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_ About this time she was farther cheered by an invitation to spend
the Thanksgiving week at a camp in the Adirondacks. The
invitation was one which, a year earlier, would have provoked a
less ready response, for the party, though organized by Mrs.
Fisher, was ostensibly given by a lady of obscure origin and
indomitable social ambitions, whose acquaintance Lily had
hitherto avoided. Now, however, she was disposed to coincide with
Mrs. Fisher's view, that it didn't matter who gave the party, as
long as things were well done; and doing things well (under
competent direction) was Mrs. Wellington Bry's strong point. The
lady (whose consort was known as "Welly" Bry on the Stock
Exchange and in sporting circles) had already sacrificed
one husband, and sundry minor considerations, to her
determination to get on; and, having obtained a hold on Carry
Fisher, she was astute enough to perceive the wisdom of
committing herself entirely to that lady's guidance. Everything,
accordingly, was well done, for there was no limit to Mrs.
Fisher's prodigality when she was not spending her own money, and
as she remarked to her pupil, a good cook was the best
introduction to society. If the company was not as select as the
CUISINE, the Welly Brys at least had the satisfaction of
figuring for the first time in the society columns in company
with one or two noticeable names; and foremost among these was of
course Miss Bart's. The young lady was treated by her hosts with
corresponding deference; and she was in the mood when such
attentions are acceptable, whatever their source. Mrs. Bry's
admiration was a mirror in which Lily's self-complacency
recovered its lost outline. No insect hangs its nest on threads
as frail as those which will sustain the weight of human vanity;
and the sense of being of importance among the insignificant was
enough to restore to Miss Bart the gratifying consciousness of
power. If these people paid court to her it proved that she was
still conspicuous in the world to which they aspired; and she was
not above a certain enjoyment in dazzling them by her fineness,
in developing their puzzled perception of her superiorities.
Perhaps, however, her enjoyment proceeded more than she was aware
from the physical stimulus of the excursion, the challenge of
crisp cold and hard exercise, the responsive thrill of her body
to the influences of the winter woods. She returned to town in a
glow of rejuvenation, conscious of a clearer colour in her
cheeks,
a fresh elasticity in her muscles. The future seemed full of a
vague promise, and all her apprehensions were swept out of sight
on the buoyant current of her mood.
A few days after her return to town she had the unpleasant
surprise of a visit from Mr. Rosedale. He came late, at the
confidential hour when the tea-table still lingers by the fire in
friendly expectancy; and his manner showed a readiness to adapt
itself to the intimacy of the occasion.
Lily, who had a vague sense of his being somehow con
nected
with her lucky speculations, tried to give him the welcome he
expected; but there was something in the quality of his geniality
which chilled her own, and she was conscious of marking each step
in their acquaintance by a fresh blunder.
Mr. Rosedale--making himself promptly at home in an adjoining
easy-chair, and sipping his tea critically, with the comment:
"You ought to go to my man for something really good"--appeared
totally unconscious of the repugnance which kept her in frozen
erectness behind the urn. It was perhaps her very manner of
holding herself aloof that appealed to his collector's passion
for the rare and unattainable. He gave, at any rate, no sign of
resenting it and seemed prepared to supply in his own manner all
the ease that was lacking in hers.
His object in calling was to ask her to go to the opera in his
box on the opening night, and seeing her hesitate he said
persuasively: "Mrs. Fisher is coming, and I've secured a
tremendous admirer of yours, who'll never forgive me if you don't
accept."
As Lily's silence left him with this allusion on his hands, he
added with a confidential smile: "Gus Trenor has promised to come
to town on purpose. I fancy he'd go a good deal farther for the
pleasure of seeing you."
Miss Bart felt an inward motion of annoyance: it was distasteful
enough to hear her name coupled with Trenor's, and on Rosedale's
lips the allusion was peculiarly unpleasant.
