 Book 2 Chapter 9 of The House of Merth by Edith Wharton. When Lily woke on the morning after her translation to the Emporium Hotel, her first failing was one of purely physical satisfaction. The force of contrast gave an added keenness to the luxury of lying once more in a soft pillowed bed and looking across a spacious sunlit room at a breakfast table set invitingly near the fire. Analysis and introspection might come later, but for the moment she was not even troubled by the excesses of the upholstery or the restless convolutions of the furniture. The sense of being once more lapped and folded in ease as in some dense mild medium impenetrable to discomfort, effectually stilled the faintest note of criticism. When the afternoon before she had presented herself to the lady to whom Carrie Fisher had directed her, she had been conscious of entering a new world. Carrie's vague presentment of Mrs. Norma Hatch, whose reversion to her Christian name was explained as a result of her latest divorce, left her under the implication of coming from the West, with the not unusual extenuation of having brought a great deal of money with her. She was, in short, rich, helpless, unplaced, the very subject for Lily's hand. Mrs. Fisher had not specified the line her friend was to take. She owned herself unacquainted with Mrs. Hatch, whom she knew about through Melville Stancy, a lawyer in his leisure moments, and the false staff of a certain section of festive club life. Socially Mr. Stancy might have been said to form a connecting link between the gormer world and the more dimly-lit region on which Ms. Bart now found herself entering. It was, however, only figuratively that the illumination of Mrs. Hatch's world could be described as dim. In actual fact Lily found her seated in a blaze of electric light impartially projected from various ornamental excrescences on a vast concavity of pink damask and gilding, from which she rose like Venus from her shell. The analogy was justified by the appearance of the lady whose large-eyed prettiness had the fixity of something impaled and shown under glass. This did not preclude the immediate discovery that she was some years younger than her visitor, and that, under her showiness, her ease, the aggression of her dress and voice there persisted that ineradicable innocence which, in ladies of her nationality, so curiously coexists with startling extremes of experience. The environment in which Lily found herself was as strange to her as its inhabitants. She was unequainted with the world of the fashionable New York hotel, a world overheated, over-upholstered, and overfitted with mechanical appliances for the gratification of fantastic requirements, while the comforts of a civilized life were as unattainable as in a desert. Through this atmosphere of hoards splendor moved one being as richly upholstered as the furniture, beings without definite pursuits or permanent relations, who drifted on a languid tide of curiosity from restaurant to concert hall, from palm garden to music room, from art exhibit to dressmaker's opening. High-stepping horses, or elaborately equipped motors, waited to carry these ladies into vague metropolitan distances, once they returned, still more one from the weight of their sables, to be sucked back into the stifling inertia of the hotel routine. Somewhere behind them, in the background of their lives, there was doubtless a real past, people by real human activities. They themselves were probably the product of strong ambitions, persistent energies, diversified contacts with a wholesome roughness of life, yet they had no more real existence than the poets Shades and Limbo. Lily had not been long in this pallid world without discovering that Mrs. Hatch was its most substantial figure. That lady, though still floating in the void, showed faint symptoms of developing an outline, and in this endeavor she was actively second by Mr. Melville Stancy. It was Mr. Stancy, a man of large resounding presence, suggested of convivial occasions, and of a chevrolet finding expression in first night boxes, and thousand-dollar bonbon years, who had transplanted Mrs. Hatch from the scene of her first development to the higher stage of hotel life in a metropolis. It was he who had selected the horses with which she had taken the blue ribbon at the show, had introduced her to the photographer, whose portraits of her formed the recurring ornament of Sunday supplements, and had got together the group which constituted her social world. It was a small group, still, with heterogeneous figures suspended in large unpeopled spaces, but Lily did not take long to learn that its regulation was no longer in Mr. Stancy's hands. As often happens, the pupil had outstripped the teacher, and Mrs. Hatch was already aware of heights of elegance as well as depths of luxury beyond the world of the emporium. This discovery had once produced in her a craving for higher guidance for the adroit feminine hand, which should give the right turn to her correspondence, the right look to her hats, the right succession to the items in her menus. It was, in short, as the regulator of a germinating social life that Miss Bart's guidance was required. Her ostensible duties as secretary being restricted by the fact that Mrs. Hatch, as yet, knew hardly anyone to write to. The daily details of Mrs. Hatch's existence were as strange to Lily as its general tenor. The lady's habits were marked by an oriental indolence and disorder, peculiarly, trying to her companion. Mrs. Hatch and her friends seemed to float together outside the bounds of time and space. No definite hours were kept. No fixed obligations existed. Night and day flowed into one another in a blur of confused and retarded engagements, so that one had the impression of lunching at the tea-hour, while dinner was often merged in the noisy, after-theatres supper which prolonged Mrs. Hatch's vigil till daylight. Through this jumble of futile activities came and went a strange throng of hangers on, manicures, beauty doctors, hairdressers, a bridge of French of physical development, figures sometimes indistinguishable by their appearance or by Mrs. Hatch's relation to them from the visitors constituting her recognized society. The strangest of all to Lily was the encounter in this latter group of several of her acquaintances. She had supposed, and not without relief, that she was passing for the moment completely out of her own circle, but she found that Mr. Stancy, one side of whose sprawling existence overlapped the edge of Mrs. Fisher's world, had drawn several of its brightest ornaments into the circle of the Emporium. To find Ned Silverton among the habitual frequenters of Mrs. Hatch's drawing-room was one of Lily's first astonishments, but she soon discovered that he was not Mr. Stancy's most important recruit. It was on Little Freddy Van Osberg, the small, slim era of the Van Osberg Millions, that the attention of Mrs. Hatch's group was centered. Freddy, barely out of college, had risen above the horizon since Lily's eclipse, and she now saw with surprise what an effulgence he shed on the outer twilight of Mrs. Hatch's existence. This, then, was one of the things that young men went in for when released from the official social routine. This was the kind of previous engagement that so frequently caused them to disappoint the hopes of anxious hostesses. Lily had an odd sense of being behind the social tapestry on the side where the threads were knotted and the loose ends hung. For a moment she found a certain amusement in the show and in her own share of it. The situation had an ease and unconventionality distinctly refreshing after her experience of the irony of conventions. But these flashes of amusement were but brief reactions from the long disgust of her days. Compared with the vast gilded void of Mrs. Hatch's existence, the life of Lily's former friends seemed packed with ordered activities. Even the most irresponsible pretty woman of her acquaintance had her inherited obligations, her conventional benevolences, her share in the working of the great machine, and all hung together in the solidarity of these traditional functions. The performance of specific duties would have simplified Miss Bart's position, but the vague attendance on Mrs. Hatch was not without its perplexities. It was not her employer who created these perplexities. Mrs. Hatch showed from the first an almost touching desire for Lily's approval. Far from asserting the superiority of wealth, her beautiful eyes seemed to urge the plea of inexperience. She wanted to do what was nice, to be taught how to be lovely. The difficulty was to find any point of contact between her ideals and Lily's. Mrs. Hatch swam in a haze of indeterminate enthousiasms, of aspirations culled from the stage, the newspapers, the fashion journals, and a gaudy world of sport still more completely beyond her companions can. To separate from these confused conceptions, those most likely to advance the Lady on her way was Lily's obvious duty, but its performance was hampered by rapidly growing doubts. Lily was, in fact, becoming more and more aware of a certain ambiguity in her situation. It was not that she had, in the conventional sense, any doubt of Mrs. Hatch's irreproachableness. The Lady's offenses were always against taste rather than conduct. Her divorce records seemed due to geographical rather than ethical conditions, and her worst laxities were likely to proceed from a wandering and extravagant good-nature. But if Lily did not mind her detaining her manicure for luncheon, or offering the beauty doctor a seat in Freddie Van Osberg's box at the play, she was not equally at ease in regard to some less apparent lapses from convention. Ned Silverton's relation to Stancy seemed, for instance, closer and less clear than any natural affinities would warrant, and both appeared united in the effort to cultivate Freddie Van Osberg's growing taste for Mrs. Hatch. There was as yet nothing definable in the situation, which might well resolve itself into a huge joke on the part of the other two. But Lily had a vague sense that the subject of their experiment was too young, too rich, and too credulous. Her embarrassment was increased by the fact that Freddie seemed to regard her as cooperating with himself in the social development of Mrs. Hatch, a view that suggested, on his part, a permanent interest in the lady's future. There were moments when Lily found an ironic amusement in this aspect of the case. The thought