_ Miss Stepney, when her first fright had subsided, began to feel
the superiority that greater breadth of mind confers. It was
really pitiable to be as ignorant of the world as Mrs. Peniston!
She smiled at the latter's question. "People always say
unpleasant things--and certainly they're a great deal together. A
friend of mine met them the other afternoon in the Park-quite
late, after the lamps were lit. It s a pity Lily makes herself so
conspicuous."
"CONSPICUOUS!" gasped Mrs. Peniston. She bent forward, lowering
her voice to mitigate the horror. "What sort of things do they
say? That he means to get a divorce and marry her?"
Grace Stepney laughed outright. "Dear me, no! He would hardly do
that. It--it's a flirtation--nothing more."
"A flirtation? Between my niece and a married man? Do you mean to
tell me that, with Lily's looks and advantages, she could find no
better use for her time than to waste it on a fat stupid man
almost old enough to be her father?" This argument had such a
convincing ring that it gave Mrs. Peniston sufficient reassurance
to pick up her work, while she waited for Grace Stepney to rally
her scattered forces.
But Miss Stepney was on the spot in an instant. "That's the worst
of it--people say she isn't wasting her time! Every one knows, as
you say, that Lily is too handsome and-and charming--to devote
herself to a man like Gus Trenor unless--"
"Unless?" echoed Mrs. Peniston. Her visitor drew breath
nervously. It was agreeable to shock Mrs. Peniston, but not to
shock her to the verge of anger. Miss Stepney was not
sufficiently familiar with the classic drama to have recalled in
advance how bearers of bad tidings are proverbially received, but
she now had a rapid vision of forfeited dinners and a reduced
wardrobe as the possible consequence of her disinterestedness. To
the honour of her sex, however, hatred of Lily prevailed over
more personal considerations. Mrs. Peniston had chosen the wrong
moment to boast of her niece's charms.
"Unless," said Grace, leaning forward to speak with low-toned
emphasis, "unless there are material advantages to be gained by
making herself agreeable to him."
She felt that the moment was tremendous, and remembered suddenly
that Mrs. Peniston's black brocade, with the cut jet fringe,
would have been hers at the end of the season.
Mrs. Peniston put down her work again. Another aspect of the same
idea had presented itself to her, and she felt that it was
beneath her dignity to have her nerves racked by a dependent
relative who wore her old clothes.
"If you take pleasure in annoying me by mysterious insinuations,"
she said coldly, "you might at least have chosen a more suitable
time than just as I am recovering from the strain of giving a
large dinner."
The mention of the dinner dispelled Miss Stepney's last scruples.
"I don't know why I should be accused of taking pleasure in
telling you about Lily. I was sure I shouldn't get any thanks for
it," she returned with a flare of temper. "But I have some family
feeling left, and as you are the only person who has any
authority over Lily, I thought you ought to know what is being
said of her."
"Well," said Mrs. Peniston, "what I complain of is that you
haven't told me yet what IS being said."
"I didn't suppose I should have to put it so plainly. People say
that Gus Trenor pays her bills."
"Pays her bills--her bills?" Mrs. Peniston broke into a laugh. "I
can't imagine where you can have picked up such rubbish. Lily has
her own income--and I provide for her very handsomely--"
"Oh, we all know that," interposed Miss Stepney drily. "But Lily
wears a great many smart gowns--"
"I like her to be well-dressed--it's only suitable!"
"Certainly; but then there are her gambling debts besides."
Miss Stepney, in the beginning, had not meant to bring up this
point; but Mrs. Peniston had only her own incredulity to blame.
She was like the stiff-necked unbelievers of Scripture, who must
be annihilated to be convinced.
"Gambling debts? Lily?" Mrs. Peniston's voice shook with anger
and bewilderment. She wondered whether Grace Stepney had gone out
of her mind. "What do you mean by her gambling debts?"
"Simply that if one plays bridge for money in Lily's set one is
liable to lose a great deal--and I don't suppose Lily always
wins."
"Who told you that my niece played cards for money?"
"Mercy, cousin Julia, don't look at me as if I were trying to
turn you against Lily! Everybody knows she is crazy about bridge.
Mrs. Gryce told me herself that it was her gambling that
frightened Percy Gryce--it seems he was really taken with her at
first. But, of course, among Lily's friends it's quite the custom
for girls to play for money. In fact, people are inclined to
excuse her on that account---"
"To excuse her for what?"
"For being hard up--and accepting attentions from men like Gus
Trenor--and George Dorset---"
Mrs. Peniston gave another cry. "George Dorset? Is there any one
else? I should like to know the worst, if you please."
"Don't put it in that way, cousin Julia. Lately Lily has been a
good deal with the Dorsets, and he seems to admire her--but of
course that's only natural. And I'm sure there is no truth in the
horrid things people say; but she HAS been spending a great deal
of money this winter. Evie Van Osburgh was at Celeste's
ordering her trousseau the other day--yes, the marriage takes
place next month--and she told me that Celeste showed her the
most exquisite things she was just sending home to Lily. And
people say that Judy Trenor has quarrelled with her on account of
Gus; but I'm sure I'm sorry I spoke, though I only meant it as a
kindness."