"The Trenors are my best friends--I think we should all go a long
way to see each other," she said, absorbing herself in the
preparation of fresh tea.
Her visitor's smile grew increasingly intimate. "Well, I wasn't
thinking of Mrs. Trenor at the moment--they say Gus doesn't
always, you know." Then, dimly conscious that he had not struck
the right note, he added, with a well-meant effort at diversion:
"How's your luck been going in Wall Street, by the way? I hear
Gus pulled off a nice little pile for you last month."
Lily put down the tea-caddy with an abrupt gesture. She felt that
her hands were trembling, and clasped them on her knee to steady
them; but her lip trembled too, and for a moment she was afraid
the tremor might communicate itself to her voice. When
she spoke, however, it was in a tone of perfect lightness.
"Ah, yes--I had a little bit of money to invest, and Mr. Trenor,
who helps me about such matters, advised my putting it in stocks
instead of a mortgage, as my aunt's agent wanted me to do; and as
it happened, I made a lucky 'turn'--is that what you call it? For
you make a great many yourself, I believe."
She was smiling back at him now, relaxing the tension of her
attitude, and admitting him, by imperceptible gradations of
glance and manner, a step farther toward intimacy. The protective
instinct always nerved her to successful dissimulation, and it
was not the first time she had used her beauty to divert
attention from an inconvenient topic.
When Mr. Rosedale took leave, he carried with him, not only her
acceptance of his invitation, but a general sense of having
comported himself in a way calculated to advance his cause. He
had always believed he had a light touch and a knowing way with
women, and the prompt manner in which Miss Bart (as he would have
phrased it) had "come into line," confirmed his confidence in his
powers of handling this skittish sex. Her way of glossing over
the transaction with Trenor he regarded at once as a tribute to
his own acuteness, and a confirmation of his suspicions. The girl
was evidently nervous, and Mr. Rosedale, if he saw no other means
of advancing his acquaintance with her, was not above taking
advantage of her nervousness.
He left Lily to a passion of disgust and fear. It seemed
incredible that Gus Trenor should have spoken of her to Rosedale.
With all his faults, Trenor had the safeguard of his traditions,
and was the less likely to overstep them because they were so
purely instinctive. But Lily recalled with a pang that there were
convivial moments when, as Judy had confided to her, Gus "talked
foolishly": in one of these, no doubt, the fatal word had slipped
from him. As for Rosedale, she did not, after the first shock,
greatly care what conclusions he had drawn. Though usually adroit
enough where her own interests were concerned, she made the
mistake, not uncommon to persons in whom the social habits are
instinctive, of supposing that the inability to acquire them
quickly im
plies a general dulness. Because a blue-bottle
bangs irrationally against a window-pane, the drawing-room
naturalist may forget that under less artificial conditions it is
capable of measuring distances and drawing conclusions with all
the accuracy needful to its welfare; and the fact that Mr.
Rosedale's drawing-room manner lacked perspective made Lily class
him with Trenor and the other dull men she knew, and assume that
a little flattery, and the occasional acceptance of his
hospitality, would suffice to render him innocuous. However,
there could be no doubt of the expediency of showing herself in
his box on the opening night of the opera; and after all, since
Judy Trenor had promised to take him up that winter, it was as
well to reap the advantage of being first in the field.
For a day or two after Rosedale's visit, Lily's thoughts were
dogged by the consciousness of Trenor's shadowy claim, and she
wished she had a clearer notion of the exact nature of the
transaction which seemed to have put her in his power; but her
mind shrank from any unusual application, and she was always
helplessly puzzled by figures. Moreover she had not seen Trenor
since the day of the Van Osburgh wedding, and in his continued
absence the trace of Rosedale's words was soon effaced by other
impressions.
When the opening night of the opera came, her apprehensions had
so completely vanished that the sight of Trenor's ruddy
countenance in the back of Mr. Rosedale's box filled her with a
sense of pleasant reassurance. Lily had not quite reconciled
herself to the necessity of appearing as Rosedale's guest on so
conspicuous an occasion, and it was a relief to find herself
supported by any one of her own set--for Mrs. Fisher's social
habits were too promiscuous for her presence to justify Miss
Bart's.