of launching such a missile as Mrs. Hatch at the perfidious bosom of society was not without its charm. Mrs. Bart had even beguiled her leisure with visions of the fair Norma introduced for the first time to a family banquet at the Van Osberg's. But the thought of being personally connected with the transaction was less agreeable, and her momentary flashes of amusement were followed by increasing periods of doubt. The sense of these doubts was uppermost when, late one afternoon, she was surprised by a visit from Lawrence Selden. She found her alone in the wilderness of Pink Damask, for in Mrs. Hatch's world the tea-hour was not dedicated to social rights, and the lady was in the hands of her masseuse. Selden's entrance had caused Lily an inward start of embarrassment, but his air of constraint had the effect of restoring her self-possession, and she took at once the tone of surprise and pleasure, wondering frankly that he should have traced her to so unlikely a place, asking what had inspired him to make the search. Selden met this with an unusual seriousness. She had never seen him so little master of the situation, so plainly at the mercy of any obstructions she might put in his way. I wanted to see you, he said, and she could not resist observing and reply that he had kept his wishes under remarkable control. She had in truth felt his long absence as one of the chief better-nesses of the last months. His desertion had wounded sensibilities far below the surface of her pride. Selden met the challenge with directness. Why should I have come, unless I thought I could be of use to you? It is my only excuse for imagining you could want me. This struck her as a clumsy evasion, and the thought gave a flash of keenness to her answer. When you have come now because you think you can be of use to me?" He hesitated again. Yes, in the modest capacity of a person to talk things over with. For a clever man it was certainly a stupid beginning, and the idea that his awkwardness was due to the fear of her attaching a personal significance to his visit chilled her pleasure in seeing him. Even under the most adverse conditions that pleasure always made itself felt. I hate him, but she had never been able to wish him out of the room. She was very nearer hating him now, yet the sound of his voice, the way the light fell on his then dark hair, the way he sat and moved and wore his clothes, she was conscious that even these trivial things were enwoven with her deepest life. In his presence a sudden stillness came upon her and the turmoil of her spirit seized, but an impulse of resistance to this dealing influence now prompted her to say, It's very good of you to present yourself in that capacity, but what makes you think I have anything particular to talk about? Though she had kept the even tone of light intercourse, the question was frammed in a way to remind him that his good offices were unsought, and for a moment Seldon was checked by it. The situation between them was one which could have been cleared up only by a sudden explosion of feeling, and their whole training and habit of mind were against the chances of such an explosion. Seldon's calmness seemed rather to harden into resistance and misparts into a surface of littering irony, as they faced each other from the opposite corners of one of Mrs. Hatch's aliphantine sofas. The sofa in question, and the apartment peopled by its monstrous mates, served at length to suggest the turn of Seldon's reply. Gertie told me that you were acting as Mrs. Hatch's secretary, and I knew she was anxious to hear how you were getting on. Miss Bart received the explanation without perceptible softening. Why didn't she look me up herself, then? she asked, because as you didn't send her at your address she was afraid of being important. Seldon continued with a smile. You see, no such scruples restrained me, but then I haven't as much to rest if I incur your displeasure. Lily answered his smile. You haven't incurred it as yet, but I have an idea that you are going to. That rest with you, doesn't it? You see, my initiative doesn't go beyond putting myself at your disposal. But in what capacity? What am I to do with you? she asked, the same light tone. Seldon again glanced about Mrs. Hatch's drawing-room. Then he said, with the decision which he seemed to have gathered from his final inspection, you are to let me take you away from here. Lily flushed at the suddenness of the attack. Then she stiffened under it, and said coldly, And may I ask where you mean to go? Back to Gertie in the first place, if you will. The essential thing is that it should be away from here. The unusual harshness of his tone might have shown her how much the words cost him, but she was in no state to measure his feelings, while her own were in a flame of revolt. To neglect her, perhaps, even to avoid her at a time when she had most need of her friends, and then suddenly and unwarrantably to break into her life with the strange assumption of authority, was to rouse in her every instinct of pride and self-defense. I am very much obliged to you, she said, for taking such an interest in my plans, but I am quite contented where I am, and have no intention of leaving." Selden had risen, and was standing before her in an attitude of uncontrollable expectancy. That simply means that you don't know where you are, he exclaimed. Lily rose also with a quick flash of anger. If you have come here to say disagreeable things about Mrs. Hatch. It is only with your relation to Mrs. Hatch that I am concerned. My relation to Mrs. Hatch is one I have no reason to be ashamed of. She has helped me to earn a living, when my own friends were quite resigned to seeing me starve. Nonsense! Starvation is not the only alternative. You know you can always find a home with Gertie, till you are independent again. You show such an intimate acquaintance with my affairs that I suppose you mean till my aunt's legacy is paid. I do mean that, Gertie told me of it. Selden acknowledged without embarrassment. It was too much an earnest now to feel any false constraint in speaking his mind. But Gertie does not happen to know, Miss Bart rejoined, that I owe every penny of that legacy. Could God! Selden exclaimed, startled out of his composure by the abruptness of the statement. Every penny of it, and more too, Lily repeated, and you now perhaps see why I prefer to remain with Mrs. Hatch rather than take advantage of Gertie's kindness. I have no money left except my small income, and I must earn something more to keep myself alive. Selden hesitated a moment. Then he rejoined and acquired her tone. But with your income and Gertie's, since you allow me to go so far into the details of the situation, you and she could surely contrive a life together, which would put you beyond the need of having to support yourself, Gertie, I know, is eager to make such an arrangement, and would be quite happy in it. But I should not, Miss Bart interpose. There are many reasons why it would be neither kind to Gertie, nor wise for myself. She paused a moment, and as he seemed to await a farther explanation added with a quick lift of her head. You will perhaps excuse me from giving you these reasons. I have no claim to know them, Selden answered, ignoring her tone, no claim to offer any comment or suggestion beyond the one I have already made, and my right to make that is simply the universal right of a man to enlighten a woman when he sees her unconsciously placed in a false position. Lily smiled. I suppose, she rejoined, that by a false position you mean one outside of what we call society. But you must remember that I had been excluded from those sacred precincts long before I met Mrs. Hatch. As far as I can see there is very little real difference in being inside or out, and I remember your once telling me that it was only those inside who took the difference seriously. She had not been without intention in making this illusion to their memorable talk at Bellamont, and she waited with an odd trimmer of the nerves to see what response it would bring. But the result of the experiment was disappointing. Selden did not allow the illusion to deflect him from his point. He merely said with completer fullness of emphasis. The question of being inside or out is, as you say, a small one, and it happens to have nothing to do with the case, except in so far as Mrs. Hatch's desire to be inside may put you in the position I call false. In spite of the moderation of his tone, each word he spoke had the effect of confirming Lily's resistance. The very apprehensions he aroused hardened her against him. She had been on the alert for the note of personal sympathy for any sign of her covered power over him, and his attitude of sober impartiality, the absence of all response to her appeal, turned her hurt-pride to blind resentment of his interference, the conviction that he had been sent by Gertie, and that whatever strates he conceived her to be in, he would never voluntarily have come to her aid, strengthened her resolve not to admit him a hair's breadth farther into her confidence. However doubtful she might feel her situation to be, she would rather persist in darkness than owe her enlightenment to Zeldin. I don't know, she said, when he had ceased to speak. Why you imagine me to be situated as you describe, but as you have always told me, that the sole object of a bringing up like mine was to teach a girl to get what she wants, why not assume that that is precisely what I am doing? The smile with which she summed up her case was like a clear barrier raised against farther confidences. His brightness held him at such a distance that he had a sense of being almost out of hearing as he rejoined. I am not sure that I have ever called you a successful example of that kind of bringing up. Her color rose a little at the implication, but she stilled herself with a light laugh. Ah! Wait a little longer. Give me a little more time before you decide. And as he wavered before her, still watching for a break in the impenetrable front she presented, don't give me up. I may still do credit to my training, she affirmed. End of Book Two, Chapter Nine. Book Two, Chapter Ten of The House of Merth by Edith Wharton. