_ She was beginning to have fits of angry rebellion against fate,
when she longed to drop out of the race and make an independent
life for herself. But what manner of life would it be? She had
barely enough money to pay her dress-makers' bills and her
gambling debts; and none of the desultory interests which she
dignified with the name of tastes was pronounced enough to enable
her to live contentedly in obscurity. Ah, no--she was too
intelligent not to be honest with herself. She knew that she
hated dinginess as much as her mother had hated it, and to her
last breath she meant to fight against it, dragging herself up
again and again above its flood till she gained the bright
pinnacles of success which presented such a slippery surface to
her clutch.
The next morning, on her breakfast tray, Miss Bart found a note
from her hostess.
"Dearest Lily," it ran, "if it is not too much of a bore to be
down by ten, will you come to my sitting-room to help me with
some tiresome things?"
Lily tossed aside the note and subsided on her pillows with a
sigh. It WAS a bore to be down by ten--an hour regarded at
Bellomont as vaguely synchronous with sunrise--and she knew too
well the nature of the tiresome things in question. Miss Pragg,
the secretary, had been called away, and there would be notes and
dinner-cards to write, lost addresses to hunt up, and other
social drudgery to perform. It was understood that Miss Bart
should fill the gap in such emergencies, and she usually
recognized the obligation without a murmur.
Today, however, it renewed the sense of servitude which the
previous night's review of her cheque-book had produced.
Everything in her surroundings ministered to feelings of ease and
amenity. The windows stood open to the sparkling freshness of the
September morning, and between the yellow boughs she caught a
perspective of hedges and parterres leading by degrees of
lessening formality to the free undulations of the park. Her maid
had kindled a little fire on the hearth, and it contended
cheerfully with the sunlight which slanted across the moss-green
carpet and caressed the curved sides of an old marquetry desk.
Near the bed stood a table holding her breakfast tray, with its
harmonious porcelain and silver, a handful of violets in a
slender glass, and the morning paper folded beneath her letters.
There was nothing new to Lily in these tokens of a studied
luxury; but, though they formed a part of her atmosphere, she
never lost her sensitiveness to their charm. Mere display left
her with a sense of superior distinction; but she felt an
affinity to all the subtler manifestations of wealth.
Mrs. Trenor's summons, however, suddenly recalled her state of
dependence, and she rose and dressed in a mood of irritability
that she was usually too prudent to indulge. She knew that such
emotions leave lines on the face as well as in the
character, and she had meant to take warning by the little
creases which her midnight survey had revealed.
The matter-of-course tone of Mrs. Trenor's greeting deepened her
irritation. If one did drag one's self out of bed at such an
hour, and come down fresh and radiant to the monotony of
note-writing, some special recognition of the sacrifice seemed
fitting. But Mrs. Trenor's tone showed no consciousness of the
fact.
"Oh, Lily, that's nice of you," she merely sighed across the
chaos of letters, bills and other domestic documents which gave
an incongruously commercial touch to the slender elegance of her
writing-table.
"There are such lots of horrors this morning," she added,
clearing a space in the centre of the confusion and rising to
yield her seat to Miss Bart.
Mrs. Trenor was a tall fair woman, whose height just saved her
from redundancy. Her rosy blondness had survived some forty years
of futile activity without showing much trace of ill-usage except
in a diminished play of feature. It was difficult to define her
beyond saying that she seemed to exist only as a hostess, not so
much from any exaggerated instinct of hospitality as because she
could not sustain life except in a crowd. The collective nature
of her interests exempted her from the ordinary rivalries of her
sex, and she knew no more personal emotion than that of hatred
for the woman who presumed to give bigger dinners or have more
amusing house-parties than herself. As her social talents, backed
by Mr. Trenor's bank-account, almost always assured her ultimate
triumph in such competitions, success had developed in her an
unscrupulous good nature toward the rest of her sex, and in Miss
Bart's utilitarian classification of her friends, Mrs. Trenor
ranked as the woman who was least likely to "go back" on her.
