_ Miss Bart went with the Gormers to Alaska; and the expedition, if
it did not produce the effect anticipated by her friend, had at
least the negative advantage of removing her from the fiery
centre of criticism and discussion. Gerty Farish had opposed the
plan with all the energy of her somewhat inarticulate nature. She
had even offered to give up her visit to Lake George, and remain
in town with Miss Bart, if the latter would renounce her journey;
but Lily could disguise her real distaste for this plan under a
sufficiently valid reason.
"You dear innocent, don't you see," she protested, "that Carry is
quite right, and that I must take Up my usual life, and go about
among people as much as possible? If my old friends choose to
believe lies about me I shall have to make new ones, that's all;
and you know beggars mustn't be choosers. Not that I don't like
Mattie Gormer--I DO like her: she's kind and honest and
unaffected; and don't you suppose I feel grateful to her for
making me welcome at a time when, as you've yourself seen, my own
family have unanimously washed their hands of me?"
Gerty shook her head, mutely unconvinced. She felt not only that
Lily was cheapening herself by making use of an intimacy she
would never have cultivated from choice, but that, in drifting
back now to her former manner of life, she was forfeiting her
last chance of ever escaping from it. Gerty had but an obscure
conception of what Lily's actual experience had been: but its
consequences had established a lasting hold on her pity since the
memorable night when she had offered up her own secret hope to
her friend's extremity. To characters like Gerty's such a
sacrifice constitutes a moral claim on the part of the person in
whose behalf it has been made. Having once helped Lily, she must
continue to help her; and helping her, must believe in her,
because faith is the main-spring of such natures. But even if
Miss Bart, after her renewed taste of the amenities of life,
could have returned to the barrenness of a New York August,
mitigated only by poor Gerty's presence, her worldly wisdom would
have counselled her against such an act of abnegation. She knew
that Carry Fisher was right: that an opportune absence might be
the first step toward rehabilitation, and that, at any rate, to
linger on in town out of season was a fatal admission of defeat.
From the Gormers' tumultuous progress across their native
continent, she returned with an altered view of her situation.
The renewed habit of luxury--the daily waking to an assured
absence of care and presence of material ease--gradually blunted
her appreciation of these values, and left her more conscious of
the void they could not fill. Mattie Gormer's undiscriminating
good-nature, and the slap-dash sociability of her friends, who
treated Lily precisely as they treated each other--all these
characteristic notes of difference began to wear upon her
endurance; and the more she saw to criticize in her companions,
the less justification she found for making use of them. The
longing to get back to her former surroundings hardened to a
fixed idea; but with the strengthening of her purpose came the
inevitable perception that, to attain it, she must exact fresh
concessions from her pride. These, for the moment, took the
unpleasant form of continuing to cling to her hosts after their
return from Alaska. Little as she was in the key of their MILIEU,
her immense social facility, her long habit of adapting herself
to others without suffering her own outline to be blurred, the
skilled manipulation of all the polished implements of her craft,
had won for her an important place in the Gormer group. If their
resonant hilarity could never be hers, she contributed a note of
easy elegance more valuable to Mattie Gormer than the louder
passages of the band. Sam Gormer and his special cronies stood
indeed a little in awe of her; but Mattie's following, headed by
Paul Morpeth, made her feel that they prized her for the very
qualities they most conspicuously lacked. If Morpeth, whose
social indolence was as great as his artistic activity, had
abandoned himself to the easy current of the Gormer existence,
where the minor exactions of politeness were unknown or ignored,
and a man could either break his engagements, or keep them in a
painting-jacket and slippers, he still preserved his sense of
differences, and his appreciation of graces he had no time to
cultivate. During the preparations for the Brys' TABLEAUX he had
been immensely struck by Lily's plastic possibilities--"not the
face: too self-controlled for expression; but the rest of
her--gad, what a model she'd make!"--and though his abhorrence of
the world in which he had seen her was too great for him to think
of seeking her there, he was fully alive to the privilege of
having her to look at and listen to while he lounged in Mattie
Gormer's dishevelled drawing-room.
Lily had thus formed, in the tumult of her surroundings, a little
nucleus of friendly relations which mitigated the crudeness of
her course in lingering with the Gormers after their return. Nor
was she without pale glimpses of her own world, especially since
the breaking-up of the Newport season had set the social current
once more toward Long Island. Kate Corby, whose tastes
made her as promiscuous as Carry Fisher was rendered by her
necessities, occasionally descended on the Gormers, where, after
a first stare of surprise, she took Lily's presence almost too
much as a matter of course. Mrs. Fisher, too, appearing
frequently in the neighbourhood, drove over to impart her
experiences and give Lily what she called the latest report from
the weather-bureau; and the latter, who had never directly
invited her confidence, could yet talk with her more freely than
with Gerty Farish, in whose presence it was impossible even to
admit the existence of much that Mrs. Fisher conveniently took
for granted.