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Reading by Bologna Times. Look at those spangles, Miss Bart. Every one of them sewed on crooked. The tall forewoman, a pinched, perpendicular figure, dropped the condemned structure of wire and net on the table at Lily's side and passed on to the next figure and the line. There were twenty of them in the work-room. Their fagged profiles under exaggerated hair bowed in the harsh north light above the utensils of their art, for it was something more than an industry, surely this creation of ever-varied settings for the face of fortunate womanhood. Their own faces were sallow with the unwholesomeness of hot air and sedentary toil, rather than with any actual signs of want. They were employed in a fashionable millinery establishment, and were fairly well clothed and well paid, but the youngest among them was as dull and colorless as the middle-aged. In the whole work-room there was only one skin beneath which the blood still visibly played, and that now burned with vexation as mispart under the lash of the forewoman's comment began to strip the hat-frame of its overlapping spangles. To Gertie Farrish's hopeful spirit a solution appeared to have been reached when she remembered how beautifully Lily could trim hats. Instances of young lady milliners, establishing themselves under fashionable patronage and imparting to their creations that indefinable touch which the professional hand can never give, it flattered Gertie's visions of the future, and convinced even Lily that her separation from Mrs. Norma Hatch need not reduce her to dependence on her friends. The parting had occurred a few weeks after Seldon's visit, and would have taken place sooner had it not been for the resistance set up in Lily by his ill-starred offer of advice. The sense of being involved in a transaction she would not have cared to examine too closely had soon afterward defined itself in the light of a hint from Mr. Stancy that, if she saw them through, she would have known reason to be sorry. The implication that such loyalty would meet with a direct reward had hastened her flight and flung her back, ashamed and penitent, on the broad bosom of Gertie's sympathy. She did not, however, propose to lie there, prone, and Gertie's inspiration about the hats at once revived her hopes of profitable activity. There was, after all, something that her charming, listless hands could really do. She had no doubt of their capacity for knotting a ribbon or placing a flower to advantage. And of course, only these finishing touches would be expected of her. Subordinate fingers, blunt, gray, needle-pricked fingers would prepare the shapes and stitch the linings, while she presided over the charming little front's shop, a shop all white panels, mirrors, and moss-green hangings, where her finished creations, hats, wreaths, agrets, and the rest perched on their stands like birds just poising for flight. But at the very outset of Gertie's campaign this vision of the green and white shop had been dispelled. Other young ladies of fashion had been thus set up, selling their hats by the mere attraction of a name and the reputed knack of tying a bow. But these privileged beings couldn't command a faith in their powers materially expressed by the readiness to pay their shop rent and advance a handsome sum for current expenses. Where was Lily to find such support? And even could it have been found how were the ladies on whose approval she depended to be induced to give her their patronage? Gertie learned that whatever sympathy her friend's case might have excited a few months since had been imperiled, if not lost, by her association with Mrs. Hatch. Once again Lily had withdrawn from an ambiguous situation in time to save her self-respect, but too late for public vindication. Freddie Van Osberg was not to marry Mrs. Hatch. He had been rescued at the eleventh hour, some said by the efforts of Gus Traynor and Rosdale, and dispatched to Europe with old Ned Van Allstein. But the risk he had run would always be ascribed to Miss Bart's connivance, and would somehow serve as a summing up and corroboration of the vague general distrust of her. It was a relief to those who had hung back from her to find themselves thus justified, and they were inclined to insist a little on her connection with the Hatch case in order to show that they had been right. This quest, at any rate, brought up against a solid wall of resistance, and even when Carrie Fisher, momentarily penitent for her share in the Hatch affair, joined her efforts to misfarrishes, they met with no better success. Gertie had tried to veil her failure in tender ambiguities, but Carrie, always the soul of Candor, put the case squarely to her friend. I went straight to Judy Traynor. She has fewer prejudices than the others, and besides, she's always hated Bertha Dorsett. But what have you done to her, Lily? At the very first word about giving you a start, she flamed out about some money you'd got from Gus. I never knew her so hot before. You know she'll let him do anything but spend money on his friends. The only reason she's decent to me now is that she knows I'm not hard up. He speculated for you, you say. Well, what's the harm? He had no business to lose. He didn't lose. Then what on earth? But I never could understand you, Lily. The end of it was that, after anxious enquiry, and much deliberation, Mrs. Fisher and Gertie, for once oddly united in their effort to help their friend, decided on placing her in the workroom of Madame Regina's renowned millenary establishment. Even this arrangement was not effected without considerable negotiation, for Madame Regina had a strong prejudice against untrained assistance, and was induced to yield only by the fact that she owed the patronage of Mrs. Brie and Mrs. Gormer to Carrie Fisher's influence. She had been willing from the first to employ Lily in the showroom as a displayer of hats, a fashionable beauty might be a valuable asset. But to this suggestion Miss Bart opposed a negative, which Gertie emphatically supported, while Mrs. Fisher, inwardly unconvinced, but resigned to this latest proof of Lily's unreason, agreed that perhaps in the end it would be more useful that she should learn the trade. To Regina's workroom Lily was therefore committed by her friends, and there Mrs. Fisher left her with a sigh of relief, while Gertie's watchfulness continued to hover over her at a distance. Lily had taken up her work early in January. It was now two months later, and she was still being rebuked for her inability to sew spangles on a hat frame. As she returned to her work she heard a titter pass down the tables. She knew she was an object of criticism and amusement to the other workwoman. They were, of course, aware of her history. The exact situation of every girl in the room was known and freely discussed by all the others, but the knowledge did not produce in them any awkward sense of class distinction. Lily had merely explained why her untutored fingers were still blundering over the rudiments of the trade. Lily had no desire that they should recognize any social difference in her, but she had hoped to be received as their equal, and perhaps before long to show herself their superior by a special deafness of touch, and it was humiliating to find that, after two months of drudgery she still betrayed her lack of early training. Remote was the day when she might aspire to exercise the talents she felt confident of possessing. Only experienced workers were entrusted with the delicate art of shaping and trimming the hat, and the forewoman still held her inexorably to the routine of preparatory work. She began to rip the spangles from the frame, listening absently to the buzz-talk which rose and fell with the coming and going of Miss Haynes's active figure. The air was closer than usual, because Miss Haynes, who had a cold, had not allowed a window to be opened even during the noon recess, and Lily's head was so heavy with the weight of a sleepless night that the chatter of her companions had the incoherence of a dream. I told her he'd never look at her again, and he didn't. I wouldn't have, either. I think she acted real mean to him. He took her to the Aryan ball, and had a hack for her both ways. She's taken ten bottles, and her headaches don't seem no better. But she's written a testimonial to say the first bottle cured her, and she got five dollars in her picture in the paper. Mrs. Traynor's hat, the one with the green paradise? Here, Miss Haynes, it'll be ready right off. That was one of the Traynor girls here yesterday, with Mrs. George Dorsett. How'd I know why Madam sent for me to alter the flower in that Vero hat, the blue tulle? She's tall and slight, with her hair fuzzed out. A good deal like Mamie Leitch, only thinner. On and on it flowed, a current of meaningless sound, on which, startling enough, a familiar name now and then floated to the surface. It was the strangest part of Lily's strange experience, the hearing of these names, the saying the fragmentary and distorted image of the world she had lived in reflected in the mirror of the working girl's minds. She had never before suspected the mixture of insatiable curiosity and contemptuous freedom with which she and her kind were discussed in this underworld of toilers who lived on their vanity and self-indulgence. Every girl in Madam Regina's workroom knew to whom the headgear in her hands was destined, and had her opinion of his future wearer and a definite knowledge of the latter's place in the social system. That Lily was a star fallen from that sky, did not, after the first stir of curiosity had subsided, materially add to their interest in her. She had fallen, she had gone under, and true to the ideal of their race, they were odd only by success, by the gross, tangible image of material achievement. The consciousness of her different point of view merely kept them at a little distance from her, as though she were a foreigner with whom it was an effort to talk. Miss Bart, if you can't sew those spangles on more regular, I guess you better give the hat to Miss Kail Roy. Lily looked down rulefully at her handiwork. The forewoman was right. The sewing on of the spangles was inexcusably bad. What made her so much more clumsy than usual? Was it a growing distance for her task, or actual physical disability? She felt tired and confused. It was an effort to put her thoughts together. She rose and handed the hat to Miss Kail Roy, who took it with a suppressed smile. I'm sorry, I'm afraid I am not well, she said to the forewoman. Miss Haines offered no comment. From the first she had augured ill of Madame Regina's consenting to include a fashionable apprentice among her workers. In that temple of art no raw beginners were wanted, and Miss Haines