyment.a moment or two later she paused with a sigh. "oh, dear, i'm so hot and thirsty--and whata hideous place new york is!" she looked despairingly up and down thedreary thoroughfare.

"other cities put on their best clothes insummer, but new york seems to sit in its shirtsleeves."her eyes wandered down one of the side- streets. "someone has had the humanity to plant afew trees over there. let us go into the shade." "i am glad my street meets with yourapproval," said selden as they turned the corner."your street? do you live here?" she glanced with interest along the newbrick and limestone house-fronts,

fantastically varied in obedience to theamerican craving for novelty, but fresh and inviting with their awnings and flower-boxes. "ah, yes--to be sure: the benedick.what a nice-looking building! i don't think i've ever seen it before." she looked across at the flat-house withits marble porch and pseudo-georgian facade."which are your windows? those with the awnings down?" "on the top floor--yes.""and that nice little balcony is yours? how cool it looks up there!"he paused a moment.

"come up and see," he suggested. "i can give you a cup of tea in no time--and you won't meet any bores." her colour deepened--she still had the artof blushing at the right time--but she took the suggestion as lightly as it was made. "why not?it's too tempting--i'll take the risk," she declared."oh, i'm not dangerous," he said in the same key. in truth, he had never liked her as well asat that moment. he knew she had accepted withoutafterthought: he could never be a factor in

her calculations, and there was a surprise,a refreshment almost, in the spontaneity of her consent. on the threshold he paused a moment,feeling for his latchkey. "there's no one here; but i have a servantwho is supposed to come in the mornings, and it's just possible he may have put outthe tea-things and provided some cake." he ushered her into a slip of a hall hungwith old prints. she noticed the letters and notes heaped onthe table among his gloves and sticks; then she found herself in a small library, darkbut cheerful, with its walls of books, a pleasantly faded turkey rug, a littered

desk and, as he had foretold, a tea-tray ona low table near the window. a breeze had sprung up, swaying inward themuslin curtains, and bringing a fresh scent of mignonette and petunias from the flower-box on the balcony. lily sank with a sigh into one of theshabby leather chairs. "how delicious to have a place like thisall to one's self! what a miserable thing it is to be awoman." she leaned back in a luxury of discontent.selden was rummaging in a cupboard for the cake. "even women," he said, "have been known toenjoy the privileges of a flat."

"oh, governesses--or widows.but not girls--not poor, miserable, marriageable girls!" "i even know a girl who lives in a flat."she sat up in surprise. "you do?""i do," he assured her, emerging from the cupboard with the sought-for cake. "oh, i know--you mean gerty farish."she smiled a little unkindly. "but i said marriageable--and besides, shehas a horrid little place, and no maid, and such queer things to eat. her cook does the washing and the foodtastes of soap.

i should hate that, you know.""you shouldn't dine with her on wash-days," said selden, cutting the cake. they both laughed, and he knelt by thetable to light the lamp under the kettle, while she measured out the tea into alittle tea-pot of green glaze. as he watched her hand, polished as a bitof old ivory, with its slender pink nails, and the sapphire bracelet slipping over herwrist, he was struck with the irony of suggesting to her such a life as his cousingertrude farish had chosen. she was so evidently the victim of thecivilization which had produced her, that the links of her bracelet seemed likemanacles chaining her to her fate.

she seemed to read his thought. "it was horrid of me to say that of gerty,"she said with charming compunction. "i forgot she was your cousin.but we're so different, you know: she likes being good, and i like being happy. and besides, she is free and i am not.if i were, i daresay i could manage to be happy even in her flat. it must be pure bliss to arrange thefurniture just as one likes, and give all the horrors to the ash-man.if i could only do over my aunt's drawing- room i know i should be a better woman."

"is it so very bad?" he askedsympathetically. she smiled at him across the tea-pot whichshe was holding up to be filled. "that shows how seldom you come there. why don't you come oftener?""when i do come, it's not to look at mrs. peniston's furniture.""nonsense," she said. "you don't come at all--and yet we get onso well when we meet." "perhaps that's the reason," he answeredpromptly. "i'm afraid i haven't any cream, you know--shall you mind a slice of lemon instead?" "i shall like it better."she waited while he cut the lemon and

dropped a thin disk into her cup. "but that is not the reason," she insisted."the reason for what?" "for your never coming."she leaned forward with a shade of perplexity in her charming eyes. "i wish i knew--i wish i could make youout. of course i know there are men who don'tlike me--one can tell that at a glance. and there are others who are afraid of me:they think i want to marry them." she smiled up at him frankly."but i don't think you dislike me--and you can't possibly think i want to marry you."

"no--i absolve you of that," he agreed."well, then----?" he had carried his cup to the fireplace,and stood leaning against the chimney-piece and looking down on her with an air ofindolent amusement. the provocation in her eyes increased hisamusement--he had not supposed she would waste her powder on such small game; butperhaps she was only keeping her hand in; or perhaps a girl of her type had noconversation but of the personal kind. at any rate, she was amazingly pretty, andhe had asked her to tea and must live up to his obligations. "well, then," he said with a plunge,"perhaps that's the reason."

"what?""the fact that you don't want to marry me. perhaps i don't regard it as such a stronginducement to go and see you." he felt a slight shiver down his spine ashe ventured this, but her laugh reassured him. "dear mr. selden, that wasn't worthy ofyou. it's stupid of you to make love to me, andit isn't like you to be stupid." she leaned back, sipping her tea with anair so enchantingly judicial that, if they had been in her aunt's drawing-room, hemight almost have tried to disprove her deduction.

"don't you see," she continued, "that thereare men enough to say pleasant things to me, and that what i want is a friend whowon't be afraid to say disagreeable ones when i need them? sometimes i have fancied you might be thatfriend--i don't know why, except that you are neither a prig nor a bounder, and thati shouldn't have to pretend with you or be on my guard against you." her voice had dropped to a note ofseriousness, and she sat gazing up at him with the troubled gravity of a child."you don't know how much i need such a friend," she said.

"my aunt is full of copy-book axioms, butthey were all meant to apply to conduct in the early fifties. i always feel that to live up to them wouldinclude wearing book-muslin with gigot sleeves. and the other women--my best friends--well,they use me or abuse me; but they don't care a straw what happens to me. i've been about too long--people aregetting tired of me; they are beginning to say i ought to marry." there was a moment's pause, during whichselden meditated one or two replies

calculated to add a momentary zest to thesituation; but he rejected them in favour of the simple question: "well, why don'tyou?" she coloured and laughed. "ah, i see you are a friend after all, andthat is one of the disagreeable things i was asking for.""it wasn't meant to be disagreeable," he returned amicably. "isn't marriage your vocation?isn't it what you're all brought up for?" she sighed."i suppose so. what else is there?"

"exactly.and so why not take the plunge and have it over?"she shrugged her shoulders. "you speak as if i ought to marry the firstman who came along." "i didn't mean to imply that you are ashard put to it as that. but there must be some one with therequisite qualifications." she shook her head wearily. "i threw away one or two good chances wheni first came out--i suppose every girl does; and you know i am horribly poor--andvery expensive. i must have a great deal of money."

selden had turned to reach for a cigarette-box on the mantelpiece. "what's become of dillworth?" he asked. "oh, his mother was frightened--she wasafraid i should have all the family jewels reset.and she wanted me to promise that i wouldn't do over the drawing-room." "the very thing you are marrying for!""exactly. so she packed him off to india.""hard luck--but you can do better than dillworth." he offered the box, and she took out threeor four cigarettes, putting one between her

lips and slipping the others into a littlegold case attached to her long pearl chain. "have i time? just a whiff, then."she leaned forward, holding the tip of her cigarette to his. as she did so, he noted, with a purelyimpersonal enjoyment, how evenly the black lashes were set in her smooth white lids,and how the purplish shade beneath them melted into the pure pallour of the cheek. she began to saunter about the room,examining the bookshelves between the puffs of her cigarette-smoke.

some of the volumes had the ripe tints ofgood tooling and old morocco, and her eyes lingered on them caressingly, not with theappreciation of the expert, but with the pleasure in agreeable tones and textures that was one of her inmostsusceptibilities. suddenly her expression changed fromdesultory enjoyment to active conjecture, and she turned to selden with a question. "you collect, don't you--you know aboutfirst editions and things?" "as much as a man may who has no money tospend. now and then i pick up something in therubbish heap; and i go and look on at the

big sales." she had again addressed herself to theshelves, but her eyes now swept them inattentively, and he saw that she waspreoccupied with a new idea. "and americana--do you collect americana?" selden stared and laughed."no, that's rather out of my line. i'm not really a collector, you see; isimply like to have good editions of the books i am fond of." she made a slight grimace."and americana are horribly dull, i suppose?""i should fancy so--except to the

historian. but your real collector values a thing forits rarity. i don't suppose the buyers of americana situp reading them all night--old jefferson gryce certainly didn't." she was listening with keen attention."and yet they fetch fabulous prices, don't they? it seems so odd to want to pay a lot for anugly badly-printed book that one is never going to read!and i suppose most of the owners of americana are not historians either?"

"no; very few of the historians can affordto buy them. they have to use those in the publiclibraries or in private collections. it seems to be the mere rarity thatattracts the average collector." he had seated himself on an arm of thechair near which she was standing, and she continued to question him, asking whichwere the rarest volumes, whether the jefferson gryce collection was really considered the finest in the world, andwhat was the largest price ever fetched by a single volume. it was so pleasant to sit there looking upat her, as she lifted now one book and then

another from the shelves, fluttering thepages between her fingers, while her drooping profile was outlined against the warm background of old bindings, that hetalked on without pausing to wonder at her sudden interest in so unsuggestive asubject. but he could never be long with her withouttrying to find a reason for what she was doing, and as she replaced his firstedition of la bruyere and turned away from the bookcases, he began to ask himself whatshe had been driving at. her next question was not of a nature toenlighten him. she paused before him with a smile whichseemed at once designed to admit him to her

familiarity, and to remind him of therestrictions it imposed. "don't you ever mind," she asked suddenly,"not being rich enough to buy all the books you want?"he followed her glance about the room, with its worn furniture and shabby walls. "don't i just?do you take me for a saint on a pillar?" "and having to work--do you mind that?""oh, the work itself is not so bad--i'm rather fond of the law." "no; but the being tied down: the routine--don't you ever want to get away, to see new places and people?""horribly--especially when i see all my

friends rushing to the steamer." she drew a sympathetic breath."but do you mind enough--to marry to get out of it?"selden broke into a laugh. "god forbid!" he declared. she rose with a sigh, tossing her cigaretteinto the grate. "ah, there's the difference--a girl must,a man may if he chooses." she surveyed him critically. "your coat's a little shabby--but whocares? it doesn't keep people from asking you todine.

if i were shabby no one would have me: awoman is asked out as much for her clothes as for herself. the clothes are the background, the frame,if you like: they don't make success, but they are a part of it.who wants a dingy woman? we are expected to be pretty and well-dressed till we drop--and if we can't keep it up alone, we have to go intopartnership." selden glanced at her with amusement: itwas impossible, even with her lovely eyes imploring him, to take a sentimental viewof her case. "ah, well, there must be plenty of capitalon the look-out for such an investment.

perhaps you'll meet your fate tonight atthe trenors'." she returned his look interrogatively. "i thought you might be going there--oh,not in that capacity! but there are to be a lot of your set--gwenvan osburgh, the wetheralls, lady cressida raith--and the george dorsets." she paused a moment before the last name,and shot a query through her lashes; but he remained imperturbable. "mrs. trenor asked me; but i can't get awaytill the end of the week; and those big parties bore me.""ah, so they do me," she exclaimed.

"then why go?" "it's part of the business--you forget!and besides, if i didn't, i should be playing bezique with my aunt at richfieldsprings." "that's almost as bad as marryingdillworth," he agreed, and they both laughed for pure pleasure in their suddenintimacy. she glanced at the clock. "dear me!i must be off. it's after five." she paused before the mantelpiece, studyingherself in the mirror while she adjusted

her veil. the attitude revealed the long slope of herslender sides, which gave a kind of wild- wood grace to her outline--as though shewere a captured dryad subdued to the conventions of the drawing-room; and selden reflected that it was the same streak ofsylvan freedom in her nature that lent such savour to her artificiality. he followed her across the room to theentrance-hall; but on the threshold she held out her hand with a gesture of leave-taking. "it's been delightful; and now you willhave to return my visit."