To Lily, always inspirited by the prospect of showing her beauty
in public, and conscious tonight of all the added enhancements of
dress, the insistency of Trenor's gaze merged itself in the
general stream of admiring looks of which she felt herself the
centre. Ah, it was good to be young, to be radiant, to glow with
the sense of slenderness, strength and elasticity, of well-poised
lines and happy tints, to feel one's self lifted to a height
apart by that incommunicable grace which is the bodily
counterpart of genius!
All means seemed justifiable to attain such an end, or rather, by
a happy shifting of lights with which practice had familiarized
Miss Bart, the cause shrank to a pin-point in the general
brightness of the effect. But brilliant young ladies, a little
blinded by their own effulgence, are apt to forget that the
modest satellite drowned in their light is still performing its
own revolutions and generating heat at its own rate. If Lily's
poetic enjoyment of the moment was undisturbed by the base
thought that her gown and opera cloak had been indirectly paid
for by Gus Trenor, the latter had not sufficient poetry in his
composition to lose sight of these prosaic facts. He knew only
that he had never seen Lily look smarter in her life, that there
wasn't a woman in the house who showed off good clothes as she
did, and that hitherto he, to whom she owed the opportunity of
making this display, had reaped no return beyond that of gazing
at her in company with several hundred other pairs of eyes.
It came to Lily therefore as a disagreeable surprise when, in the
back of the box, where they found themselves alone between two
acts, Trenor said, without preamble, and in a tone of sulky
authority: "Look here, Lily, how is a fellow ever to see anything
of you? I'm in town three or four days in the week, and you know
a line to the club will always find me, but you don't seem to
remember my existence nowadays unless you want to get a tip out
of me."
The fact that the remark was in distinctly bad taste did not make
it any easier to answer, for Lily was vividly aware that it was
not the moment for that drawing up of her slim figure and
surprised lifting of the brows by which she usually quelled
incipient signs of familiarity.
"I'm very much flattered by your wanting to see me," she
returned, essaying lightness instead, "but, unless you have
mislaid my address, it would have been easy to find me any
afternoon at my aunt's--in fact, I rather expected you to look me
up there."
If she hoped to mollify him by this last concession the attempt
was a failure, for he only replied, with the familiar lowering of
the brows that made him look his dullest when he was angry: "Hang
going to your aunt's, and wasting the afternoon listening to a
lot of other chaps talking to you! You know I'm not the
kind to sit in a crowd and jaw--I'd always rather clear out when
that sort of circus is going on. But why can't we go off
somewhere on a little lark together--a nice quiet little
expedition like that drive at Bellomont, the day you met me at
the station?"
He leaned unpleasantly close in order to convey this suggestion,
and she fancied she caught a significant aroma which explained
the dark flush on his face and the glistening dampness of his
forehead.
The idea that any rash answer might provoke an unpleasant
outburst tempered her disgust with caution, and she answered with
a laugh: "I don't see how one can very well take country drives
in town, but I am not always surrounded by an admiring throng,
and if you will let me know what afternoon you are coming I will
arrange things so that we can have a nice quiet talk."
"Hang talking! That's what you always say," returned Trenor,
whose expletives lacked variety. "You put me off with that at the
Van Osburgh wedding--but the plain English of it is that, now
you've got what you wanted out of me, you'd rather have any other
fellow about."
His voice had risen sharply with the last words, and Lily flushed
with annoyance, but she kept command of the situation and laid a
persuasive hand on his arm.
"Don't be foolish, Gus; I can't let you talk to me in that
ridiculous way. If you really want to see me, why shouldn't we
take a walk in the Park some afternoon? I agree with you that
it's amusing to be rustic in town, and if you like I'll meet you
there, and we'll go and feed the squirrels, and you shall take me
out on the lake in the steam-gondola."