would have been more than human had she not taken a certain pleasure in seeing her forebodings confirmed. You better go back to binding edges, she said dryly. Lily slipped out last among the band of liberated workwomen. She did not care to be mingled in their noisy dispersal. Once in the street she always felt an irresistible return to her old standpoint, an instinctive shrinking from all that was unpolished and promiscuous. In the days, how distant they now seemed, when she had visited the girls' club with Gordie Farrish, she had felt an enlightened interest in the working classes, but that was because she looked down on them from above, from the happy altitude of her grace and her beneficence. Now that she was on a level with them, the point of view was less interesting. She felt a touch on her arm and met the penitent eye of Miss Kail Roy. Miss Bart, I guess you can sew those spangles on as well as I can when you're feeling right. Miss Haines didn't outfair to you. Lily's color rose at the unexpected advance. It was a long time since real kindness had looked at her from any eyes but Gordie's. Oh, thank you. I'm not particularly well. But Miss Haines was right. I am clumsy. Well, it's mean work for anybody with a headache. Miss Kail Roy paused resolutely. You want to go right home and lay down. Ever try, Orangine? Thank you. Lily held out her hand. It's very kind of you. I mean to go home. She looked gratefully at Miss Kail Roy, but neither knew what more to say. Lily was aware that the other was on the point of offering to go home with her, but she wanted to be alone and silent. Even kindness, the sort of kindness that Miss Kail Roy could give, would have jarred on her just then. Thank you," she repeated as she turned away. She struck westward through the dreary March twilight toward the street where her boarding-house stood. She had resolutely refused Gordie's offer of hospitality. Something of her mother's fierce shrinking from observation and sympathy was beginning to develop in her, and the promiscuity of small quarters and close intimacy seemed, on the whole, less endurable than the solitude of a hall-bedroom and a house where she could come and go unremarked among other workers. For a while she had been sustained by this desire for privacy and independence, but now, perhaps from increasing physical weariness, the lassitude brought about by hours of unwanted confinement. She was beginning to feel acutely the ugliness and discomfort of her surroundings. The day's task done she dreaded to return to her narrow room with its blotched wallpaper and shabby paint, and she hated every step of the walk, thither, through the degradation of a New York street and the last stages of decline from fashion to commerce. But what she dreaded most of all was having to pass the chemists at the corner of Sixth Avenue. She had meant to take another street. She had usually done so of late, but today her steps were irresistibly drawn toward the flaring plate-glass corner. She tried to take the lower crossing, but a laden drake crowded her back, and she struck across the street obliquely, reaching the sidewalk just opposite the chemist's door. Over the counter she caught the eye of the clerk, who had waited on her before, and slipped the prescription into his hand. There could be no question about the prescription. There was a copy of one of Mrs. Hatch's, a bludgingly furnished by that lady's chemist. Lely was confident that the clerk would fill it without hesitation, yet the nervous dread of a refusal, or even an expression of doubt, communicated itself to her restless hands as she affected to examine the bottles of perfume stacked on the glass case before her. The clerk had read the prescription without comment, but in the act of handing out the bottle he paused. "'You don't want to increase the dose,' he remarked. Lely's heart contracted. What did he mean by looking at her in that way?' "'Of course not,' she murmured, holding out her hand. "'That's all right. It's a queer-acting drug, a drop or two more, and off you go. The doctors don't know why.' The dread, lest he should question her, or keep the bottle back, put the murmur of acquiescence in her throat, and when at length she emerged safely from the shop she was almost dizzy with the intensity of her relief. The mere touch of the packet thrilled her tired nerves with a delicious promise of a night of sleep, and in the reaction from her momentary fear she felt as if the first fumes of drowsiness were already staling over her. In her confusion she stumbled against a man who was hurrying down the last steps of the elevated station. He drew back, and she heard her name uttered with surprise. It was Rosedale, fur-coated, glossy, and prosperous. But why did she seem to see him so far off, and as if through a mist of splintered crystals? Before she could account for the phenomenon she found herself shaking hands with him. They had parted with scorn on her side, and anger upon his, but all trace of these emotions seemed to vanish as their hands met, and she was only aware of a confused wish that she might continue to hold fast to him. Why, what's the matter, Miss Lily? You're not well?" He exclaimed, and she forced her lips into a pallid smile of reassurance. I'm a little tired. It's nothing. Stay with me a moment, please," she folded. That she should be asking the service of Rosedale. He glanced at the dirty and unpropitious corner on which they stood, with a shriek of the elevated and the tumult of trams and wagons contending hideously in their ears. We can't stay here, but let me take you somewhere for a cup of tea. The Longworth is only a few yards off, and there'll be no one there at this hour. A cup of tea, and quiet, somewhere out of the noise and ugliness, seemed for the moment the one solace she could bear. A few steps brought them to the lady's door of the hotel he had named, and a moment later he was seated opposite to her, and the waiter had placed the tea-trait between them. Not to drop a brandy or whiskey first? You look regularly done up, Miss Lily. Well, take your tea strong, then, and waiter, get a cushion for the lady's back. Lily smiled faintly at the injunction to take her tea strong. It was the temptation she was always struggling to resist. Her craving for the keen stimulant was forever conflicting with that other craving for sleep. The midnight craving, which only the little vial in her hand could still. But today, at any rate, the tea could hardly be too strong. She counted on it to pour warmth and resolution into her empty veins. As she leaned back before him, her lids drooping in utter lassitude, though the first warm drought already tinged her face with returning life, Rosedale was seized afresh by the poignant surprise of her beauty. The dark penciling of fatigue under her eyes, the morbid blue-veined pallor of the temples brought out the brightness of her hair and lips as though all her ebbing vitality were centered there. Against the dull, chocolate-colored background of the restaurant, the purity of her head stood out as it had never done in the most brightly lit ballroom. She looked at her with a startled, uncomfortable feeling, as though her beauty were a forgotten enemy that had lain in ambush and now sprang out on him unawares. To clear the air he tried to take an easy tone with her. Why, Miss Lily, I haven't seen you for an age. I didn't know what had become of you. As he spoke he was checked by an embarrassing sense of the complications to which this might lead. Though he had not seen her, he had heard of her. He knew of her connection with Mrs. Hatch, and of the talk resulting from it. Mrs. Hatch's milieu was one which he had once assiduously frequented, and now as devoutly shunned. Lily, to whom the tea had restored her usual clearness of mind, saw what was in his thoughts and said with a slight smile. You would not be likely to know about me. I have joined the working classes." He stared, and genuine wonder. You don't mean—why, what on earth are you doing? Learning to be a milliner, at least trying to learn, she hastily qualified the statement. Rosdell suppressed a low whistle, a surprise. Come off! You ain't serious, are you? Perfectly serious. I'm obliged to work for my living. But I understood. I thought you were with Norma Hatch. You heard I had gone to her as her secretary? Something of the kind, I believe. He leaned forward to refill her cup. Lily guessed the possibilities of embarrassment, which the topic held for him, and raising her eyes to him, she said suddenly, I left her two months ago. Rosdell continued to fumble awkwardly with the teapot, and she felt sure that he had heard what had been said of her. But what was there that Rosdell did not hear? Wasn't it a soft berth? He inquired, with an attempt at lightness. Too soft! One might have sunk in too deep. Lily rested one arm on the edge of the table, and sat looking at him more intently than she had ever looked before. An uncontrollable impulse was urging her to put her case to this man, from whose curiosity she had always so fiercely defended herself. You know Mrs. Hatch, I think, while perhaps you can understand that she might make things too easy for one. Rosdell looked faintly puzzled, and she remembered that elusiveness was lost on him. It was no place for you anyhow, he agreed, so suffused and immersed in the light of her full gaze that he found himself being drawn into strange depths of intimacy. He who had had to subsist on mere fugitive glances, looks winged in flight and swiftly lost under covert, now found her eyes settling on him with a brooding intensity that fairly dazzled him. I left, Lily continued, lest people should say I was hoping Mrs. Hatch to marry Freddie Van Osberg, who is not in the least too good for her. And as they still continue to say it, I see that I might as well have stayed where I was. Oh, Freddie! Rosdell brushed aside the topic with an air of its unimportance, which gave a sense of the immense perspective he had acquired. Freddie don't count, but I knew you weren't mixed up in that. It ain't your style. Lily colored slightly. She could not conceal from herself that the words gave her pleasure. She would have liked to sit there, drinking more tea, and continuing to talk of herself to Rosdell, but the old habit of observing the conventions reminded her that it was time to bring their colloquy to an end, and she made a faint motion to push back her chair. Rosdell stopped her with protesting gesture. Wait a minute, don't go