Mrs. Fisher, moreover, had no embarrassing curiosity. She did not
wish to probe the inwardness of Lily's situation, but simply to
view it from the outside, and draw her conclusions accordingly;
and these conclusions, at the end of a confidential talk, she
summed up to her friend in the succinct remark: "You must marry
as soon as you can."
Lily uttered a faint laugh--for once Mrs. Fisher lacked
originality. "Do you mean, like Gerty Farish, to recommend the
unfailing panacea of 'a good man's love'?"
"No--I don't think either of my candidates would answer to that
description," said Mrs. Fisher after a pause of reflection.
"Either? Are there actually two?"
"Well, perhaps I ought to say one and a half--for the moment."
Miss Bart received this with increasing amusement. "Other things
being equal, I think I should prefer a half-husband: who is he?"
"Don't fly out at me till you hear my reasons--George Dorset."
"Oh---" Lily murmured reproachfully; but Mrs. Fisher pressed on
unrebuffed. "Well, why not? They had a few weeks' honeymoon when
they first got back from Europe, but now things are going badly
with them again. Bertha has been behaving more than ever like a
madwoman, and George's powers of credulity are very nearly
exhausted. They're at their place here, you know, and I spent
last Sunday with them. It was a ghastly party--no one else but
poor Neddy Silverton, who looks like a galley-slave (they used to
talk of my making that poor boy unhappy!)--and after
luncheon George carried me off on a long walk, and told me the
end would have to come soon."
Miss Bart made an incredulous gesture. "As far as that goes, the
end will never come--Bertha will always know how to get him back
when she wants him."
Mrs. Fisher continued to observe her tentatively. "Not if he has
any one else to turn to! Yes--that's just what it comes to: the
poor creature can't stand alone. And I remember him such a good
fellow, full of life and enthusiasm." She paused, and went on,
dropping her glance from Lily's: "He wouldn't stay with her ten
minutes if he KNEW---"
"Knew---?" Miss Bart repeated.
"What YOU must, for instance--with the opportunities you've had!
If he had positive proof, I mean---"
Lily interrupted her with a deep blush of displeasure. "Please
let us drop the subject, Carry: it's too odious to me." And to
divert her companion's attention she added, with an attempt at
lightness: "And your second candidate? We must not forget him."
Mrs. Fisher echoed her laugh. "I wonder if you'll cry out just as
loud if I say--Sim Rosedale?"
Miss Bart did not cry out: she sat silent, gazing thoughtfully at
her friend. The suggestion, in truth, gave expression to a
possibility which, in the last weeks, had more than once recurred
to her; but after a moment she said carelessly: "Mr. Rosedale
wants a wife who can establish him in the bosom of the Van
Osburghs and Trenors."
Mrs. Fisher caught her up eagerly. "And so YOU could--with his
money! Don't you see how beautifully it would work out for you
both?"
"I don't see any way of making him see it," Lily returned, with a
laugh intended to dismiss the subject.
But in reality it lingered with her long after Mrs. Fisher had
taken leave. She had seen very little of Rosedale since her
annexation by the Gormers, for he was still steadily bent on
penetrating to the inner Paradise from which she was now
excluded; but once or twice, when nothing better offered, he had
turned up for a Sunday, and on these occasions he had left her in
no doubt as to his view of her situation. That he still
admired her was, more than ever, offensively evident; for in the
Gormer circle, where he expanded as in his native element, there
were no puzzling conventions to check the full expression of his
approval. But it was in the quality of his admiration that she
read his shrewd estimate of her case. He enjoyed letting the
Gormers see that he had known "Miss Lily"--she was "Miss Lily" to
him now--before they had had the faintest social existence:
enjoyed more especially impressing Paul Morpeth with the distance
to which their intimacy dated back. But he let it be felt that
that intimacy was a mere ripple on the surface of a rushing
social current, the kind of relaxation which a man of large
interests and manifold preoccupations permits himself in his
hours of ease.