"but don't you want me to see you to thestation?" "no; good bye here, please." she let her hand lie in his a moment,smiling up at him adorably. "good bye, then--and good luck atbellomont!" he said, opening the door for her. on the landing she paused to look abouther. there were a thousand chances to oneagainst her meeting anybody, but one could never tell, and she always paid for herrare indiscretions by a violent reaction of prudence.

there was no one in sight, however, but achar-woman who was scrubbing the stairs. her own stout person and its surroundingimplements took up so much room that lily, to pass her, had to gather up her skirtsand brush against the wall. as she did so, the woman paused in her workand looked up curiously, resting her clenched red fists on the wet cloth she hadjust drawn from her pail. she had a broad sallow face, slightlypitted with small-pox, and thin straw- coloured hair through which her scalp shoneunpleasantly. "i beg your pardon," said lily, intendingby her politeness to convey a criticism of the other's manner.

the woman, without answering, pushed herpail aside, and continued to stare as miss bart swept by with a murmur of silkenlinings. lily felt herself flushing under the look. what did the creature suppose?could one never do the simplest, the most harmless thing, without subjecting one'sself to some odious conjecture? half way down the next flight, she smiledto think that a char-woman's stare should so perturb her.the poor thing was probably dazzled by such an unwonted apparition. but were such apparitions unwonted onselden's stairs?

miss bart was not familiar with the moralcode of bachelors' flat-houses, and her colour rose again as it occurred to herthat the woman's persistent gaze implied a groping among past associations. but she put aside the thought with a smileat her own fears, and hastened downward, wondering if she should find a cab short offifth avenue. under the georgian porch she paused again,scanning the street for a hansom. none was in sight, but as she reached thesidewalk she ran against a small glossy- looking man with a gardenia in his coat,who raised his hat with a surprised exclamation.

"miss bart?well--of all people! this is luck," he declared; and she caughta twinkle of amused curiosity between his screwed-up lids. "oh, mr. rosedale--how are you?" she said,perceiving that the irrepressible annoyance on her face was reflected in the suddenintimacy of his smile. mr. rosedale stood scanning her withinterest and approval. he was a plump rosy man of the blond jewishtype, with smart london clothes fitting him like upholstery, and small sidelong eyeswhich gave him the air of appraising people as if they were bric-a-brac.

he glanced up interrogatively at the porchof the benedick. "been up to town for a little shopping, isuppose?" he said, in a tone which had the familiarity of a touch. miss bart shrank from it slightly, and thenflung herself into precipitate explanations."yes--i came up to see my dress-maker. i am just on my way to catch the train tothe trenors'." "ah--your dress-maker; just so," he saidblandly. "i didn't know there were any dress-makersin the benedick." "the benedick?"she looked gently puzzled.

"is that the name of this building?" "yes, that's the name: i believe it's anold word for bachelor, isn't it? i happen to own the building--that's theway i know." his smile deepened as he added withincreasing assurance: "but you must let me take you to the station.the trenors are at bellomont, of course? you've barely time to catch the five-forty. the dress-maker kept you waiting, isuppose." lily stiffened under the pleasantry. "oh, thanks," she stammered; and at thatmoment her eye caught a hansom drifting

down madison avenue, and she hailed it witha desperate gesture. "you're very kind; but i couldn't think oftroubling you," she said, extending her hand to mr. rosedale; and heedless of hisprotestations, she sprang into the rescuing vehicle, and called out a breathless orderto the driver. > chapter 2 in the hansom she leaned back with a sigh.why must a girl pay so dearly for her least escape from routine? why could one never do a natural thingwithout having to screen it behind a

structure of artifice? she had yielded to a passing impulse ingoing to lawrence selden's rooms, and it was so seldom that she could allow herselfthe luxury of an impulse! this one, at any rate, was going to costher rather more than she could afford. she was vexed to see that, in spite of somany years of vigilance, she had blundered twice within five minutes. that stupid story about her dress-maker wasbad enough--it would have been so simple to tell rosedale that she had been taking teawith selden! the mere statement of the fact would haverendered it innocuous.

but, after having let herself be surprisedin a falsehood, it was doubly stupid to snub the witness of her discomfiture. if she had had the presence of mind to letrosedale drive her to the station, the concession might have purchased hissilence. he had his race's accuracy in the appraisalof values, and to be seen walking down the platform at the crowded afternoon hour inthe company of miss lily bart would have been money in his pocket, as he mighthimself have phrased it. he knew, of course, that there would be alarge house-party at bellomont, and the possibility of being taken for one of mrs.trenor's guests was doubtless included in

his calculations. mr. rosedale was still at a stage in hissocial ascent when it was of importance to produce such impressions. the provoking part was that lily knew allthis--knew how easy it would have been to silence him on the spot, and how difficultit might be to do so afterward. mr. simon rosedale was a man who made ithis business to know everything about every one, whose idea of showing himself to be athome in society was to display an inconvenient familiarity with the habits of those with whom he wished to be thoughtintimate.

lily was sure that within twenty-four hoursthe story of her visiting her dress-maker at the benedick would be in activecirculation among mr. rosedale's acquaintances. the worst of it was that she had alwayssnubbed and ignored him. on his first appearance--when herimprovident cousin, jack stepney, had obtained for him (in return for favours tooeasily guessed) a card to one of the vast impersonal van osburgh "crushes"--rosedale, with that mixture of artistic sensibilityand business astuteness which characterizes his race, had instantly gravitated towardmiss bart.

she understood his motives, for her owncourse was guided by as nice calculations. training and experience had taught her tobe hospitable to newcomers, since the most unpromising might be useful later on, andthere were plenty of available oubliettes to swallow them if they were not. but some intuitive repugnance, getting thebetter of years of social discipline, had made her push mr. rosedale into hisoubliette without a trial. he had left behind only the ripple ofamusement which his speedy despatch had caused among her friends; and though later(to shift the metaphor) he reappeared lower down the stream, it was only in fleetingglimpses, with long submergences between.

hitherto lily had been undisturbed byscruples. in her little set mr. rosedale had beenpronounced "impossible," and jack stepney roundly snubbed for his attempt to pay hisdebts in dinner invitations. even mrs. trenor, whose taste for varietyhad led her into some hazardous experiments, resisted jack's attempts todisguise mr. rosedale as a novelty, and declared that he was the same little jew who had been served up and rejected at thesocial board a dozen times within her memory; and while judy trenor was obduratethere was small chance of mr. rosedale's penetrating beyond the outer limbo of thevan osburgh crushes.

jack gave up the contest with a laughing"you'll see," and, sticking manfully to his guns, showed himself with rosedale at thefashionable restaurants, in company with the personally vivid if socially obscureladies who are available for such purposes. but the attempt had hitherto been vain, andas rosedale undoubtedly paid for the dinners, the laugh remained with hisdebtor. mr. rosedale, it will be seen, was thus farnot a factor to be feared--unless one put one's self in his power.and this was precisely what miss bart had done. her clumsy fib had let him see that she hadsomething to conceal; and she was sure he

had a score to settle with her.something in his smile told her he had not forgotten. she turned from the thought with a littleshiver, but it hung on her all the way to the station, and dogged her down theplatform with the persistency of mr. rosedale himself. she had just time to take her seat beforethe train started; but having arranged herself in her corner with the instinctivefeeling for effect which never forsook her, she glanced about in the hope of seeingsome other member of the trenors' party. she wanted to get away from herself, andconversation was the only means of escape

that she knew. her search was rewarded by the discovery ofa very blond young man with a soft reddish beard, who, at the other end of thecarriage, appeared to be dissembling himself behind an unfolded newspaper. lily's eye brightened, and a faint smilerelaxed the drawn lines of her mouth. she had known that mr. percy gryce was tobe at bellomont, but she had not counted on the luck of having him to herself in thetrain; and the fact banished all perturbing thoughts of mr. rosedale. perhaps, after all, the day was to end morefavourably than it had begun.

she began to cut the pages of a novel,tranquilly studying her prey through downcast lashes while she organized amethod of attack. something in his attitude of consciousabsorption told her that he was aware of her presence: no one had ever been quite soengrossed in an evening paper! she guessed that he was too shy to come upto her, and that she would have to devise some means of approach which should notappear to be an advance on her part. it amused her to think that any one as richas mr. percy gryce should be shy; but she was gifted with treasures of indulgence forsuch idiosyncrasies, and besides, his timidity might serve her purpose betterthan too much assurance.

she had the art of giving self-confidenceto the embarrassed, but she was not equally sure of being able to embarrass the self-confident. she waited till the train had emerged fromthe tunnel and was racing between the ragged edges of the northern suburbs. then, as it lowered its speed near yonkers,she rose from her seat and drifted slowly down the carriage. as she passed mr. gryce, the train gave alurch, and he was aware of a slender hand gripping the back of his chair. he rose with a start, his ingenuous facelooking as though it had been dipped in

crimson: even the reddish tint in his beardseemed to deepen. the train swayed again, almost flingingmiss bart into his arms. she steadied herself with a laugh and drewback; but he was enveloped in the scent of her dress, and his shoulder had felt herfugitive touch. "oh, mr. gryce, is it you? i'm so sorry--i was trying to find theporter and get some tea." she held out her hand as the train resumedits level rush, and they stood exchanging a few words in the aisle. yes--he was going to bellomont.he had heard she was to be of the party--he

blushed again as he admitted it.and was he to be there for a whole week? how delightful! but at this point one or two belatedpassengers from the last station forced their way into the carriage, and lily hadto retreat to her seat. "the chair next to mine is empty--do takeit," she said over her shoulder; and mr. gryce, with considerable embarrassment,succeeded in effecting an exchange which enabled him to transport himself and hisbags to her side. "ah--and here is the porter, and perhaps wecan have some tea." she signalled to that official, and in amoment, with the ease that seemed to attend

the fulfilment of all her wishes, a littletable had been set up between the seats, and she had helped mr. gryce to bestow hisencumbering properties beneath it. when the tea came he watched her in silentfascination while her hands flitted above the tray, looking miraculously fine andslender in contrast to the coarse china and lumpy bread. it seemed wonderful to him that any oneshould perform with such careless ease the difficult task of making tea in public in alurching train. he would never have dared to order it forhimself, lest he should attract the notice of his fellow-passengers; but, secure inthe shelter of her conspicuousness, he

sipped the inky draught with a delicioussense of exhilaration. lily, with the flavour of selden's caravantea on her lips, had no great fancy to drown it in the railway brew which seemedsuch nectar to her companion; but, rightly judging that one of the charms of tea is the fact of drinking it together, sheproceeded to give the last touch to mr. gryce's enjoyment by smiling at him acrossher lifted cup. "is it quite right--i haven't made it toostrong?" she asked solicitously; and he replied with conviction that he had nevertasted better tea. "i daresay it is true," she reflected; andher imagination was fired by the thought

that mr. gryce, who might have sounded thedepths of the most complex self-indulgence, was perhaps actually taking his firstjourney alone with a pretty woman. it struck her as providential that sheshould be the instrument of his initiation. some girls would not have known how tomanage him. they would have over-emphasized the noveltyof the adventure, trying to make him feel in it the zest of an escapade. but lily's methods were more delicate. she remembered that her cousin jack stepneyhad once defined mr. gryce as the young man who had promised his mother never to go outin the rain without his overshoes; and

acting on this hint, she resolved to impart a gently domestic air to the scene, in thehope that her companion, instead of feeling that he was doing something reckless orunusual, would merely be led to dwell on the advantage of always having a companionto make one's tea in the train. but in spite of her efforts, conversationflagged after the tray had been removed, and she was driven to take a freshmeasurement of mr. gryce's limitations. it was not, after all, opportunity butimagination that he lacked: he had a mental palate which would never learn todistinguish between railway tea and nectar. there was, however, one topic she couldrely on: one spring that she had only to

touch to set his simple machinery inmotion. she had refrained from touching it becauseit was a last resource, and she had relied on other arts to stimulate othersensations; but as a settled look of dulness began to creep over his candid features, she saw that extreme measureswere necessary. "and how," she said, leaning forward, "areyou getting on with your americana?" his eye became a degree less opaque: it wasas though an incipient film had been removed from it, and she felt the pride ofa skilful operator. "i've got a few new things," he said,suffused with pleasure, but lowering his

voice as though he feared his fellow-passengers might be in league to despoil she returned a sympathetic enquiry, andgradually he was drawn on to talk of his latest purchases. it was the one subject which enabled him toforget himself, or allowed him, rather, to remember himself without constraint,because he was at home in it, and could assert a superiority that there were few todispute. hardly any of his acquaintances cared foramericana, or knew anything about them; and the consciousness of this ignorance threwmr. gryce's knowledge into agreeable relief.

the only difficulty was to introduce thetopic and to keep it to the front; most people showed no desire to have theirignorance dispelled, and mr. gryce was like a merchant whose warehouses are crammedwith an unmarketable commodity. but miss bart, it appeared, really did wantto know about americana; and moreover, she was already sufficiently informed to makethe task of farther instruction as easy as it was agreeable. she questioned him intelligently, she heardhim submissively; and, prepared for the look of lassitude which usually crept overhis listeners' faces, he grew eloquent under her receptive gaze.