yet. Sit quite and rest a little longer. You look thoroughly played out, and you haven't told me. You broke off, conscious of going farther than he had meant. She saw the struggle, and understood it. Understood also the nature of the spell to which he yielded, as, with his eyes on her face, he began, again, abruptly. What on earth did you mean by saying just now that you were learning to be a milliner? Just what I said, I am an apprentice at Regina's. Good Lord, you? But what for? I know your aunt had turned you down. Mrs. Fisher told me about it. I understood you got a legacy from her. I got ten thousand dollars, but the legacy is not to be paid till next summer. Well, but look here, you could borrow on it any time you wanted. She shook her head gravely. No, for I owe it already. O' it, the whole ten thousand? Every penny she paused, and then continued abruptly, with her eyes on his face. I think Gus Trainor spoke to you once about having made some money for me in stunts. She waited, and Rosedale, congested with embarrassment, muttered that he remembered something of the kind. He made about nine thousand dollars, Lily pursued, in the same tone of eager communicativeness. At the time I understood that he was speculating with my own money. It was incredibly stupid of me, but I knew nothing of business. Afterward I found out that he had not used my money, that what he said he had made for me he had really given me. It was meant in kindness, of course, but it was not the sort of obligation one could remain under. Unfortunately I had spent the money before I discovered my mistake, and so my legacy will have to go to pay it back. That is the reason why I am trying to learn a trade. She made the statement deliberately, with pauses between the sentences, so that each should have time to sink deeply into her error's mind. She had a passionate desire that someone should know the truth about this transaction, and also that the rumor of her intention to repay the money should reach Judy Trainor's ears. It had suddenly occurred to her that Rosedale, who had surprised Trainor's confidence, was the fitting person to receive and transmit her version of the facts. She had even felt a momentary exhilaration at the thought of thus relieving herself of her detested secret, but the sensation gradually faded in the telling, and as she ended her pallor was suffused with a deep blush of misery. Rosedale continued to stare at her and wonder, but the wonder took the turn she had least expected. But see here, if that's the case, it cleans you out altogether. He put it to her as if she had not grasped the consequences of her act, as if her incorrigible ignorance of business were about to precipitate her into a fresh act of falling. Altogether, yes, she calmly agreed. He sat silent, his thick hands clasped on the table, his little puzzled eyes exploring the recesses of the deserted restaurant. See here, that's fine, he exclaimed abruptly. Lily rose from her seat with a deprecating laugh. Oh, no, it's merely a bore, she asserted, gathering together the ends of her feather-scarf. Rosedale remained seated, too intent on his thoughts to notice her movement. Miss Lily, if you want any backing, I like pluck, broke from him disconnectedly. Thank you, she held out her hand. Your tea has given me a tremendous backing. I feel equal to anything now. Her gesture seemed to show a definite intention of dismissal, but her companion had tossed the bill to the waiter, and was slipping his short arms into his expensive overcoat. Wait a minute. You've got to let me walk home with you, he said. Lily uttered no protest, and when he had paused to make sure of his change, they emerged from the hotel and crossed Sixth Avenue again. As she led the way westward, passed a long line of areas which, through the distortion of their painless rails, revealed with increasing candor the disjecta-membre of bygone dinners. Lily felt that Rosedale was taking contemptuous note of the neighborhood, and before the doorstep, at which she finally paused, he looked up with an air of incredulous disgust. This isn't the place. Someone told me you were living with Miss Farish. No, I am boarding here. I have lived too long on my friends. He continued to scan the blistered brown stone front. The windows draped with discolored lace and the Pompeian decoration of the muddy vestibule. Then he looked back at her face and said with a visible effort, you'll let me come and see you some day? She smiled, recognizing the heroism of the offer to the point of being frankly touched by it. Thank you. I shall be very glad. She made answer, in the first sincere words she had ever spoken to him. That evening, in her own room, Miss Bart, who had fled early from the heavy fumes of the basement dinner-table, set musing upon the impulse which had led her to unbosom herself to Rosedale. Beneath it she discovered an increasing sense of loneliness, a dread of returning to the solitude of her room, while she could be anywhere else, or in any company but her own. Circumstances, of late, had combined to cut her off more and more from her few remaining friends. On Carrie Fisher's part, the withdrawal was perhaps not quite involuntary. Having made her final effort on Lily's behalf and landed her safely in Madame Regina's work-room, Mrs. Fisher seemed disposed to rest from her labors, and Lily, understanding the reason, could not condemn her. Carrie had, in fact, come dangerously near to being involved in the episode of Mrs. Norma Hatch, and it had taken some verbal ingenuity to extricate herself. She frankly owned to having brought Lily and Mrs. Hatch together, but then she did not know Mrs. Hatch. She had expressly warned Lily that she did not know Mrs. Hatch, and besides she was not Lily's keeper, and really the girl was old enough to take care of herself. Carrie did not put her own case so brutally, but she allowed it to be thus put for her by her latest bosom friend, Mrs. Jack Steppney. Mrs. Steppney, trembling over the narrowness of her only brother's escape, but eager to vindicate Mrs. Fisher at whose house she could count on the jolly parties which had become a necessity to her since marriage had emancipated her from the Van Osberg point of view. Lily understood the situation and could make allowances for it. Carrie had been a good friend to her in difficult days, and perhaps only a friendship like Gertie's could be proof against such an increasing strain. Gertie's friendship did indeed hold fast, yet Lily was beginning to avoid her also, for she could not go to Gertie's without risk of meeting Seldon, and to meet him now would be pure pain. It was pain enough even to think of him, whether she considered him in the distinctness of her waking thoughts, or felt the obsession of his presence through the blur of her tormented nights. That was one of the reasons why she had turned again to Mrs. Hatch's prescription. In the uneasy snatches of her natural dreams he came to her sometimes in the old guise of fellowship and tenderness, and she would rise from the sweet delusion mocked and emptied of her courage. In the sleep which the file procured she sank far below such half-waking visitations, sank into depths of dreamless annihilation from which she woke each morning with an obliterated past. Gradually to be sure the stress of the old thoughts would return, but at least they did not importone her waking hour. The drug gave her a momentary illusion of complete renewal, from which she drew strength to take up her daily work. The strength was more and more needed as the perplexities of her future increased. She knew that to Gertie and Mrs. Fisher she was only passing through a temporary period of probation. Since they believed that the apprenticeship she was serving at Madame Regina's would enable her, when Mrs. Peniston's legacy was paid, to realize the vision of the green and white shop with the fuller competence acquired by her preliminary training. But to Lily herself, aware that the legacy could not be put to such a use, the preliminary training seemed a wasted effort. She understood clearly enough that even if she could ever learn to compete with hands formed from childhood for their special work, the small pay she received would not be a sufficient addition to her income to compensate her for such drudgery, and the realization of this fact brought her recurringly face to face with the temptation to use the legacy in establishing her business. Once installed and in command of her own work women, she believed she had sufficient tact and ability to attract a fashionable clientele, and if the business succeeded she could gradually lay aside money enough to discharge her debt to Trenor. But the task might take years to accomplish even if she continued to stent herself to the utmost, and meanwhile her pride would be crushed under the weight of an intolerable obligation. This were her superficial considerations, but under them lurked the secret dread that the obligation might not always remain intolerable. She knew she could not count on her continuity of purpose, and what really frightened her was the thought that she might gradually accommodate herself to remaining indefinitely in Trenor's debt, as she had accommodated herself to the part allotted her on the Sabrina, and as she had so nearly drifted into acquiescing, with Stancy's scheme for the advancement of Mrs. Hatch, her danger to lay, as she knew, in her old incurable dread of discomfort and poverty, in the fear of that mounting tide of dinginess against which her mother had so passionately warned her, and now a new vista apparel opened before her. She understood that Rosdale was ready to lend her money, and the longing to take advantage of his offer began to haunt her insidiously. It was, of course, impossible to accept alone from Rosdale, but proximate possibilities hovered temptingly before her. She was quite sure that he would come and see her again, and almost sure that, if he did, she could bring him to the point of offering to marry her on the terms she had previously rejected. Would she still reject them if they were offered? More and more, with every fresh mischance befalling her, did the pursuing Furies seem to take the shape of Bertha Dorsett, and close at hand, safely locked among her papers, lay the means of ending their pursuit. The temptation which her scorn of Rosdale had once enabled her to reject, now insistently returned upon her, and how much strength was left her to oppose it. What little there was must at any rate be husband