Mrs. Peniston's genuine incredulity enabled her to dismiss Miss
Stepney with a disdain which boded ill for that lady's prospect
of succeeding to the black brocade; but minds impenetrable to
reason have generally some crack through which suspicion filters,
and her visitor's insinuations did not glide off as easily as she
had expected. Mrs. Peniston disliked scenes, and her
determination to avoid them had always led her to hold herself
aloof from the details of Lily's life. In her youth, girls had
not been supposed to require close supervision. They were
generally assumed to be taken up with the legitimate business of
courtship and marriage, and interference in such affairs on the
part of their natural guardians was considered as unwarrantable
as a spectator's suddenly joining in a game. There had of course
been "fast" girls even in Mrs. Peniston's early experience; but
their fastness, at worst, was understood to be a mere excess of
animal spirits, against which there could be no graver charge
than that of being "unladylike." The modern fastness appeared
synonymous with immorality, and the mere idea of immorality was
as offensive to Mrs. Peniston as a smell of cooking in the
drawing-room: it was one of the conceptions her mind refused to
admit.
She had no immediate intention of repeating to Lily what she had
heard, or even of trying to ascertain its truth by means of
discreet interrogation. To do so might be to provoke a scene; and
a scene, in the shaken state of Mrs. Peniston's nerves, with the
effects of her dinner not worn off, and her mind still tremulous
with new impressions, was a risk she deemed it her duty to avoid.
But there remained in her thoughts a settled deposit of
resentment against her niece, all the denser because it was not
to be cleared by explanation or discussion. It was horrible of a
young girl to let herself be talked about; however unfounded the
charges against her, she must be to blame for their
having been made. Mrs. Peniston felt as if there had been a
contagious illness in the house, and she was doomed to sit
shivering among her contaminated furniture.
Miss Bart had in fact been treading a devious way, and none of
her critics could have been more alive to the fact than herself;
but she had a fatalistic sense of being drawn from one wrong
turning to another, without ever perceiving the right road till
it was too late to take it.
Lily, who considered herself above narrow prejudices, had not
imagined that the fact of letting Gus Trenor make a little money
for her would ever disturb her self-complacency. And the fact in
itself still seemed harmless enough; only it was a fertile source
of harmful complications. As she exhausted the amusement of
spending the money these complications be came more pressing, and
Lily, whose mind could be severely logical in tracing the causes
of her ill-luck to others, justified herself by the thought that
she owed all her troubles to the enmity of Bertha Dorset. This
enmity, however, had apparently expired in a renewal of
friendliness between the two women. Lily's visit to the Dorsets
had resulted, for both, in the discovery that they could be of
use to each other; and the civilized instinct finds a subtler
pleasure in making use of its antagonist than in confounding him.
Mrs. Dorset was, in fact, engaged in a new sentimental
experiment, of which Mrs. Fisher's late property, Ned Silverton,
was the rosy victim; and at such moments, as Judy Trenor had once
remarked, she felt a peculiar need of distracting her husband's
attention. Dorset was as difficult to amuse as a savage; but even
his self-engrossment was not proof against Lily's arts, or rather
these were especially adapted to soothe an uneasy egoism. Her
experience with Percy Gryce stood her in good stead in
ministering to Dorset's humours, and if the incentive to please
was less urgent, the difficulties of her situation were teaching
her to make much of minor opportunities.
Intimacy with the Dorsets was not likely to lessen such
difficulties on the material side. Mrs. Dorset had none of Judy
Trenor's lavish impulses, and Dorset's admiration was not likely
to express itself in financial "tips," even had Lily cared to
renew her experiences in that line. What she required, for the
moment, of the Dorsets' friendship, was simply its social
sanction. She knew that people were beginning to talk of her; but
this fact did not alarm her as it had alarmed Mrs. Peniston. In
her set such gossip was not unusual, and a handsome girl who
flirted with a married man was merely assumed to be pressing to
the limit of her opportunities. It was Trenor himself who
frightened her. Their walk in the Park had not been a success.
Trenor had married young, and since his marriage his intercourse
with women had not taken the form of the sentimental small-talk
which doubles upon itself like the paths in a maze. He was first
puzzled and then irritated to find himself always led back to the
same starting-point, and Lily felt that she was gradually losing
control of the situation. Trenor was in truth in an unmanageable
mood. In spite of his understanding with Rosedale he had been
somewhat heavily "touched" by the fall in stocks; his household
expenses weighed on him, and he seemed to be meeting, on all
sides, a sullen opposition to his wishes, instead of the easy
good luck he had hitherto encountered.
Mrs. Trenor was still at Bellomont, keeping the town-house open,
and descending on it now and then for a taste of the world, but
preferring the recurrent excitement of week-end parties to the
restrictions of a dull season. Since the holidays she had not
urged Lily to return to Bellomont, and the first time they met in
town Lily fancied there was a shade of coldness in her manner.
Was it merely the expression of her displeasure at Miss Bart's
neglect, or had disquieting rumours reached her? The latter
contingency seemed improbable, yet Lily was not without a sense
of uneasiness. If her roaming sympathies had struck root
anywhere, it was in her friendship with Judy Trenor. She believed
in the sincerity of her friend's affection, though it sometimes
showed itself in self-interested ways, and she shrank with
peculiar reluctance from any risk of estranging it. But, aside
from this, she was keenly conscious of the way in which such an
estrangement would react on herself. The fact that Gus Trenor was
Judy's husband was at times Lily's strongest reason for disliking
him, and for resenting the obligation under which he had placed
her. To set her doubts at rest, Miss Bart, soon after the New
Year, "proposed" herself for a week-end at Bellomont. She had
learned in advance that the presence of a large party
would protect her from too great assiduity on Trenor's part, and
his wife's telegraphic "come by all means" seemed to as sure her
of her usual welcome. _