the "points" she had had the presence ofmind to glean from selden, in anticipation of this very contingency, were serving herto such good purpose that she began to think her visit to him had been theluckiest incident of the day. she had once more shown her talent forprofiting by the unexpected, and dangerous theories as to the advisability of yieldingto impulse were germinating under the surface of smiling attention which shecontinued to present to her companion. mr. gryce's sensations, if less definite,were equally agreeable. he felt the confused titillation with whichthe lower organisms welcome the gratification of their needs, and all hissenses floundered in a vague well-being,

through which miss bart's personality wasdimly but pleasantly perceptible. mr. gryce's interest in americana had notoriginated with himself: it was impossible to think of him as evolving any taste ofhis own. an uncle had left him a collection alreadynoted among bibliophiles; the existence of the collection was the only fact that hadever shed glory on the name of gryce, and the nephew took as much pride in his inheritance as though it had been his ownwork. indeed, he gradually came to regard it assuch, and to feel a sense of personal complacency when he chanced on anyreference to the gryce americana.

anxious as he was to avoid personal notice,he took, in the printed mention of his name, a pleasure so exquisite and excessivethat it seemed a compensation for his shrinking from publicity. to enjoy the sensation as often aspossible, he subscribed to all the reviews dealing with book-collecting in general,and american history in particular, and as allusions to his library abounded in the pages of these journals, which formed hisonly reading, he came to regard himself as figuring prominently in the public eye, andto enjoy the thought of the interest which would be excited if the persons he met in

the street, or sat among in travelling,were suddenly to be told that he was the possessor of the gryce americana. most timidities have such secretcompensations, and miss bart was discerning enough to know that the inner vanity isgenerally in proportion to the outer self- depreciation. with a more confident person she would nothave dared to dwell so long on one topic, or to show such exaggerated interest in it;but she had rightly guessed that mr. gryce's egoism was a thirsty soil,requiring constant nurture from without. miss bart had the gift of following anundercurrent of thought while she appeared

to be sailing on the surface ofconversation; and in this case her mental excursion took the form of a rapid survey of mr. percy gryce's future as combinedwith her own. the gryces were from albany, and but latelyintroduced to the metropolis, where the mother and son had come, after oldjefferson gryce's death, to take possession of his house in madison avenue--an appalling house, all brown stone withoutand black walnut within, with the gryce library in a fire-proof annex that lookedlike a mausoleum. lily, however, knew all about them: youngmr. gryce's arrival had fluttered the

maternal breasts of new york, and when agirl has no mother to palpitate for her she must needs be on the alert for herself. lily, therefore, had not only contrived toput herself in the young man's way, but had made the acquaintance of mrs. gryce, amonumental woman with the voice of a pulpit orator and a mind preoccupied with the iniquities of her servants, who camesometimes to sit with mrs. peniston and learn from that lady how she managed toprevent the kitchen-maid's smuggling groceries out of the house. mrs. gryce had a kind of impersonalbenevolence: cases of individual need she

regarded with suspicion, but she subscribedto institutions when their annual reports showed an impressive surplus. her domestic duties were manifold, for theyextended from furtive inspections of the servants' bedrooms to unannounced descentsto the cellar; but she had never allowed herself many pleasures. once, however, she had had a specialedition of the sarum rule printed in rubric and presented to every clergyman in thediocese; and the gilt album in which their letters of thanks were pasted formed thechief ornament of her drawing-room table. percy had been brought up in the principleswhich so excellent a woman was sure to

inculcate. every form of prudence and suspicion hadbeen grafted on a nature originally reluctant and cautious, with the resultthat it would have seemed hardly needful for mrs. gryce to extract his promise about the overshoes, so little likely was he tohazard himself abroad in the rain. after attaining his majority, and cominginto the fortune which the late mr. gryce had made out of a patent device forexcluding fresh air from hotels, the young man continued to live with his mother in albany; but on jefferson gryce's death,when another large property passed into her

son's hands, mrs. gryce thought that whatshe called his "interests" demanded his presence in new york. she accordingly installed herself in themadison avenue house, and percy, whose sense of duty was not inferior to hismother's, spent all his week days in the handsome broad street office where a batch of pale men on small salaries had growngrey in the management of the gryce estate, and where he was initiated with becomingreverence into every detail of the art of accumulation. as far as lily could learn, this hadhitherto been mr. gryce's only occupation,

and she might have been pardoned forthinking it not too hard a task to interest a young man who had been kept on such lowdiet. at any rate, she felt herself so completelyin command of the situation that she yielded to a sense of security in which allfear of mr. rosedale, and of the difficulties on which that fear was contingent, vanished beyond the edge ofthought. the stopping of the train at garrisonswould not have distracted her from these thoughts, had she not caught a sudden lookof distress in her companion's eye. his seat faced toward the door, and sheguessed that he had been perturbed by the

approach of an acquaintance; a factconfirmed by the turning of heads and general sense of commotion which her own entrance into a railway-carriage was apt toproduce. she knew the symptoms at once, and was notsurprised to be hailed by the high notes of a pretty woman, who entered the trainaccompanied by a maid, a bull-terrier, and a footman staggering under a load of bagsand dressing-cases. "oh, lily--are you going to bellomont?then you can't let me have your seat, i suppose? but i must have a seat in this carriage--porter, you must find me a place at once.

can't some one be put somewhere else?i want to be with my friends. oh, how do you do, mr. gryce? do please make him understand that i musthave a seat next to you and lily." mrs. george dorset, regardless of the mildefforts of a traveller with a carpet-bag, who was doing his best to make room for herby getting out of the train, stood in the middle of the aisle, diffusing about her that general sense of exasperation which apretty woman on her travels not infrequently creates. she was smaller and thinner than lily bart,with a restless pliability of pose, as if

she could have been crumpled up and runthrough a ring, like the sinuous draperies she affected. her small pale face seemed the mere settingof a pair of dark exaggerated eyes, of which the visionary gaze contrastedcuriously with her self-assertive tone and gestures; so that, as one of her friends observed, she was like a disembodied spiritwho took up a great deal of room. having finally discovered that the seatadjoining miss bart's was at her disposal, she possessed herself of it with a fartherdisplacement of her surroundings, explaining meanwhile that she had come

across from mount kisco in her motor-carthat morning, and had been kicking her heels for an hour at garrisons, withouteven the alleviation of a cigarette, her brute of a husband having neglected to replenish her case before they parted thatmorning. "and at this hour of the day i don'tsuppose you've a single one left, have you, lily?" she plaintively concluded. miss bart caught the startled glance of mr.percy gryce, whose own lips were never defiled by tobacco. "what an absurd question, bertha!" sheexclaimed, blushing at the thought of the

store she had laid in at lawrence selden's."why, don't you smoke? since when have you given it up? what--you never---- and you don't either,mr. gryce? ah, of course--how stupid of me--iunderstand." and mrs. dorset leaned back against hertravelling cushions with a smile which made lily wish there had been no vacant seatbeside her own. chapter 3 bridge at bellomont usually lasted till thesmall hours; and when lily went to bed that night she had played too long for her owngood.

feeling no desire for the self-communionwhich awaited her in her room, she lingered on the broad stairway, looking down intothe hall below, where the last card-players were grouped about the tray of tall glasses and silver-collared decanters which thebutler had just placed on a low table near the fire.the hall was arcaded, with a gallery supported on columns of pale yellow marble. tall clumps of flowering plants weregrouped against a background of dark foliage in the angles of the walls. on the crimson carpet a deer-hound and twoor three spaniels dozed luxuriously before

the fire, and the light from the greatcentral lantern overhead shed a brightness on the women's hair and struck sparks fromtheir jewels as they moved. there were moments when such scenesdelighted lily, when they gratified her sense of beauty and her craving for theexternal finish of life; there were others when they gave a sharper edge to themeagreness of her own opportunities. this was one of the moments when the senseof contrast was uppermost, and she turned away impatiently as mrs. george dorset,glittering in serpentine spangles, drew percy gryce in her wake to a confidentialnook beneath the gallery. it was not that miss bart was afraid oflosing her newly-acquired hold over mr.

gryce. mrs. dorset might startle or dazzle him,but she had neither the skill nor the patience to effect his capture. she was too self-engrossed to penetrate therecesses of his shyness, and besides, why should she care to give herself thetrouble? at most it might amuse her to make sport ofhis simplicity for an evening--after that he would be merely a burden to her, andknowing this, she was far too experienced to encourage him. but the mere thought of that other woman,who could take a man up and toss him aside

as she willed, without having to regard himas a possible factor in her plans, filled lily bart with envy. she had been bored all the afternoon bypercy gryce--the mere thought seemed to waken an echo of his droning voice--but shecould not ignore him on the morrow, she must follow up her success, must submit to more boredom, must be ready with freshcompliances and adaptabilities, and all on the bare chance that he might ultimatelydecide to do her the honour of boring her for life. it was a hateful fate--but how escape fromit?

what choice had she?to be herself, or a gerty farish. as she entered her bedroom, with itssoftly-shaded lights, her lace dressing- gown lying across the silken bedspread, herlittle embroidered slippers before the fire, a vase of carnations filling the air with perfume, and the last novels andmagazines lying uncut on a table beside the reading-lamp, she had a vision of missfarish's cramped flat, with its cheap conveniences and hideous wall-papers. no; she was not made for mean and shabbysurroundings, for the squalid compromises of poverty.

her whole being dilated in an atmosphere ofluxury; it was the background she required, the only climate she could breathe in.but the luxury of others was not what she wanted. a few years ago it had sufficed her: shehad taken her daily meed of pleasure without caring who provided it. now she was beginning to chafe at theobligations it imposed, to feel herself a mere pensioner on the splendour which hadonce seemed to belong to her. there were even moments when she wasconscious of having to pay her way. for a long time she had refused to playbridge.

she knew she could not afford it, and shewas afraid of acquiring so expensive a taste. she had seen the danger exemplified in morethan one of her associates--in young ned silverton, for instance, the charming fairboy now seated in abject rapture at the elbow of mrs. fisher, a striking divorcee with eyes and gowns as emphatic as thehead-lines of her "case." lily could remember when young silvertonhad stumbled into their circle, with the air of a strayed arcadian who has publishedchamung [updater's note: charming?] sonnets in his college journal.

since then he had developed a taste formrs. fisher and bridge, and the latter at least had involved him in expenses fromwhich he had been more than once rescued by harassed maiden sisters, who treasured the sonnets, and went without sugar in theirtea to keep their darling afloat. ned's case was familiar to lily: she hadseen his charming eyes--which had a good deal more poetry in them than the sonnets--change from surprise to amusement, and from amusement to anxiety, as he passed under the spell of the terrible god of chance;and she was afraid of discovering the same symptoms in her own case.

for in the last year she had found that herhostesses expected her to take a place at the card-table. it was one of the taxes she had to pay fortheir prolonged hospitality, and for the dresses and trinkets which occasionallyreplenished her insufficient wardrobe. and since she had played regularly thepassion had grown on her. once or twice of late she had won a largesum, and instead of keeping it against future losses, had spent it in dress orjewelry; and the desire to atone for this imprudence, combined with the increasing exhilaration of the game, drove her to riskhigher stakes at each fresh venture.

she tried to excuse herself on the pleathat, in the trenor set, if one played at all one must either play high or be setdown as priggish or stingy; but she knew that the gambling passion was upon her, and that in her present surroundings there wassmall hope of resisting it. tonight the luck had been persistently bad,and the little gold purse which hung among her trinkets was almost empty when shereturned to her room. she unlocked the wardrobe, and taking outher jewel-case, looked under the tray for the roll of bills from which she hadreplenished the purse before going down to dinner.

only twenty dollars were left: thediscovery was so startling that for a moment she fancied she must have beenrobbed. then she took paper and pencil, and seatingherself at the writing-table, tried to reckon up what she had spent during theday. her head was throbbing with fatigue, andshe had to go over the figures again and again; but at last it became clear to herthat she had lost three hundred dollars at cards. she took out her cheque-book to see if herbalance was larger than she remembered, but found she had erred in the other direction.

