_ Lily took no sleeping-drops that night. She lay awake viewing her
situation in the crude light which Rosedale's visit had shed on
it. In fending off the offer he was so plainly ready to renew,
had she not sacrificed to 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. Bertha 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 fashioned to adorn and delight; to what other end does
nature round the rose-leaf and paint the humming-bird'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 grey, interminable 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 length she rose and dressed. Since she had left Mme. 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 Gerty since her dismissal from the milliner's, and she
was not sure of a welcome anywhere else.
The morning was in harsh contrast to the previous day. A cold
grey sky threatened rain, and a high wind drove the dust in 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 an hour's wandering
under the tossing boughs she yielded to her increasing weariness,
and took refuge in a little restaurant in Fifty-ninth 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 any one 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 note-books 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: 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 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 armour of
indifference, as though the vigorous exertion of her will had
finally benumbed her finer sensibilities.
She dressed 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. Dorset'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. Dorset'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
tranquillized. Her survey of the situation remained calm and
unwavering.
As she reached Fiftieth 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 to Madison Avenue and take the electric car. As 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 flowerboxes on its balconies, were
merged together into the setting of a familiar scene. It was down
this street that she had walked with Selden, that 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 travelled 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
hand 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.
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 Selden'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 Bruyere, 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 Selden'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.
Selden 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 old irony.
"So that I was prepared for the consequences," he corrected
good-humouredly. "But we'll talk of all this later. Do come and
sit by the fire. I can recommend that arm-chair, 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 pallour of her
delicately-hollowed face.
"You look tired--do 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
any one 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.
Selden 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 arm-chair 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," Selden
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
jestingly 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.
Selden 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 Selden'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 Selden'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 Bellomont, 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 Selden's face as she spoke. Its guarded
look had yielded to an expression still untinged by personal
emotion, but full of a 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-divined reluctance had vanished.
Whether he wished it or not, he must see her wholly for once
before they parted. _