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chapter 1 it came vividly to selden on the casinosteps that monte carlo had, more than any other place he knew, the gift ofaccommodating itself to each man's humour. his own, at the moment, lent it a festivereadiness of welcome that might well, in a disenchanted eye, have turned to paint andfacility. so frank an appeal for participation--sooutspoken a recognition of the holiday vein in human nature--struck refreshingly on amind jaded by prolonged hard work in surroundings made for the discipline of thesenses. as he surveyed the white square set in anexotic coquetry of architecture, the

studied tropicality of the gardens, thegroups loitering in the foreground against mauve mountains which suggested a sublime stage-setting forgotten in a hurriedshifting of scenes--as he took in the whole outspread effect of light and leisure, hefelt a movement of revulsion from the last few months of his life. the new york winter had presented aninterminable perspective of snow-burdened days, reaching toward a spring of rawsunshine and furious air, when the ugliness of things rasped the eye as the gritty windground into the skin. selden, immersed in his work, had toldhimself that external conditions did not

matter to a man in his state, and that coldand ugliness were a good tonic for relaxed sensibilities. when an urgent case summoned him abroad toconfer with a client in paris, he broke reluctantly with the routine of the office;and it was only now that, having despatched his business, and slipped away for a week in the south, he began to feel the renewedzest of spectatorship that is the solace of those who take an objective interest inlife. the multiplicity of its appeals--theperpetual surprise of its contrasts and resemblances!

all these tricks and turns of the show wereupon him with a spring as he descended the casino steps and paused on the pavement atits doors. he had not been abroad for seven years--andwhat changes the renewed contact produced! if the central depths were untouched,hardly a pin-point of surface remained the same. and this was the very place to bring outthe completeness of the renewal. the sublimities, the perpetuities, mighthave left him as he was: but this tent pitched for a day's revelry spread a roofof oblivion between himself and his fixed sky.

it was mid-april, and one felt that therevelry had reached its climax and that the desultory groups in the square and gardenswould soon dissolve and re-form in other scenes. meanwhile the last moments of theperformance seemed to gain an added brightness from the hovering threat of thecurtain. the quality of the air, the exuberance ofthe flowers, the blue intensity of sea and sky, produced the effect of a closingtableau, when all the lights are turned on at once. this impression was presently heightened bythe way in which a consciously conspicuous

group of people advanced to the middlefront, and stood before selden with the air of the chief performers gathered togetherby the exigencies of the final effect. their appearance confirmed the impressionthat the show had been staged regardless of expense, and emphasized its resemblance toone of those "costume-plays" in which the protagonists walk through the passionswithout displacing a drapery. the ladies stood in unrelated attitudescalculated to isolate their effects, and the men hung about them as irrelevantly asstage heroes whose tailors are named in the programme. it was selden himself who unwittingly fusedthe group by arresting the attention of one

of its members."why, mr. selden!" mrs. fisher exclaimed in surprise; and witha gesture toward mrs. jack stepney and mrs. wellington bry, she added plaintively:"we're starving to death because we can't decide where to lunch." welcomed into their group, and made theconfidant of their difficulty, selden learned with amusement that there wereseveral places where one might miss something by not lunching, or forfeit something by lunching; so that eatingactually became a minor consideration on the very spot consecrated to its rites.

"of course one gets the best things at theterrasse--but that looks as if one hadn't any other reason for being there: theamericans who don't know any one always rush for the best food. and the duchess of beltshire has taken upbecassin's lately," mrs. bry earnestly summed up. mrs. bry, to mrs. fisher's despair, had notprogressed beyond the point of weighing her social alternatives in public. she could not acquire the air of doingthings because she wanted to, and making her choice the final seal of their fitness.

mr. bry, a short pale man, with a businessface and leisure clothes, met the dilemma hilariously. "i guess the duchess goes where it'scheapest, unless she can get her meal paid for.if you offered to blow her off at the terrasse she'd turn up fast enough." but mrs. jack stepney interposed."the grand dukes go to that little place at the condamine.lord hubert says it's the only restaurant in europe where they can cook peas." lord hubert dacey, a slender shabby-lookingman, with a charming worn smile, and the

air of having spent his best years inpiloting the wealthy to the right restaurant, assented with gentle emphasis:"it's quite that." "peas?" said mr. bry contemptuously."can they cook terrapin? it just shows," he continued, "what theseeuropean markets are, when a fellow can make a reputation cooking peas!"jack stepney intervened with authority. "i don't know that i quite agree withdacey: there's a little hole in paris, off the quai voltaire--but in any case, i can'tadvise the condamine gargote; at least not with ladies." stepney, since his marriage, had thickenedand grown prudish, as the van osburgh

husbands were apt to do; but his wife, tohis surprise and discomfiture, had developed an earth-shaking fastness of gait which left him trailing breathlessly in herwake. "that's where we'll go then!" she declared,with a heavy toss of her plumage. "i'm so tired of the terrasse: it's as dullas one of mother's dinners. and lord hubert has promised to tell us whoall the awful people are at the other place--hasn't he, carry? now, jack, don't look so solemn!""well," said mrs. bry, "all i want to know is who their dress-makers are."

"no doubt dacey can tell you that too,"remarked stepney, with an ironic intention which the other received with the lightmurmur, "i can at least find out, my dear fellow"; and mrs. bry having declared that she couldn't walk another step, the partyhailed two or three of the light phaetons which hover attentively on the confines ofthe gardens, and rattled off in procession toward the condamine. their destination was one of the littlerestaurants overhanging the boulevard which dips steeply down from monte carlo to thelow intermediate quarter along the quay. from the window in which they presentlyfound themselves installed, they overlooked

the intense blue curve of the harbour, setbetween the verdure of twin promontories: to the right, the cliff of monaco, topped by the mediaeval silhouette of its churchand castle, to the left the terraces and pinnacles of the gambling-house. between the two, the waters of the bay werefurrowed by a light coming and going of pleasure-craft, through which, just at theculminating moment of luncheon, the majestic advance of a great steam-yachtdrew the company's attention from the peas. "by jove, i believe that's the dorsetsback!" stepney exclaimed; and lord hubert,dropping his single eye-glass,

corroborated: "it's the sabrina--yes.""so soon? they were to spend a month in sicily," mrs.fisher observed. "i guess they feel as if they had: there'sonly one up-to-date hotel in the whole place," said mr. bry disparagingly. "it was ned silverton's idea--but poordorset and lily bart must have been horribly bored." mrs. fisher added in an undertone toselden: "i do hope there hasn't been a row." "it's most awfully jolly having miss bartback," said lord hubert, in his mild

deliberate voice; and mrs. bry addedingenuously: "i daresay the duchess will dine with us, now that lily's here." "the duchess admires her immensely: i'msure she'd be charmed to have it arranged," lord hubert agreed, with the professionalpromptness of the man accustomed to draw his profit from facilitating social contacts: selden was struck by thebusinesslike change in his manner. "lily has been a tremendous success here,"mrs. fisher continued, still addressing herself confidentially to selden. "she looks ten years younger--i never sawher so handsome.

lady skiddaw took her everywhere in cannes,and the crown princess of macedonia had her to stop for a week at cimiez. people say that was one reason why berthawhisked the yacht off to sicily: the crown princess didn't take much notice of her,and she couldn't bear to look on at lily's triumph." selden made no reply. he was vaguely aware that miss bart wascruising in the mediterranean with the dorsets, but it had not occurred to himthat there was any chance of running across her on the riviera, where the season wasvirtually at an end.

as he leaned back, silently contemplatinghis filigree cup of turkish coffee, he was trying to put some order in his thoughts,to tell himself how the news of her nearness was really affecting him. he had a personal detachment enabling him,even in moments of emotional high-pressure, to get a fairly clear view of his feelings,and he was sincerely surprised by the disturbance which the sight of the sabrinahad produced in him. he had reason to think that his threemonths of engrossing professional work, following on the sharp shock of hisdisillusionment, had cleared his mind of its sentimental vapours.

the feeling he had nourished and givenprominence to was one of thankfulness for his escape: he was like a traveller sograteful for rescue from a dangerous accident that at first he is hardlyconscious of his bruises. now he suddenly felt the latent ache, andrealized that after all he had not come off unhurt. an hour later, at mrs. fisher's side in thecasino gardens, he was trying to find fresh reasons for forgetting the injury receivedin the contemplation of the peril avoided. the party had dispersed with the loiteringindecision characteristic of social movements at monte carlo, where the wholeplace, and the long gilded hours of the

day, seem to offer an infinity of ways ofbeing idle. lord hubert dacey had finally gone off inquest of the duchess of beltshire, charged by mrs. bry with the delicate negotiationof securing that lady's presence at dinner, the stepneys had left for nice in their motor-car, and mr. bry had departed to takehis place in the pigeon shooting match which was at the moment engaging hishighest faculties. mrs. bry, who had a tendency to grow redand stertorous after luncheon, had been judiciously prevailed upon by carry fisherto withdraw to her hotel for an hour's repose; and selden and his companion were

thus left to a stroll propitious toconfidences. the stroll soon resolved itself into atranquil session on a bench overhung with laurel and banksian roses, from which theycaught a dazzle of blue sea between marble balusters, and the fiery shafts of cactus- blossoms shooting meteor-like from therock. the soft shade of their niche, and theadjacent glitter of the air, were conducive to an easy lounging mood, and to thesmoking of many cigarettes; and selden, yielding to these influences, suffered mrs. fisher to unfold to him the history of herrecent experiences.

she had come abroad with the welly brys atthe moment when fashion flees the inclemency of the new york spring. the brys, intoxicated by their firstsuccess, already thirsted for new kingdoms, and mrs. fisher, viewing the riviera as aneasy introduction to london society, had guided their course thither. she had affiliations of her own in everycapital, and a facility for picking them up again after long absences; and thecarefully disseminated rumour of the brys' wealth had at once gathered about them agroup of cosmopolitan pleasure-seekers. "but things are not going as well as iexpected," mrs. fisher frankly admitted.

"it's all very well to say that every bodywith money can get into society; but it would be truer to say that nearly everybodycan. and the london market is so glutted withnew americans that, to succeed there now, they must be either very clever or awfullyqueer. the brys are neither. he would get on well enough if she'd lethim alone; they like his slang and his brag and his blunders.but louisa spoils it all by trying to repress him and put herself forward. if she'd be natural herself--fat and vulgarand bouncing--it would be all right; but as

soon as she meets anybody smart she triesto be slender and queenly. she tried it with the duchess of beltshireand lady skiddaw, and they fled. i've done my best to make her see hermistake--i've said to her again and again: 'just let yourself go, louisa'; but shekeeps up the humbug even with me--i believe she keeps on being queenly in her own room,with the door shut. "the worst of it is," mrs. fisher went on,"that she thinks it's all my fault. when the dorsets turned up here six weeksago, and everybody began to make a fuss about lily bart, i could see louisa thoughtthat if she'd had lily in tow instead of me she would have been hob-nobbing with allthe royalties by this time.

she doesn't realize that it's lily's beautythat does it: lord hubert tells me lily is thought even handsomer than when he knewher at aix ten years ago. it seems she was tremendously admiredthere. an italian prince, rich and the real thing,wanted to marry her; but just at the critical moment a good-looking step-sonturned up, and lily was silly enough to flirt with him while her marriage- settlements with the step-father were beingdrawn up. some people said the young man did it onpurpose. you can fancy the scandal: there was anawful row between the men, and people began

to look at lily so queerly that mrs.peniston had to pack up and finish her cure elsewhere. not that she ever understood: to this dayshe thinks that aix didn't suit her, and mentions her having been sent there asproof of the incompetence of french doctors. that's lily all over, you know: she workslike a slave preparing the ground and sowing her seed; but the day she ought tobe reaping the harvest she over-sleeps herself or goes off on a picnic." mrs. fisher paused and looked reflectivelyat the deep shimmer of sea between the

cactus-flowers. "sometimes," she added, "i think it's justflightiness--and sometimes i think it's because, at heart, she despises the thingsshe's trying for. and it's the difficulty of deciding thatmakes her such an interesting study." she glanced tentatively at selden'smotionless profile, and resumed with a slight sigh: "well, all i can say is, iwish she'd give me some of her discarded opportunities. i wish we could change places now, forinstance. she could make a very good thing out of thebrys if she managed them properly, and i

should know just how to look after georgedorset while bertha is reading verlaine with neddy silverton." she met selden's sound of protest with asharp derisive glance. "well, what's the use of mincing matters?we all know that's what bertha brought her abroad for. when bertha wants to have a good time shehas to provide occupation for george. at first i thought lily was going to playher cards well this time, but there are rumours that bertha is jealous of hersuccess here and at cannes, and i shouldn't be surprised if there were a break any day.

lily's only safeguard is that bertha needsher badly--oh, very badly. the silverton affair is in the acute stage:it's necessary that george's attention should be pretty continuously distracted. and i'm bound to say lily does distract it:i believe he'd marry her tomorrow if he found out there was anything wrong withbertha. but you know him--he's as blind as he'sjealous; and of course lily's present business is to keep him blind. a clever woman might know just the rightmoment to tear off the bandage: but lily isn't clever in that way, and when georgedoes open his eyes she'll probably contrive

not to be in his line of vision." selden tossed away his cigarette. "by jove--it's time for my train," heexclaimed, with a glance at his watch; adding, in reply to mrs. fisher's surprisedcomment--"why, i thought of course you were at monte!"--a murmured word to the effectthat he was making nice his head-quarters. "the worst of it is, she snubs the brysnow," he heard irrelevantly flung after him. ten minutes later, in the high-perchedbedroom of an hotel overlooking the casino, he was tossing his effects into a couple ofgaping portmanteaux, while the porter

waited outside to transport them to the cabat the door. it took but a brief plunge down the steepwhite road to the station to land him safely in the afternoon express for nice;and not till he was installed in the corner of an empty carriage, did he exclaim to himself, with a reaction of self-contempt:"what the deuce am i running away from?" the pertinence of the question checkedselden's fugitive impulse before the train had started. it was ridiculous to be flying like anemotional coward from an infatuation his reason had conquered.

