_ But her course was too purely reasonable not to contain the germs
of rebellion. No sooner were her preparations made than they
roused a smothered sense of resistance. A small spark was enough
to kindle Lily's imagination, and the sight of the grey dress and
the borrowed prayer-book flashed a long light down the years. She
would have to go to church with Percy Gryce every Sunday. They
would have a front pew in the most expensive church in New York,
and his name would figure handsomely in the list of parish
charities. In a few years, when he grew stouter, he would be made
a warden. Once in the winter the rector would come to dine, and
her husband would beg her to go over the list and see that no
DIVORCEES were included, except those who had showed signs of
penitence by being re-married to the very wealthy. There was
nothing especially arduous in this round of relgious
obligations; but it stood for a fraction of that great bulk of
boredom which loomed across her path. And who could consent to be
bored on such a morning? Lily had slept well, and her bath had
filled her with a pleasant glow, which was becomingly reflected
in the clear curve of her cheek. No lines were visible this
morning, or else the glass was at a happier angle.
And the day was the accomplice of her mood: it was a day for
impulse and truancy. The light air seemed full of powdered gold;
below the dewy bloom of the lawns the woodlands blushed and
smouldered, and the hills across the river swam in molten blue.
Every drop of blood in Lily's veins invited her to happiness.
The sound of wheels roused her from these musings, and leaning
behind her shutters she saw the omnibus take up its freight. She
was too late, then--but the fact did not alarm her. A glimpse of
Mr. Gryce's crestfallen face even suggested that she had done
wisely in absenting herself, since the disappointment he so
candidly betrayed would surely whet his appetite for the
afternoon walk. That walk she did not mean to miss; one glance at
the bills on her writing-table was enough to recall its
necessity. But meanwhile she had the morning to herself, and
could muse pleasantly on the disposal of its hours. She was
familiar enough with the habits of Bellomont to know that she was
likely to have a free field till luncheon. She had seen the
Wetheralls, the Trenor girls and Lady Cressida packed safely into
the omnibus; Judy Trenor was sure to be having her hair
shampooed; Carry Fisher had doubtless carried off her host for a
drive; Ned Silverton was probably smoking the cigarette of young
despair in his bedroom; and Kate Corby was certain to be playing
tennis with Jack Stepney and Miss Van Osburgh. Of the ladies,
this left only Mrs. Dorset unaccounted for, and Mrs. Dorset never
came down till luncheon: her doctors, she averred, had forbidden
her to expose herself to the crude air of the morning.
To the remaining members of the party Lily gave no special
thought; wherever they were, they were not likely to interfere
with her plans. These, for the moment, took the shape of assuming
a dress somewhat more rustic and summerlike in style than the
garment she had first selected, and rustling downstairs,
sunshade in hand, with the disengaged air of a lady in quest of
exercise. The great hall was empty but for the knot of dogs by
the fire, who, taking in at a glance the outdoor aspect of Miss
Bart, were upon her at once with lavish offers of companionship.
She put aside the ramming paws which conveyed these offers, and
assuring the joyous volunteers that she might presently have a
use for their company, sauntered on through the empty
drawing-room to the library at the end of the house. The library
was almost the only surviving portion of the old manor-house of
Bellomont: a long spacious room, revealing the traditions of the
mother-country in its classically-cased doors, the Dutch tiles of
the chimney, and the elaborate hob-grate with its shining brass
urns. A few family portraits of lantern-jawed gentlemen in
tie-wigs, and ladies with large head-dresses and small bodies,
hung between the shelves lined with pleasantly-shabby books:
books mostly contemporaneous with the ancestors in question, and
to which the subsequent Trenors had made no perceptible
additions. The library at Bellomont was in fact never used for
reading, though it had a certain popularity as a smoking-room or
a quiet retreat for flirtation. It had occurred to Lily, however,
that it might on this occasion have been resorted to by the only
member of the party in the least likely to put it to its original
use. She advanced noiselessly over the dense old rug scattered
with easy-chairs, and before she reached the middle of the room
she saw that she had not been mistaken. Lawrence Selden was in
fact seated at its farther end; but though a book lay on his
knee, his attention was not engaged with it, but directed to a
lady whose lace-dad figure, as she leaned back in an adjoining
chair, detached itself with exaggerated slimness against the
dusky leather upholstery.
Lily paused as she caught sight of the group; for a moment she
seemed about to withdraw, but thinking better of this, she
announced her approach by a slight shake of her skirts which made
the couple raise their heads, Mrs. Dorset with a look of frank
displeasure, and Selden with his usual quiet smile. The sight of
his composure had a disturbing effect on Lily; but to be
disturbed was in her case to make a more brilliant effort at
self-possession.
"Dear me, am I late?" she asked, putting a hand in his as he
advanced to greet her.
"Late for what?" enquired Mrs. Dorset tartly. "Not for luncheon,
certainly--but perhaps you had an earlier engagement?"