then she returned to her calculations; butfigure as she would, she could not conjure back the vanished three hundred dollars. it was the sum she had set aside to pacifyher dress-maker--unless she should decide to use it as a sop to the jeweller. at any rate, she had so many uses for itthat its very insufficiency had caused her to play high in the hope of doubling it. but of course she had lost--she who neededevery penny, while bertha dorset, whose husband showered money on her, must havepocketed at least five hundred, and judy trenor, who could have afforded to lose a

thousand a night, had left the tableclutching such a heap of bills that she had been unable to shake hands with her guestswhen they bade her good night. a world in which such things could beseemed a miserable place to lily bart; but then she had never been able to understandthe laws of a universe which was so ready to leave her out of its calculations. she began to undress without ringing forher maid, whom she had sent to bed. she had been long enough in bondage toother people's pleasure to be considerate of those who depended on hers, and in herbitter moods it sometimes struck her that she and her maid were in the same position,

except that the latter received her wagesmore regularly. as she sat before the mirror brushing herhair, her face looked hollow and pale, and she was frightened by two little lines nearher mouth, faint flaws in the smooth curve of the cheek. "oh, i must stop worrying!" she exclaimed."unless it's the electric light----" she reflected, springing up from her seat andlighting the candles on the dressing-table. she turned out the wall-lights, and peeredat herself between the candle-flames. the white oval of her face swam outwaveringly from a background of shadows, the uncertain light blurring it like ahaze; but the two lines about the mouth

remained. lily rose and undressed in haste. "it is only because i am tired and havesuch odious things to think about," she kept repeating; and it seemed an addedinjustice that petty cares should leave a trace on the beauty which was her onlydefence against them. but the odious things were there, andremained with her. she returned wearily to the thought ofpercy gryce, as a wayfarer picks up a heavy load and toils on after a brief rest. she was almost sure she had "landed" him:a few days' work and she would win her

reward. but the reward itself seemed unpalatablejust then: she could get no zest from the thought of victory. it would be a rest from worry, no more--andhow little that would have seemed to her a few years earlier!her ambitions had shrunk gradually in the desiccating air of failure. but why had she failed?was it her own fault or that of destiny? she remembered how her mother, after theyhad lost their money, used to say to her with a kind of fierce vindictiveness: "butyou'll get it all back--you'll get it all

back, with your face."...the remembrance roused a whole train of association, andshe lay in the darkness reconstructing the past out of which her present had grown. a house in which no one ever dined at homeunless there was "company"; a door-bell perpetually ringing; a hall-table showeredwith square envelopes which were opened in haste, and oblong envelopes which were allowed to gather dust in the depths of abronze jar; a series of french and english maids giving warning amid a chaos ofhurriedly-ransacked wardrobes and dress- closets; an equally changing dynasty of

nurses and footmen; quarrels in the pantry,the kitchen and the drawing-room; precipitate trips to europe, and returnswith gorged trunks and days of interminable unpacking; semi-annual discussions as to where the summer should be spent, greyinterludes of economy and brilliant reactions of expense--such was the settingof lily bart's first memories. ruling the turbulent element called homewas the vigorous and determined figure of a mother still young enough to dance herball-dresses to rags, while the hazy outline of a neutral-tinted father filled an intermediate space between the butlerand the man who came to wind the clocks.

even to the eyes of infancy, mrs. hudsonbart had appeared young; but lily could not recall the time when her father had notbeen bald and slightly stooping, with streaks of grey in his hair, and a tiredwalk. it was a shock to her to learn afterwardthat he was but two years older than her mother. lily seldom saw her father by daylight.all day he was "down town"; and in winter it was long after nightfall when she heardhis fagged step on the stairs and his hand on the school-room door. he would kiss her in silence, and ask oneor two questions of the nurse or the

governess; then mrs. bart's maid would cometo remind him that he was dining out, and he would hurry away with a nod to lily. in summer, when he joined them for a sundayat newport or southampton, he was even more effaced and silent than in winter. it seemed to tire him to rest, and he wouldsit for hours staring at the sea-line from a quiet corner of the verandah, while theclatter of his wife's existence went on unheeded a few feet off. generally, however, mrs. bart and lily wentto europe for the summer, and before the steamer was half way over mr. bart haddipped below the horizon.

sometimes his daughter heard him denouncedfor having neglected to forward mrs. bart's remittances; but for the most part he wasnever mentioned or thought of till his patient stooping figure presented itself on the new york dock as a buffer between themagnitude of his wife's luggage and the restrictions of the american custom-house. in this desultory yet agitated fashion lifewent on through lily's teens: a zig-zag broken course down which the family craftglided on a rapid current of amusement, tugged at by the underflow of a perpetualneed--the need of more money. lily could not recall the time when therehad been money enough, and in some vague

way her father seemed always to blame forthe deficiency. it could certainly not be the fault of mrs.bart, who was spoken of by her friends as a "wonderful manager." mrs. bart was famous for the unlimitedeffect she produced on limited means; and to the lady and her acquaintances there wassomething heroic in living as though one were much richer than one's bank-bookdenoted. lily was naturally proud of her mother'saptitude in this line: she had been brought up in the faith that, whatever it cost, onemust have a good cook, and be what mrs. bart called "decently dressed."

mrs. bart's worst reproach to her husbandwas to ask him if he expected her to "live like a pig"; and his replying in thenegative was always regarded as a justification for cabling to paris for an extra dress or two, and telephoning to thejeweller that he might, after all, send home the turquoise bracelet which mrs. barthad looked at that morning. lily knew people who "lived like pigs," andtheir appearance and surroundings justified her mother's repugnance to that form ofexistence. they were mostly cousins, who inhabiteddingy houses with engravings from cole's voyage of life on the drawing-room walls,and slatternly parlour-maids who said "i'll

go and see" to visitors calling at an hour when all right-minded persons areconventionally if not actually out. the disgusting part of it was that many ofthese cousins were rich, so that lily imbibed the idea that if people lived likepigs it was from choice, and through the lack of any proper standard of conduct. this gave her a sense of reflectedsuperiority, and she did not need mrs. bart's comments on the family frumps andmisers to foster her naturally lively taste for splendour. lily was nineteen when circumstances causedher to revise her view of the universe.

the previous year she had made a dazzlingdebut fringed by a heavy thunder-cloud of bills. the light of the debut still lingered onthe horizon, but the cloud had thickened; and suddenly it broke. the suddenness added to the horror; andthere were still times when lily relived with painful vividness every detail of theday on which the blow fell. she and her mother had been seated at theluncheon-table, over the chaufroix and cold salmon of the previous night's dinner: itwas one of mrs. bart's few economies to consume in private the expensive remnantsof her hospitality.

lily was feeling the pleasant languor whichis youth's penalty for dancing till dawn; but her mother, in spite of a few linesabout the mouth, and under the yellow waves on her temples, was as alert, determined and high in colour as if she had risen froman untroubled sleep. in the centre of the table, between themelting marrons glaces and candied cherries, a pyramid of american beautieslifted their vigorous stems; they held their heads as high as mrs. bart, but their rose-colour had turned to a dissipatedpurple, and lily's sense of fitness was disturbed by their reappearance on theluncheon-table.

"i really think, mother," she saidreproachfully, "we might afford a few fresh flowers for luncheon.just some jonquils or lilies-of-the-valley- -" mrs. bart stared.her own fastidiousness had its eye fixed on the world, and she did not care how theluncheon-table looked when there was no one present at it but the family. but she smiled at her daughter's innocence."lilies-of-the-valley," she said calmly, "cost two dollars a dozen at this season."lily was not impressed. she knew very little of the value of money.

"it would not take more than six dozen tofill that bowl," she argued. "six dozen what?" asked her father's voicein the doorway. the two women looked up in surprise; thoughit was a saturday, the sight of mr. bart at luncheon was an unwonted one. but neither his wife nor his daughter wassufficiently interested to ask an explanation. mr. bart dropped into a chair, and satgazing absently at the fragment of jellied salmon which the butler had placed beforehim. "i was only saying," lily began, "that ihate to see faded flowers at luncheon; and

mother says a bunch of lilies-of-the-valleywould not cost more than twelve dollars. mayn't i tell the florist to send a fewevery day?" she leaned confidently toward her father:he seldom refused her anything, and mrs. bart had taught her to plead with him whenher own entreaties failed. mr. bart sat motionless, his gaze stillfixed on the salmon, and his lower jaw dropped; he looked even paler than usual,and his thin hair lay in untidy streaks on his forehead. suddenly he looked at his daughter andlaughed. the laugh was so strange that lily colouredunder it: she disliked being ridiculed, and

her father seemed to see somethingridiculous in the request. perhaps he thought it foolish that sheshould trouble him about such a trifle. "twelve dollars--twelve dollars a day forflowers? oh, certainly, my dear--give him an orderfor twelve hundred." he continued to laugh.mrs. bart gave him a quick glance. "you needn't wait, poleworth--i will ringfor you," she said to the butler. the butler withdrew with an air of silentdisapproval, leaving the remains of the chaufroix on the sideboard. "what is the matter, hudson?are you ill?" said mrs. bart severely.

she had no tolerance for scenes which werenot of her own making, and it was odious to her that her husband should make a show ofhimself before the servants. "are you ill?" she repeated. "ill?---- no, i'm ruined," he said.lily made a frightened sound, and mrs. bart rose to her feet. "ruined----?" she cried; but controllingherself instantly, she turned a calm face to lily."shut the pantry door," she said. lily obeyed, and when she turned back intothe room her father was sitting with both elbows on the table, the plate of salmonbetween them, and his head bowed on his

hands. mrs. bart stood over him with a white facewhich made her hair unnaturally yellow. she looked at lily as the latterapproached: her look was terrible, but her voice was modulated to a ghastlycheerfulness. "your father is not well--he doesn't knowwhat he is saying. it is nothing--but you had better goupstairs; and don't talk to the servants," she added. lily obeyed; she always obeyed when hermother spoke in that voice. she had not been deceived by mrs. bart'swords: she knew at once that they were

ruined. in the dark hours which followed, thatawful fact overshadowed even her father's slow and difficult dying. to his wife he no longer counted: he hadbecome extinct when he ceased to fulfil his purpose, and she sat at his side with theprovisional air of a traveller who waits for a belated train to start. lily's feelings were softer: she pitied himin a frightened ineffectual way. but the fact that he was for the most partunconscious, and that his attention, when she stole into the room, drifted away fromher after a moment, made him even more of a

stranger than in the nursery days when hehad never come home till after dark. she seemed always to have seen him througha blur--first of sleepiness, then of distance and indifference--and now the foghad thickened till he was almost indistinguishable. if she could have performed any littleservices for him, or have exchanged with him a few of those affecting words which anextensive perusal of fiction had led her to connect with such occasions, the filial instinct might have stirred in her; but herpity, finding no active expression, remained in a state of spectatorship,overshadowed by her mother's grim

unflagging resentment. every look and act of mrs. bart's seemed tosay: "you are sorry for him now--but you will feel differently when you see what hehas done to us." it was a relief to lily when her fatherdied. then a long winter set in. there was a little money left, but to mrs.bart it seemed worse than nothing--the mere mockery of what she was entitled to.what was the use of living if one had to live like a pig? she sank into a kind of furious apathy, astate of inert anger against fate.

her faculty for "managing" deserted her, orshe no longer took sufficient pride in it to exert it. it was well enough to "manage" when by sodoing one could keep one's own carriage; but when one's best contrivance did notconceal the fact that one had to go on foot, the effort was no longer worthmaking. lily and her mother wandered from place toplace, now paying long visits to relations whose house-keeping mrs. bart criticized,and who deplored the fact that she let lily breakfast in bed when the girl had no prospects before her, and now vegetating incheap continental refuges, where mrs. bart

held herself fiercely aloof from the frugaltea-tables of her companions in misfortune. she was especially careful to avoid her oldfriends and the scenes of her former successes. to be poor seemed to her such a confessionof failure that it amounted to disgrace; and she detected a note of condescension inthe friendliest advances. only one thought consoled her, and that wasthe contemplation of lily's beauty. she studied it with a kind of passion, asthough it were some weapon she had slowly fashioned for her vengeance. it was the last asset in their fortunes,the nucleus around which their life was to

be rebuilt. she watched it jealously, as though it wereher own property and lily its mere custodian; and she tried to instil into thelatter a sense of the responsibility that such a charge involved. she followed in imagination the career ofother beauties, pointing out to her daughter what might be achieved throughsuch a gift, and dwelling on the awful warning of those who, in spite of it, had failed to get what they wanted: to mrs.bart, only stupidity could explain the lamentable denouement of some of herexamples.

she was not above the inconsistency ofcharging fate, rather than herself, with her own misfortunes; but she inveighed soacrimoniously against love-matches that lily would have fancied her own marriage had been of that nature, had not mrs. bartfrequently assured her that she had been "talked into it"--by whom, she never madeclear. lily was duly impressed by the magnitude ofher opportunities. the dinginess of her present life threwinto enchanting relief the existence to which she felt herself entitled. to a less illuminated intelligence mrs.bart's counsels might have been dangerous;

but lily understood that beauty is only theraw material of conquest, and that to convert it into success other arts arerequired. she knew that to betray any sense ofsuperiority was a subtler form of the stupidity her mother denounced, and it didnot take her long to learn that a beauty needs more tact than the possessor of anaverage set of features. her ambitions were not as crude as mrs.bart's. it had been among that lady's grievancesthat her husband--in the early days, before he was too tired--had wasted his eveningsin what she vaguely described as "reading poetry"; and among the effects packed off

to auction after his death were a score ortwo of dingy volumes which had struggled for existence among the boots and medicinebottles of his dressing-room shelves. there was in lily a vein of sentiment,perhaps transmitted from this source, which gave an idealizing touch to her mostprosaic purposes. she liked to think of her beauty as a powerfor good, as giving her the opportunity to attain a position where she should make herinfluence felt in the vague diffusion of refinement and good taste. she was fond of pictures and flowers, andof sentimental fiction, and she could not help thinking that the possession of suchtastes ennobled her desire for worldly

advantages. she would not indeed have cared to marry aman who was merely rich: she was secretly ashamed of her mother's crude passion formoney. lily's preference would have been for anenglish nobleman with political ambitions and vast estates; or, for second choice, anitalian prince with a castle in the apennines and an hereditary office in thevatican. lost causes had a romantic charm for her,and she liked to picture herself as standing aloof from the vulgar press of thequirinal, and sacrificing her pleasure to the claims of an immemorial tradition....

how long ago and how far off it all seemed!those ambitions were hardly more futile and childish than the earlier ones which hadcentred about the possession of a french jointed doll with real hair. was it only ten years since she had waveredin imagination between the english earl and the italian prince?relentlessly her mind travelled on over the dreary interval.... after two years of hungry roaming mrs. barthad died----died of a deep disgust. she had hated dinginess, and it was herfate to be dingy. her visions of a brilliant marriage forlily had faded after the first year.