he had instructed his bankers to forwardsome important business letters to nice, and at nice he would quietly await them. he was already annoyed with himself forhaving left monte carlo, where he had intended to pass the week which remained tohim before sailing; but it would now be difficult to return on his steps without an appearance of inconsistency from which hispride recoiled. in his inmost heart he was not sorry to puthimself beyond the probability of meeting miss bart. completely as he had detached himself fromher, he could not yet regard her merely as

a social instance; and viewed in a morepersonal ways she was not likely to be a reassuring object of study. chance encounters, or even the repeatedmention of her name, would send his thoughts back into grooves from which hehad resolutely detached them; whereas, if she could be entirely excluded from his life, the pressure of new and variedimpressions, with which no thought of her was connected, would soon complete the workof separation. mrs. fisher's conversation had, indeed,operated to that end; but the treatment was too painful to be voluntarily chosen whilemilder remedies were untried; and selden

thought he could trust himself to return gradually to a reasonable view of missbart, if only he did not see her. having reached the station early, he hadarrived at this point in his reflections before the increasing throng on theplatform warned him that he could not hope to preserve his privacy; the next moment there was a hand on the door, and he turnedto confront the very face he was fleeing. miss bart, glowing with the haste of aprecipitate descent upon the train, headed a group composed of the dorsets, youngsilverton and lord hubert dacey, who had barely time to spring into the carriage,

and envelop selden in ejaculations ofsurprise and welcome, before the whistle of departure sounded. the party, it appeared, were hastening tonice in response to a sudden summons to dine with the duchess of beltshire and tosee the water-fete in the bay; a plan evidently improvised--in spite of lord hubert's protesting "oh, i say, you know,"--for the express purpose of defeating mrs. bry's endeavour to capture the duchess. during the laughing relation of thismanoeuvre, selden had time for a rapid impression of miss bart, who had seatedherself opposite to him in the golden

afternoon light. scarcely three months had elapsed since hehad parted from her on the threshold of the brys' conservatory; but a subtle change hadpassed over the quality of her beauty. then it had had a transparency throughwhich the fluctuations of the spirit were sometimes tragically visible; now itsimpenetrable surface suggested a process of crystallization which had fused her wholebeing into one hard brilliant substance. the change had struck mrs. fisher as arejuvenation: to selden it seemed like that moment of pause and arrest when the warmfluidity of youth is chilled into its final shape.

he felt it in the way she smiled on him,and in the readiness and competence with which, flung unexpectedly into hispresence, she took up the thread of their intercourse as though that thread had not been snapped with a violence from which hestill reeled. such facility sickened him--but he toldhimself that it was with the pang which precedes recovery. now he would really get well--would ejectthe last drop of poison from his blood. already he felt himself calmer in herpresence than he had learned to be in the thought of her.

her assumptions and elisions, her short-cuts and long detours, the skill with which she contrived to meet him at a point fromwhich no inconvenient glimpses of the past were visible, suggested what opportunities she had had for practising such arts sincetheir last meeting. he felt that she had at last arrived at anunderstanding with herself: had made a pact with her rebellious impulses, and achieveda uniform system of self-government, under which all vagrant tendencies were either held captive or forced into the service ofthe state. and he saw other things too in her manner:saw how it had adjusted itself to the

hidden intricacies of a situation in which,even after mrs. fisher's elucidating flashes, he still felt himself agrope. surely mrs. fisher could no longer chargemiss bart with neglecting her opportunities!to selden's exasperated observation she was only too completely alive to them. she was "perfect" to every one: subservientto bertha's anxious predominance, good- naturedly watchful of dorset's moods,brightly companionable to silverton and dacey, the latter of whom met her on an evident footing of old admiration, whileyoung silverton, portentously self-

absorbed, seemed conscious of her only asof something vaguely obstructive. and suddenly, as selden noted the fineshades of manner by which she harmonized herself with her surroundings, it flashedon him that, to need such adroit handling, the situation must indeed be desperate. she was on the edge of something--that wasthe impression left with him. he seemed to see her poised on the brink ofa chasm, with one graceful foot advanced to assert her unconsciousness that the groundwas failing her. on the promenade des anglais, where nedsilverton hung on him for the half hour before dinner, he received a deeperimpression of the general insecurity.

silverton was in a mood of titanicpessimism. how any one could come to such a damnedhole as the riviera--any one with a grain of imagination--with the wholemediterranean to choose from: but then, if one's estimate of a place depended on theway they broiled a spring chicken! gad! what a study might be made of thetyranny of the stomach--the way a sluggish liver or insufficient gastric juices mightaffect the whole course of the universe, overshadow everything in reach--chronic dyspepsia ought to be among the "statutorycauses"; a woman's life might be ruined by a man's inability to digest fresh bread.grotesque?

yes--and tragic--like most absurdities. there's nothing grimmer than the tragedythat wears a comic mask.... where was he?oh--the reason they chucked sicily and rushed back? well--partly, no doubt, miss bart's desireto get back to bridge and smartness. dead as a stone to art and poetry--thelight never was on sea or land for her! and of course she persuaded dorset that theitalian food was bad for him. oh, she could make him believe anything--anything! mrs. dorset was aware of it--oh, perfectly:nothing she didn't see!

but she could hold her tongue--she'd hadto, often enough. miss bart was an intimate friend--shewouldn't hear a word against her. only it hurts a woman's pride--there aresome things one doesn't get used to...all this in confidence, of course? ah--and there were the ladies signallingfrom the balcony of the hotel.... he plunged across the promenade, leavingselden to a meditative cigar. the conclusions it led him to werefortified, later in the evening, by some of those faint corroborative hints thatgenerate a light of their own in the dusk of a doubting mind.

selden, stumbling on a chance acquaintance,had dined with him, and adjourned, still in his company, to the brightly lit promenade,where a line of crowded stands commanded the glittering darkness of the waters. the night was soft and persuasive. overhead hung a summer sky furrowed withthe rush of rockets; and from the east a late moon, pushing up beyond the lofty bendof the coast, sent across the bay a shaft of brightness which paled to ashes in thered glitter of the illuminated boats. down the lantern-hung promenade, snatchesof band-music floated above the hum of the crowd and the soft tossing of boughs indusky gardens; and between these gardens

and the backs of the stands there flowed a stream of people in whom the vociferouscarnival mood seemed tempered by the growing languor of the season. selden and his companion, unable to getseats on one of the stands facing the bay, had wandered for a while with the throng,and then found a point of vantage on a high garden-parapet above the promenade. thence they caught but a triangular glimpseof the water, and of the flashing play of boats across its surface; but the crowd inthe street was under their immediate view, and seemed to selden, on the whole, of moreinterest than the show itself.

after a while, however, he wearied of hisperch and, dropping alone to the pavement, pushed his way to the first corner andturned into the moonlit silence of a side street. long garden-walls overhung by trees made adark boundary to the pavement; an empty cab trailed along the deserted thoroughfare,and presently selden saw two persons emerge from the opposite shadows, signal to the cab, and drive off in it toward the centreof the town. the moonlight touched them as they pausedto enter the carriage, and he recognized mrs. dorset and young silverton.

beneath the nearest lamp-post he glanced athis watch and saw that the time was close on eleven. he took another cross street, and withoutbreasting the throng on the promenade, made his way to the fashionable club whichoverlooks that thoroughfare. here, amid the blaze of crowded baccarattables, he caught sight of lord hubert dacey, seated with his habitual worn smilebehind a rapidly dwindling heap of gold. the heap being in due course wiped out,lord hubert rose with a shrug, and joining selden, adjourned with him to the desertedterrace of the club. it was now past midnight, and the throng onthe stands was dispersing, while the long

trails of red-lit boats scattered and fadedbeneath a sky repossessed by the tranquil splendour of the moon. lord hubert looked at his watch."by jove, i promised to join the duchess for supper at the london house; but it'spast twelve, and i suppose they've all scattered. the fact is, i lost them in the crowd soonafter dinner, and took refuge here, for my sins. they had seats on one of the stands, but ofcourse they couldn't stop quiet: the duchess never can.

she and miss bart went off in quest of whatthey call adventures--gad, it ain't their fault if they don't have some queer ones!" he added tentatively, after pausing togrope for a cigarette: "miss bart's an old friend of yours, i believe?so she told me.--ah, thanks--i don't seem to have one left." he lit selden's proffered cigarette, andcontinued, in his high-pitched drawling tone: "none of my business, of course, buti didn't introduce her to the duchess. charming woman, the duchess, youunderstand; and a very good friend of mine; but rather a liberal education."

selden received this in silence, and aftera few puffs lord hubert broke out again: "sort of thing one can't communicate to theyoung lady--though young ladies nowadays are so competent to judge for themselves; but in this case--i'm an old friend too,you know...and there seemed no one else to speak to. the whole situation's a little mixed, as isee it--but there used to be an aunt somewhere, a diffuse and innocent person,who was great at bridging over chasms she didn't see...ah, in new york, is she? pity new york's such a long way off!"

> chapter 2 miss bart, emerging late the next morningfrom her cabin, found herself alone on the deck of the sabrina. the cushioned chairs, disposed expectantlyunder the wide awning, showed no signs of recent occupancy, and she presently learnedfrom a steward that mrs. dorset had not yet appeared, and that the gentlemen-- separately--had gone ashore as soon as theyhad breakfasted. supplied with these facts, lily leanedawhile over the side, giving herself up to

a leisurely enjoyment of the spectaclebefore her. unclouded sunlight enveloped sea and shorein a bath of purest radiancy. the purpling waters drew a sharp white lineof foam at the base of the shore; against its irregular eminences, hotels and villasflashed from the greyish verdure of olive and eucalyptus; and the background of bare and finely-pencilled mountains quivered ina pale intensity of light. how beautiful it was--and how she lovedbeauty! she had always felt that her sensibility inthis direction made up for certain obtusenesses of feeling of which she wasless proud; and during the last three

months she had indulged it passionately. the dorsets' invitation to go abroad withthem had come as an almost miraculous release from crushing difficulties; and herfaculty for renewing herself in new scenes, and casting off problems of conduct as easily as the surroundings in which theyhad arisen, made the mere change from one place to another seem, not merely apostponement, but a solution of her troubles. moral complications existed for her only inthe environment that had produced them; she did not mean to slight or ignore them, butthey lost their reality when they changed

their background. she could not have remained in new yorkwithout repaying the money she owed to trenor; to acquit herself of that odiousdebt she might even have faced a marriage with rosedale; but the accident of placing the atlantic between herself and herobligations made them dwindle out of sight as if they had been milestones and she hadtravelled past them. her two months on the sabrina had beenespecially calculated to aid this illusion of distance. she had been plunged into new scenes, andhad found in them a renewal of old hopes

and ambitions.the cruise itself charmed her as a romantic adventure. she was vaguely touched by the names andscenes amid which she moved, and had listened to ned silverton readingtheocritus by moonlight, as the yacht rounded the sicilian promontories, with a thrill of the nerves that confirmed herbelief in her intellectual superiority. but the weeks at cannes and nice had reallygiven her more pleasure. the gratification of being welcomed in highcompany, and of making her own ascendency felt there, so that she found herselffiguring once more as the "beautiful miss

bart" in the interesting journal devoted to recording the least movements of hercosmopolitan companions--all these experiences tended to throw into theextreme background of memory the prosaic and sordid difficulties from which she hadescaped. if she was faintly aware of freshdifficulties ahead, she was sure of her ability to meet them: it was characteristicof her to feel that the only problems she could not solve were those with which shewas familiar. meanwhile she could honestly be proud ofthe skill with which she had adapted herself to somewhat delicate conditions.

she had reason to think that she had madeherself equally necessary to her host and hostess; and if only she had seen anyperfectly irreproachable means of drawing a financial profit from the situation, therewould have been no cloud on her horizon. the truth was that her funds, as usual,were inconveniently low; and to neither dorset nor his wife could this vulgarembarrassment be safely hinted. still, the need was not a pressing one; shecould worry along, as she had so often done before, with the hope of some happy changeof fortune to sustain her; and meanwhile life was gay and beautiful and easy, and she was conscious of figuring notunworthily in such a setting.

she was engaged to breakfast that morningwith the duchess of beltshire, and at twelve o'clock she asked to be set ashorein the gig. before this she had sent her maid toenquire if she might see mrs. dorset; but the reply came back that the latter wastired, and trying to sleep. lily thought she understood the reason ofthe rebuff. her hostess had not been included in theduchess's invitation, though she herself had made the most loyal efforts in thatdirection. but her grace was impervious to hints, andinvited or omitted as she chose. it was not lily's fault if mrs. dorset'scomplicated attitudes did not fall in with

the duchess's easy gait. the duchess, who seldom explained herself,had not formulated her objection beyond saying: "she's rather a bore, you know. the only one of your friends i like is thatlittle mr. bry--he's funny--" but lily knew enough not to press the point, and was notaltogether sorry to be thus distinguished at her friend's expense. bertha certainly had grown tiresome sinceshe had taken to poetry and ned silverton. on the whole, it was a relief to break awaynow and then from the sabrina; and the duchess's little breakfast, organized bylord hubert with all his usual virtuosity,

was the pleasanter to lily for notincluding her travelling-companions. dorset, of late, had grown more thanusually morose and incalculable, and ned silverton went about with an air thatseemed to challenge the universe. the freedom and lightness of the ducalintercourse made an agreeable change from these complications, and lily was tempted,after luncheon, to adjourn in the wake of her companions to the hectic atmosphere ofthe casino. she did not mean to play; her diminishedpocket-money offered small scope for the adventure; but it amused her to sit on adivan, under the doubtful protection of the duchess's back, while the latter hung aboveher stakes at a neighbouring table.

the rooms were packed with the gazingthrong which, in the afternoon hours, trickles heavily between the tables, likethe sunday crowd in a lion-house. in the stagnant flow of the mass,identities were hardly distinguishable; but lily presently saw mrs. bry cleaving herdetermined way through the doors, and, in the broad wake she left, the light figure of mrs. fisher bobbing after her like arow-boat at the stern of a tug. mrs. bry pressed on, evidently animated bythe resolve to reach a certain point in the rooms; but mrs. fisher, as she passed lily,broke from her towing-line, and let herself float to the girl's side.