"It was simply inhuman of Pragg to go off now," Mrs. Trenor
declared, as her friend seated herself at the desk. "She says her
sister is going to have a baby--as if that were anything to
having a house-party! I'm sure I shall get most horribly mixed up
and there will be some awful rows. When I was down at Tuxedo I
asked a lot of people for next week, and I've mislaid the list
and can't remember who is coming. And this week is going to be a
horrid failure too--and Gwen Van Osburgh will go back and
tell her mother how bored people were. I did mean to ask the
Wetheralls--that was a blunder of Gus's. They disapprove of Carry
Fisher, you know. As if one could help having Carry Fisher! It
WAS foolish of her to get that second divorce--Carry always
overdoes things--but she said the only way to get a penny out of
Fisher was to divorce him and make him pay alimony. And poor
Carry has to consider every dollar. It's really absurd of Alice
Wetherall to make such a fuss about meeting her, when one thinks
of what society is coming to. Some one said the other day that
there was a divorce and a case of appendicitis in every family
one knows. Besides, Carry is the only person who can keep Gus in
a good humour when we have bores in the house. Have you noticed
that ALL the husbands like her? All, I mean, except her own. It's
rather clever of her to have made a specialty of devoting herself
to dull people--the field is such a large one, and she has it
practically to herself. She finds compensations, no doubt--I know
she borrows money of Gus--but then I'd PAY her to keep him in a
good humour, so I can't complain, after all.
"Mrs. Trenor paused to enjoy the spectacle of Miss Bart's efforts
to unravel her tangled correspondence.
"But it is only the Wetheralls and Carry," she resumed, with a
fresh note of lament. "The truth is, I'm awfully disappointed in
Lady Cressida Raith."
"Disappointed? Had you known her before?"
"Mercy, no--never saw her till yesterday. Lady Skiddaw sent her
over with letters to the Van Osburghs, and I heard that Maria Van
Osburgh was asking a big party to meet her this week, so I
thought it would be fun to get her away, and Jack Stepney, who
knew her in India, managed it for me. Maria was furious, and
actually had the impudence to make Gwen invite herself here, so
that they shouldn't be QUITE out of it--if I'd known what Lady
Cressida was like, they could have had her and welcome! But I
thought any friend of the Skiddaws' was sure to be amusing. You
remember what fun Lady Skiddaw was? There were times when I
simply had to send the girls out of the room. Besides, Lady
Cressida is the Duchess of Beltshire's sister, and I naturally
supposed she was the same sort; but you never can tell in those
English families. They are so big that there's room for
all kinds, and it turns out that Lady Cressida is the moral
one--married a clergy-man and does missionary work in the East
End. Think of my taking such a lot of trouble about a clergyman's
wife, who wears Indian jewelry and botanizes! She made Gus take
her all through the glass-houses yesterday, and bothered him to
death by asking him the names of the plants. Fancy treating Gus
as if he were the gardener!
"Mrs. Trenor brought this out in a CRESCENDO of indignation.
"Oh, well, perhaps Lady Cressida will reconcile the Wetheralls to
meeting Carry Fisher," said Miss Bart pacifically.
"I'm sure I hope so! But she is boring all the men horribly, and
if she takes to distributing tracts, as I hear she does, it will
be too depressing. The worst of it is that she would have been so
useful at the right time. You know we have to have the Bishop
once a year, and she would have given just the right tone to
things. I always have horrid luck about the Bishop's visits,"
added Mrs. Trenor, whose present misery was being fed by a
rapidly rising tide of reminiscence; "last year, when he came,
Gus forgot all about his being here, and brought home the Ned
Wintons and the Farleys--five divorces and six sets of children
between them!"
"When is Lady Cressida going?" Lily enquired.
Mrs. Trenor cast up her eyes in despair. "My dear, if one only
knew! I was in such a hurry to get her away from Maria that I
actually forgot to name a date, and Gus says she told some one
she meant to stop here all winter."
"To stop here? In this house?"
"Don't be silly--in America. But if no one else asks her--you
know they NEVER go to hotels."
"Perhaps Gus only said it to frighten you."
"No--I heard her tell Bertha Dorset that she had six months to
put in while her husband was taking the cure in the Engadine. You
should have seen Bertha look vacant! But it's no joke, you
know--if she stays here all the autumn she'll spoil everything,
and Maria Van Osburgh will simply exult.
"At this affecting vision Mrs. Trenor's voice trembled with
self-pity."Oh, Judy--as if any one were ever bored at Bellomont!"
Miss Bart tactfully protested. "You know perfectly well that,
if Mrs. Van Osburgh were to get all the right people and leave you
with all the wrong ones, you'd manage to make things go off,
and she wouldn't."
Such an assurance would usually have restored Mrs. Trenor's complacency;
but on this occasion it did not chase the cloud from her brow.
"It isn't only Lady Cressida," she lamented. "Everything has gone
wrong this week. I can see that Bertha Dorset is furious with
me."
"Furious with you? Why?"
"Because I told her that Lawrence Selden was coming; but he
wouldn't, after all, and she's quite unreasonable enough to think
it's my fault."
Miss Bart put down her pen and sat absently gazing at the note
she had begun.
"I thought that was all over," she said.
"So it is, on his side. And of course Bertha has been idle since.
But I fancy she's out of a job just at present--and some one gave
me a hint that I had better ask Lawrence. Well, I DID ask
him--but I couldn't make him come; and now I suppose she'll take
it out of me by being perfectly nasty to every one else."
