________________________________________________
_ Selden paused in surprise. In the afternoon rush of the Grand
Central Station his eyes had been refreshed by the sight of Miss
Lily Bart.
It was a Monday in early September, and he was returning to his
work from a hurried dip into the country; but what was Miss Bart
doing in town at that season? If she had appeared to be catching
a train, he might have inferred that he had come on her in the
act of transition between one and another of the country-houses
which disputed her presence after the close of the Newport
season; but her desultory air perplexed him. She stood apart from
the crowd, letting it drift by her to the platform or the street,
and wearing an air of irresolution which might, as he surmised,
be the mask of a very definite purpose. It struck him at once
that she was waiting for some one, but he hardly knew why the
idea arrested him. There was nothing new about Lily Bart, yet he
could never see her without a faint movement of interest: it was
characteristic of her that she always roused speculation, that
her simplest acts seemed the result of far-reaching intentions.
An impulse of curiosity made him turn out of his direct line to
the door, and stroll past her. He knew that if she did not wish
to be seen she would contrive to elude him; and it amused him to
think of putting her skill to the test.
"Mr. Selden--what good luck!"
She came forward smiling, eager almost, in her resolve to
intercept him. One or two persons, in brushing past them,
lingered to look; for Miss Bart was a figure to arrest even the
suburban traveller rushing to his last train.
Selden had never seen her more radiant. Her vivid head, relieved
against the dull tints of the crowd, made her more conspicuous
than in a ball-room, and under her dark hat and veil she regained
the girlish smoothness, the purity of tint, that she was
beginning to lose after eleven years of late hours and
indefatigable dancing. Was it really eleven years, Selden found
himself wondering, and had she indeed reached the
nine-and-twentieth birthday with which her rivals credited her?
"What luck!" she repeated. "How nice of you to come to my
rescue!"
He responded joyfully that to do so was his mission in life, and
asked what form the rescue was to take.
"Oh, almost any--even to sitting on a bench and talking to me.
One sits out a cotillion--why not sit out a train? It isn't a bit
hotter here than in Mrs. Van Osburgh's conservatory--and some of
the women are not a bit uglier." She broke off, laughing, to
explain that she had come up to town from Tuxedo, on her way to
the Gus Trenors' at Bellomont, and had missed the three-fifteen
train to Rhinebeck. "And there isn't another till half-past
five." She consulted the little jewelled watch among her laces.
"Just two hours to wait. And I don't know what to do with myself.
My maid came up this morning to do some shopping for me, and was
to go on to Bellomont at one o'clock, and my aunt's house is
closed, and I don't know a soul in town." She glanced plaintively
about the station. "It IS hotter than Mrs. Van Osburgh's, after
all. If you can spare the time, do take me somewhere for a breath
of air."
He declared himself entirely at her disposal: the adventure
struck him as diverting. As a spectator, he had always enjoyed
Lily Bart; and his course lay so far out of her orbit that it
amused him to be drawn for a moment into the sudden intimacy
which her proposal implied.
"Shall we go over to Sherry's for a cup of tea?"
She smiled assentingly, and then made a slight grimace.
"So many people come up to town on a Monday--one is sure to meet
a lot of bores. I'm as old as the hills, of course, and it ought
not to make any difference; but if I'M old enough, you're not,"
she objected gaily. "I'm dying for tea--but isn't there a quieter
place?"
He answered her smile, which rested on him vividly. Her
discretions interested him almost as much as her imprudences: he
was so sure that both were part of the same carefully-elaborated
plan. In judging Miss Bart, he had always made use of the
"argument from design."
"The resources of New York are rather meagre," he said; "but I'll
find a hansom first, and then we'll invent something."He led her
through the throng of returning holiday-makers, past sallow-faced
girls in preposterous hats, and flat-chested women struggling
with paper bundles and palm-leaf fans. Was it possible that she
belonged to the same race? The dinginess, the crudity of this
average section of womanhood made him feel how highly
specialized she was.
A rapid shower had cooled the air, and clouds still hung
refreshingly over the moist street.
"How delicious! Let us walk a little," she said as they emerged
from the station.
They turned into Madison Avenue and began to stroll northward. As
she moved beside him, with her long light step, Selden was
conscious of taking a luxurious pleasure in her nearness: in the
modelling of her little ear, the crisp upward wave of her
hair--was it ever so slightly brightened by art?--and the thick
planting of her straight black lashes. Everything about her was
at once vigorous and exquisite, at once strong and fine. He had a
confused sense that she must have cost a great deal to make, that
a great many dull and ugly people must, in some mysterious way,
have been sacrificed to produce her. He was aware that the
qualities distinguishing her from the herd of her sex were
chiefly external: as though a fine glaze of beauty and
fastidiousness had been applied to vulgar clay. Yet the analogy
left him unsatisfied, for a coarse texture will not take a high
finish; and was it not possible that the material was fine, but
that circumstance had fashioned it into a futile shape?
As he reached this point in his speculations the sun came out,
and her lifted parasol cut off his enjoyment. A moment or two
later she paused with a sigh.
"Oh, dear, I'm so hot and thirsty--and what a hideous place New
York is!" She looked despairingly up and down the dreary
thoroughfare. "Other cities put on their best clothes in summer,
but New York seems to sit in its shirtsleeves." Her eyes wandered
down one of the side-streets. "Someone has had the humanity to
plant a few trees over there. Let us go into the shade."
"I am glad my street meets with your approval," said Selden as
they turned the corner.
"Your street? Do you live here?"
She glanced with interest along the new brick and limestone
house-fronts, fantastically varied in obedience to the American
craving for novelty, but fresh and inviting with their awnings
and flower-boxes.
"Ah, yes--to be sure: THE BENEDICK. What a nice-looking building!
I don't think I've ever seen it before." She looked across at the
flat-house with its marble porch and pseudo-Georgian facade.
"Which are your windows? Those with the awnings down?"
"On the top floor--yes."
"And that nice little balcony is yours? How cool it looks up
there!"
He paused a moment. "Come up and see," he suggested. "I can give
you a cup of tea in no time--and you won't meet any bores."
Her colour deepened--she still had the art of blushing at the
right time--but she took the suggestion as lightly as it was
made.
"Why not? It's too tempting--I'll take the risk," she declared.
"Oh, I'm not dangerous," he said in the same key. In truth, he
had never liked her as well as at that moment. He knew she had
accepted without afterthought: he could never be a factor in her
calculations, and there was a surprise, a refreshment almost, in
the spontaneity of her consent.
On the threshold he paused a moment, feeling for his latchkey.
"There's no one here; but I have a servant who is supposed to
come in the mornings, and it's just possible he may have put out
the tea-things and provided some cake." _
Read next: BOOK I: WEB PAGE 2
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