The necessity of accepting this view of their past relation, and
of meeting it in the key of pleasantry prevalent among her new
friends, was deeply humiliating to Lily. But she dared less than
ever to quarrel with Rosedale. She suspected that her rejection
rankled among the most unforgettable of his rebuffs, and the fact
that he knew something of her wretched transaction with Trenor,
and was sure to put the basest construction on it, seemed to
place her hopelessly in his power. Yet at Carry Fisher's
suggestion a new hope had stirred in her. Much as she disliked
Rosedale, she no longer absolutely despised him. For he was
gradually attaining his object in life, and that, to Lily, was
always less despicable than to miss it. With the slow unalterable
persistency which she had always felt in him, he was making his
way through the dense mass of social antagonisms. Already his
wealth, and the masterly use he had made of it, were giving him
an enviable prominence in the world of affairs, and placing Wall
Street under obligations which only Fifth Avenue could repay. In
response to these claims, his name began to figure on municipal
committees and charitable boards; he appeared at banquets to
distinguished strangers, and his candidacy at one of the
fashionable clubs was discussed with diminishing opposition. He
had figured once or twice at the Trenor dinners, and had learned
to speak with just the right note of disdain of the big Van
Osburgh crushes; and all he now needed was a wife whose
affiliations would shorten the last tedious steps of his ascent.
It was with that object that, a year earlier, he had fixed
his affections on Miss Bart; but in the interval he had
mounted nearer to the goal, while she had lost the power to
abbreviate the remaining steps of the way. All this she saw with
the clearness of vision that came to her in moments of
despondency. It was success that dazzled her--she could
distinguish facts plainly enough in the twilight of failure. And
the twilight, as she now sought to pierce it, was gradually
lighted by a faint spark of reassurance. Under the utilitarian
motive of Rosedale's wooing she had felt, clearly enough, the
heat of personal inclination. She would not have detested him so
heartily had she not known that he dared to admire her. What,
then, if the passion persisted, though the other motive had
ceased to sustain it? She had never even tried to please him--he
had been drawn to her in spite of her manifest disdain. What if
she now chose to exert the power which, even in its passive
state, he had felt so strongly? What if she made him marry her
for love, now that he had no other reason for marrying her?
As became persons of their rising consequence, the Gormers were
engaged in building a country-house on Long Island; and it was a
part of Miss Bart's duty to attend her hostess on frequent visits
of inspection to the new estate. There, while Mrs. Gormer plunged
into problems of lighting and sanitation, Lily had leisure to
wander, in the bright autumn air, along the tree-fringed bay to
which the land declined. Little as she was addicted to solitude,
there had come to be moments when it seemed a welcome escape from
the empty noises of her life. She was weary of being swept
passively along a current of pleasure and business in which she
had no share; weary of seeing other people pursue amusement and
squander money, while she felt herself of no more account among
them than an expensive toy in the hands of a spoiled child.
It was in this frame of mind that, striking back from the shore
one morning into the windings of an unfamiliar lane, she came
suddenly upon the figure of George Dorset. The Dorset place was
in the immediate neighbourhood of the Gormers' newly-acquired
estate, and in her motor-flights thither with Mrs. Gormer, Lily
had caught one or two passing glimpses of the couple; but they
moved in so different an orbit that she had not considered the
possibility of a direct encounter.
Dorset, swinging along with bent head, in moody abstraction, did
not see Miss Bart till he was close upon her; but the sight,
instead of bringing him to a halt, as she had half-expected, sent
him toward her with an eagerness which found expression in his
opening words.
"Miss Bart!--You'll shake hands, won't you? I've been hoping to
meet you--I should have written to you if I'd dared." His face,
with its tossed red hair and straggling moustache, had a driven
uneasy look, as though life had become an unceasing race between
himself and the thoughts at his heels.
The look drew a word of compassionate greeting from Lily, and he
pressed on, as if encouraged by her tone: "I wanted to
apologize--to ask you to forgive me for the miserable part I
played---"
She checked him with a quick gesture. "Don't let us speak of it:
I was very sorry for you," she said, with a tinge of disdain
which, as she instantly perceived, was not lost on him.
He flushed to his haggard eyes, flushed so cruelly that she
repented the thrust. "You might well be; you don't know--you must
let me explain. I was deceived: abominably deceived---"
"I am still more sorry for you, then," she interposed, without
irony; "but you must see that I am not exactly the person with
whom the subject can be discussed."
He met this with a look of genuine wonder. "Why not? Isn't it to
you, of all people, that I owe an explanation---"
"No explanation is necessary: the situation was perfectly clear
to me."
"Ah---" he murmured, his head drooping again, and his irresolute
hand switching at the underbrush along the lane. But as Lily made
a movement to pass on, he broke out with fresh vehemence: "Miss
Bart, for God's sake don't turn from me! We used to be good
friends--you were always kind to me--and you don't know how I
need a friend now."