"lose her?" she echoed the latter's query,with an indifferent glance at mrs. bry's retreating back."i daresay--it doesn't matter: i have lost her already." and, as lily exclaimed, she added: "we hadan awful row this morning. you know, of course, that the duchesschucked her at dinner last night, and she thinks it was my fault--my want ofmanagement. the worst of it is, the message--just amere word by telephone--came so late that the dinner had to be paid for; and becassinhad run it up--it had been so drummed into him that the duchess was coming!"

mrs. fisher indulged in a faint laugh atthe remembrance. "paying for what she doesn't get rankles sodreadfully with louisa: i can't make her see that it's one of the preliminary stepsto getting what you haven't paid for--and as i was the nearest thing to smash, shesmashed me to atoms, poor dear!" lily murmured her commiseration. impulses of sympathy came naturally to her,and it was instinctive to proffer her help to mrs. fisher."if there's anything i can do--if it's only a question of meeting the duchess! i heard her say she thought mr. bryamusing----"

but mrs. fisher interposed with a decisivegesture. "my dear, i have my pride: the pride of mytrade. i couldn't manage the duchess, and i can'tpalm off your arts on louisa bry as mine. i've taken the final step: i go to paristonight with the sam gormers. they're still in the elementary stage; anitalian prince is a great deal more than a prince to them, and they're always on thebrink of taking a courier for one. to save them from that is my presentmission." she laughed again at the picture. "but before i go i want to make my lastwill and testament--i want to leave you the

brys.""me?" miss bart joined in her amusement. "it's charming of you to remember me, dear;but really----" "you're already so well provided for?"mrs. fisher flashed a sharp glance at her. "are you, though, lily--to the point ofrejecting my offer?" miss bart coloured slowly. "what i really meant was, that the bryswouldn't in the least care to be so disposed of."mrs. fisher continued to probe her embarrassment with an unflinching eye.

"what you really meant was that you'vesnubbed the brys horribly; and you know that they know----""carry!" "oh, on certain sides louisa bristles withperceptions. if you'd even managed to have them askedonce on the sabrina--especially when royalties were coming! but it's not too late," she endedearnestly, "it's not too late for either of you."lily smiled. "stay over, and i'll get the duchess todine with them." "i shan't stay over--the gormers have paidfor my salon-lit," said mrs. fisher with

simplicity. "but get the duchess to dine with them allthe same." lily's smile again flowed into a slightlaugh: her friend's importunity was beginning to strike her as irrelevant. "i'm sorry i have been negligent about thebrys----" she began. "oh, as to the brys--it's you i'm thinkingof," said mrs. fisher abruptly. she paused, and then, bending forward, witha lowered voice: "you know we all went on to nice last night when the duchess chuckedus. it was louisa's idea--i told her what ithought of it."

miss bart assented."yes--i caught sight of you on the way back, at the station." "well, the man who was in the carriage withyou and george dorset--that horrid little dabham who does 'society notes from theriviera'--had been dining with us at nice. and he's telling everybody that you anddorset came back alone after midnight." "alone--?when he was with us?" lily laughed, but her laugh faded intogravity under the prolonged implication of mrs. fisher's look."we did come back alone--if that's so very dreadful!

but whose fault was it?the duchess was spending the night at cimiez with the crown princess; bertha gotbored with the show, and went off early, promising to meet us at the station. we turned up on time, but she didn't--shedidn't turn up at all!" miss bart made this announcement in thetone of one who presents, with careless assurance, a complete vindication; but mrs.fisher received it in a manner almost inconsequent. she seemed to have lost sight of herfriend's part in the incident: her inward vision had taken another slant."bertha never turned up at all?

then how on earth did she get back?" "oh, by the next train, i suppose; therewere two extra ones for the fete. at any rate, i know she's safe on theyacht, though i haven't yet seen her; but you see it was not my fault," lily summedup. "not your fault that bertha didn't turn up? my poor child, if only you don't have topay for it!" mrs. fisher rose--she had seen mrs. brysurging back in her direction. "there's louisa, and i must be off--oh,we're on the best of terms externally; we're lunching together; but at heart it'sme she's lunching on," she explained; and

with a last hand-clasp and a last look, she added: "remember, i leave her to you; she'shovering now, ready to take you in." lily carried the impression of mrs.fisher's leave-taking away with her from the casino doors. she had accomplished, before leaving, thefirst step toward her reinstatement in mrs. bry's good graces. an affable advance--a vague murmur thatthey must see more of each other--an allusive glance to a near future that wasfelt to include the duchess as well as the sabrina--how easily it was all done, if onepossessed the knack of doing it!

she wondered at herself, as she had sooften wondered, that, possessing the knack, she did not more consistently exercise it. but sometimes she was forgetful--andsometimes, could it be that she was proud? today, at any rate, she had been vaguelyconscious of a reason for sinking her pride, had in fact even sunk it to thepoint of suggesting to lord hubert dacey, whom she ran across on the casino steps, that he might really get the duchess todine with the brys, if she undertook to have them asked on the sabrina. lord hubert had promised his help, with thereadiness on which she could always count:

it was his only way of ever reminding herthat he had once been ready to do so much more for her. her path, in short, seemed to smooth itselfbefore her as she advanced; yet the faint stir of uneasiness persisted.had it been produced, she wondered, by her chance meeting with selden? she thought not--time and change seemed socompletely to have relegated him to his proper distance. the sudden and exquisite reaction from heranxieties had had the effect of throwing the recent past so far back that evenselden, as part of it, retained a certain

air of unreality. and he had made it so clear that they werenot to meet again; that he had merely dropped down to nice for a day or two, andhad almost his foot on the next steamer. no--that part of the past had merely surgedup for a moment on the fleeing surface of events; and now that it was submergedagain, the uncertainty, the apprehension persisted. they grew to sudden acuteness as she caughtsight of george dorset descending the steps of the hotel de paris and making for heracross the square. she had meant to drive down to the quay andregain the yacht; but she now had the

immediate impression that something morewas to happen first. "which way are you going? shall we walk a bit?" he began, putting thesecond question before the first was answered, and not waiting for a reply toeither before he directed her silently toward the comparative seclusion of thelower gardens. she detected in him at once all the signsof extreme nervous tension. the skin was puffed out under his sunkeneyes, and its sallowness had paled to a leaden white against which his irregulareyebrows and long reddish moustache were relieved with a saturnine effect.

his appearance, in short, presented an oddmixture of the bedraggled and the ferocious. he walked beside her in silence, with quickprecipitate steps, till they reached the embowered slopes to the east of the casino;then, pulling up abruptly, he said: "have you seen bertha?" "no--when i left the yacht she was not yetup." he received this with a laugh like thewhirring sound in a disabled clock. "not yet up? had she gone to bed?do you know at what time she came on board?

this morning at seven!" he exclaimed."at seven?" lily started. "what happened--an accident to the train?"he laughed again. "they missed the train--all the trains--they had to drive back." "well----?" she hesitated, feeling at once how littleeven this necessity accounted for the fatal lapse of hours. "well, they couldn't get a carriage atonce--at that time of night, you know--" the explanatory note made it almost seem asthough he were putting the case for his

wife--"and when they finally did, it was only a one-horse cab, and the horse waslame!" "how tiresome! i see," she affirmed, with the moreearnestness because she was so nervously conscious that she did not; and after apause she added: "i'm so sorry--but ought we to have waited?" "waited for the one-horse cab?it would scarcely have carried the four of us, do you think?" she took this in what seemed the onlypossible way, with a laugh intended to sink

the question itself in his humoroustreatment of it. "well, it would have been difficult; weshould have had to walk by turns. but it would have been jolly to see thesunrise." "yes: the sunrise was jolly," he agreed. "was it?you saw it, then?" "i saw it, yes; from the deck.i waited up for them." "naturally--i suppose you were worried. why didn't you call on me to share yourvigil?" he stood still, dragging at his moustachewith a lean weak hand.

"i don't think you would have cared for itsdenouement," he said with sudden grimness. again she was disconcerted by the abruptchange in his tone, and as in one flash she saw the peril of the moment, and the needof keeping her sense of it out of her eyes. "denouement--isn't that too big a word forsuch a small incident? the worst of it, after all, is the fatiguewhich bertha has probably slept off by this time." she clung to the note bravely, though itsfutility was now plain to her in the glare of his miserable eyes. "don't--don't----!" he broke out, with thehurt cry of a child; and while she tried to

merge her sympathy, and her resolve toignore any cause for it, in one ambiguous murmur of deprecation, he dropped down on the bench near which they had paused, andpoured out the wretchedness of his soul. it was a dreadful hour--an hour from whichshe emerged shrinking and seared, as though her lids had been scorched by its actualglare. it was not that she had never hadpremonitory glimpses of such an outbreak; but rather because, here and therethroughout the three months, the surface of life had shown such ominous cracks and vapours that her fears had always been onthe alert for an upheaval.

there had been moments when the situationhad presented itself under a homelier yet more vivid image--that of a shaky vehicle,dashed by unbroken steeds over a bumping road, while she cowered within, aware that the harness wanted mending, and wonderingwhat would give way first. well--everything had given way now; and thewonder was that the crazy outfit had held together so long. her sense of being involved in the crash,instead of merely witnessing it from the road, was intensified by the way in whichdorset, through his furies of denunciation and wild reactions of self-contempt, made

her feel the need he had of her, the placeshe had taken in his life. but for her, what ear would have been opento his cries? and what hand but hers could drag him upagain to a footing of sanity and self- respect? all through the stress of the struggle withhim, she had been conscious of something faintly maternal in her efforts to guideand uplift him. but for the present, if he clung to her, itwas not in order to be dragged up, but to feel some one floundering in the depthswith him: he wanted her to suffer with him, not to help him to suffer less.

happily for both, there was little physicalstrength to sustain his frenzy. it left him, collapsed and breathingheavily, to an apathy so deep and prolonged that lily almost feared the passers-bywould think it the result of a seizure, and stop to offer their aid. but monte carlo is, of all places, the onewhere the human bond is least close, and odd sights are the least arresting. if a glance or two lingered on the couple,no intrusive sympathy disturbed them; and it was lily herself who broke the silenceby rising from her seat. with the clearing of her vision the sweepof peril had extended, and she saw that the

post of danger was no longer at dorset'sside. "if you won't go back, i must--don't makeme leave you!" she urged. but he remained mutely resistant, and sheadded: "what are you going to do? you really can't sit here all night." "i can go to an hotel.i can telegraph my lawyers." he sat up, roused by a new thought."by jove, selden's at nice--i'll send for selden!" lily, at this, reseated herself with a cryof alarm. "no, no, no!" she protested.he swung round on her distrustfully.

"why not selden? he's a lawyer isn't he?one will do as well as another in a case like this.""as badly as another, you mean. i thought you relied on me to help you." "you do--by being so sweet and patient withme. if it hadn't been for you i'd have endedthe thing long ago. but now it's got to end." he rose suddenly, straightening himselfwith an effort. "you can't want to see me ridiculous."she looked at him kindly.