did to the utmost. She could not trust herself again to the perils of a sleepless night, through the long hours of silence the dark spirit of fatigue and loneliness crouched upon her breast, leaving her so drained of bodily strength that her morning thoughts swam in a haze of weakness. The only hope of renewal lay in the little bottle at her bedside, and how much longer that hope would last she dared not conjecture. CHAPTER X Lily, lingering for a moment on the corner, looked out on the afternoon spectacle of Fifth Avenue. It was a day in late April, and the sweetness of spring was in the air. It mitigated the ugliness of the long-crowded thoroughfare, blurred the gaunt-roof lines through a mauve veil over the discouraging perspective of the side streets, and gave a touch of poetry to the delicate haze of green that marked the entrance to the park. As Lily stood there she recognized several familiar faces in the passing carriages. The season was over, and its ruling forces had disbanded, but a few still lingered, delaying their departure for Europe or passing through town on their return from the south. Among them was Mrs. Van Osberg, swaying majestically in her sea-spring barouche, with Mrs. Percy Grice at her side, and the new air to the Grice Millions enthroned before them on his nurse's knees. They were succeeded by Mrs. Hatch's electric Victoria, in which that lady reclined in the lonely splendor of a spring toilet, obviously designed for company, and a moment or two later came Judy Trinner, accompanied by Lady Skidaw, who had come over for her annual tarpon fishing, and a dip into the street. This fleeting glimpse of her past served to emphasize the sense of aimlessness with which Lily at length turned toward home. She had nothing to do for the rest of the day, nor for the days to come, for the season was over in millenry, as well as in society, and a week earlier Madam Regina had notified her that their services were no longer required. Madam Regina always reduced her staff on the first of May, and Miss Bart's attendance had of late been so irregular, she had so often been unwell, and had done so little work when she came that it was only as a favour that her dismissal had hitherto been deferred. Lily did not question the justice of this decision. She was conscious of having been forgetful, awkward, and slow to learn. It was bitter to acknowledge her inferiority even to herself, but the fact had been brought home to her that as a breadwinner she could never compete with professional ability. Since she had been brought up to be ornamental, she could hardly blame herself for failing to serve any practical purpose, but the discovery put an end to her consoling sense of universal efficiency. Since she turned homeward her thoughts shrank in anticipation from the fact that there would be nothing to get up for the next morning. The luxury of lying late in bed was a pleasure belonging to the life of ease. It had no part in the utilitarian existence of the boarding-house. She liked to leave her room early and to return to it as late as possible, and she was walking slowly now in order to postpone the detested approach to her doorstep. The doorstep, as you drew near it, acquired a sudden interest from the fact that it was occupied, and indeed filled, by the conspicuous figure of Mr. Rosdale, whose presence seemed to take on an added amplitude from the meanness of his surroundings. The sight stirred Lily with an irresistible sense of triumph. Rosdale, a day or two after the chance meeting, had called to inquire if she had recovered from her in disposition. But since then she had not seen or heard from him, and his absence seemed to be token a struggle to keep away, to let her pass once more out of his life. If this were the case his return showed that the struggle had been unsuccessful, for Lily knew he was not the man to waste his time in an ineffectual, sentimental dalliance. He was too busy, too practical, and above all too much preoccupied with his own advancement, to indulge in such unprofitable asides. In the peacock-blue parlor, with its bunches of dried pompous grass, and discolored still engravings of sentimental episodes, he looked about him with unconcealed disgust, laying his hat distressfully on the dusty console adorned with a Roger's statuette. Lily sat down on one of the plush and rosewood sofas, and he deposited himself in a rocking chair, draped with a starched anti-McCassar, which scraped unpleasantly against the pink fold of skin above his collar. "'My goodness, you can't go on living here,' he exclaimed. Lily smiled at his tone. "'I am not sure that I can, but I have gone over my expenses very carefully, and I'd rather think I shall be able to manage it.' "'Be able to manage it? That's not what I mean. It's no place for you.' "'It's what I mean, for I have been out of work for the last week.' "'Out of work? Out of work? What a way for you to talk. The idea of your having to work. It's preposterous.' He brought out his sentences and short, violent jerks, as though they were forced up from a deep inner crater of indignation. "'It's a farce, a crazy farce,' he repeated. His eyes fixed on the long vista of the room, reflected in the blotched glass between the windows. Lily continued to meet his ex-postulations with a smile. "'I don't know why I should regard myself as an exception,' she began. "'Because you are, that's why, and your being in a place like this is a damnable outrage. I can't talk of it calmly.' She had, in truth, never seen him so shaken out of his usual glibness, and there was something almost moving to her in his inarticulate struggle with his emotions. He rose with a start, which left the rocking chair quivering on its beam ends, and placed himself squarely before her. "'Look here, Miss Lily, I'm going to Europe next week, going over to Paris and London for a couple of months. And I can't leave you like this. I can't do it. I know it's none of my business. You've let me understand that often enough. But things are worse with you now than they have been before, and you must see that you've got to accept help from somebody. You spoke to me the other day about some debt to Trinner. I know what you mean, and I respect you for feeling as you do about it.' A blush surprise rose to Lily's pale face, but before she could interrupt him he had continued eagerly. "'Well, I'll lend you the money to pay Trinner, and I won't. I—see here, don't take me up till I finish. What I mean is it'll be a plain business arrangement, such as one man would make with another. Now what have you got to say against that?' Lily's blush deepened to a glow in which humiliation and gratitude were mingled, and both sentiments revealed themselves in the unexpected gentleness of her reply. Only this, that it is exactly what Gus Trinner proposed, and that I can never again be sure of understanding the plainest business arrangement. Then, realizing that this answer contained a germ of injustice, she added, even more kindly, not that I don't appreciate your kindness, that I'm not grateful for it, but a business arrangement between us would in any case be impossible, because I shall have no security to give when my debt to Gus Trinner has been paid. Rosdale received the statement in silence. He seemed to feel the note of finality in her voice, yet to be unable to accept it as closing the question between them. In the silence Lily had a clear perception of what was passing through his mind. Whatever perplexity he felt as to the inexorableness of her course, however little he penetrated its motive, she saw that it unmistakably tended to strengthen her hold over him. It was as though the sense in her of unexplained scruples and resistances had the same attraction as the delicacy of feature, the fastidiousness of manner, which gave her an external rarity, an air of being impossible to match. As he advanced in social experience, this uniqueness had acquired a greater value for him, as though he were a collector who had learned to distinguish minor differences of design and quality in some long coveted object. Lily, perceiving all this, understood that he would marry her at once on the sole condition of a reconciliation with Mrs. Dorsett, and the temptation was the less easy to put aside, because little by little circumstances were breaking down her dislike for Rosdale. The dislike, indeed, still subsisted, but it was penetrated here and there by the perception of mitigating qualities in him, of a certain gross kindliness, a rather helpless fidelity of sentiment, which seemed to be struggling through the hard surface of his material ambitions. Reading his dismissal in her eyes, he held out his hand with a gesture which conveyed something of this inarticulate conflict. If only you'd let me, I'd set you up over them all. I'd put you where you could wipe your feet on him. Lily declared, and it touched her audibly to see that his new passion had not altered his old standard of values. Lily took no sleeping-drops that night. She lay awake viewing her situation, and the crude light which Rosdale's visit had shed on it. Infending off the offer, he was so plainly ready to renew, had she not sacrificed one of those abstract notions of honour that might be called the conventionalities of the moral life? What debt did she owe to a social order which had condemned and banished her without trial? She had never been heard in her own defence. She was innocent of the charge on which she had been found guilty, and the irregularity of her conviction might seem to justify the use of methods as irregular in recovering her lost rights. But the dorset, to save herself, had not scrupled to ruin her by an open falsehood. Why should she hesitate to make private use of the facts that chance had put in her way? After all, half the opprobrium of such an act lies in the name attached to it. Call it blackmail, and it becomes unthinkable. But explain that it injures no one, and that the rights regained by it were unjustly forfeited, and he must be a formalist indeed, who can find no plea in its defence. The arguments pleading for it with Lily were the old unanswerable ones of the personal situation, the sense of injury, the sense of failure, the passionate craving for a fair chance against the selfish despotism of society. She had learned by experience that she had neither the aptitude nor the moral constancy to remake her life on new lines, to become a worker among workers, and let the world of luxury and pleasure sweep by her unregarded. She