"people can't marry you if they don't seeyou--and how can they see you in these holes where we're stuck?" that was the burden of her lament; and herlast adjuration to her daughter was to escape from dinginess if she could."don't let it creep up on you and drag you down. fight your way out of it somehow--you'reyoung and can do it," she insisted. she had died during one of their briefvisits to new york, and there lily at once became the centre of a family councilcomposed of the wealthy relatives whom she had been taught to despise for living likepigs.

it may be that they had an inkling of thesentiments in which she had been brought up, for none of them manifested a verylively desire for her company; indeed, the question threatened to remain unsolved till mrs. peniston with a sigh announced: "i'lltry her for a year." every one was surprised, but one and allconcealed their surprise, lest mrs. peniston should be alarmed by it intoreconsidering her decision. mrs. peniston was mr. bart's widowedsister, and if she was by no means the richest of the family group, its othermembers nevertheless abounded in reasons why she was clearly destined by providenceto assume the charge of lily.

in the first place she was alone, and itwould be charming for her to have a young companion. then she sometimes travelled, and lily'sfamiliarity with foreign customs--deplored as a misfortune by her more conservativerelatives--would at least enable her to act as a kind of courier. but as a matter of fact mrs. peniston hadnot been affected by these considerations. she had taken the girl simply because noone else would have her, and because she had the kind of moral mauvaise honte whichmakes the public display of selfishness difficult, though it does not interferewith its private indulgence.

it would have been impossible for mrs.peniston to be heroic on a desert island, but with the eyes of her little world uponher she took a certain pleasure in her act. she reaped the reward to whichdisinterestedness is entitled, and found an agreeable companion in her niece. she had expected to find lily headstrong,critical and "foreign"--for even mrs. peniston, though she occasionally wentabroad, had the family dread of foreignness--but the girl showed a pliancy, which, to a more penetrating mind than heraunt's, might have been less reassuring than the open selfishness of youth.

misfortune had made lily supple instead ofhardening her, and a pliable substance is less easy to break than a stiff one.mrs. peniston, however, did not suffer from her niece's adaptability. lily had no intention of taking advantageof her aunt's good nature. she was in truth grateful for the refugeoffered her: mrs. peniston's opulent interior was at least not externally dingy. but dinginess is a quality which assumesall manner of disguises; and lily soon found that it was as latent in theexpensive routine of her aunt's life as in the makeshift existence of a continentalpension.

mrs. peniston was one of the episodicalpersons who form the padding of life. it was impossible to believe that she hadherself ever been a focus of activities. the most vivid thing about her was the factthat her grandmother had been a van alstyne. this connection with the well-fed andindustrious stock of early new york revealed itself in the glacial neatness ofmrs. peniston's drawing-room and in the excellence of her cuisine. she belonged to the class of old newyorkers who have always lived well, dressed expensively, and done little else; and tothese inherited obligations mrs. peniston

faithfully conformed. she had always been a looker-on at life,and her mind resembled one of those little mirrors which her dutch ancestors wereaccustomed to affix to their upper windows, so that from the depths of an impenetrable domesticity they might see what washappening in the street. mrs. peniston was the owner of a country-place in new jersey, but she had never lived there since her husband's death--aremote event, which appeared to dwell in her memory chiefly as a dividing point in the personal reminiscences that formed thestaple of her conversation.

she was a woman who remembered dates withintensity, and could tell at a moment's notice whether the drawing-room curtainshad been renewed before or after mr. peniston's last illness. mrs. peniston thought the country lonelyand trees damp, and cherished a vague fear of meeting a bull. to guard against such contingencies shefrequented the more populous watering- places, where she installed herselfimpersonally in a hired house and looked on at life through the matting screen of herverandah. in the care of such a guardian, it soonbecame clear to lily that she was to enjoy

only the material advantages of good foodand expensive clothing; and, though far from underrating these, she would gladly have exchanged them for what mrs. bart hadtaught her to regard as opportunities. she sighed to think what her mother'sfierce energies would have accomplished, had they been coupled with mrs. peniston'sresources. lily had abundant energy of her own, but itwas restricted by the necessity of adapting herself to her aunt's habits. she saw that at all costs she must keepmrs. peniston's favour till, as mrs. bart would have phrased it, she could stand onher own legs.

lily had no mind for the vagabond life ofthe poor relation, and to adapt herself to mrs. peniston she had, to some degree, toassume that lady's passive attitude. she had fancied at first that it would beeasy to draw her aunt into the whirl of her own activities, but there was a staticforce in mrs. peniston against which her niece's efforts spent themselves in vain. to attempt to bring her into activerelation with life was like tugging at a piece of furniture which has been screwedto the floor. she did not, indeed, expect lily to remainequally immovable: she had all the american guardian's indulgence for the volatility ofyouth.

she had indulgence also for certain otherhabits of her niece's. it seemed to her natural that lily shouldspend all her money on dress, and she supplemented the girl's scanty income byoccasional "handsome presents" meant to be applied to the same purpose. lily, who was intensely practical, wouldhave preferred a fixed allowance; but mrs. peniston liked the periodical recurrence ofgratitude evoked by unexpected cheques, and was perhaps shrewd enough to perceive that such a method of giving kept alive in herniece a salutary sense of dependence. beyond this, mrs. peniston had not feltcalled upon to do anything for her charge:

she had simply stood aside and let her takethe field. lily had taken it, at first with theconfidence of assured possessorship, then with gradually narrowing demands, till nowshe found herself actually struggling for a foothold on the broad space which had onceseemed her own for the asking. how it happened she did not yet know. sometimes she thought it was because mrs.peniston had been too passive, and again she feared it was because she herself hadnot been passive enough. had she shown an undue eagerness forvictory? had she lacked patience, pliancy anddissimulation?

whether she charged herself with thesefaults or absolved herself from them, made no difference in the sum-total of herfailure. younger and plainer girls had been marriedoff by dozens, and she was nine-and-twenty, and still miss bart. she was beginning to have fits of angryrebellion against fate, when she longed to drop out of the race and make anindependent life for herself. but what manner of life would it be? she had barely enough money to pay herdress-makers' bills and her gambling debts; and none of the desultory interests whichshe dignified with the name of tastes was

pronounced enough to enable her to livecontentedly in obscurity. ah, no--she was too intelligent not to behonest with herself. she knew that she hated dinginess as muchas her mother had hated it, and to her last breath she meant to fight against it,dragging herself up again and again above its flood till she gained the bright pinnacles of success which presented such aslippery surface to her clutch. chapter 4 the next morning, on her breakfast tray,miss bart found a note from her hostess. "dearest lily," it ran, "if it is not toomuch of a bore to be down by ten, will you

come to my sitting-room to help me withsome tiresome things?" lily tossed aside the note and subsided onher pillows with a sigh. it was a bore to be down by ten--an hourregarded at bellomont as vaguely synchronous with sunrise--and she knew toowell the nature of the tiresome things in question. miss pragg, the secretary, had been calledaway, and there would be notes and dinner- cards to write, lost addresses to hunt up,and other social drudgery to perform. it was understood that miss bart shouldfill the gap in such emergencies, and she usually recognized the obligation without amurmur.

today, however, it renewed the sense ofservitude which the previous night's review of her cheque-book had produced.everything in her surroundings ministered to feelings of ease and amenity. the windows stood open to the sparklingfreshness of the september morning, and between the yellow boughs she caught aperspective of hedges and parterres leading by degrees of lessening formality to thefree undulations of the park. her maid had kindled a little fire on thehearth, and it contended cheerfully with the sunlight which slanted across the moss-green carpet and caressed the curved sides of an old marquetry desk.

near the bed stood a table holding herbreakfast tray, with its harmonious porcelain and silver, a handful of violetsin a slender glass, and the morning paper folded beneath her letters. there was nothing new to lily in thesetokens of a studied luxury; but, though they formed a part of her atmosphere, shenever lost her sensitiveness to their charm. mere display left her with a sense ofsuperior distinction; but she felt an affinity to all the subtler manifestationsof wealth. mrs. trenor's summons, however, suddenlyrecalled her state of dependence, and she

rose and dressed in a mood of irritabilitythat she was usually too prudent to indulge. she knew that such emotions leave lines onthe face as well as in the character, and she had meant to take warning by the littlecreases which her midnight survey had revealed. the matter-of-course tone of mrs. trenor'sgreeting deepened her irritation. if one did drag one's self out of bed atsuch an hour, and come down fresh and radiant to the monotony of note-writing,some special recognition of the sacrifice seemed fitting.

but mrs. trenor's tone showed noconsciousness of the fact. "oh, lily, that's nice of you," she merelysighed across the chaos of letters, bills and other domestic documents which gave anincongruously commercial touch to the slender elegance of her writing-table. "there are such lots of horrors thismorning," she added, clearing a space in the centre of the confusion and rising toyield her seat to miss bart. mrs. trenor was a tall fair woman, whoseheight just saved her from redundancy. her rosy blondness had survived some fortyyears of futile activity without showing much trace of ill-usage except in adiminished play of feature.

it was difficult to define her beyondsaying that she seemed to exist only as a hostess, not so much from any exaggeratedinstinct of hospitality as because she could not sustain life except in a crowd. the collective nature of her interestsexempted her from the ordinary rivalries of her sex, and she knew no more personalemotion than that of hatred for the woman who presumed to give bigger dinners or havemore amusing house-parties than herself. as her social talents, backed by mr.trenor's bank-account, almost always assured her ultimate triumph in suchcompetitions, success had developed in her an unscrupulous good nature toward the rest

of her sex, and in miss bart's utilitarianclassification of her friends, mrs. trenor ranked as the woman who was least likely to"go back" on her. "it was simply inhuman of pragg to go offnow," mrs. trenor declared, as her friend seated herself at the desk. "she says her sister is going to have ababy--as if that were anything to having a house-party!i'm sure i shall get most horribly mixed up and there will be some awful rows. when i was down at tuxedo i asked a lot ofpeople for next week, and i've mislaid the list and can't remember who is coming.

and this week is going to be a horridfailure too--and gwen van osburgh will go back and tell her mother how bored peoplewere. i did mean to ask the wetheralls--that wasa blunder of gus's. they disapprove of carry fisher, you know.as if one could help having carry fisher! it was foolish of her to get that seconddivorce--carry always overdoes things--but she said the only way to get a penny out offisher was to divorce him and make him pay alimony. and poor carry has to consider everydollar. it's really absurd of alice wetherall tomake such a fuss about meeting her, when

one thinks of what society is coming to. some one said the other day that there wasa divorce and a case of appendicitis in every family one knows. besides, carry is the only person who cankeep gus in a good humour when we have bores in the house.have you noticed that all the husbands like her? all, i mean, except her own.it's rather clever of her to have made a specialty of devoting herself to dullpeople--the field is such a large one, and she has it practically to herself.

she finds compensations, no doubt--i knowshe borrows money of gus--but then i'd pay her to keep him in a good humour, so ican't complain, after all." mrs. trenor paused to enjoy the spectacleof miss bart's efforts to unravel her tangled correspondence."but it is only the wetheralls and carry," she resumed, with a fresh note of lament. "the truth is, i'm awfully disappointed inlady cressida raith." "disappointed?had you known her before?" "mercy, no--never saw her till yesterday. lady skiddaw sent her over with letters tothe van osburghs, and i heard that maria

van osburgh was asking a big party to meether this week, so i thought it would be fun to get her away, and jack stepney, who knewher in india, managed it for me. maria was furious, and actually had theimpudence to make gwen invite herself here, so that they shouldn't be quite out of it--if i'd known what lady cressida was like, they could have had her and welcome! but i thought any friend of the skiddaws'was sure to be amusing. you remember what fun lady skiddaw was?there were times when i simply had to send the girls out of the room. besides, lady cressida is the duchess ofbeltshire's sister, and i naturally

supposed she was the same sort; but younever can tell in those english families. they are so big that there's room for allkinds, and it turns out that lady cressida is the moral one--married a clergy-man anddoes missionary work in the east end. think of my taking such a lot of troubleabout a clergyman's wife, who wears indian jewelry and botanizes! she made gus take her all through theglass-houses yesterday, and bothered him to death by asking him the names of theplants. fancy treating gus as if he were thegardener!" mrs. trenor brought this out in a crescendoof indignation.