"Oh, she may take it out of HIM by being perfectly charming--to
some one else.
"Mrs. Trenor shook her head dolefully. "She knows he wouldn't
mind. And who else is there? Alice Wetherall won't let Lucius out
of her sight. Ned Silverton can't take his eyes off Carry
Fisher--poor boy! Gus is bored by Bertha, Jack Stepney knows her
too well--and--well, to be sure, there's Percy Gryce!"
She sat up smiling at the thought.
Miss Bart's countenance did not reflect the smile.
"Oh, she and Mr. Gryce would not be likely to hit it off."
"You mean that she'd shock him and he'd bore her? Well, that's
not such a bad beginning, you know. But I hope she won't take it
into her head to be nice to him, for I asked him here on purpose
for you."
Lily laughed. "MERCI DU COMPLIMENT! I should certainly have no
show against Bertha."
"Do you think I am uncomplimentary? I'm not really, you know.
Every one knows you're a thousand times handsomer and cleverer
than Bertha; but then you're not nasty. And for always getting
what she wants in the long run, commend me to a nasty woman."
Miss Bart stared in affected reproval. "I thought you were so
fond of Bertha."
"Oh, I am--it's much safer to be fond of dangerous people. But
she IS dangerous--and if I ever saw her up to mischief it's now.
I can tell by poor George's manner. That man is a perfect
barometer--he always knows when Bertha is going to---"
"To fall?" Miss Bart suggested.
"Don't be shocking! You know he believes in her still. And of
course I don't say there's any real harm in Bertha. Only she
delights in making people miserable, and especially poor George."
"Well, he seems cut out for the part--I don't wonder she likes
more cheerful companionship."
"Oh, George is not as dismal as you think. If Bertha did worry
him he would be quite different. Or if she'd leave him alone, and
let him arrange his life as he pleases. But she doesn't dare lose
her hold of him on account of the money, and so when HE isn't
jealous she pretends to be."
Miss Bart went on writing in silence, and her hostess sat
following her train of thought with frowning intensity.
"Do you know," she exclaimed after a long pause, "I believe I'll
call up Lawrence on the telephone and tell him he simply MUST
come?"
"Oh, don't," said Lily, with a quick suffusion of colour. The
blush surprised her almost as much as it did her hostess, who,
though not commonly observant of facial changes, sat staring at
her with puzzled eyes.
"Good gracious, Lily, how handsome you are! Why? Do you dislike
him so much?"
"Not at all; I like him. But if you are actuated by the
benevolent intention of protecting me from Bertha--I don't think
I need your protection.
"Mrs. Trenor sat up with an exclamation. "Lily!---PERCY? Do you
mean to say you've actually done it?"
Miss Bart smiled. "I only mean to say that Mr. Gryce and I are
getting to be very good friends."
"H'm--I see." Mrs. Trenor fixed a rapt eye upon her. "You know
they say he has eight hundred thousand a year--and spends
nothing, except on some rubbishy old books. And his mother has
heart-disease and will leave him a lot more. OH, LILY, DO GO
SLOWLY," her friend adjured her.
Miss Bart continued to smile without annoyance. "I shouldn't, for
instance," she remarked, "be in any haste to tell him that he had
a lot of rubbishy old books."
"No, of course not; I know you're wonderful about getting up
people's subjects. But he's horribly shy, and easily shocked,
and--and---"
"Why don't you say it, Judy? I have the reputation of being on
the hunt for a rich husband?"
"Oh, I don't mean that; he wouldn't believe it of you--at first,"
said Mrs. Trenor, with candid shrewdness. "But you know things
are rather lively here at times--I must give Jack and Gus a
hint--and if he thought you were what his mother would call
fast--oh, well, you know what I mean. Don't wear your scarlet
CREPE-DE-CHINE for dinner, and don't smoke if you can help it,
Lily dear!"
Lily pushed aside her finished work with a dry smile."You're very
kind, Judy: I'll lock up my cigarettes and wear that last year's
dress you sent me this morning. And if you are really interested
in my career, perhaps you'll be kind enough not to ask me to play
bridge again this evening."
"Bridge? Does he mind bridge, too? Oh, Lily, what an awful life
you'll lead! But of course I won't--why didn't you give me a hint
last night? There's nothing I wouldn't do, you poor duck, to see
you happy!"
And Mrs. Trenor, glowing with her sex's eagerness to smooth the
course of true love, enveloped Lily in a long embrace.
"You're quite sure," she added solicitously, as the latter
extricated herself, "that you wouldn't like me to telephone for
Lawrence Selden?"
"Quite sure," said Lily. _