could not hold herself much to blame for this ineffectiveness, and she was perhaps less to blame than she believed. Inherited tendencies had combined with early training to make her the highly specialized product she was, an organism as helpless out of its narrow range as the sea anemone torn from the rock. She had been fashion to adorn and delight, to what other end does nature round the rose-leaf and paint the hummingbird's breast? And was it her fault that the purely decorative mission is less easily and harmoniously fulfilled among social beings than in the world of nature, that it is apt to be hampered by material necessities or complicated by moral scruples? These last were the two antagonistic forces, which fought out their battle in her breast during the long watches of the night, and when she rose the next morning she hardly knew where the victory lay. She was exhausted by the reaction of a night without sleep, coming after many nights of rest artificially obtained. And in the distorting light of fatigue the future stretched out before her gray and termnable and desolate. She lay late in bed, refusing the coffee and fried eggs which the friendly Irish servant thrust through her door, and hating the intimate domestic noises of the house and the cries and rumblings of the street. Her week of idleness had brought home to her. With exaggerated force these small aggravations of the boarding house-world, and she yearned for that other luxurious world whose machinery is so carefully concealed that one scene flows into another without perceptible agency. At last she rose and rest. Since she had left, Madame Regina's, she had spent her days in the streets, partly to escape from the uncongenial promiscuities of the boarding house, and partly in the hope that physical fatigue would help her to sleep. But once out of the house she could not decide where to go. For she had avoided Gertie since her dismissal from the milleners, and she was not sure of a welcome anywhere else. The morning was in harsh contrast to the previous day. A cold, gray sky threatened rain, and a high wind drove the dust and wild spirals up and down the streets. Lily walked up Fifth Avenue toward the park, hoping to find a sheltered nook where she might sit, but the wind chilled her, and after hours wandering under the tossing boughs she yielded to her increasing weariness, and took refuge in a little restaurant in 59th Street. She was not hungry, and had meant to go without luncheon, but she was too tired to return home, and the long perspective of white tables showed alluringly through the windows. The room was full of women and girls, all too much engaged in the rapid absorption of tea and pie to remark her entrance. A hum of shrill voices reverberated against the low ceiling, leaving Lily shut out in a little circle of silence. She felt a sudden pang of profound loneliness. She had lost the sense of time, and it seemed to her as though she had not spoken to anyone for days. Her eyes sought the faces about her, craving a responsive glance, some sign of an intuition of her trouble, but the sallow, preoccupied women, with their bags and notebooks and rolls of music, were all engrossed in their own affairs, and even those who sat by themselves were busy running over proof sheets or devouring magazines between their hurried gulps of tea. Lily alone was stranded in a great waste of disoccupation. She drank several cups of the tea which was served with her portion of stewed oysters, and her brain felt clearer and livelier when she emerged once more into the street. She realized now that, as she sat in the restaurant, she had unconsciously arrived at a final decision. The discovery gave her an immediate illusion of activity, and it was exhilarating to think that she had actually a reason for hurrying home. To prolong her enjoyment of the sensation she decided to walk, but the distance was so great that she found herself glancing nervously at the clocks on the way. One of the surprises of her unoccupied state was the discovery that time, when it is left to itself and no definite demands are made on it, cannot be trusted to move at any recognized pace. Usually it loiters, but just when one has come to count upon its slowness it may suddenly break into a wild irrational gallop. She found, however, on reaching home that the hour was still early enough for her to sit down and rest a few minutes before putting her plan into execution. The delay did not perceptibly weaken her to resolve. She was frightened and yet stimulated by the reserved force of resolution which she felt within herself. She saw it was going to be easier, a great deal easier, than she had imagined. At five o'clock she rose, unlocked her trunk, and took out a sealed packet which she slipped into the bosom of her dress. Even the contact with the packet did not shake her nerves as she had half expected it would. She seemed encased in a strong armor of indifference, as though the vigorous exertion of her will had finally benumbed her finer sensibilities. She addressed herself once more for the street, locked her door, and went out. When she emerged on the pavement the day was still high, but a threat of rain darkened the sky and cold gusts shook the signs projecting from the basement shops along the street. She reached Fifth Avenue and began to walk slowly northward. She was sufficiently familiar with Mrs. Dorsett's habits to know that she could always be found at home after five. She might not, indeed, be accessible to visitors, especially to a visitor so unwelcome, and against whom it was quite possible that she had guarded herself by special orders. But Lily had written a note which she meant to send up with her name and which she thought would secure her admission. She had allowed herself time to walk to Mrs. Dorsett's, thinking that the quick movement through the cold evening air would help to steady her nerves, but she really felt no need of being tranquilized. Her survey of the situation remained calm and unwavering. As she reached 50th Street the clouds broke abruptly, and a rush of cold rain slanted into her face. She had no umbrella, and the moisture quickly penetrated her thin spring dress. She was still half a mile from her destination, and she decided to walk across the Madison Avenue and take the electric car. After she turned into the side street a vague memory stirred in her. The row of budding trees, the new brick and limestone house fronts, the Georgian flat house with flower boxes on its balconies were merged together in the setting of a familiar scene. It was down the street that she had walked with Seldon. That's September Day, two years ago. A few yards ahead was the doorway they had entered together. The recollection loosened a throng of benumbed sensations, longings, regrets, imaginings, the throbbing brood of the only spring her heart had ever known. It was strange to find herself passing his house on such an errand. She seemed suddenly to see her action as he would see it, and the fact of his own connection with it, the fact that to attain her end she must trade on his name and profit by a secret of his past chilled her blood with shame. What a long way she had traveled since the day of their first talk together. Even then her feet had been set in the path she was now following. Even then she had resisted the hen he had held out. All her resentment of his fancied coldness was swept away in this overwhelming rush of recollection. Twice he had been ready to help her, to help her by loving her, as he had said, and if the third time he had seemed to fail her, whom but herself could she accuse? Well that part of her life was over. She did not know why her thoughts still clung to it, but the sudden longing to see him remained. It grew to hunger as she paused on the pavement opposite his door. The street was dark and empty, swept by the rain. She had a vision of his quiet room, of the bookshelves and the fire on the hearth. She looked up and saw a light in his window. Then she crossed the street and entered the house. CHAPTER XI. The library looked as she had pictured it. The green shaded lamps made tranquil circles of light in the gathering dusk, a little fire flickered on the hearth, and Seldon's easy-chair, which stood near it, had been pushed aside when he rose to admit her. He had checked his first movement of surprise, and stood silent, waiting for her to speak, while she paused a moment on the threshold, assailed by a rush of memories. The scene was unchanged. She recognized the row of shelves from which he had taken down his la brouillière, and the worn arm of the chair he had leaned against, while she examined the precious volume. But then the wide September light had filled the room, making it seem a part of the outer world. Now the shaded lamps and the warm hearth, detaching it from the gathering darkness of the street, gave it a sweeter touch of intimacy. Becoming gradually aware of the surprise under Seldon's silence, Lily turned to him and said simply, I came to tell you that I was sorry for the way we parted, for what I said to you that day at Mrs. Hatch's. The words rose to her lips spontaneously. Even on her way up the stairs she had not thought of preparing a pretext for her visit, but she now felt an intense longing to dispel the cloud of misunderstanding that hung between them. Seldon returned her look with a smile. I was sorry too that we should have parted in that way, but I am not sure I didn't bring it on myself. Luckily I had foreseen the risk I was taking. So that you really didn't care, broke from her with a flash of her own irony. So that I was prepared for the consequences, he corrected, good humorously, but we'll talk of all this later. Do come and sit by the fire. I can recommend that armchair if you'll let me put a cushion behind you. While he spoke she had moved slowly to the middle of the room and paused near his writing-table, where the lamp striking upward cast exaggerated shadows on the pallor of her delicately hallowed face. She looked tired to sit down. He repeated gently. She did not seem to hear the request. I wanted you to know that I left Mrs. Hatch immediately after I saw you," she said, as though continuing her confession. Yes, yes, I know," he assented, with a rising tinge of embarrassment. And that I did so because you told me to. Before you came I had already begun to see that it would be impossible to remain with her, for the reasons you gave me. But I wouldn't admit it. I wouldn't let you see that