"oh, well, perhaps lady cressida willreconcile the wetheralls to meeting carry fisher," said miss bart pacifically."i'm sure i hope so! but she is boring all the men horribly, andif she takes to distributing tracts, as i hear she does, it will be too depressing.the worst of it is that she would have been so useful at the right time. you know we have to have the bishop once ayear, and she would have given just the right tone to things. i always have horrid luck about thebishop's visits," added mrs. trenor, whose present misery was being fed by a rapidlyrising tide of reminiscence; "last year,

when he came, gus forgot all about his being here, and brought home the nedwintons and the farleys--five divorces and six sets of children between them!""when is lady cressida going?" lily enquired. mrs. trenor cast up her eyes in despair."my dear, if one only knew! i was in such a hurry to get her away frommaria that i actually forgot to name a date, and gus says she told some one shemeant to stop here all winter." "to stop here? in this house?""don't be silly--in america.

but if no one else asks her--you know theynever go to hotels." "perhaps gus only said it to frighten you." "no--i heard her tell bertha dorset thatshe had six months to put in while her husband was taking the cure in theengadine. you should have seen bertha look vacant! but it's no joke, you know--if she stayshere all the autumn she'll spoil everything, and maria van osburgh willsimply exult." at this affecting vision mrs. trenor'svoice trembled with self-pity. "oh, judy--as if any one were ever bored atbellomont!"

miss bart tactfully protested. "you know perfectly well that, if mrs. vanosburgh were to get all the right people and leave you with all the wrong ones,you'd manage to make things go off, and she wouldn't." such an assurance would usually haverestored mrs. trenor's complacency; but on this occasion it did not chase the cloudfrom her brow. "it isn't only lady cressida," shelamented. "everything has gone wrong this week.i can see that bertha dorset is furious with me."

"furious with you?why?" "because i told her that lawrence seldenwas coming; but he wouldn't, after all, and she's quite unreasonable enough to thinkit's my fault." miss bart put down her pen and sat absentlygazing at the note she had begun. "i thought that was all over," she said."so it is, on his side. and of course bertha has been idle since. but i fancy she's out of a job just atpresent--and some one gave me a hint that i had better ask lawrence. well, i did ask him--but i couldn't makehim come; and now i suppose she'll take it

out of me by being perfectly nasty to everyone else." "oh, she may take it out of him by beingperfectly charming--to some one else." mrs. trenor shook her head dolefully."she knows he wouldn't mind. and who else is there? alice wetherall won't let lucius out of hersight. ned silverton can't take his eyes off carryfisher--poor boy! gus is bored by bertha, jack stepney knowsher too well--and--well, to be sure, there's percy gryce!"she sat up smiling at the thought. miss bart's countenance did not reflect thesmile.

"oh, she and mr. gryce would not be likelyto hit it off." "you mean that she'd shock him and he'dbore her? well, that's not such a bad beginning, youknow. but i hope she won't take it into her headto be nice to him, for i asked him here on purpose for you."lily laughed. "merci du compliment! i should certainly have no show againstbertha." "do you think i am uncomplimentary?i'm not really, you know. every one knows you're a thousand timeshandsomer and cleverer than bertha; but

then you're not nasty.and for always getting what she wants in the long run, commend me to a nasty woman." miss bart stared in affected reproval."i thought you were so fond of bertha." "oh, i am--it's much safer to be fond ofdangerous people. but she is dangerous--and if i ever saw herup to mischief it's now. i can tell by poor george's manner.that man is a perfect barometer--he always knows when bertha is going to----" "to fall?"miss bart suggested. "don't be shocking!you know he believes in her still.

and of course i don't say there's any realharm in bertha. only she delights in making peoplemiserable, and especially poor george." "well, he seems cut out for the part--idon't wonder she likes more cheerful companionship.""oh, george is not as dismal as you think. if bertha did worry him he would be quitedifferent. or if she'd leave him alone, and let himarrange his life as he pleases. but she doesn't dare lose her hold of himon account of the money, and so when he isn't jealous she pretends to be." miss bart went on writing in silence, andher hostess sat following her train of

thought with frowning intensity. "do you know," she exclaimed after a longpause, "i believe i'll call up lawrence on the telephone and tell him he simply mustcome?" "oh, don't," said lily, with a quicksuffusion of colour. the blush surprised her almost as much asit did her hostess, who, though not commonly observant of facial changes, satstaring at her with puzzled eyes. "good gracious, lily, how handsome you are! why?do you dislike him so much?" "not at all; i like him.

but if you are actuated by the benevolentintention of protecting me from bertha--i don't think i need your protection."mrs. trenor sat up with an exclamation. "lily!----percy? do you mean to say you've actually doneit?" miss bart smiled."i only mean to say that mr. gryce and i are getting to be very good friends." "h'm--i see."mrs. trenor fixed a rapt eye upon her. "you know they say he has eight hundredthousand a year--and spends nothing, except on some rubbishy old books.

and his mother has heart-disease and willleave him a lot more. oh, lily, do go slowly," her friend adjuredher. miss bart continued to smile withoutannoyance. "i shouldn't, for instance," she remarked,"be in any haste to tell him that he had a lot of rubbishy old books." "no, of course not; i know you're wonderfulabout getting up people's subjects. but he's horribly shy, and easily shocked,and--and----" "why don't you say it, judy? i have the reputation of being on the huntfor a rich husband?"

"oh, i don't mean that; he wouldn't believeit of you--at first," said mrs. trenor, with candid shrewdness. "but you know things are rather lively hereat times--i must give jack and gus a hint-- and if he thought you were what his motherwould call fast--oh, well, you know what i mean. don't wear your scarlet crepe-de-chine fordinner, and don't smoke if you can help it, lily dear!"lily pushed aside her finished work with a dry smile. "you're very kind, judy: i'll lock up mycigarettes and wear that last year's dress

you sent me this morning. and if you are really interested in mycareer, perhaps you'll be kind enough not to ask me to play bridge again thisevening." "bridge? does he mind bridge, too?oh, lily, what an awful life you'll lead! but of course i won't--why didn't you giveme a hint last night? there's nothing i wouldn't do, you poorduck, to see you happy!" and mrs. trenor, glowing with her sex'seagerness to smooth the course of true love, enveloped lily in a long embrace.

"you're quite sure," she addedsolicitously, as the latter extricated herself, "that you wouldn't like me totelephone for lawrence selden?" "quite sure," said lily. the next three days demonstrated to her owncomplete satisfaction miss bart's ability to manage her affairs without extraneousaid. as she sat, on the saturday afternoon, onthe terrace at bellomont, she smiled at mrs. trenor's fear that she might go toofast. if such a warning had ever been needful,the years had taught her a salutary lesson, and she flattered herself that she now knewhow to adapt her pace to the object of

pursuit. in the case of mr. gryce she had found itwell to flutter ahead, losing herself elusively and luring him on from depth todepth of unconscious intimacy. the surrounding atmosphere was propitiousto this scheme of courtship. mrs. trenor, true to her word, had shown nosigns of expecting lily at the bridge- table, and had even hinted to the othercard-players that they were to betray no surprise at her unwonted defection. in consequence of this hint, lily foundherself the centre of that feminine solicitude which envelops a young woman inthe mating season.

a solitude was tacitly created for her inthe crowded existence of bellomont, and her friends could not have shown a greaterreadiness for self-effacement had her wooing been adorned with all the attributesof romance. in lily's set this conduct implied asympathetic comprehension of her motives, and mr. gryce rose in her esteem as she sawthe consideration he inspired. the terrace at bellomont on a septemberafternoon was a spot propitious to sentimental musings, and as miss bart stoodleaning against the balustrade above the sunken garden, at a little distance from the animated group about the tea-table, shemight have been lost in the mazes of an

inarticulate happiness. in reality, her thoughts were findingdefinite utterance in the tranquil recapitulation of the blessings in storefor her. from where she stood she could see themembodied in the form of mr. gryce, who, in a light overcoat and muffler, sat somewhatnervously on the edge of his chair, while carry fisher, with all the energy of eye and gesture with which nature and art hadcombined to endow her, pressed on him the duty of taking part in the task ofmunicipal reform. mrs. fisher's latest hobby was municipalreform.

it had been preceded by an equal zeal forsocialism, which had in turn replaced an energetic advocacy of christian science. mrs. fisher was small, fiery and dramatic;and her hands and eyes were admirable instruments in the service of whatevercauses he happened to espouse. she had, however, the fault common toenthusiasts of ignoring any slackness of response on the part of her hearers, andlily was amused by her unconsciousness of the resistance displayed in every angle ofmr. gryce's attitude. lily herself knew that his mind was dividedbetween the dread of catching cold if he remained out of doors too long at thathour, and the fear that, if he retreated to

the house, mrs. fisher might follow him upwith a paper to be signed. mr. gryce had a constitutional dislike towhat he called "committing himself," and tenderly as he cherished his health, heevidently concluded that it was safer to stay out of reach of pen and ink till chance released him from mrs. fisher'stoils. meanwhile he cast agonized glances in thedirection of miss bart, whose only response was to sink into an attitude of moregraceful abstraction. she had learned the value of contrast inthrowing her charms into relief, and was fully aware of the extent to which mrs.fisher's volubility was enhancing her own

repose. she was roused from her musings by theapproach of her cousin jack stepney who, at gwen van osburgh's side, was returningacross the garden from the tennis court. the couple in question were engaged in thesame kind of romance in which lily figured, and the latter felt a certain annoyance incontemplating what seemed to her a caricature of her own situation. miss van osburgh was a large girl with flatsurfaces and no high lights: jack stepney had once said of her that she was asreliable as roast mutton. his own taste was in the line of less solidand more highly-seasoned diet; but hunger

makes any fare palatable, and there hadbeen times when mr. stepney had been reduced to a crust. lily considered with interest theexpression of their faces: the girl's turned toward her companion's like an emptyplate held up to be filled, while the man lounging at her side already betrayed the encroaching boredom which would presentlycrack the thin veneer of his smile. "how impatient men are!"lily reflected. "all jack has to do to get everything hewants is to keep quiet and let that girl marry him; whereas i have to calculate andcontrive, and retreat and advance, as if i

were going through an intricate dance, where one misstep would throw me hopelesslyout of time." as they drew nearer she was whimsicallystruck by a kind of family likeness between miss van osburgh and percy gryce. there was no resemblance of feature. gryce was handsome in a didactic way--helooked like a clever pupil's drawing from a plaster-cast--while gwen's countenance hadno more modelling than a face painted on a toy balloon. but the deeper affinity was unmistakable:the two had the same prejudices and ideals,

and the same quality of making otherstandards non-existent by ignoring them. this attribute was common to most of lily'sset: they had a force of negation which eliminated everything beyond their ownrange of perception. gryce and miss van osburgh were, in short,made for each other by every law of moral and physical correspondence----"yet theywouldn't look at each other," lily mused, "they never do. each of them wants a creature of adifferent race, of jack's race and mine, with all sorts of intuitions, sensationsand perceptions that they don't even guess the existence of.

and they always get what they want." she stood talking with her cousin and missvan osburgh, till a slight cloud on the latter's brow advised her that evencousinly amenities were subject to suspicion, and miss bart, mindful of the necessity of not exciting enmities at thiscrucial point of her career, dropped aside while the happy couple proceeded toward thetea-table. seating herself on the upper step of theterrace, lily leaned her head against the honeysuckles wreathing the balustrade. the fragrance of the late blossoms seemedan emanation of the tranquil scene, a

landscape tutored to the last degree ofrural elegance. in the foreground glowed the warm tints ofthe gardens. beyond the lawn, with its pyramidal pale-gold maples and velvety firs, sloped pastures dotted with cattle; and through along glade the river widened like a lake under the silver light of september. lily did not want to join the circle aboutthe tea-table. they represented the future she had chosen,and she was content with it, but in no haste to anticipate its joys. the certainty that she could marry percygryce when she pleased had lifted a heavy

load from her mind, and her money troubleswere too recent for their removal not to leave a sense of relief which a less discerning intelligence might have takenfor happiness. her vulgar cares were at an end. she would be able to arrange her life asshe pleased, to soar into that empyrean of security where creditors cannot penetrate. she would have smarter gowns than judytrenor, and far, far more jewels than bertha dorset. she would be free forever from the shifts,the expedients, the humiliations of the

relatively poor. instead of having to flatter, she would beflattered; instead of being grateful, she would receive thanks.there were old scores she could pay off as well as old benefits she could return. and she had no doubts as to the extent ofher power. she knew that mr. gryce was of the smallchary type most inaccessible to impulses and emotions. he had the kind of character in whichprudence is a vice, and good advice the most dangerous nourishment.