"that's just it." then, after a moment's pondering, almost toher own surprise she broke out with a flash of inspiration: "well, go over and see mr.selden. you'll have time to do it before dinner." "oh, dinner----" he mocked her; but sheleft him with the smiling rejoinder: "dinner on board, remember; we'll put itoff till nine if you like." it was past four already; and when a cabhad dropped her at the quay, and she stood waiting for the gig to put off for her, shebegan to wonder what had been happening on the yacht.

of silverton's whereabouts there had beenno mention. had he returned to the sabrina? or could bertha--the dread alternativesprang on her suddenly--could bertha, left to herself, have gone ashore to rejoin him?lily's heart stood still at the thought. all her concern had hitherto been for youngsilverton, not only because, in such affairs, the woman's instinct is to sidewith the man, but because his case made a peculiar appeal to her sympathies. he was so desperately in earnest, pooryouth, and his earnestness was of so different a quality from bertha's, thoughhers too was desperate enough.

the difference was that bertha was inearnest only about herself, while he was in earnest about her. but now, at the actual crisis, thisdifference seemed to throw the weight of destitution on bertha's side, since atleast he had her to suffer for, and she had only herself. at any rate, viewed less ideally, all thedisadvantages of such a situation were for the woman; and it was to bertha that lily'ssympathies now went out. she was not fond of bertha dorset, butneither was she without a sense of obligation, the heavier for having solittle personal liking to sustain it.

bertha had been kind to her, they had livedtogether, during the last months, on terms of easy friendship, and the sense offriction of which lily had recently become aware seemed to make it the more urgent that she should work undividedly in herfriend's interest. it was in bertha's interest, certainly,that she had despatched dorset to consult with lawrence selden. once the grotesqueness of the situationaccepted, she had seen at a glance that it was the safest in which dorset could findhimself. who but selden could thus miraculouslycombine the skill to save bertha with the

obligation of doing so? the consciousness that much skill would berequired made lily rest thankfully in the greatness of the obligation. since he would have to pull bertha throughshe could trust him to find a way; and she put the fulness of her trust in thetelegram she managed to send him on her way to the quay. thus far, then, lily felt that she had donewell; and the conviction strengthened her for the task that remained. she and bertha had never been onconfidential terms, but at such a crisis

the barriers of reserve must surely fall:dorset's wild allusions to the scene of the morning made lily feel that they were down already, and that any attempt to rebuildthem would be beyond bertha's strength. she pictured the poor creature shiveringbehind her fallen defences and awaiting with suspense the moment when she couldtake refuge in the first shelter that offered. if only that shelter had not alreadyoffered itself elsewhere! as the gig traversed the short distancebetween the quay and the yacht, lily grew more than ever alarmed at the possibleconsequences of her long absence.

what if the wretched bertha, finding in allthe long hours no soul to turn to--but by this time lily's eager foot was on theside-ladder, and her first step on the sabrina showed the worst of her apprehensions to be unfounded; for there,in the luxurious shade of the after-deck, the wretched bertha, in full command of herusual attenuated elegance, sat dispensing tea to the duchess of beltshire and lordhubert. the sight filled lily with such surprisethat she felt that bertha, at least, must read its meaning in her look, and she wasproportionately disconcerted by the blankness of the look returned.

but in an instant she saw that mrs. dorsethad, of necessity, to look blank before the others, and that, to mitigate the effect ofher own surprise, she must at once produce some simple reason for it. the long habit of rapid transitions made iteasy for her to exclaim to the duchess: "why, i thought you'd gone back to theprincess!" and this sufficed for the lady she addressed, if it was hardly enough forlord hubert. at least it opened the way to a livelyexplanation of how the duchess was, in fact, going back the next moment, but hadfirst rushed out to the yacht for a word with mrs. dorset on the subject of

tomorrow's dinner--the dinner with thebrys, to which lord hubert had finally insisted on dragging them. "to save my neck, you know!" he explained,with a glance that appealed to lily for some recognition of his promptness; and theduchess added, with her noble candour: "mr. bry has promised him a tip, and he says ifwe go he'll pass it onto us." this led to some final pleasantries, inwhich, as it seemed to lily, mrs. dorset bore her part with astounding bravery, andat the close of which lord hubert, from half way down the side-ladder, called back, with an air of numbering heads: "and ofcourse we may count on dorset too?"

"oh, count on him," his wife assentedgaily. she was keeping up well to the last--but asshe turned back from waving her adieux over the side, lily said to herself that themask must drop and the soul of fear look out. mrs. dorset turned back slowly; perhaps shewanted time to steady her muscles; at any rate, they were still under perfect controlwhen, dropping once more into her seat behind the tea-table, she remarked to miss bart with a faint touch of irony: "isuppose i ought to say good morning." if it was a cue, lily was ready to take it,though with only the vaguest sense of what

was expected of her in return. there was something unnerving in thecontemplation of mrs. dorset's composure, and she had to force the light tone inwhich she answered: "i tried to see you this morning, but you were not yet up." "no--i got to bed late.after we missed you at the station i thought we ought to wait for you till thelast train." she spoke very gently, but with just theleast tinge of reproach. "you missed us?you waited for us at the station?" now indeed lily was too far adrift inbewilderment to measure the other's words

or keep watch on her own. "but i thought you didn't get to thestation till after the last train had left!" mrs. dorset, examining her between loweredlids, met this with the immediate query: "who told you that?""george--i saw him just now in the gardens." "ah, is that george's version?poor george--he was in no state to remember what i told him. he had one of his worst attacks thismorning, and i packed him off to see the

doctor.do you know if he found him?" lily, still lost in conjecture, made noreply, and mrs. dorset settled herself indolently in her seat."he'll wait to see him; he was horribly frightened about himself. it's very bad for him to be worried, andwhenever anything upsetting happens, it always brings on an attack." this time lily felt sure that a cue wasbeing pressed on her; but it was put forth with such startling suddenness, and with soincredible an air of ignoring what it led up to, that she could only falter outdoubtfully: "anything upsetting?"

"yes--such as having you so conspicuouslyon his hands in the small hours. you know, my dear, you're rather a bigresponsibility in such a scandalous place after midnight." at that--at the complete unexpectedness andthe inconceivable audacity of it--lily could not restrain the tribute of anastonished laugh. "well, really--considering it was you whoburdened him with the responsibility!" mrs. dorset took this with an exquisitemildness. "by not having the superhuman cleverness todiscover you in that frightful rush for the train?

or the imagination to believe that you'dtake it without us--you and he all alone-- instead of waiting quietly in the stationtill we did manage to meet you?" lily's colour rose: it was growing clear toher that bertha was pursuing an object, following a line she had marked out forherself. only, with such a doom impending, why wastetime in these childish efforts to avert it? the puerility of the attempt disarmedlily's indignation: did it not prove how horribly the poor creature was frightened? "no; by our simply all keeping together atnice," she returned. "keeping together?

when it was you who seized the firstopportunity to rush off with the duchess and her friends?my dear lily, you are not a child to be led by the hand!" "no--nor to be lectured, bertha, really; ifthat's what you are doing to me now." mrs. dorset smiled on her reproachfully."lecture you--i? heaven forbid! i was merely trying to give you a friendlyhint. but it's usually the other way round, isn'tit? i'm expected to take hints, not to givethem: i've positively lived on them all

these last months.""hints--from me to you?" lily repeated. "oh, negative ones merely--what not to beand to do and to see. and i think i've taken them to admiration. only, my dear, if you'll let me say so, ididn't understand that one of my negative duties was not to warn you when you carriedyour imprudence too far." a chill of fear passed over miss bart: asense of remembered treachery that was like the gleam of a knife in the dusk.but compassion, in a moment, got the better of her instinctive recoil.

what was this outpouring of senselessbitterness but the tracked creature's attempt to cloud the medium through whichit was fleeing? it was on lily's lips to exclaim: "you poorsoul, don't double and turn--come straight back to me, and we'll find a way out!"but the words died under the impenetrable insolence of bertha's smile. lily sat silent, taking the brunt of itquietly, letting it spend itself on her to the last drop of its accumulated falseness;then, without a word, she rose and went down to her cabin. chapter 3

miss bart's telegram caught lawrence seldenat the door of his hotel; and having read it, he turned back to wait for dorset. the message necessarily left large gaps forconjecture; but all that he had recently heard and seen made these but too easy tofill in. on the whole he was surprised; for thoughhe had perceived that the situation contained all the elements of an explosion,he had often enough, in the range of his personal experience, seen just suchcombinations subside into harmlessness. still, dorset's spasmodic temper, and hiswife's reckless disregard of appearances, gave the situation a peculiar insecurity;and it was less from the sense of any

special relation to the case than from a purely professional zeal, that seldenresolved to guide the pair to safety. whether, in the present instance, safetyfor either lay in repairing so damaged a tie, it was no business of his to consider:he had only, on general principles, to think of averting a scandal, and his desire to avert it was increased by his fear ofits involving miss bart. there was nothing specific in thisapprehension; he merely wished to spare her the embarrassment of being ever so remotelyconnected with the public washing of the dorset linen.

how exhaustive and unpleasant such aprocess would be, he saw even more vividly after his two hours' talk with poor dorset. if anything came out at all, it would besuch a vast unpacking of accumulated moral rags as left him, after his visitor hadgone, with the feeling that he must fling open the windows and have his room sweptout. but nothing should come out; and happilyfor his side of the case, the dirty rags, however pieced together, could not, withoutconsiderable difficulty, be turned into a homogeneous grievance. the torn edges did not always fit--therewere missing bits, there were disparities

of size and colour, all of which it wasnaturally selden's business to make the most of in putting them under his client'seye. but to a man in dorset's mood thecompletest demonstration could not carry conviction, and selden saw that for themoment all he could do was to soothe and temporize, to offer sympathy and to counselprudence. he let dorset depart charged to the brimwith the sense that, till their next meeting, he must maintain a strictlynoncommittal attitude; that, in short, his share in the game consisted for the presentin looking on. selden knew, however, that he could notlong keep such violences in equilibrium;

and he promised to meet dorset, the nextmorning, at an hotel in monte carlo. meanwhile he counted not a little on thereaction of weakness and self-distrust that, in such natures, follows on everyunwonted expenditure of moral force; and his telegraphic reply to miss bart consisted simply in the injunction: "assumethat everything is as usual." on this assumption, in fact, the early partof the following day was lived through. dorset, as if in obedience to lily'simperative bidding, had actually returned in time for a late dinner on the yacht.the repast had been the most difficult moment of the day.

dorset was sunk in one of the abysmalsilences which so commonly followed on what his wife called his "attacks" that it waseasy, before the servants, to refer it to this cause; but bertha herself seemed, perversely enough, little disposed to makeuse of this obvious means of protection. she simply left the brunt of the situationon her husband's hands, as if too absorbed in a grievance of her own to suspect thatshe might be the object of one herself. to lily this attitude was the most ominous,because the most perplexing, element in the situation. as she tried to fan the weak flicker oftalk, to build up, again and again, the

crumbling structure of "appearances," herown attention was perpetually distracted by the question: "what on earth can she bedriving at?" there was something positively exasperatingin bertha's attitude of isolated defiance. if only she would have given her friend ahint they might still have worked together successfully; but how could lily be of use,while she was thus obstinately shut out from participation? to be of use was what she honestly wanted;and not for her own sake but for the dorsets'. she had not thought of her own situation atall: she was simply engrossed in trying to

put a little order in theirs. but the close of the short dreary eveningleft her with a sense of effort hopelessly wasted. she had not tried to see dorset alone: shehad positively shrunk from a renewal of his confidences. it was bertha whose confidence she sought,and who should as eagerly have invited her own; and bertha, as if in the infatuationof self-destruction, was actually pushing away her rescuing hand. lily, going to bed early, had left thecouple to themselves; and it seemed part of

the general mystery in which she moved thatmore than an hour should elapse before she heard bertha walk down the silent passageand regain her room. the morrow, rising on an apparentcontinuance of the same conditions, revealed nothing of what had occurredbetween the confronted pair. one fact alone outwardly proclaimed thechange they were all conspiring to ignore; and that was the non-appearance of nedsilverton. no one referred to it, and this tacitavoidance of the subject kept it in the immediate foreground of consciousness. but there was another change, perceptibleonly to lily; and that was that dorset now

avoided her almost as pointedly as hiswife. perhaps he was repenting his rashoutpourings of the previous day; perhaps only trying, in his clumsy way, to conformto selden's counsel to behave "as usual." such instructions no more make for easinessof attitude than the photographer's behest to "look natural"; and in a creature asunconscious as poor dorset of the appearance he habitually presented, the struggle to maintain a pose was sure toresult in queer contortions. it resulted, at any rate, in throwing lilystrangely on her own resources. she had learned, on leaving her room, thatmrs. dorset was still invisible, and that

dorset had left the yacht early; andfeeling too restless to remain alone, she too had herself ferried ashore. straying toward the casino, she attachedherself to a group of acquaintances from nice, with whom she lunched, and in whosecompany she was returning to the rooms when she encountered selden crossing the square. she could not, at the moment, separateherself definitely from her party, who had hospitably assumed that she would remainwith them till they took their departure; but she found time for a momentary pause of enquiry, to which he promptly returned:"i've seen him again--he's just left me."

she waited before him anxiously."well? what has happened? what will happen?" "nothing as yet--and nothing in the future,i think." "it's over, then?it's settled? you're sure?" he smiled."give me time. i'm not sure--but i'm a good deal surer." and with that she had to content herself,and hasten on to the expectant group on the steps.

selden had in fact given her the utmostmeasure of his sureness, had even stretched it a shade to meet the anxiety in her eyes. and now, as he turned away, strolling downthe hill toward the station, that anxiety remained with him as the visiblejustification of his own. it was not, indeed, anything specific thathe feared: there had been a literal truth in his declaration that he did not thinkanything would happen. what troubled him was that, though dorset'sattitude had perceptibly changed, the change was not clearly to be accounted for. it had certainly not been produced byselden's arguments, or by the action of his

own soberer reason. five minutes' talk sufficed to show thatsome alien influence had been at work, and that it had not so much subdued hisresentment as weakened his will, so that he moved under it in a state of apathy, like adangerous lunatic who has been drugged. temporarily, no doubt, however exerted, itworked for the general safety: the question was how long it would last, and by whatkind of reaction it was likely to be followed. on these points selden could gain no light;for he saw that one effect of the transformation had been to shut him offfrom free communion with dorset.