She smiled as she spoke, letting her eyes rest on his in a way
that took the edge from her banter and made him suddenly
malleable to her will.
"All right, then: that's a go. Will you come tomorrow? Tomorrow
at three o'clock, at the end of the Mall. I'll be there sharp,
remember; you won't go back on me, Lily?"
But to Miss Bart's relief the repetition of her promise was cut
short by the opening of the box door to admit George Dorset.
Trenor sulkily yielded his place, and Lily turned a brilliant
smile on the newcomer. She had not talked with Dorset since
their visit at Bellomont, but something in his look and manner
told her that he recalled the friendly footing on which they had
last met. He was not a man to whom the expression of admiration
came easily: his long sallow face and distrustful eyes seemed
always barricaded against the expansive emotions. But, where her
own influence was concerned, Lily's intuitions sent out
thread-like feelers, and as she made room for him on the narrow
sofa she was sure he found a dumb pleasure in being near her. Few
women took the trouble to make themselves agreeable to Dorset,
and Lily had been kind to him at Bellomont, and was now smiling
on him with a divine renewal of kindness.
"Well, here we are, in for another six months of caterwauling,"
he began complainingly. "Not a shade of difference between this
year and last, except that the women have got new clothes and the
singers haven't got new voices. My wife's musical, you know--puts
me through a course of this every winter. It isn't so bad on
Italian nights--then she comes late, and there's time to digest.
But when they give Wagner we have to rush dinner, and I pay up
for it. And the draughts are damnable--asphyxia in front and
pleurisy in the back. There's Trenor leaving the box without
drawing the curtain! With a hide like that draughts don't make
any difference. Did you ever watch Trenor eat? If you did, you'd
wonder why he's alive; I suppose he's leather inside too.--But I
came to say that my wife wants you to come down to our place next
Sunday. Do for heaven's sake say yes. She's got a lot of bores
coming--intellectual ones, I mean; that's her new line, you
know, and I'm not sure it ain't worse than the music. Some of 'em
have long hair, and they start an argument with the soup, and
don't notice when things are handed to them. The consequence is
the dinner gets cold, and I have dyspepsia. That silly ass
Silverton brings them to the house--he writes poetry, you know,
and Bertha and he are getting tremendously thick. She could write
better than any of 'em if she chose, and I don't blame her for
wanting clever fellows about; all I say is: 'Don't let me see 'em
eat!'"
The gist of this strange communication gave Lily a distinct
thrill of pleasure. Under ordinary circumstances, there would
have been nothing surprising in an invitation from Bertha Dorset;
but since the Bellomont episode an unavowed hostility had
kept the two women apart. Now, with a start of inner wonder,
Lily felt that her thirst for retaliation had died out. IF YOU WOULD
FORGIVE YOUR ENEMY, says the Malay proverb, FIRST INFLICT A HURT
ON HIM; and Lily was experiencing the truth of the apothegm.
If she had destroyed Mrs. Dorset's letters, she might have
continued to hate her; but the fact that they remained in her
possession had fed her resentment to satiety.
She uttered a smiling acceptance, hailing in the renewal of the
tie an escape from Trenor's importunities.
Meanwhile the holidays had gone by and the season was beginning.
Fifth Avenue had become a nightly torrent of carriages surging
upward to the fashionable quarters about the Park, where
illuminated windows and outspread awnings betokened the usual
routine of hospitality. Other tributary currents crossed the
mainstream, bearing their freight to the theatres, restaurants or
opera; and Mrs. Peniston, from the secluded watch-tower of her
upper window, could tell to a nicety just when the chronic volume
of sound was increased by the sudden influx setting toward a Van
Osburgh ball, or when the multiplication of wheels meant merely
that the opera was over, or that there was a big supper at
Sherry's. _
Read next: BOOK I: WEB PAGE 23
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