"Yes, I had," said Lily confidingly.
"Really? Perhaps I am in the way, then? But Mr. Selden is
entirely at your disposal." Mrs. Dorset was pale with temper, and
her antagonist felt a certain pleasure in prolonging her
distress.
"Oh, dear, no--do stay," she said good-humouredly. "I don't in
the least want to drive you away."
"You're awfully good, dear, but I never interfere with Mr.
Selden's engagements."
The remark was uttered with a little air of proprietorship not
lost on its object, who concealed a faint blush of annoyance by
stooping to pick up the book he had dropped at Lily's approach.
The latter's eyes widened charmingly and she broke into a light
laugh.
"But I have no engagement with Mr. Selden! My engagement was to
go to church; and I'm afraid the omnibus has started without me.
HAS it started, do you know?"
She turned to Selden, who replied that he had heard it drive away
some time since.
"Ah, then I shall have to walk; I promised Hilda and Muriel to go
to church with them. It's too late to walk there, you say? Well,
I shall have the credit of trying, at any rate--and the advantage
of escaping part of the service. I'm not so sorry for myself,
after all!"
And with a bright nod to the couple on whom she had intruded,
Miss Bart strolled through the glass doors and carried her
rustling grace down the long perspective of the garden walk.
She was taking her way churchward, but at no very quick pace; a
fact not lost on one of her observers, who stood in the doorway
looking after her with an air of puzzled amusement. The truth is
that she was conscious of a somewhat keen shock of
disappointment. All her plans for the day had been built on the
assumption that it was to see her that Selden had come to
Bellomont. She had expected, when she came down stairs, to
find him on the watch for her; and she had found him, instead, in
a situation which might well denote that he had been on the watch
for another lady. Was it possible, after all, that he had come
for Bertha Dorset? The latter had acted on the assumption to the
extent of appearing at an hour when she never showed herself to
ordinary mortals, and Lily, for the moment, saw no way of putting
her in the wrong. It did not occur to her that Selden might have
been actuated merely by the desire to spend a Sunday out of town:
women never learn to dispense with the sentimental motive in
their judgments of men. But Lily was not easily disconcerted;
competition put her on her mettle, and she reflected that
Selden's coming, if it did not declare him to be still in Mrs.
Dorset's toils, showed him to be so completely free from them
that he was not afraid of her proximity.
These thoughts so engaged her that she fell into a gait hardly
likely to carry her to church before the sermon, and at length,
having passed from the gardens to the wood-path beyond, so far
forgot her intention as to sink into a rustic seat at a bend of
the walk. The spot was charming, and Lily was not insensible to
the charm, or to the fact that her presence enhanced it; but she
was not accustomed to taste the joys of solitude except in
company, and the combination of a handsome girl and a romantic
scene struck her as too good to be wasted. No one, however,
appeared to profit by the opportunity; and after a half hour of
fruitless waiting she rose and wandered on. She felt a stealing
sense of fatigue as she walked; the sparkle had died out of her,
and the taste of life was stale on her lips. She hardly knew what
she had been seeking, or why the failure to find it had so
blotted the light from her sky: she was only aware of a vague
sense of failure, of an inner isolation deeper than the
loneliness about her.
Her footsteps flagged, and she stood gazing listlessly ahead,
digging the ferny edge of the path with the tip of her sunshade.
As she did so a step sounded behind her, and she saw Selden at
her side.
"How fast you walk!" he remarked. "I thought I should never catch
up with you."
She answered gaily: "You must be quite breathless! I've been
sitting under that tree for an hour."
"Waiting for me, I hope?" he rejoined; and she said with a vague
laugh:
"Well--waiting to see if you would come."
"I seize the distinction, but I don't mind it, since doing the
one involved doing the other. But weren't you sure that I should
come?"
"If I waited long enough--but you see I had only a limited time
to give to the experiment."
"Why limited? Limited by luncheon?"
"No; by my other engagement."
"Your engagement to go to church with Muriel and Hilda?"
"No; but to come home from church with another person."
"Ah, I see; I might have known you were fully provided with
alternatives. And is the other person coming home this way?"
Lily laughed again. "That's just what I don't know; and to find
out, it is my business to get to church before the service is
over."
"Exactly; and it is my business to prevent your doing so; in
which case the other person, piqued by your absence, will form
the desperate resolve of driving back in the omnibus."
Lily received this with fresh appreciation; his nonsense was like
the bubbling of her inner mood. "Is that what you would do in
such an emergency?" she enquired.
Selden looked at her with solemnity. "I am here to prove to you,"
he cried, "what I am capable of doing in an emergency!"
"Walking a mile in an hour--you must own that the omnibus would
be quicker!"
"Ah--but will he find you in the end? That's the only test of
success."
They looked at each other with the same luxury of enjoyment that
they had felt in exchanging absurdities over his tea-table; but
suddenly Lily's face changed, and she said: "Well, if it is, he
has succeeded." _