the latter, indeed, was still moved by theirresistible desire to discuss his wrong; but, though he revolved about it with thesame forlorn tenacity, selden was aware that something always restrained him fromfull expression. his state was one to produce firstweariness and then impatience in his hearer; and when their talk was over,selden began to feel that he had done his utmost, and might justifiably wash hishands of the sequel. it was in this mind that he had been makinghis way back to the station when miss bart crossed his path; but though, after hisbrief word with her, he kept mechanically on his course, he was conscious of agradual change in his purpose.

the change had been produced by the look inher eyes; and in his eagerness to define the nature of that look, he dropped into aseat in the gardens, and sat brooding upon the question. it was natural enough, in all conscience,that she should appear anxious: a young woman placed, in the close intimacy of ayachting-cruise, between a couple on the verge of disaster, could hardly, aside from her concern for her friends, be insensibleto the awkwardness of her own position. the worst of it was that, in interpretingmiss bart's state of mind, so many alternative readings were possible; and oneof these, in selden's troubled mind, took

the ugly form suggested by mrs. fisher. if the girl was afraid, was she afraid forherself or for her friends? and to what degree was her dread of acatastrophe intensified by the sense of being fatally involved in it? the burden of offence lying manifestly withmrs. dorset, this conjecture seemed on the face of it gratuitously unkind; but seldenknew that in the most one-sided matrimonial quarrel there are generally counter-charges to be brought, and that they are broughtwith the greater audacity where the original grievance is so emphatic.

mrs. fisher had not hesitated to suggestthe likelihood of dorset's marrying miss bart if "anything happened"; and thoughmrs. fisher's conclusions were notoriously rash, she was shrewd enough in reading thesigns from which they were drawn. dorset had apparently shown marked interestin the girl, and this interest might be used to cruel advantage in his wife'sstruggle for rehabilitation. selden knew that bertha would fight to thelast round of powder: the rashness of her conduct was illogically combined with acold determination to escape its consequences. she could be as unscrupulous in fightingfor herself as she was reckless in courting

danger, and whatever came to her hand atsuch moments was likely to be used as a defensive missile. he did not, as yet, see clearly just whatcourse she was likely to take, but his perplexity increased his apprehension, andwith it the sense that, before leaving, he must speak again with miss bart. whatever her share in the situation--and hehad always honestly tried to resist judging her by her surroundings--however free shemight be from any personal connection with it, she would be better out of the way of a possible crash; and since she had appealedto him for help, it was clearly his

business to tell her so. this decision at last brought him to hisfeet, and carried him back to the gambling rooms, within whose doors he had seen herdisappearing; but a prolonged exploration of the crowd failed to put him on hertraces. he saw instead, to his surprise, nedsilverton loitering somewhat ostentatiously about the tables; and the discovery thatthis actor in the drama was not only hovering in the wings, but actually inviting the exposure of the footlights,though it might have seemed to imply that all peril was over, served rather to deepenselden's sense of foreboding.

charged with this impression he returned tothe square, hoping to see miss bart move across it, as every one in monte carloseemed inevitably to do at least a dozen times a day; but here again he waited vainly for a glimpse of her, and theconclusion was slowly forced on him that she had gone back to the sabrina. it would be difficult to follow her there,and still more difficult, should he do so, to contrive the opportunity for a privateword; and he had almost decided on the unsatisfactory alternative of writing, when the ceaseless diorama of the squaresuddenly unrolled before him the figures of

lord hubert and mrs. bry. hailing them at once with his question, helearned from lord hubert that miss bart had just returned to the sabrina in dorset'scompany; an announcement so evidently disconcerting to him that mrs. bry, after a glance from her companion, which seemed toact like the pressure on a spring, brought forth the prompt proposal that he shouldcome and meet his friends at dinner that evening--"at becassin's--a little dinner to the duchess," she flashed out before lordhubert had time to remove the pressure. selden's sense of the privilege of beingincluded in such company brought him early

in the evening to the door of therestaurant, where he paused to scan the ranks of diners approaching down thebrightly lit terrace. there, while the brys hovered within overthe last agitating alternatives of the menu, he kept watch for the guests from thesabrina, who at length rose on the horizon in company with the duchess, lord and ladyskiddaw and the stepneys. from this group it was easy for him todetach miss bart on the pretext of a moment's glance into one of the brilliantshops along the terrace, and to say to her, while they lingered together in the white dazzle of a jeweller's window: "i stoppedover to see you--to beg of you to leave the

yacht."the eyes she turned on him showed a quick gleam of her former fear. "to leave--?what do you mean? what has happened?""nothing. but if anything should, why be in the wayof it?" the glare from the jeweller's window,deepening the pallour of her face, gave to its delicate lines the sharpness of atragic mask. "nothing will, i am sure; but while there'seven a doubt left, how can you think i would leave bertha?"the words rang out on a note of contempt--

was it possibly of contempt for himself? well, he was willing to risk its renewal tothe extent of insisting, with an undeniable throb of added interest: "you have yourselfto think of, you know--" to which, with a strange fall of sadness in her voice, she answered, meeting his eyes: "if you knewhow little difference that makes!" "oh, well, nothing will happen," he said,more for his own reassurance than for hers; and "nothing, nothing, of course!" shevaliantly assented, as they turned to overtake their companions. in the thronged restaurant, taking theirplaces about mrs. bry's illuminated board,

their confidence seemed to gain supportfrom the familiarity of their surroundings. here were dorset and his wife once morepresenting their customary faces to the world, she engrossed in establishing herrelation with an intensely new gown, he shrinking with dyspeptic dread from themultiplied solicitations of the menu. the mere fact that they thus showedthemselves together, with the utmost openness the place afforded, seemed todeclare beyond a doubt that their differences were composed. how this end had been attained was stillmatter for wonder, but it was clear that for the moment miss bart rested confidentlyin the result; and selden tried to achieve

the same view by telling himself that her opportunities for observation had beenampler than his own. meanwhile, as the dinner advanced through alabyrinth of courses, in which it became clear that mrs. bry had occasionally brokenaway from lord hubert's restraining hand, selden's general watchfulness began to loseitself in a particular study of miss bart. it was one of the days when she was sohandsome that to be handsome was enough, and all the rest--her grace, her quickness,her social felicities--seemed the overflow of a bounteous nature. but what especially struck him was the wayin which she detached herself, by a hundred

undefinable shades, from the persons whomost abounded in her own style. it was in just such company, the fineflower and complete expression of the state she aspired to, that the differences cameout with special poignancy, her grace cheapening the other women's smartness as her finely-discriminated silences madetheir chatter dull. the strain of the last hours had restoredto her face the deeper eloquence which selden had lately missed in it, and thebravery of her words to him still fluttered in her voice and eyes. yes, she was matchless--it was the one wordfor her; and he could give his admiration

the freer play because so little personalfeeling remained in it. his real detachment from her had takenplace, not at the lurid moment of disenchantment, but now, in the soberafter-light of discrimination, where he saw her definitely divided from him by the crudeness of a choice which seemed to denythe very differences he felt in her. it was before him again in itscompleteness--the choice in which she was content to rest: in the stupid costlinessof the food and the showy dulness of the talk, in the freedom of speech which never arrived at wit and the freedom of act whichnever made for romance.

the strident setting of the restaurant, inwhich their table seemed set apart in a special glare of publicity, and thepresence at it of little dabham of the "riviera notes," emphasized the ideals of a world where conspicuousness passed fordistinction, and the society column had become the roll of fame. it was as the immortalizer of suchoccasions that little dabham, wedged in modest watchfulness between two brilliantneighbours, suddenly became the centre of selden's scrutiny. how much did he know of what was going on,and how much, for his purpose, was still

worth finding out? his little eyes were like tentacles thrownout to catch the floating intimations with which, to selden, the air at moments seemedthick; then again it cleared to its normal emptiness, and he could see nothing in it for the journalist but leisure to note theelegance of the ladies' gowns. mrs. dorset's, in particular, challengedall the wealth of mr. dabham's vocabulary: it had surprises and subtleties worthy ofwhat he would have called "the literary style." at first, as selden had noticed, it hadbeen almost too preoccupying to its wearer;

but now she was in full command of it, andwas even producing her effects with unwonted freedom. was she not, indeed, too free, too fluent,for perfect naturalness? and was not dorset, to whom his glance hadpassed by a natural transition, too jerkily wavering between the same extremes? dorset indeed was always jerky; but itseemed to selden that tonight each vibration swung him farther from hiscentre. the dinner, meanwhile, was moving to itstriumphant close, to the evident satisfaction of mrs. bry, who, throned inapoplectic majesty between lord skiddaw and

lord hubert, seemed in spirit to be callingon mrs. fisher to witness her achievement. short of mrs. fisher her audience mighthave been called complete; for the restaurant was crowded with persons mainlygathered there for the purpose of spectatorship, and accurately posted as to the names and faces of the celebrities theyhad come to see. mrs. bry, conscious that all her feminineguests came under that heading, and that each one looked her part to admiration,shone on lily with all the pent-up gratitude that mrs. fisher had failed todeserve. selden, catching the glance, wondered whatpart miss bart had played in organizing the

entertainment. she did, at least, a great deal to adornit; and as he watched the bright security with which she bore herself, he smiled tothink that he should have fancied her in need of help. never had she appeared more serenelymistress of the situation than when, at the moment of dispersal, detaching herself alittle from the group about the table, she turned with a smile and a graceful slant of the shoulders to receive her cloak fromdorset. the dinner had been protracted over mr.bry's exceptional cigars and a bewildering

array of liqueurs, and many of the othertables were empty; but a sufficient number of diners still lingered to give relief to the leave-taking of mrs. bry'sdistinguished guests. this ceremony was drawn out and complicatedby the fact that it involved, on the part of the duchess and lady skiddaw, definitefarewells, and pledges of speedy reunion in paris, where they were to pause and replenish their wardrobes on the way toengland. the quality of mrs. bry's hospitality, andof the tips her husband had presumably imparted, lent to the manner of the englishladies a general effusiveness which shed

the rosiest light over their hostess'sfuture. in its glow mrs. dorset and the stepneyswere also visibly included, and the whole scene had touches of intimacy worth theirweight in gold to the watchful pen of mr. dabham. a glance at her watch caused the duchess toexclaim to her sister that they had just time to dash for their train, and theflurry of this departure over, the stepneys, who had their motor at the door, offered to convey the dorsets and miss bartto the quay. the offer was accepted, and mrs. dorsetmoved away with her husband in attendance.

miss bart had lingered for a last word withlord hubert, and stepney, on whom mr. bry was pressing a final, and still moreexpensive, cigar, called out: "come on, lily, if you're going back to the yacht." lily turned to obey; but as she did so,mrs. dorset, who had paused on her way out, moved a few steps back toward the table. "miss bart is not going back to the yacht,"she said in a voice of singular distinctness. a startled look ran from eye to eye; mrs.bry crimsoned to the verge of congestion, mrs. stepney slipped nervously behind herhusband, and selden, in the general turmoil

of his sensations, was mainly conscious of a longing to grip dabham by the collar andfling him out into the street. dorset, meanwhile, had stepped back to hiswife's side. his face was white, and he looked about himwith cowed angry eyes. "bertha!--miss bart...this is somemisunderstanding... some mistake ..." "miss bart remains here," his wife rejoinedincisively. "and, i think, george, we had better notdetain mrs. stepney any longer." miss bart, during this brief exchange ofwords, remained in admirable erectness, slightly isolated from the embarrassedgroup about her.

she had paled a little under the shock ofthe insult, but the discomposure of the surrounding faces was not reflected in herown. the faint disdain of her smile seemed tolift her high above her antagonist's reach, and it was not till she had given mrs.dorset the full measure of the distance between them that she turned and extendedher hand to her hostess. "i am joining the duchess tomorrow," sheexplained, "and it seemed easier for me to remain on shore for the night." she held firmly to mrs. bry's wavering eyewhile she gave this explanation, but when it was over selden saw her send a tentativeglance from one to another of the women's

faces. she read their incredulity in their avertedlooks, and in the mute wretchedness of the men behind them, and for a miserable half-second he thought she quivered on the brink of failure. then, turning to him with an easy gesture,and the pale bravery of her recovered smile--"dear mr. selden," she said, "youpromised to see me to my cab." outside, the sky was gusty and overcast,and as lily and selden moved toward the deserted gardens below the restaurant,spurts of warm rain blew fitfully against their faces.

the fiction of the cab had been tacitlyabandoned; they walked on in silence, her hand on his arm, till the deeper shade ofthe gardens received them, and pausing beside a bench, he said: "sit down amoment." she dropped to the seat without answering,but the electric lamp at the bend of the path shed a gleam on the struggling miseryof her face. selden sat down beside her, waiting for herto speak, fearful lest any word he chose should touch too roughly on her wound, andkept also from free utterance by the wretched doubt which had slowly reneweditself within him. what had brought her to this pass?what weakness had placed her so abominably

at her enemy's mercy? and why should bertha dorset have turnedinto an enemy at the very moment when she so obviously needed the support of her sex? even while his nerves raged at thesubjection of husbands to their wives, and at the cruelty of women to their kind,reason obstinately harped on the proverbial relation between smoke and fire. the memory of mrs. fisher's hints, and thecorroboration of his own impressions, while they deepened his pity also increased hisconstraint, since, whichever way he sought a free outlet for sympathy, it was blockedby the fear of committing a blunder.