I understood what you meant. Ah, I might have trusted you to find your own way out. Don't overwhelm me with the sense of my officiousness. His light-tone, in which, had her nerves been steadier, she would have recognized the mere effort to bridge over an awkward moment jarred on her passionate desire to be understood. In her strange state of extra lucidity, which gave her the sense of being already at the heart of the situation, it seemed incredible that anyone should think it necessary to linger in the conventional outskirts of word play and evasion. It was not that. I was not ungrateful, she insisted, but the power of expression failed her suddenly. She felt a tremor in her throat, and two tears gathered and fell slowly from her eyes. Everyone moved forward and took her hand. You are very tired. Why won't you sit down, and let me make you comfortable? He drew her to the armchair, near the fire, and placed a cushion behind her shoulders. And now you must let me make you some tea. You know, I always have that amount of hospitality at my command. She shook her head, and two more tears ran over, but she did not weep easily, and the long habit of self-control reasserted itself, though she was still too tremulous to speak. You know, I can coax the water to boil in five minutes, seldom continued, speaking as though she were a troubled child. His words recalled the vision of that other afternoon, when they had sat together over his tea-table and talked justingly of her future. There were moments when that day seemed more remote than any other event in her life, and yet she could always relive it in its minutest detail. She made a gesture of refusal. No, I drink too much tea. I would rather sit quiet. I must go in a moment," she added, confusedly. Zeldin continued to stand near her, leaning against the mantelpiece. The tinge of constraint was beginning to be more distinctly perceptible under the friendly ease of his manner. Her self-absorption had not allowed her to perceive it at first, but now that her consciousness was once more putting forth its eager feelers, she saw that her presence was becoming an embarrassment to him. Such a situation can be saved only by an immediate outrush of feeling, and on Zeldin's side the determining impulse was still lacking. The discovery did not disturb Lily as it might once have done. She had passed beyond the phase of well-bred reciprocity, in which every demonstration must be scrupulously proportioned to the emotion it elicits, and generosity of feeling is the only ostentation condemned. But the sense of loneliness returned with redoubled force, as she saw herself forever shut out from Zeldin's inmost self. She had come to him with no definite purpose. The mere longing to see him had directed her, but the secret hope she had carried with her suddenly revealed itself in its death-pang. I must go, she repeated, making a motion to rise from her chair, but I may not see you again for a long time, and I wanted to tell you that I have never forgotten the things you said to me at Belamond, and that sometimes, sometimes, when I seemed farthest from remembering them, they have helped me, and kept me from mistakes, kept me from really becoming what many people have thought me. Strive as she would to put some order in her thoughts. The words would not come more clearly, yet she felt that she could not leave him without trying to make him understand that she had saved herself whole from the seeming ruin of her life. A change had come over Zeldin's face as she spoke. Its guarded look had yielded to an expression still untenged by personal emotion, but full of gentle understanding. I am glad to have you tell me that. But nothing, I have said, has really made the difference. The difference is in yourself. It will always be there, and since it is there, it can't really matter to you what people think. You are so sure that your friends will always understand you. Ah, don't say that. Don't say that what you have told me has made no difference. It seems to shut me out, to leave me all alone with the other people. She had risen and stood before him, once more completely mastered by the inner urgency of the moment. The consciousness of his half-divine reluctance had vanished. Whether he wished it or not, he must see her wholly for once, before they parted. Her voice had gathered strength, and she looked at him gravely in the eyes as she continued. Once, twice, you gave me the chance to escape from my life, and I refused it. Refused it because I was a coward. Afterward, I saw my mistake. I saw I could never be happy with what had contented me before. But it was too late. You had judged me. I understood. It was too late for happiness, but not too late to be helped by the thought of what I had missed. That is all I have lived on. Don't take it from me now. Even in my worst moments it has been like a little light in the darkness. Some women are strong enough to be good by themselves, but I needed the help of your belief in me. Perhaps I might have resisted a great temptation, but the little ones would have pulled me down. And then I remembered. I remembered your saying that such a life could never satisfy me, and I was ashamed to admit to myself that I could. That is what you did for me. That is what I wanted to thank you for. I wanted to tell you that I have always remembered, and that I have tried, tried hard. She broke off suddenly. Her tears had risen again, and in drawing out her handkerchief, her fingers touched the packet in the folds of her dress. A wave of colors diffused her, and the words died on her lips. Then she lifted her eyes to him, and went on in an altered voice. I have tried hard, but life is difficult, and I am a very useless person. I can hardly be said to have an independent existence. I was just a screw or a cog in the great machine. I called life, and when I dropped out of it, I found I was of no use anywhere else. What can one do when one finds that one only fits into one hole? One must get back to it, or be thrown out into the rubbish heap, and you don't know what it's like in the rubbish heap. Her lips wavered into a smile. She had been distracted by the whimsical remembrance of the confidences she had made to him, two years earlier, in that very room. Then she had been planning to marry Percy Grice. What was it she was planning now? The blood had risen strongly under Seldon's dark skin, but his emotion showed itself only in an added seriousness of manner. You have something to tell me. Do you mean to marry? He said abruptly. Lily's eyes did not falter, but a look of wonder, a puzzled self-interrogation, formed itself slowly in their depths. In the light of his question she had paused to ask herself if her decision had really been taken when she entered the room. You always told me I should have to come to it sooner or later," she said with a faint smile. And have you come to it now? I shall have to come to it presently, but there is something else I must come to first. She paused again, trying to transmit to her voice the steadiness of her recovered smile. There is someone I must say good-bye to—oh, not you. We are sure to see each other again, but the lily-barch you knew. I have kept her with me all this time, but now we are going to part, and I have brought her back to you. I am going to leave her here. When I go out presently she will not go with me. I shall like to think that she has stayed with you, and she'll be no trouble, she'll take up no room. She went toward him and put out her hand, still smiling. Will you let her stay with you?" she asked. He caught her hand, and she felt in his the vibration of feeling that had not yet risen to his lips. "'Lily, can't I help you?" he exclaimed. She looked at him gently. "'Do you remember what you said to me once? That you could help me only by loving me? Well, you did love me for a moment, and it helped me. It has always helped me. But the moment is gone. It was I who let it go, and one must go on living. Good-bye!" She laid her other hand on his, and they looked at each other with a kind of solemnity, as though they stood in the presence of death. Something in truth laid dead between them. The love she had killed in him, and could no longer call to life. But something lived between them also, and leapt up in her like an imperishable flame. It was the love his love had kindled, the passion of her soul for his. In its light everything else dwindled, and fell away from her. She understood now that she could not go forth and leave her old self with him. That self must indeed live on in his presence, but it must still continue to be hers. Selden had retained her hand, and continued to scrutinize her with a strange sense of foreboding. The external aspect of the situation had vanished for him, as completely as for her. He felt it only as one of those rare moments which lift the veil from their faces as they pass. "'Lily,' he said, in a low voice, "'you mustn't speak in this way. You can't let you go without knowing what you mean to do. Things may change, but they don't pass. You can never go out of my life.' She met his eyes with an illumined look. "'No,' she said, "'I see that now. Let us always be friends. Then I shall feel safe. Whatever happens.' "'Whatever happens? What do you mean? What is going to happen?' She turned away quietly and walked toward the hearth. "'Nothing at present, except that I am very cold, and that before I go you must make up the fire for me.' She knelt on the hearth-rug, stretching her hands to the embers. Puzzled by the sudden change in her tone, he mechanically gathered a handful of wood from the basket and tossed it on the fire. As he did so he noticed how thin her hands looked, against the rising light of the flames. He saw, too, under the loose lines of her dress, how the curves of her figure had shrunk to angularity. He remembered long afterward how the red play of the flame sharpened the depression of her nostrils, and intensified the blackness of the shadows which struck up from her cheekbones to her eyes. She knelt there for a few moments in silence, a silence which he dared not break. When she rose he fancied that he saw her draw something from her dress and drop it into the fire, but he hardly noticed the gesture at the time. His faculties seemed tranced, and he was still groping for the word to break the spell. She went up to him and laid her hands on his shoulders. "'Good-bye,' she said, and as he bent over her she touched his forehead with her lips. End of Book II, CHAPTER XII