but lily had known the species before: shewas aware that such a guarded nature must find one huge outlet of egoism, and shedetermined to be to him what his americana had hitherto been: the one possession in which he took sufficient pride to spendmoney on it. she knew that this generosity to self isone of the forms of meanness, and she resolved so to identify herself with herhusband's vanity that to gratify her wishes would be to him the most exquisite form ofself-indulgence. the system might at first necessitate aresort to some of the very shifts and expedients from which she intended itshould free her; but she felt sure that in

a short time she would be able to play thegame in her own way. how should she have distrusted her powers? her beauty itself was not the mereephemeral possession it might have been in the hands of inexperience: her skill inenhancing it, the care she took of it, the use she made of it, seemed to give it akind of permanence. she felt she could trust it to carry herthrough to the end. and the end, on the whole, was worthwhile. life was not the mockery she had thought itthree days ago. there was room for her, after all, in thiscrowded selfish world of pleasure whence,

so short a time since, her poverty hadseemed to exclude her. these people whom she had ridiculed and yetenvied were glad to make a place for her in the charmed circle about which all herdesires revolved. they were not as brutal and self-engrossedas she had fancied--or rather, since it would no longer be necessary to flatter andhumour them, that side of their nature became less conspicuous. society is a revolving body which is apt tobe judged according to its place in each man's heaven; and at present it was turningits illuminated face to lily. in the rosy glow it diffused her companionsseemed full of amiable qualities.

she liked their elegance, their lightness,their lack of emphasis: even the self- assurance which at times was so likeobtuseness now seemed the natural sign of social ascendency. they were lords of the only world she caredfor, and they were ready to admit her to their ranks and let her lord it with them. already she felt within her a stealingallegiance to their standards, an acceptance of their limitations, adisbelief in the things they did not believe in, a contemptuous pity for the people who were not able to live as theylived.

the early sunset was slanting across thepark. through the boughs of the long avenuebeyond the gardens she caught the flash of wheels, and divined that more visitors wereapproaching. there was a movement behind her, ascattering of steps and voices: it was evident that the party about the tea-tablewas breaking up. presently she heard a tread behind her onthe terrace. she supposed that mr. gryce had at lastfound means to escape from his predicament, and she smiled at the significance of hiscoming to join her instead of beating an instant retreat to the fire-side.

she turned to give him the welcome whichsuch gallantry deserved; but her greeting wavered into a blush of wonder, for the manwho had approached her was lawrence selden. "you see i came after all," he said; butbefore she had time to answer, mrs. dorset, breaking away from a lifeless colloquy withher host, had stepped between them with a little gesture of appropriation. chapter 5 the observance of sunday at bellomont waschiefly marked by the punctual appearance of the smart omnibus destined to convey thehousehold to the little church at the gates.

whether any one got into the omnibus or notwas a matter of secondary importance, since by standing there it not only bore witnessto the orthodox intentions of the family, but made mrs. trenor feel, when she finally heard it drive away, that she had somehowvicariously made use of it. it was mrs. trenor's theory that herdaughters actually did go to church every sunday; but their french governess'sconvictions calling her to the rival fane, and the fatigues of the week keeping their mother in her room till luncheon, there wasseldom any one present to verify the fact. now and then, in a spasmodic burst ofvirtue--when the house had been too

uproarious over night--gus trenor forcedhis genial bulk into a tight frock-coat and routed his daughters from their slumbers; but habitually, as lily explained to mr.gryce, this parental duty was forgotten till the church bells were ringing acrossthe park, and the omnibus had driven away empty. lily had hinted to mr. gryce that thisneglect of religious observances was repugnant to her early traditions, and thatduring her visits to bellomont she regularly accompanied muriel and hilda tochurch. this tallied with the assurance, alsoconfidentially imparted, that, never having

played bridge before, she had been "draggedinto it" on the night of her arrival, and had lost an appalling amount of money in consequence of her ignorance of the gameand of the rules of betting. mr. gryce was undoubtedly enjoyingbellomont. he liked the ease and glitter of the life,and the lustre conferred on him by being a member of this group of rich andconspicuous people. but he thought it a very materialisticsociety; there were times when he was frightened by the talk of the men and thelooks of the ladies, and he was glad to find that miss bart, for all her ease and

self-possession, was not at home in soambiguous an atmosphere. for this reason he had been especiallypleased to learn that she would, as usual, attend the young trenors to church onsunday morning; and as he paced the gravel sweep before the door, his light overcoat on his arm and his prayer-book in onecarefully-gloved hand, he reflected agreeably on the strength of characterwhich kept her true to her early training in surroundings so subversive to religiousprinciples. for a long time mr. gryce and the omnibushad the gravel sweep to themselves; but, far from regretting this deplorableindifference on the part of the other

guests, he found himself nourishing thehope that miss bart might be unaccompanied. the precious minutes were flying, however;the big chestnuts pawed the ground and flecked their impatient sides with foam;the coachman seemed to be slowly petrifying on the box, and the groom on the doorstep;and still the lady did not come. suddenly, however, there was a sound ofvoices and a rustle of skirts in the doorway, and mr. gryce, restoring his watchto his pocket, turned with a nervous start; but it was only to find himself handingmrs. wetherall into the carriage. the wetheralls always went to church. they belonged to the vast group of humanautomata who go through life without

neglecting to perform a single one of thegestures executed by the surrounding puppets. it is true that the bellomont puppets didnot go to church; but others equally important did--and mr. and mrs. wetherall'scircle was so large that god was included in their visiting-list. they appeared, therefore, punctual andresigned, with the air of people bound for a dull "at home," and after them hilda andmuriel straggled, yawning and pinning each other's veils and ribbons as they came. they had promised lily to go to church withher, they declared, and lily was such a

dear old duck that they didn't mind doingit to please her, though they couldn't fancy what had put the idea in her head, and though for their own part they wouldmuch rather have played lawn tennis with jack and gwen, if she hadn't told them shewas coming. the misses trenor were followed by ladycressida raith, a weather-beaten person in liberty silk and ethnological trinkets,who, on seeing the omnibus, expressed her surprise that they were not to walk across the park; but at mrs. wetherall's horrifiedprotest that the church was a mile away, her ladyship, after a glance at the heightof the other's heels, acquiesced in the

necessity of driving, and poor mr. gryce found himself rolling off between fourladies for whose spiritual welfare he felt not the least concern. it might have afforded him some consolationcould he have known that miss bart had really meant to go to church.she had even risen earlier than usual in the execution of her purpose. she had an idea that the sight of her in agrey gown of devotional cut, with her famous lashes drooped above a prayer-book,would put the finishing touch to mr. gryce's subjugation, and render inevitable

a certain incident which she had resolvedshould form a part of the walk they were to take together after luncheon. her intentions in short had never been moredefinite; but poor lily, for all the hard glaze of her exterior, was inwardly asmalleable as wax. her faculty for adapting herself, forentering into other people's feelings, if it served her now and then in smallcontingencies, hampered her in the decisive moments of life. she was like a water-plant in the flux ofthe tides, and today the whole current of her mood was carrying her toward lawrenceselden.

why had he come? was it to see herself or bertha dorset?it was the last question which, at that moment, should have engaged her. she might better have contented herselfwith thinking that he had simply responded to the despairing summons of his hostess,anxious to interpose him between herself and the ill-humour of mrs. dorset. but lily had not rested till she learnedfrom mrs. trenor that selden had come of his own accord."he didn't even wire me--he just happened to find the trap at the station.

perhaps it's not over with bertha afterall," mrs. trenor musingly concluded; and went away to arrange her dinner-cardsaccordingly. perhaps it was not, lily reflected; but itshould be soon, unless she had lost her cunning.if selden had come at mrs. dorset's call, it was at her own that he would stay. so much the previous evening had told her. mrs. trenor, true to her simple principleof making her married friends happy, had placed selden and mrs. dorset next to eachother at dinner; but, in obedience to the time-honoured traditions of the match-

maker, she had separated lily and mr.gryce, sending in the former with george dorset, while mr. gryce was coupled withgwen van osburgh. george dorset's talk did not interfere withthe range of his neighbour's thoughts. he was a mournful dyspeptic, intent onfinding out the deleterious ingredients of every dish and diverted from this care onlyby the sound of his wife's voice. on this occasion, however, mrs. dorset tookno part in the general conversation. she sat talking in low murmurs with selden,and turning a contemptuous and denuded shoulder toward her host, who, far fromresenting his exclusion, plunged into the excesses of the menu with the joyousirresponsibility of a free man.

to mr. dorset, however, his wife's attitudewas a subject of such evident concern that, when he was not scraping the sauce from hisfish, or scooping the moist bread-crumbs from the interior of his roll, he sat straining his thin neck for a glimpse ofher between the lights. mrs. trenor, as it chanced, had placed thehusband and wife on opposite sides of the table, and lily was therefore able toobserve mrs. dorset also, and by carrying her glance a few feet farther, to set up a rapid comparison between lawrence seldenand mr. gryce. it was that comparison which was herundoing.

why else had she suddenly grown interestedin selden? she had known him for eight years or more:ever since her return to america he had formed a part of her background. she had always been glad to sit next to himat dinner, had found him more agreeable than most men, and had vaguely wished thathe possessed the other qualities needful to fix her attention; but till now she had been too busy with her own affairs toregard him as more than one of the pleasant accessories of life. miss bart was a keen reader of her ownheart, and she saw that her sudden

preoccupation with selden was due to thefact that his presence shed a new light on her surroundings. not that he was notably brilliant orexceptional; in his own profession he was surpassed by more than one man who hadbored lily through many a weary dinner. it was rather that he had preserved acertain social detachment, a happy air of viewing the show objectively, of havingpoints of contact outside the great gilt cage in which they were all huddled for themob to gape at. how alluring the world outside the cageappeared to lily, as she heard its door clang on her!

in reality, as she knew, the door neverclanged: it stood always open; but most of the captives were like flies in a bottle,and having once flown in, could never regain their freedom. it was selden's distinction that he hadnever forgotten the way out. that was the secret of his way ofreadjusting her vision. lily, turning her eyes from him, foundherself scanning her little world through his retina: it was as though the pink lampshad been shut off and the dusty daylight let in. she looked down the long table, studyingits occupants one by one, from gus trenor,

with his heavy carnivorous head sunkbetween his shoulders, as he preyed on a jellied plover, to his wife, at the opposite end of the long bank of orchids,suggestive, with her glaring good-looks, of a jeweller's window lit by electricity.and between the two, what a long stretch of vacuity! how dreary and trivial these people were! lily reviewed them with a scornfulimpatience: carry fisher, with her shoulders, her eyes, her divorces, hergeneral air of embodying a "spicy paragraph"; young silverton, who had meant

to live on proof-reading and write an epic,and who now lived on his friends and had become critical of truffles; alicewetherall, an animated visiting-list, whose most fervid convictions turned on the wording of invitations and the engraving ofdinner-cards; wetherall, with his perpetual nervous nod of acquiescence, his air ofagreeing with people before he knew what they were saying; jack stepney, with his confident smile and anxious eyes, half waybetween the sheriff and an heiress; gwen van osburgh, with all the guilelessconfidence of a young girl who has always been told that there is no one richer thanher father.

lily smiled at her classification of herfriends. how different they had seemed to her a fewhours ago! then they had symbolized what she wasgaining, now they stood for what she was giving up. that very afternoon they had seemed full ofbrilliant qualities; now she saw that they were merely dull in a loud way.under the glitter of their opportunities she saw the poverty of their achievement. it was not that she wanted them to be moredisinterested; but she would have liked them to be more picturesque.

and she had a shamed recollection of theway in which, a few hours since, she had felt the centripetal force of theirstandards. she closed her eyes an instant, and thevacuous routine of the life she had chosen stretched before her like a long white roadwithout dip or turning: it was true she was to roll over it in a carriage instead of trudging it on foot, but sometimes thepedestrian enjoys the diversion of a short cut which is denied to those on wheels. she was roused by a chuckle which mr.dorset seemed to eject from the depths of his lean throat.