suddenly it struck him that his silencemust seem almost as accusatory as that of the men he had despised for turning fromher; but before he could find the fitting word she had cut him short with a question. "do you know of a quiet hotel?i can send for my maid in the morning." "an hotel--here--that you can go to alone?it's not possible." she met this with a pale gleam of her oldplayfulness. "what is, then?it's too wet to sleep in the gardens." "but there must be some one----" "some one to whom i can go?of course--any number--but at this hour?

you see my change of plan was rathersudden----" "good god--if you'd listened to me!" hecried, venting his helplessness in a burst of anger.she still held him off with the gentle mockery of her smile. "but haven't i?" she rejoined."you advised me to leave the yacht, and i'm leaving it." he saw then, with a pang of self-reproach,that she meant neither to explain nor to defend herself; that by his miserablesilence he had forfeited all chance of helping her, and that the decisive hour waspast.

she had risen, and stood before him in akind of clouded majesty, like some deposed princess moving tranquilly to exile. "lily!" he exclaimed, with a note ofdespairing appeal; but--"oh, not now," she gently admonished him; and then, in all thesweetness of her recovered composure: "since i must find shelter somewhere, andsince you're so kindly here to help me----" he gathered himself up at the challenge."you will do as i tell you? there's but one thing, then; you must gostraight to your cousins, the stepneys." "oh--" broke from her with a movement ofinstinctive resistance; but he insisted: "come--it's late, and you must appear tohave gone there directly."

he had drawn her hand into his arm, but sheheld him back with a last gesture of protest."i can't--i can't--not that--you don't know gwen: you mustn't ask me!" "i must ask you--you must obey me," hepersisted, though infected at heart by her own fear. her voice sank to a whisper: "and if sherefuses?"--but, "oh, trust me--trust me!" he could only insist in return; andyielding to his touch, she let him lead her back in silence to the edge of the square. in the cab they continued to remain silentthrough the brief drive which carried them

to the illuminated portals of the stepneys'hotel. here he left her outside, in the darknessof the raised hood, while his name was sent up to stepney, and he paced the showy hall,awaiting the latter's descent. ten minutes later the two men passed outtogether between the gold-laced custodians of the threshold; but in the vestibulestepney drew up with a last flare of reluctance. "it's understood, then?" he stipulatednervously, with his hand on selden's arm. "she leaves tomorrow by the early train--and my wife's asleep, and can't be disturbed."

chapter 4 the blinds of mrs. peniston's drawing-roomwere drawn down against the oppressive june sun, and in the sultry twilight the facesof her assembled relatives took on a fitting shadow of bereavement. they were all there: van alstynes, stepneysand melsons--even a stray peniston or two, indicating, by a greater latitude in dressand manner, the fact of remoter relationship and more settled hopes. the peniston side was, in fact, secure inthe knowledge that the bulk of mr. peniston's property "went back"; while thedirect connection hung suspended on the

disposal of his widow's private fortune andon the uncertainty of its extent. jack stepney, in his new character as therichest nephew, tacitly took the lead, emphasizing his importance by the deepergloss of his mourning and the subdued authority of his manner; while his wife's bored attitude and frivolous gownproclaimed the heiress's disregard of the insignificant interests at stake. old ned van alstyne, seated next to her ina coat that made affliction dapper, twirled his white moustache to conceal the eagertwitch of his lips; and grace stepney, red- nosed and smelling of crape, whispered

emotionally to mrs. herbert melson: "icouldn't bear to see the niagara anywhere else!" a rustle of weeds and quick turning ofheads hailed the opening of the door, and lily bart appeared, tall and noble in herblack dress, with gerty farish at her side. the women's faces, as she pausedinterrogatively on the threshold, were a study in hesitation. one or two made faint motions ofrecognition, which might have been subdued either by the solemnity of the scene, or bythe doubt as to how far the others meant to go; mrs. jack stepney gave a careless nod,

and grace stepney, with a sepulchralgesture, indicated a seat at her side. but lily, ignoring the invitation, as wellas jack stepney's official attempt to direct her, moved across the room with hersmooth free gait, and seated herself in a chair which seemed to have been purposelyplaced apart from the others. it was the first time that she had facedher family since her return from europe, two weeks earlier; but if she perceived anyuncertainty in their welcome, it served only to add a tinge of irony to the usualcomposure of her bearing. the shock of dismay with which, on thedock, she had heard from gerty farish of mrs. peniston's sudden death, had beenmitigated, almost at once, by the

irrepressible thought that now, at last,she would be able to pay her debts. she had looked forward with considerableuneasiness to her first encounter with her aunt. mrs. peniston had vehemently opposed herniece's departure with the dorsets, and had marked her continued disapproval by notwriting during lily's absence. the certainty that she had heard of therupture with the dorsets made the prospect of the meeting more formidable; and howshould lily have repressed a quick sense of relief at the thought that, instead of undergoing the anticipated ordeal, she hadonly to enter gracefully on a long-assured

inheritance? it had been, in the consecrated phrase,"always understood" that mrs. peniston was to provide handsomely for her niece; and inthe latter's mind the understanding had long since crystallized into fact. "she gets everything, of course--i don'tsee what we're here for," mrs. jack stepney remarked with careless loudness to ned vanalstyne; and the latter's deprecating murmur--"julia was always a just woman"-- might have been interpreted as signifyingeither acquiescence or doubt. "well, it's only about four hundredthousand," mrs. stepney rejoined with a

yawn; and grace stepney, in the silenceproduced by the lawyer's preliminary cough, was heard to sob out: "they won't find a towel missing--i went over them with herthe very day----" lily, oppressed by the close atmosphere,and the stifling odour of fresh mourning, felt her attention straying as mrs.peniston's lawyer, solemnly erect behind the buhl table at the end of the room, began to rattle through the preamble of thewill. "it's like being in church," she reflected,wondering vaguely where gwen stepney had got such an awful hat.

then she noticed how stout jack had grown--he would soon be almost as plethoric as herbert melson, who sat a few feet off,breathing puffily as he leaned his black- gloved hands on his stick. "i wonder why rich people always grow fat--i suppose it's because there's nothing to worry them. if i inherit, i shall have to be careful ofmy figure," she mused, while the lawyer droned on through a labyrinth of legacies. the servants came first, then a fewcharitable institutions, then several remoter melsons and stepneys, who stirredconsciously as their names rang out, and

then subsided into a state of impassivenessbefitting the solemnity of the occasion. ned van alstyne, jack stepney, and a cousinor two followed, each coupled with the mention of a few thousands: lily wonderedthat grace stepney was not among them. then she heard her own name--"to my niecelily bart ten thousand dollars--" and after that the lawyer again lost himself in acoil of unintelligible periods, from which the concluding phrase flashed out with startling distinctness: "and the residue ofmy estate to my dear cousin and name-sake, grace julia stepney." there was a subdued gasp of surprise, arapid turning of heads, and a surging of

sable figures toward the corner in whichmiss stepney wailed out her sense of unworthiness through the crumpled ball of ablack-edged handkerchief. lily stood apart from the general movement,feeling herself for the first time utterly alone. no one looked at her, no one seemed awareof her presence; she was probing the very depths of insignificance. and under her sense of the collectiveindifference came the acuter pang of hopes deceived.disinherited--she had been disinherited-- and for grace stepney!

she met gerty's lamentable eyes, fixed onher in a despairing effort at consolation, and the look brought her to herself. there was something to be done before sheleft the house: to be done with all the nobility she knew how to put into suchgestures. she advanced to the group about missstepney, and holding out her hand said simply: "dear grace, i am so glad." the other ladies had fallen back at herapproach, and a space created itself about her.it widened as she turned to go, and no one advanced to fill it up.

she paused a moment, glancing about her,calmly taking the measure of her situation. she heard some one ask a question about thedate of the will; she caught a fragment of the lawyer's answer--something about asudden summons, and an "earlier instrument." then the tide of dispersal began to driftpast her; mrs. jack stepney and mrs. herbert melson stood on the doorstepawaiting their motor; a sympathizing group escorted grace stepney to the cab it was felt to be fitting she should take, thoughshe lived but a street or two away; and miss bart and gerty found themselves almostalone in the purple drawing-room, which

more than ever, in its stuffy dimness, resembled a well-kept family vault, inwhich the last corpse had just been decently deposited. in gerty farish's sitting-room, whither ahansom had carried the two friends, lily dropped into a chair with a faint sound oflaughter: it struck her as a humorous coincidence that her aunt's legacy should so nearly represent the amount of her debtto trenor. the need of discharging that debt hadreasserted itself with increased urgency since her return to america, and she spokeher first thought in saying to the

anxiously hovering gerty: "i wonder whenthe legacies will be paid." but miss farish could not pause over thelegacies; she broke into a larger indignation. "oh, lily, it's unjust; it's cruel--gracestepney must feel she has no right to all that money!" "any one who knew how to please aunt juliahas a right to her money," miss bart rejoined philosophically. "but she was devoted to you--she led everyone to think--" gerty checked herself in evident embarrassment, and miss bart turnedto her with a direct look.

"gerty, be honest: this will was made onlysix weeks ago. she had heard of my break with thedorsets?" "every one heard, of course, that there hadbeen some disagreement--some misunderstanding----""did she hear that bertha turned me off the yacht?" "lily!""that was what happened, you know. she said i was trying to marry georgedorset. she did it to make him think she wasjealous. isn't that what she told gwen stepney?""i don't know--i don't listen to such

horrors." "i must listen to them--i must know where istand." she paused, and again sounded a faint noteof derision. "did you notice the women? they were afraid to snub me while theythought i was going to get the money-- afterward they scuttled off as if i had theplague." gerty remained silent, and she continued:"i stayed on to see what would happen. they took their cue from gwen stepney andlulu melson--i saw them watching to see what gwen would do.--gerty, i must knowjust what is being said of me."

"i tell you i don't listen----" "one hears such things without listening."she rose and laid her resolute hands on miss farish's shoulders."gerty, are people going to cut me?" "your friends, lily--how can you think it?" "who are one's friends at such a time?who, but you, you poor trustful darling? and heaven knows what you suspect me of!"she kissed gerty with a whimsical murmur. "you'd never let it make any difference--but then you're fond of criminals, gerty! how about the irreclaimable ones, though?for i'm absolutely impenitent, you know." she drew herself up to the full height ofher slender majesty, towering like some

dark angel of defiance above the troubledgerty, who could only falter out: "lily, lily--how can you laugh about such things?" "so as not to weep, perhaps.but no--i'm not of the tearful order. i discovered early that crying makes mynose red, and the knowledge has helped me through several painful episodes." she took a restless turn about the room,and then, reseating herself, lifted the bright mockery of her eyes to gerty'sanxious countenance. "i shouldn't have minded, you know, if i'dgot the money--" and at miss farish's protesting "oh!" she repeated calmly: "nota straw, my dear; for, in the first place,

they wouldn't have quite dared to ignore me; and if they had, it wouldn't havemattered, because i should have been independent of them.but now--!" the irony faded from her eyes, and she benta clouded face upon her friend. "how can you talk so, lily? of course the money ought to have beenyours, but after all that makes no difference. the important thing----" gerty paused, andthen continued firmly: "the important thing is that you should clear yourself--shouldtell your friends the whole truth."

"the whole truth?" miss bart laughed."what is truth? where a woman is concerned, it's the storythat's easiest to believe. in this case it's a great deal easier tobelieve bertha dorset's story than mine, because she has a big house and an operabox, and it's convenient to be on good terms with her." miss farish still fixed her with an anxiousgaze. "but what is your story, lily?i don't believe any one knows it yet." "my story?--i don't believe i know itmyself.

you see i never thought of preparing aversion in advance as bertha did--and if i had, i don't think i should take thetrouble to use it now." but gerty continued with her quietreasonableness: "i don't want a version prepared in advance--but i want you to tellme exactly what happened from the beginning." "from the beginning?"miss bart gently mimicked her. "dear gerty, how little imagination yougood people have! why, the beginning was in my cradle, isuppose--in the way i was brought up, and the things i was taught to care for.

or no--i won't blame anybody for my faults:i'll say it was in my blood, that i got it from some wicked pleasure-lovingancestress, who reacted against the homely virtues of new amsterdam, and wanted to beback at the court of the charleses!" and as miss farish continued to press herwith troubled eyes, she went on impatiently: "you asked me just now for thetruth--well, the truth about any girl is that once she's talked about she's done for; and the more she explains her case theworse it looks.--my good gerty, you don't happen to have a cigarette about you?" in her stuffy room at the hotel to whichshe had gone on landing, lily bart that

evening reviewed her situation.it was the last week in june, and none of her friends were in town. the few relatives who had stayed on, orreturned, for the reading of mrs. peniston's will, had taken flight againthat afternoon to newport or long island; and not one of them had made any proffer ofhospitality to lily. for the first time in her life she foundherself utterly alone except for gerty farish. even at the actual moment of her break withthe dorsets she had not had so keen a sense of its consequences, for the duchess ofbeltshire, hearing of the catastrophe from

lord hubert, had instantly offered her protection, and under her sheltering winglily had made an almost triumphant progress to london. there she had been sorely tempted to lingeron in a society which asked of her only to amuse and charm it, without enquiring toocuriously how she had acquired her gift for doing so; but selden, before they parted, had pressed on her the urgent need ofreturning at once to her aunt, and lord hubert, when he presently reappeared inlondon, abounded in the same counsel. lily did not need to be told that theduchess's championship was not the best

road to social rehabilitation, and as shewas besides aware that her noble defender might at any moment drop her in favour of a new protegee, she reluctantly decided toreturn to america. but she had not been ten minutes on hernative shore before she realized that she had delayed too long to regain it. the dorsets, the stepneys, the brys--allthe actors and witnesses in the miserable drama--had preceded her with their versionof the case; and, even had she seen the least chance of gaining a hearing for her own, some obscure disdain and reluctancewould have restrained her.

