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_ She returned his profound bow with a slight nod, made more
disdainful by the sense of Selden's surprise that she should
number Rosedale among her acquaintances. Trenor had turned away,
and his companion continued to stand before Miss Bart, alert and
expectant, his lips parted in a smile at whatever she might be
about to say, and his very back conscious of the privilege of
being seen with her.
It was the moment for tact; for the quick bridging over of gaps;
but Selden still leaned against the window, a detached observer
of the scene, and under the spell of his observation Lily felt
herself powerless to exert her usual arts. The dread of Selden's
suspecting that there was any need for her to propitiate such a
man as Rosedale checked the trivial phrases of politeness.
Rosedale still stood before her in an expectant attitude, and she
continued to face him in silence, her glance just level with his
polished baldness. The look put the finishing touch to what her
silence implied.
He reddened slowly, shifting from one foot to the other, fingered
the plump black pearl in his tie, and gave a nervous twist to his
moustache; then, running his eye over her, he drew back, and
said, with a side-glance at Selden: "Upon my soul, I never saw a
more ripping get-up. Is that the last creation of the dress-maker
you go to see at the Benedick? If so, I wonder all the other
women don't go to her too!"
The words were projected sharply against Lily's silence, and she
saw in a flash that her own act had given them their emphasis. In
ordinary talk they might have passed unheeded; but following on
her prolonged pause they acquired a special meaning. She felt,
without looking, that Selden had immediately seized it, and would
inevitably connect the allusion with her visit to himself. The
consciousness increased her irritation against Rosedale, but also
her feeling that now, if ever, was the moment to
propitiate him, hateful as it was to do so in Selden's presence.
"How do you know the other women don't go to my dress-maker?" she
returned. "You see I'm not afraid to give her address to my
friends!"
Her glance and accent so plainly included Rosedale in this
privileged circle that his small eyes puckered with
gratification, and a knowing smile drew up his moustache.
"By Jove, you needn't be!" he declared. "You could give 'em the
whole outfit and win at a canter!"
"Ah, that's nice of you; and it would be nicer still if you would
carry me off to a quiet corner, and get me a glass of lemonade or
some innocent drink before we all have to rush for the train."
She turned away as she spoke, letting him strut at her side
through the gathering groups on the terrace, while every nerve in
her throbbed with the consciousness of what Selden must have
thought of the scene.
But under her angry sense of the perverseness of things, and the
light surface of her talk with Rosedale, a third idea persisted:
she did not mean to leave without an attempt to discover the
truth about Percy Gryce. Chance, or perhaps his own resolve, had
kept them apart since his hasty withdrawal from Bellomont; but
Miss Bart was an expert in making the most of the unexpected, and
the distasteful incidents of the last few minutes--the revelation
to Selden of precisely that part of her life which she most
wished him to ignore--increased her longing for shelter, for
escape from such humiliating contingencies. Any definite
situation would be more tolerable than this buffeting of chances,
which kept her in an attitude of uneasy alertness toward every
possibility of life.
Indoors there was a general sense of dispersal in the air, as of
an audience gathering itself up for departure after the principal
actors had left the stage; but among the remaining groups, Lily
could discover neither Gryce nor the youngest Miss Van Osburgh.
That both should be missing struck her with foreboding; and she
charmed Mr. Rosedale by proposing that they should make their way
to the conservatories at the farther end of the house. There were
just enough people left in the long suite of rooms to make their
progress con
spicuous, and Lily was aware of being followed
by looks of amusement and interrogation, which glanced off as
harmlessly from her indifference as from her companion's
self-satisfaction. She cared very little at that moment about
being seen with Rosedale: all her thoughts were centred on the
object of her search. The latter, however, was not discoverable
in the conservatories, and Lily, oppressed by a sudden conviction
of failure, was casting about for a way to rid herself of her now
superfluous companion, when they came upon Mrs. Van Osburgh,
flushed and exhausted, but beaming with the consciousness of duty
performed.
She glanced at them a moment with the benign but vacant eye of
the tired hostess, to whom her guests have become mere whirling
spots in a kaleidoscope of fatigue; then her attention became
suddenly fixed, and she seized on Miss Bart with a confidential
gesture. "My dear Lily, I haven't had time for a word with you,
and now I suppose you are just off. Have you seen Evie? She's
been looking everywhere for you: she wanted to tell you her
little secret; but I daresay you have guessed it already. The
engagement is not to be announced till next week--but you are
such a friend of Mr. Gryce's that they both wished you to be the
first to know of their happiness."
In Mrs. Peniston's youth, fashion had returned to town in
October; therefore on the tenth day of the month the blinds of
her Fifth Avenue residence were drawn up, and the eyes of the
Dying Gladiator in bronze who occupied the drawing-room window
resumed their survey of that deserted thoroughfare.