The lamentable weakness of the words roused a motion of pity in
Lily's breast. She too needed friends--she had tasted the pang of
loneliness; and her resentment of Bertha Dorset's cruelty
softened her heart to the poor wretch who was after all the chief
of Bertha's victims.
"I still wish to be kind; I feel no ill-will toward you," she
said. "But you must understand that after what has happened we
can't be friends again--we can't see each other."
"Ah, you ARE kind--you're merciful--you always were!" He fixed
his miserable gaze on her. "But why can't we be friends--why not,
when I've repented in dust and ashes? Isn't it hard that you
should condemn me to suffer for the falseness, the treachery of
others? I was punished enough at the time--is there to be no
respite for me?"
"I should have thought you had found complete respite in the
reconciliation which was effected at my expense," Lily began,
with renewed impatience; but he broke in imploringly: "Don't put
it in that way--when that's been the worst of my
punishment. My God! what could I do--wasn't I powerless? You were
singled out as a sacrifice: any word I might have said would have
been turned against you---"
"I have told you I don't blame you; all I ask you to understand
is that, after the use Bertha chose to make of me--after all that
her behaviour has since implied--it's impossible that you and I
should meet."
He continued to stand before her, in his dogged weakness. "Is
it--need it be? Mightn't there be circumstances---?" he checked
himself, slashing at the wayside weeds in a wider radius. Then he
began again: "Miss Bart, listen--give me a minute. If we're not
to meet again, at least let me have a hearing now. You say we
can't be friends after--after what has happened. But can't I at
least appeal to your pity? Can't I move you if I ask you to think
of me as a prisoner--a prisoner you alone can set free?"
Lily's inward start betrayed itself in a quick blush: was it
possible that this was really the sense of Carry Fisher's
adumbrations?
"I can't see how I can possibly be of any help to you," she
murmured, drawing back a little from the mounting excitement of
his look.
Her tone seemed to sober him, as it had so often done in his
stormiest moments. The stubborn lines of his face relaxed, and he
said, with an abrupt drop to docility: "You WOULD see, if you'd
be as merciful as you used to be: and heaven knows I've never
needed it more!"
She paused a moment, moved in spite of herself by this reminder
of her influence over him. Her fibres had been softened by
suffering, and the sudden glimpse into his mocked and broken life
disarmed her contempt for his weakness.
"I am very sorry for you--I would help you willingly; but you
must have other friends, other advisers."
"I never had a friend like you," he answered simply. "And
besides--can't you see?--you're the only person"--his voice
dropped to a whisper--"the only person who knows."
Again she felt her colour change; again her heart rose in
precipitate throbs to meet what she felt was coming. He lifted
his eyes to her entreatingly. "You do see, don't you? You
understand? I'm desperate--I'm at the end of my tether. I
want to be free, and you can free me. I know you can. You don't
want to keep me bound fast in hell, do you? You can't want to
take such a vengeance as that. You were always kind--your eyes
are kind now. You say you're sorry for me. Well, it rests with
you to show it; and heaven knows there's nothing to keep you
back. You understand, of course--there wouldn't be a hint of
publicity--not a sound or a syllable to connect you with the
thing. It would never come to that, you know: all I need is to be
able to say definitely:'I know this--and this--and this'--and the
fight would drop, and the way be cleared, and the whole
abominable business swept out of sight in a second."
He spoke pantingly, like a tired runner, with breaks of
exhaustion between his words; and through the breaks she caught,
as through the shifting rents of a fog, great golden vistas of
peace and safety. For there was no mistaking the definite
intention behind his vague appeal; she could have filled up the
blanks without the help of Mrs. Fisher's insinuations. Here was a
man who turned to her in the extremity of his loneliness and his
humiliation: if she came to him at such a moment he would be hers
with all the force of his deluded faith. And the power to make
him so lay in her hand--lay there in a completeness he could not
even remotely conjecture. Revenge and rehabilitation might be
hers at a stroke--there was something dazzling in the
completeness of the opportunity.
She stood silent, gazing away from him down the autumnal stretch
of the deserted lane. And suddenly fear possessed her--fear of
herself, and of the terrible force of the temptation. All her
past weaknesses were like so many eager accomplices drawing her
toward the path their feet had already smoothed. She turned
quickly, and held out her hand to Dorset.
"Goodbye--I'm sorry; there's nothing in the world that I can do."
"Nothing? Ah, don't say that," he cried; "say what's true: that
you abandon me like the others. You, the only creature who could
have saved me!"
"Goodbye--goodbye," she repeated hurriedly; and as she
moved away she heard him cry out on a last note of entreaty: "At
least you'll let me see you once more?" _