she knew it was not by explanations andcounter-charges that she could ever hope to recover her lost standing; but even had shefelt the least trust in their efficacy, she would still have been held back by the feeling which had kept her from defendingherself to gerty farish--a feeling that was half pride and half humiliation. for though she knew she had been ruthlesslysacrificed to bertha dorset's determination to win back her husband, and though her ownrelation to dorset had been that of the merest good-fellowship, yet she had been perfectly aware from the outset that herpart in the affair was, as carry fisher

brutally put it, to distract dorset'sattention from his wife. that was what she was "there for": it wasthe price she had chosen to pay for three months of luxury and freedom from care. her habit of resolutely facing the facts,in her rare moments of introspection, did not now allow her to put any false gloss onthe situation. she had suffered for the very faithfulnesswith which she had carried out her part of the tacit compact, but the part was not ahandsome one at best, and she saw it now in all the ugliness of failure. she saw, too, in the same uncompromisinglight, the train of consequences resulting

from that failure; and these became clearerto her with every day of her weary lingering in town. she stayed on partly for the comfort ofgerty farish's nearness, and partly for lack of knowing where to go.she understood well enough the nature of the task before her. she must set out to regain, little bylittle, the position she had lost; and the first step in the tedious task was to findout, as soon as possible, on how many of her friends she could count. her hopes were mainly centred on mrs.trenor, who had treasures of easy-going

tolerance for those who were amusing oruseful to her, and in the noisy rush of whose existence the still small voice ofdetraction was slow to make itself heard. but judy, though she must have beenapprised of miss bart's return, had not even recognized it by the formal note ofcondolence which her friend's bereavement demanded. any advance on lily's side might have beenperilous: there was nothing to do but to trust to the happy chance of an accidentalmeeting, and lily knew that, even so late in the season, there was always a hope of running across her friends in theirfrequent passages through town.

to this end she assiduously showed herselfat the restaurants they frequented, where, attended by the troubled gerty, she lunchedluxuriously, as she said, on her expectations. "my dear gerty, you wouldn't have me letthe head-waiter see that i've nothing to live on but aunt julia's legacy? think of grace stepney's satisfaction ifshe came in and found us lunching on cold mutton and tea!what sweet shall we have today, dear--coupe jacques or peches a la melba?" she dropped the menu abruptly, with a quickheightening of colour, and gerty, following

her glance, was aware of the advance, froman inner room, of a party headed by mrs. trenor and carry fisher. it was impossible for these ladies andtheir companions--among whom lily had at once distinguished both trenor androsedale--not to pass, in going out, the table at which the two girls were seated; and gerty's sense of the fact betrayeditself in the helpless trepidation of her manner. miss bart, on the contrary, borne forwardon the wave of her buoyant grace, and neither shrinking from her friends norappearing to lie in wait for them, gave to

the encounter the touch of naturalness which she could impart to the most strainedsituations. such embarrassment as was shown was on mrs.trenor's side, and manifested itself in the mingling of exaggerated warmth withimperceptible reservations. her loudly affirmed pleasure at seeing missbart took the form of a nebulous generalization, which included neitherenquiries as to her future nor the expression of a definite wish to see heragain. lily, well-versed in the language of theseomissions, knew that they were equally intelligible to the other members of theparty: even rosedale, flushed as he was

with the importance of keeping such company, at once took the temperature ofmrs. trenor's cordiality, and reflected it in his off-hand greeting of miss bart. trenor, red and uncomfortable, had cutshort his salutations on the pretext of a word to say to the head-waiter; and therest of the group soon melted away in mrs. trenor's wake. it was over in a moment--the waiter, menuin hand, still hung on the result of the choice between coupe jacques and peches ala melba--but miss bart, in the interval, had taken the measure of her fate.

where judy trenor led, all the world wouldfollow; and lily had the doomed sense of the castaway who has signalled in vain tofleeing sails. in a flash she remembered mrs. trenor'scomplaints of carry fisher's rapacity, and saw that they denoted an unexpectedacquaintance with her husband's private affairs. in the large tumultuous disorder of thelife at bellomont, where no one seemed to have time to observe any one else, andprivate aims and personal interests were swept along unheeded in the rush of collective activities, lily had fanciedherself sheltered from inconvenient

scrutiny; but if judy knew when mrs. fisherborrowed money of her husband, was she likely to ignore the same transaction onlily's part? if she was careless of his affections shewas plainly jealous of his pocket; and in that fact lily read the explanation of herrebuff. the immediate result of these conclusionswas the passionate resolve to pay back her debt to trenor. that obligation discharged, she would havebut a thousand dollars of mrs. peniston's legacy left, and nothing to live on but herown small income, which was considerably less than gerty farish's wretched pittance;

but this consideration gave way to theimperative claim of her wounded pride. she must be quits with the trenors first;after that she would take thought for the future. in her ignorance of legal procrastinationsshe had supposed that her legacy would be paid over within a few days of the readingof her aunt's will; and after an interval of anxious suspense, she wrote to enquirethe cause of the delay. there was another interval before mrs.peniston's lawyer, who was also one of the executors, replied to the effect that, somequestions having arisen relative to the interpretation of the will, he and his

associates might not be in a position topay the legacies till the close of the twelvemonth legally allotted for theirsettlement. bewildered and indignant, lily resolved totry the effect of a personal appeal; but she returned from her expedition with asense of the powerlessness of beauty and charm against the unfeeling processes ofthe law. it seemed intolerable to live on foranother year under the weight of her debt; and in her extremity she decided to turn tomiss stepney, who still lingered in town, immersed in the delectable duty of "goingover" her benefactress's effects. it was bitter enough for lily to ask afavour of grace stepney, but the

alternative was bitterer still; and onemorning she presented herself at mrs. peniston's, where grace, for the facilitation of her pious task, had takenup a provisional abode. the strangeness of entering as a suppliantthe house where she had so long commanded, increased lily's desire to shorten theordeal; and when miss stepney entered the darkened drawing-room, rustling with the best quality of crape, her visitor wentstraight to the point: would she be willing to advance the amount of the expectedlegacy? grace, in reply, wept and wondered at therequest, bemoaned the inexorableness of the

law, and was astonished that lily had notrealized the exact similarity of their positions. did she think that only the payment of thelegacies had been delayed? why, miss stepney herself had not receiveda penny of her inheritance, and was paying rent--yes, actually!--for the privilege ofliving in a house that belonged to her. she was sure it was not what poor dearcousin julia would have wished--she had told the executors so to their faces; butthey were inaccessible to reason, and there was nothing to do but to wait. let lily take example by her, and bepatient--let them both remember how

beautifully patient cousin julia had alwaysbeen. lily made a movement which showed herimperfect assimilation of this example. "but you will have everything, grace--itwould be easy for you to borrow ten times the amount i am asking for." "borrow--easy for me to borrow?"grace stepney rose up before her in sable wrath. "do you imagine for a moment that i wouldraise money on my expectations from cousin julia, when i know so well her unspeakablehorror of every transaction of the sort? why, lily, if you must know the truth, itwas the idea of your being in debt that

brought on her illness--you remember shehad a slight attack before you sailed. oh, i don't know the particulars, ofcourse--i don't want to know them--but there were rumours about your affairs thatmade her most unhappy--no one could be with her without seeing that. i can't help it if you are offended by mytelling you this now--if i can do anything to make you realize the folly of yourcourse, and how deeply she disapproved of it, i shall feel it is the truest way ofmaking up to you for her loss." chapter 5 it seemed to lily, as mrs. peniston's doorclosed on her, that she was taking a final

leave of her old life. the future stretched before her dull andbare as the deserted length of fifth avenue, and opportunities showed asmeagrely as the few cabs trailing in quest of fares that did not come. the completeness of the analogy was,however, disturbed as she reached the sidewalk by the rapid approach of a hansomwhich pulled up at sight of her. from beneath its luggage-laden top, shecaught the wave of a signalling hand; and the next moment mrs. fisher, springing tothe street, had folded her in a demonstrative embrace.

"my dear, you don't mean to say you'restill in town? when i saw you the other day at sherry's ididn't have time to ask----" she broke off, and added with a burst of frankness: "thetruth is i was horrid, lily, and i've wanted to tell you so ever since." "oh----" miss bart protested, drawing backfrom her penitent clasp; but mrs. fisher went on with her usual directness: "lookhere, lily, don't let's beat about the bush: half the trouble in life is caused bypretending there isn't any. that's not my way, and i can only say i'mthoroughly ashamed of myself for following the other women's lead.

but we'll talk of that by and bye--tell menow where you're staying and what your plans are. i don't suppose you're keeping house inthere with grace stepney, eh?--and it struck me you might be rather at looseends." in lily's present mood there was noresisting the honest friendliness of this appeal, and she said with a smile: "i am atloose ends for the moment, but gerty farish is still in town, and she's good enough to let me be with her whenever she can sparethe time." mrs. fisher made a slight grimace."h'm--that's a temperate joy.

oh, i know--gerty's a trump, and worth allthe rest of us put together; but a la longue you're used to a little higherseasoning, aren't you, dear? and besides, i suppose she'll be offherself before long--the first of august, you say? well, look here, you can't spend yoursummer in town; we'll talk of that later too. but meanwhile, what do you say to putting afew things in a trunk and coming down with me to the sam gormers' tonight?" and as lily stared at the breathlesssuddenness of the suggestion, she continued

with her easy laugh: "you don't know themand they don't know you; but that don't make a rap of difference. they've taken the van alstyne place atroslyn, and i've got carte blanche to bring my friends down there--the more themerrier. they do things awfully well, and there's tobe rather a jolly party there this week---- " she broke off, checked by an undefinablechange in miss bart's expression. "oh, i don't mean your particular set, youknow: rather a different crowd, but very good fun. the fact is, the gormers have struck out ona line of their own: what they want is to

have a good time, and to have it in theirown way. they gave the other thing a few months'trial, under my distinguished auspices, and they were really doing extremely well--getting on a good deal faster than the brys, just because they didn't care as much--but suddenly they decided that thewhole business bored them, and that what they wanted was a crowd they could reallyfeel at home with. rather original of them, don't you thinkso? mattie gormer has got aspirations still;women always have; but she's awfully easy- going, and sam won't be bothered, and theyboth like to be the most important people

in sight, so they've started a sort of continuous performance of their own, a kindof social coney island, where everybody is welcome who can make noise enough anddoesn't put on airs. i think it's awfully good fun myself--someof the artistic set, you know, any pretty actress that's going, and so on. this week, for instance, they have audreyanstell, who made such a hit last spring in 'the winning of winny'; and paul morpeth--he's painting mattie gormer--and the dick bellingers, and kate corby--well, every one you can think of who's jolly and makes arow.

now don't stand there with your nose in theair, my dear--it will be a good deal better than a broiling sunday in town, and you'llfind clever people as well as noisy ones-- morpeth, who admires mattie enormously,always brings one or two of his set." mrs. fisher drew lily toward the hansomwith friendly authority. "jump in now, there's a dear, and we'lldrive round to your hotel and have your things packed, and then we'll have tea, andthe two maids can meet us at the train." it was a good deal better than a broilingsunday in town--of that no doubt remained to lily as, reclining in the shade of aleafy verandah, she looked seaward across a stretch of greensward picturesquely dotted

with groups of ladies in lace raiment andmen in tennis flannels. the huge van alstyne house and its ramblingdependencies were packed to their fullest capacity with the gormers' week-end guests,who now, in the radiance of the sunday forenoon, were dispersing themselves over the grounds in quest of the variousdistractions the place afforded: distractions ranging from tennis-courts toshooting-galleries, from bridge and whiskey within doors to motors and steam-launcheswithout. lily had the odd sense of having beencaught up into the crowd as carelessly as a passenger is gathered in by an expresstrain.

the blonde and genial mrs. gormer might,indeed, have figured the conductor, calmly assigning seats to the rush of travellers,while carry fisher represented the porter pushing their bags into place, giving them their numbers for the dining-car, andwarning them when their station was at hand. the train, meanwhile, had scarcelyslackened speed--life whizzed on with a deafening' rattle and roar, in which onetraveller at least found a welcome refuge from the sound of her own thoughts. the gormer milieu represented a social out-skirt which lily had always fastidiously

avoided; but it struck her, now that shewas in it, as only a flamboyant copy of her own world, a caricature approximating the real thing as the "society play" approachesthe manners of the drawing-room. the people about her were doing the samethings as the trenors, the van osburghs and the dorsets: the difference lay in ahundred shades of aspect and manner, from the pattern of the men's waistcoats to theinflexion of the women's voices. everything was pitched in a higher key, andthere was more of each thing: more noise, more colour, more champagne, morefamiliarity--but also greater good-nature, less rivalry, and a fresher capacity forenjoyment.