The first two weeks after her return represented to Mrs. Peniston
the domestic equivalent of a religious retreat. She "went
through" the linen and blankets in the precise spirit of the
penitent exploring the inner folds of conscience; she sought for
moths as the stricken soul seeks for lurking infirmities. The
topmost shelf of every closet was made to yield up its secret,
cellar and coal-bin were probed to their darkest depths and, as a
final stage in the lustral rites, the entire house was swathed in
penitential white and deluged with expiatory soapsuds.
It was on this phase of the proceedings that Miss Bart entered on
the afternoon of her return from the Van Osburgh wedding. The
journey back to town had not been calculated to soothe her
nerves. Though Evie Van Osburgh's engagement was still officially
a secret, it was one of which the innumerable intimate friends of
the family were already possessed; and the trainful of returning
guests buzzed with allusions and anticipations. Lily was acutely
aware of her own part in this drama of innuendo: she knew the
exact quality of the amusement the situation evoked. The crude
forms in which her friends took their pleasure included a loud
enjoyment of such complications: the zest of surprising destiny
in the act of playing a practical joke. Lily knew well enough how
to bear herself in difficult situations. She had, to a shade, the
exact manner between victory and defeat: every insinuation was
shed without an effort by the bright indifference of her manner.
But she was beginning to feel the strain of the attitude; the
reaction was more rapid, and she lapsed to a deeper self-disgust.
As was always the case with her, this moral repulsion found a
physical outlet in a quickened distaste for her surroundings.
She revolted from the complacent ugliness of Mrs. Peniston's
black walnut, from the slippery gloss of the vestibule tiles,
and the mingled odour of sapolio and furniture-polish that
met her at the door.
The stairs were still carpetless, and on the way up to her room
she was arrested on the landing by an encroaching tide of
soapsuds. Gathering up her skirts, she drew aside with an
impatient gesture; and as she did so she had the odd sensation of
having already found herself in the same situation but in
different surroundings. It seemed to her that she was again
descending the staircase from Selden's rooms; and looking down to
remonstrate with the dispenser of the soapy flood, she found
herself met by a lifted stare which had once before confronted
her under similar circumstances. It was the char-woman of the
Benedick who, resting on crimson elbows, examined her with the
same unflinching curiosity, the same apparent reluctance to let
her pass. On this occasion, however, Miss Bart was on her own
ground.
"Don't you see that I wish to go by? Please move your pail," she
said sharply.
The woman at first seemed not to hear; then, without a word of
excuse, she pushed back her pail and dragged a wet floor-cloth
across the landing, keeping her eyes fixed on Lily while the
latter swept by. It was insufferable that Mrs. Peniston should
have such creatures about the house; and Lily entered her room
resolved that the woman should be dismissed that evening.
Mrs. Peniston, however, was at the moment inaccessible to
remonstrance: since early morning she had been shut up with her
maid, going over her furs, a process which formed the culminating
episode in the drama of household renovation. In the evening also
Lily found herself alone, for her aunt, who rarely dined out, had
responded to the summons of a Van Alstyne cousin who was passing
through town. The house, in its state of unnatural immaculateness
and order, was as dreary as a tomb, and as Lily, turning from her
brief repast between shrouded sideboards, wandered into the
newly-uncovered glare of the drawing-room she felt as though she
were buried alive in the stifling limits of Mrs. Peniston's
existence.
She usually contrived to avoid being at home during the season of
domestic renewal. On the present occasion, however, a variety of
reasons had combined to bring her to town; and foremost among
them was the fact that she had fewer invitations than usual for
the autumn. She had so long been accustomed to pass from one
country-house to another, till the close of the holidays brought
her friends to town, that the unfilled gaps of time confronting
her produced a sharp sense of waning popularity. It was as she
had said to Selden--people were tired of her. They would welcome
her in a new character, but as Miss Bart they knew her by heart.
She knew herself by heart too, and was sick of the old story.
There were moments when she longed blindly for anything
different, anything strange, remote and untried; but the utmost
reach of her imagination did not go beyond picturing her usual
life in a new setting. She could not figure herself as anywhere
but in a drawing-room, diffusing elegance as a flower sheds
perfume.
Meanwhile, as October advanced she had to face the alternative of
returning to the Trenors or joining her aunt in town. Even the
desolating dulness of New York in October, and the soapy
discomforts of Mrs. Peniston's interior, seemed preferable to
what might await her at Bellomont; and with an air of heroic
devotion she announced her intention of remaining with her
aunt till the holidays.
Sacrifices of this nature are sometimes received with feelings as
mixed as those which actuate them; and Mrs. Peniston remarked to
her confidential maid that, if any of the family were to be with
her at such a crisis (though for forty years she had been thought
competent to see to the hanging of her own curtains), she would
certainly have preferred Miss Grace to Miss Lily. Grace Stepney
was an obscure cousin, of adaptable manners and vicarious
interests, who "ran in" to sit with Mrs. Peniston when Lily dined
out too continuously; who played bezique, picked up dropped
stitches, read out the deaths from the Times, and sincerely
admired the purple satin drawing-room curtains, the Dying
Gladiator in the window, and the seven-by-five painting of
Niagara which represented the one artistic excess of Mr.
Peniston's temperate career. _
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