"i say, do look at her," he exclaimed,turning to miss bart with lugubrious merriment--"i beg your pardon, but do justlook at my wife making a fool of that poor devil over there! one would really suppose she was gone onhim--and it's all the other way round, i assure you." thus adjured, lily turned her eyes on thespectacle which was affording mr. dorset such legitimate mirth. it certainly appeared, as he said, thatmrs. dorset was the more active participant in the scene: her neighbour seemed toreceive her advances with a temperate zest

which did not distract him from his dinner. the sight restored lily's good humour, andknowing the peculiar disguise which mr. dorset's marital fears assumed, she askedgaily: "aren't you horribly jealous of her?" dorset greeted the sally with delight."oh, abominably--you've just hit it--keeps me awake at night. the doctors tell me that's what has knockedmy digestion out--being so infernally jealous of her.--i can't eat a mouthful ofthis stuff, you know," he added suddenly, pushing back his plate with a clouded

countenance; and lily, unfailinglyadaptable, accorded her radiant attention to his prolonged denunciation of otherpeople's cooks, with a supplementary tirade on the toxic qualities of melted butter. it was not often that he found so ready anear; and, being a man as well as a dyspeptic, it may be that as he poured hisgrievances into it he was not insensible to its rosy symmetry. at any rate he engaged lily so long thatthe sweets were being handed when she caught a phrase on her other side, wheremiss corby, the comic woman of the company, was bantering jack stepney on hisapproaching engagement.

miss corby's role was jocularity: shealways entered the conversation with a handspring. "and of course you'll have sim rosedale asbest man!" lily heard her fling out as the climax ofher prognostications; and stepney responded, as if struck: "jove, that's anidea. what a thumping present i'd get out ofhim!" sim rosedale! the name, made more odious by itsdiminutive, obtruded itself on lily's thoughts like a leer.it stood for one of the many hated

possibilities hovering on the edge of life. if she did not marry percy gryce, the daymight come when she would have to be civil to such men as rosedale.if she did not marry him? but she meant to marry him--she was sure ofhim and sure of herself. she drew back with a shiver from thepleasant paths in which her thoughts had been straying, and set her feet once morein the middle of the long white road.... when she went upstairs that night she foundthat the late post had brought her a fresh batch of bills.mrs. peniston, who was a conscientious woman, had forwarded them all to bellomont.

miss bart, accordingly, rose the nextmorning with the most earnest conviction that it was her duty to go to church. she tore herself betimes from the lingeringenjoyment of her breakfast-tray, rang to have her grey gown laid out, and despatchedher maid to borrow a prayer-book from mrs. trenor. but her course was too purely reasonablenot to contain the germs of rebellion. no sooner were her preparations made thanthey roused a smothered sense of resistance. a small spark was enough to kindle lily'simagination, and the sight of the grey

dress and the borrowed prayer-book flasheda long light down the years. she would have to go to church with percygryce every sunday. they would have a front pew in the mostexpensive church in new york, and his name would figure handsomely in the list ofparish charities. in a few years, when he grew stouter, hewould be made a warden. once in the winter the rector would come todine, and her husband would beg her to go over the list and see that no divorceeswere included, except those who had showed signs of penitence by being re-married tothe very wealthy. there was nothing especially arduous inthis round of religious obligations; but it

stood for a fraction of that great bulk ofboredom which loomed across her path. and who could consent to be bored on such amorning? lily had slept well, and her bath hadfilled her with a pleasant glow, which was becomingly reflected in the clear curve ofher cheek. no lines were visible this morning, or elsethe glass was at a happier angle. and the day was the accomplice of her mood:it was a day for impulse and truancy. the light air seemed full of powdered gold;below the dewy bloom of the lawns the woodlands blushed and smouldered, and thehills across the river swam in molten blue. every drop of blood in lily's veins invitedher to happiness.

the sound of wheels roused her from thesemusings, and leaning behind her shutters she saw the omnibus take up its freight. she was too late, then--but the fact didnot alarm her. a glimpse of mr. gryce's crestfallen faceeven suggested that she had done wisely in absenting herself, since the disappointmenthe so candidly betrayed would surely whet his appetite for the afternoon walk. that walk she did not mean to miss; oneglance at the bills on her writing-table was enough to recall its necessity. but meanwhile she had the morning toherself, and could muse pleasantly on the

disposal of its hours. she was familiar enough with the habits ofbellomont to know that she was likely to have a free field till luncheon. she had seen the wetheralls, the trenorgirls and lady cressida packed safely into the omnibus; judy trenor was sure to behaving her hair shampooed; carry fisher had doubtless carried off her host for a drive; ned silverton was probably smoking thecigarette of young despair in his bedroom; and kate corby was certain to be playingtennis with jack stepney and miss van osburgh.

of the ladies, this left only mrs. dorsetunaccounted for, and mrs. dorset never came down till luncheon: her doctors, sheaverred, had forbidden her to expose herself to the crude air of the morning. to the remaining members of the party lilygave no special thought; wherever they were, they were not likely to interferewith her plans. these, for the moment, took the shape ofassuming a dress somewhat more rustic and summerlike in style than the garment shehad first selected, and rustling downstairs, sunshade in hand, with the disengaged air of a lady in quest ofexercise.

the great hall was empty but for the knotof dogs by the fire, who, taking in at a glance the outdoor aspect of miss bart,were upon her at once with lavish offers of companionship. she put aside the ramming paws whichconveyed these offers, and assuring the joyous volunteers that she might presentlyhave a use for their company, sauntered on through the empty drawing-room to thelibrary at the end of the house. the library was almost the only survivingportion of the old manor-house of bellomont: a long spacious room, revealingthe traditions of the mother-country in its classically-cased doors, the dutch tiles of

the chimney, and the elaborate hob-gratewith its shining brass urns. a few family portraits of lantern-jawedgentlemen in tie-wigs, and ladies with large head-dresses and small bodies, hungbetween the shelves lined with pleasantly- shabby books: books mostly contemporaneous with the ancestors in question, and towhich the subsequent trenors had made no perceptible additions. the library at bellomont was in fact neverused for reading, though it had a certain popularity as a smoking-room or a quietretreat for flirtation. it had occurred to lily, however, that itmight on this occasion have been resorted

to by the only member of the party in theleast likely to put it to its original use. she advanced noiselessly over the dense oldrug scattered with easy-chairs, and before she reached the middle of the room she sawthat she had not been mistaken. lawrence selden was in fact seated at itsfarther end; but though a book lay on his knee, his attention was not engaged withit, but directed to a lady whose lace-clad figure, as she leaned back in an adjoining chair, detached itself with exaggeratedslimness against the dusky leather upholstery. lily paused as she caught sight of thegroup; for a moment she seemed about to

withdraw, but thinking better of this, sheannounced her approach by a slight shake of her skirts which made the couple raise their heads, mrs. dorset with a look offrank displeasure, and selden with his usual quiet smile. the sight of his composure had a disturbingeffect on lily; but to be disturbed was in her case to make a more brilliant effort atself-possession. "dear me, am i late?" she asked, putting ahand in his as he advanced to greet her. "late for what?" enquired mrs. dorsettartly. "not for luncheon, certainly--but perhapsyou had an earlier engagement?"

"yes, i had," said lily confidingly."really? perhaps i am in the way, then? but mr. selden is entirely at yourdisposal." mrs. dorset was pale with temper, and herantagonist felt a certain pleasure in prolonging her distress. "oh, dear, no--do stay," she said good-humouredly. "i don't in the least want to drive youaway." "you're awfully good, dear, but i neverinterfere with mr. selden's engagements." the remark was uttered with a little air ofproprietorship not lost on its object, who

concealed a faint blush of annoyance bystooping to pick up the book he had dropped at lily's approach. the latter's eyes widened charmingly andshe broke into a light laugh. "but i have no engagement with mr. selden!my engagement was to go to church; and i'm afraid the omnibus has started without me. has it started, do you know?"she turned to selden, who replied that he had heard it drive away some time since."ah, then i shall have to walk; i promised hilda and muriel to go to church with them. it's too late to walk there, you say?well, i shall have the credit of trying, at

any rate--and the advantage of escapingpart of the service. i'm not so sorry for myself, after all!" and with a bright nod to the couple on whomshe had intruded, miss bart strolled through the glass doors and carried herrustling grace down the long perspective of the garden walk. she was taking her way churchward, but atno very quick pace; a fact not lost on one of her observers, who stood in the doorwaylooking after her with an air of puzzled amusement. the truth is that she was conscious of asomewhat keen shock of disappointment.

all her plans for the day had been built onthe assumption that it was to see her that selden had come to bellomont. she had expected, when she came downstairs,to find him on the watch for her; and she had found him, instead, in a situationwhich might well denote that he had been on the watch for another lady. was it possible, after all, that he hadcome for bertha dorset? the latter had acted on the assumption tothe extent of appearing at an hour when she never showed herself to ordinary mortals,and lily, for the moment, saw no way of putting her in the wrong.

it did not occur to her that selden mighthave been actuated merely by the desire to spend a sunday out of town: women neverlearn to dispense with the sentimental motive in their judgments of men. but lily was not easily disconcerted;competition put her on her mettle, and she reflected that selden's coming, if it didnot declare him to be still in mrs. dorset's toils, showed him to be so completely free from them that he was notafraid of her proximity. these thoughts so engaged her that she fellinto a gait hardly likely to carry her to church before the sermon, and at length,having passed from the gardens to the wood-

path beyond, so far forgot her intention as to sink into a rustic seat at a bend of thewalk. the spot was charming, and lily was notinsensible to the charm, or to the fact that her presence enhanced it; but she wasnot accustomed to taste the joys of solitude except in company, and the combination of a handsome girl and aromantic scene struck her as too good to be wasted. no one, however, appeared to profit by theopportunity; and after a half hour of fruitless waiting she rose and wandered on.

she felt a stealing sense of fatigue as shewalked; the sparkle had died out of her, and the taste of life was stale on herlips. she hardly knew what she had been seeking,or why the failure to find it had so blotted the light from her sky: she wasonly aware of a vague sense of failure, of an inner isolation deeper than theloneliness about her. her footsteps flagged, and she stood gazinglistlessly ahead, digging the ferny edge of the path with the tip of her sunshade. as she did so a step sounded behind her,and she saw selden at her side. "how fast you walk!" he remarked."i thought i should never catch up with

you." she answered gaily: "you must be quitebreathless! i've been sitting under that tree for anhour." "waiting for me, i hope?" he rejoined; andshe said with a vague laugh: "well--waiting to see if you would come." "i seize the distinction, but i don't mindit, since doing the one involved doing the other.but weren't you sure that i should come?" "if i waited long enough--but you see i hadonly a limited time to give to the experiment.""why limited?

limited by luncheon?" "no; by my other engagement.""your engagement to go to church with muriel and hilda?""no; but to come home from church with another person." "ah, i see; i might have known you werefully provided with alternatives. and is the other person coming home thisway?" lily laughed again. "that's just what i don't know; and to findout, it is my business to get to church before the service is over."

"exactly; and it is my business to preventyour doing so; in which case the other person, piqued by your absence, will formthe desperate resolve of driving back in the omnibus." lily received this with fresh appreciation;his nonsense was like the bubbling of her inner mood."is that what you would do in such an emergency?" she enquired. selden looked at her with solemnity."i am here to prove to you," he cried, "what i am capable of doing in anemergency!" "walking a mile in an hour--you must ownthat the omnibus would be quicker!"

"ah--but will he find you in the end?that's the only test of success." they looked at each other with the sameluxury of enjoyment that they had felt in exchanging absurdities over his tea-table;but suddenly lily's face changed, and she said: "well, if it is, he has succeeded." selden, following her glance, perceived aparty of people advancing toward them from the farther bend of the path. lady cressida had evidently insisted onwalking home, and the rest of the church- goers had thought it their duty toaccompany her. lily's companion looked rapidly from one tothe other of the two men of the party;

wetherall walking respectfully at ladycressida's side with his little sidelong look of nervous attention, and percy gryce bringing up the rear with mrs. wetheralland the trenors. "ah--now i see why you were getting up youramericana!" selden exclaimed with a note of the freestadmiration but the blush with which the sally was received checked whateveramplifications he had meant to give it. that lily bart should object to beingbantered about her suitors, or even about her means of attracting them, was so new toselden that he had a momentary flash of surprise, which lit up a number of

possibilities; but she rose gallantly tothe defence of her confusion, by saying, as its object approached: "that was why i waswaiting for you--to thank you for having given me so many points!" "ah, you can hardly do justice to thesubject in such a short time," said selden, as the trenor girls caught sight of missbart; and while she signalled a response to their boisterous greeting, he added quickly: "won't you devote your afternoonto it? you know i must be off tomorrow morning.we'll take a walk, and you can thank me at your leisure."

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