miss bart's arrival had been welcomed withan uncritical friendliness that first irritated her pride and then brought her toa sharp sense of her own situation--of the place in life which, for the moment, shemust accept and make the best of. these people knew her story--of that herfirst long talk with carry fisher had left no doubt: she was publicly branded as theheroine of a "queer" episode--but instead of shrinking from her as her own friends had done, they received her withoutquestion into the easy promiscuity of their lives. they swallowed her past as easily as theydid miss anstell's, and with no apparent

sense of any difference in the size of themouthful: all they asked was that she should--in her own way, for they recognized a diversity of gifts--contribute as much tothe general amusement as that graceful actress, whose talents, when off the stage,were of the most varied order. lily felt at once that any tendency to be"stuck-up," to mark a sense of differences and distinctions, would be fatal to hercontinuance in the gormer set. to be taken in on such terms--and into sucha world!--was hard enough to the lingering pride in her; but she realized, with a pangof self-contempt, that to be excluded from it would, after all, be harder still.

for, almost at once, she had felt theinsidious charm of slipping back into a life where every material difficulty wassmoothed away. the sudden escape from a stifling hotel ina dusty deserted city to the space and luxury of a great country-house fanned bysea breezes, had produced a state of moral lassitude agreeable enough after the nervous tension and physical discomfort ofthe past weeks. for the moment she must yield to therefreshment her senses craved--after that she would reconsider her situation, andtake counsel with her dignity. her enjoyment of her surroundings was,indeed, tinged by the unpleasant

consideration that she was accepting thehospitality and courting the approval of people she had disdained under otherconditions. but she was growing less sensitive on suchpoints: a hard glaze of indifference was fast forming over her delicacies andsusceptibilities, and each concession to expediency hardened the surface a littlemore. on the monday, when the party disbandedwith uproarious adieux, the return to town threw into stronger relief the charms ofthe life she was leaving. the other guests were dispersing to take upthe same existence in a different setting: some at newport, some at bar harbour, somein the elaborate rusticity of an adirondack

camp. even gerty farish, who welcomed lily'sreturn with tender solicitude, would soon be preparing to join the aunt with whom shespent her summers on lake george: only lily herself remained without plan or purpose, stranded in a backwater of the greatcurrent of pleasure. but carry fisher, who had insisted ontransporting her to her own house, where she herself was to perch for a day or twoon the way to the brys' camp, came to the rescue with a new suggestion. "look here, lily--i'll tell you what it is:i want you to take my place with mattie

gormer this summer. they're taking a party out to alaska nextmonth in their private car, and mattie, who is the laziest woman alive, wants me to gowith them, and relieve her of the bother of arranging things; but the brys want me too- -oh, yes, we've made it up: didn't i tellyou?--and, to put it frankly, though i like the gormers best, there's more profit forme in the brys. the fact is, they want to try newport thissummer, and if i can make it a success for them they--well, they'll make it a successfor me." mrs. fisher clasped her handsenthusiastically.

"do you know, lily, the more i think of myidea the better i like it--quite as much for you as for myself. the gormers have both taken a tremendousfancy to you, and the trip to alaska is-- well--the very thing i should want for youjust at present." miss bart lifted her eyes with a keenglance. "to take me out of my friends' way, youmean?" she said quietly; and mrs. fisher responded with a deprecating kiss: "to keepyou out of their sight till they realize how much they miss you." miss bart went with the gormers to alaska;and the expedition, if it did not produce

the effect anticipated by her friend, hadat least the negative advantage of removing her from the fiery centre of criticism anddiscussion. gerty farish had opposed the plan with allthe energy of her somewhat inarticulate nature. she had even offered to give up her visitto lake george, and remain in town with miss bart, if the latter would renounce herjourney; but lily could disguise her real distaste for this plan under a sufficientlyvalid reason. "you dear innocent, don't you see," sheprotested, "that carry is quite right, and that i must take up my usual life, and goabout among people as much as possible?

if my old friends choose to believe liesabout me i shall have to make new ones, that's all; and you know beggars mustn't bechoosers. not that i don't like mattie gormer--i dolike her: she's kind and honest and unaffected; and don't you suppose i feelgrateful to her for making me welcome at a time when, as you've yourself seen, my own family have unanimously washed their handsof me?" gerty shook her head, mutely unconvinced. she felt not only that lily was cheapeningherself by making use of an intimacy she would never have cultivated from choice,but that, in drifting back now to her

former manner of life, she was forfeitingher last chance of ever escaping from it. gerty had but an obscure conception of whatlily's actual experience had been: but its consequences had established a lasting holdon her pity since the memorable night when she had offered up her own secret hope toher friend's extremity. to characters like gerty's such a sacrificeconstitutes a moral claim on the part of the person in whose behalf it has beenmade. having once helped lily, she must continueto help her; and helping her, must believe in her, because faith is the main-spring ofsuch natures. but even if miss bart, after her renewedtaste of the amenities of life, could have

returned to the barrenness of a new yorkaugust, mitigated only by poor gerty's presence, her worldly wisdom would have counselled her against such an act ofabnegation. she knew that carry fisher was right: thatan opportune absence might be the first step toward rehabilitation, and that, atany rate, to linger on in town out of season was a fatal admission of defeat. from the gormers' tumultuous progressacross their native continent, she returned with an altered view of her situation. the renewed habit of luxury--the dailywaking to an assured absence of care and

presence of material ease--graduallyblunted her appreciation of these values, and left her more conscious of the voidthey could not fill. mattie gormer's undiscriminating good-nature, and the slap-dash sociability of her friends, who treated lily precisely asthey treated each other--all these characteristic notes of difference began to wear upon her endurance; and the more shesaw to criticize in her companions, the less justification she found for making useof them. the longing to get back to her formersurroundings hardened to a fixed idea; but with the strengthening of her purpose camethe inevitable perception that, to attain

it, she must exact fresh concessions fromher pride. these, for the moment, took the unpleasantform of continuing to cling to her hosts after their return from alaska. little as she was in the key of theirmilieu, her immense social facility, her long habit of adapting herself to otherswithout suffering her own outline to be blurred, the skilled manipulation of all the polished implements of her craft, hadwon for her an important place in the gormer group. if their resonant hilarity could never behers, she contributed a note of easy

elegance more valuable to mattie gormerthan the louder passages of the band. sam gormer and his special cronies stoodindeed a little in awe of her; but mattie's following, headed by paul morpeth, made herfeel that they prized her for the very qualities they most conspicuously lacked. if morpeth, whose social indolence was asgreat as his artistic activity, had abandoned himself to the easy current ofthe gormer existence, where the minor exactions of politeness were unknown or ignored, and a man could either break hisengagements, or keep them in a painting- jacket and slippers, he still preserved hissense of differences, and his appreciation

of graces he had no time to cultivate. during the preparations for the brys'tableaux he had been immensely struck by lily's plastic possibilities--"not theface: too self-controlled for expression; but the rest of her--gad, what a model she'd make!"--and though his abhorrence ofthe world in which he had seen her was too great for him to think of seeking herthere, he was fully alive to the privilege of having her to look at and listen to while he lounged in mattie gormer'sdishevelled drawing-room. lily had thus formed, in the tumult of hersurroundings, a little nucleus of friendly

relations which mitigated the crudeness ofher course in lingering with the gormers after their return. nor was she without pale glimpses of herown world, especially since the breaking-up of the newport season had set the socialcurrent once more toward long island. kate corby, whose tastes made her aspromiscuous as carry fisher was rendered by her necessities, occasionally descended onthe gormers, where, after a first stare of surprise, she took lily's presence almosttoo much as a matter of course. mrs. fisher, too, appearing frequently inthe neighbourhood, drove over to impart her experiences and give lily what she calledthe latest report from the weather-bureau;

and the latter, who had never directly invited her confidence, could yet talk withher more freely than with gerty farish, in whose presence it was impossible even toadmit the existence of much that mrs. fisher conveniently took for granted. mrs. fisher, moreover, had no embarrassingcuriosity. she did not wish to probe the inwardness oflily's situation, but simply to view it from the outside, and draw her conclusionsaccordingly; and these conclusions, at the end of a confidential talk, she summed up to her friend in the succinct remark: "youmust marry as soon as you can."

lily uttered a faint laugh--for once mrs.fisher lacked originality. "do you mean, like gerty farish, torecommend the unfailing panacea of 'a good man's love'?" "no--i don't think either of my candidateswould answer to that description," said mrs. fisher after a pause of reflection."either? are there actually two?" "well, perhaps i ought to say one and ahalf--for the moment." miss bart received this with increasingamusement. "other things being equal, i think i shouldprefer a half-husband: who is he?"

"don't fly out at me till you hear myreasons--george dorset." "oh----" lily murmured reproachfully; butmrs. fisher pressed on unrebuffed. "well, why not? they had a few weeks' honeymoon when theyfirst got back from europe, but now things are going badly with them again. bertha has been behaving more than everlike a madwoman, and george's powers of credulity are very nearly exhausted.they're at their place here, you know, and i spent last sunday with them. it was a ghastly party--no one else butpoor neddy silverton, who looks like a

galley-slave (they used to talk of mymaking that poor boy unhappy!)--and after luncheon george carried me off on a long walk, and told me the end would have tocome soon." miss bart made an incredulous gesture. "as far as that goes, the end will nevercome--bertha will always know how to get him back when she wants him."mrs. fisher continued to observe her tentatively. "not if he has any one else to turn to!yes--that's just what it comes to: the poor creature can't stand alone.and i remember him such a good fellow, full

of life and enthusiasm." she paused, and went on, dropping herglance from lily's: "he wouldn't stay with her ten minutes if he knew----""knew----?" miss bart repeated. "what you must, for instance--with theopportunities you've had! if he had positive proof, i mean----"lily interrupted her with a deep blush of displeasure. "please let us drop the subject, carry:it's too odious to me." and to divert her companion's attention sheadded, with an attempt at lightness: "and

your second candidate? we must not forget him."mrs. fisher echoed her laugh. "i wonder if you'll cry out just as loud ifi say--sim rosedale?" miss bart did not cry out: she sat silent,gazing thoughtfully at her friend. the suggestion, in truth, gave expressionto a possibility which, in the last weeks, had more than once recurred to her; butafter a moment she said carelessly: "mr. rosedale wants a wife who can establish him in the bosom of the van osburghs andtrenors." mrs. fisher caught her up eagerly."and so you could--with his money!

don't you see how beautifully it would workout for you both?" "i don't see any way of making him see it,"lily returned, with a laugh intended to dismiss the subject. but in reality it lingered with her longafter mrs. fisher had taken leave. she had seen very little of rosedale sinceher annexation by the gormers, for he was still steadily bent on penetrating to theinner paradise from which she was now excluded; but once or twice, when nothing better offered, he had turned up for asunday, and on these occasions he had left her in no doubt as to his view of hersituation.

that he still admired her was, more thanever, offensively evident; for in the gormer circle, where he expanded as in hisnative element, there were no puzzling conventions to check the full expression ofhis approval. but it was in the quality of his admirationthat she read his shrewd estimate of her case. he enjoyed letting the gormers see that hehad known "miss lily"--she was "miss lily" to him now--before they had had thefaintest social existence: enjoyed more especially impressing paul morpeth with the distance to which their intimacy datedback.

but he let it be felt that that intimacywas a mere ripple on the surface of a rushing social current, the kind ofrelaxation which a man of large interests and manifold preoccupations permits himselfin his hours of ease. the necessity of accepting this view oftheir past relation, and of meeting it in the key of pleasantry prevalent among hernew friends, was deeply humiliating to lily. but she dared less than ever to quarrelwith rosedale. she suspected that her rejection rankledamong the most unforgettable of his rebuffs, and the fact that he knewsomething of her wretched transaction with

trenor, and was sure to put the basest construction on it, seemed to place herhopelessly in his power. yet at carry fisher's suggestion a new hopehad stirred in her. much as she disliked rosedale, she nolonger absolutely despised him. for he was gradually attaining his objectin life, and that, to lily, was always less despicable than to miss it. with the slow unalterable persistency whichshe had always felt in him, he was making his way through the dense mass of socialantagonisms. already his wealth, and the masterly use hehad made of it, were giving him an enviable

prominence in the world of affairs, andplacing wall street under obligations which only fifth avenue could repay. in response to these claims, his name beganto figure on municipal committees and charitable boards; he appeared at banquetsto distinguished strangers, and his candidacy at one of the fashionable clubswas discussed with diminishing opposition. he had figured once or twice at the trenordinners, and had learned to speak with just the right note of disdain of the big vanosburgh crushes; and all he now needed was a wife whose affiliations would shorten thelast tedious steps of his ascent. it was with that object that, a yearearlier, he had fixed his affections on

miss bart; but in the interval he hadmounted nearer to the goal, while she had lost the power to abbreviate the remainingsteps of the way. all this she saw with the clearness ofvision that came to her in moments of despondency. it was success that dazzled her--she coulddistinguish facts plainly enough in the twilight of failure. and the twilight, as she now sought topierce it, was gradually lighted by a faint spark of reassurance. under the utilitarian motive of rosedale'swooing she had felt, clearly enough, the

heat of personal inclination. she would not have detested him so heartilyhad she not known that he dared to admire her. what, then, if the passion persisted,though the other motive had ceased to sustain it? she had never even tried to please him--hehad been drawn to her in spite of her manifest disdain. what if she now chose to exert the powerwhich, even in its passive state, he had felt so strongly?

what if she made him marry her for love,now that he had no other reason for marrying her?

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