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_ The daily details of Mrs. Hatch's existence were as strange to
Lily as its general tenor. The lady's habits were marked by an
Oriental indolence and disorder peculiarly trying to her
companion. Mrs. Hatch and her friends seemed to float together
outside the bounds of time and space. No definite hours were
kept; no fixed obligations existed: night and day flowed into one
another in a blur of confused and retarded engagements, so that
one had the impression of lunching at the tea-hour, while dinner
was often merged in the noisy after-theatre supper which
prolonged Mrs. Hatch's vigil till daylight.
Through this jumble of futile activities came and went a strange
throng of hangers-on--manicures, beauty-doctors, hair-dressers,
teachers of bridge, of French, of "physical development": figures
sometimes indistinguishable, by their appearance, or by Mrs.
Hatch's relation to them, from the visitors constituting her
recognized society. But strangest of all to Lily was the
encounter, in this latter group, of several of her acquaintances.
She had supposed, and not without relief, that she was passing,
for the moment, completely out of her own circle; but she found
that Mr. Stancy, one side of whose sprawling existence overlapped
the edge of Mrs. Fisher's world, had drawn several of its
brightest ornaments into the circle of the Emporium. To find Ned
Silverton among the habitual frequenters of Mrs. Hatch's
drawing-room was one of Lily's first astonishments; but she soon
discovered that he was not Mr. Stancy's most important
recruit. It was on little Freddy Van Osburgh, the small slim heir
of the Van Osburgh millions, that the attention of Mrs. Hatch's
group was centred. Freddy, barely out of college, had risen above
the horizon since Lily's eclipse, and she now saw with surprise
what an effulgence he shed on the outer twilight of Mrs. Hatch's
existence. This, then, was one of the things that young men "went
in" for when released from the official social routine; this
was the kind of "previous engagement" that so frequently caused
them to disappoint the hopes of anxious hostesses. Lily had an
odd sense of being behind the social tapestry, on the side where
the threads were knotted and the loose ends hung. For a moment
she found a certain amusement in the show, and in her own share
of it: the situation had an ease and unconventionality distinctly
refreshing after her experience of the irony of conventions. But
these flashes of amusement were but brief reactions from the long
disgust of her days. Compared with the vast gilded void of Mrs.
Hatch's existence, the life of Lily's former friends seemed
packed with ordered activities. Even the most irresponsible
pretty woman of her acquaintance had her inherited obligations,
her conventional benevolences, her share in the working of the
great civic machine; and all hung together in the solidarity of
these traditional functions. The performance of specific duties
would have simplified Miss Bart's position; but the vague
attendance on Mrs. Hatch was not without its perplexities.
It was not her employer who created these perplexities. Mrs.
Hatch showed from the first an almost touching desire for Lily's
approval. Far from asserting the superiority of wealth, her
beautiful eyes seemed to urge the plea of inexperience: she
wanted to do what was "nice," to be taught how to be "lovely."
The difficulty was to find any point of contact between her
ideals and Lily's.
Mrs. Hatch swam in a haze of indeterminate enthusiasms, of
aspirations culled from the stage, the newspapers, the fashion
journals, and a gaudy world of sport still more completely beyond
her companion's ken. To separate from these confused conceptions
those most likely to advance the lady on her way, was Lily's
obvious duty; but its performance was hampered by
rapidly-growing doubts. Lily was in fact becoming more and more
aware of a certain ambiguity in her situation. It was not that
she had, in the conventional sense, any doubt of Mrs. Hatch's
irreproachableness. The lady's offences were always against taste
rather than conduct; her divorce record seemed due to
geographical rather than ethical conditions; and her worst
laxities were likely to proceed from a wandering and extravagant
good-nature. But if Lily did not mind her detaining her manicure
for luncheon, or offering the "Beauty-Doctor" a seat in Freddy
Van Osburgh's box at the play, she was not equally at ease in
regard to some less apparent lapses from convention. Ned
Silverton's relation to Stancy seemed, for instance, closer and
less clear than any natural affinities would warrant; and both
appeared united in the effort to cultivate Freddy Van Osburgh's
growing taste for Mrs. Hatch. There was as yet nothing definable
in the situation, which might well resolve itself into a huge
joke on the part of the other two; but Lily had a vague sense
that the subject of their experiment was too young, too rich and
too credulous. Her embarrassment was increased by the fact that
Freddy seemed to regard her as cooperating with himself in the
social development of Mrs. Hatch: a view that suggested, on his
part, a permanent interest in the lady's future. There were
moments when Lily found an ironic amusement in this aspect of the
case. The thought of launching such a missile as Mrs. Hatch at
the perfidious bosom of society was not without its charm: Miss
Bart had even beguiled her leisure with visions of the fair Norma
introduced for the first time to a family banquet at the Van
Osburghs'. But the thought of being personally connected with the
transaction was less agreeable; and her momentary flashes of
amusement were followed by increasing periods of doubt.
The sense of these doubts was uppermost when, late one afternoon,
she was surprised by a visit from Lawrence Selden. He found her
alone in the wilderness of pink damask, for in Mrs. Hatch's world
the tea-hour was not dedicated to social rites, and the lady was
in the hands of her masseuse.
Selden's entrance had caused Lily an inward start of
embarrassment; but his air of constraint had the effect of
restoring her self-possession, and she took at once the tone of
surprise and pleasure, wondering frankly that he should
have traced her to so unlikely a place, and asking what had
inspired him to make the search.
Selden met this with an unusual seriousness: she had never seen
him so little master of the situation, so plainly at the mercy of
any obstructions she might put in his way. "I wanted to see you,"
he said; and she could not resist observing in reply that he had
kept his wishes under remarkable control. She had in truth felt
his long absence as one of the chief bitternesses of the last
months: his desertion had wounded sensibilities far below the
surface of her pride.
Selden met the challenge with directness. "Why should I have
come, unless I thought I could be of use to you? It is my only
excuse for imagining you could want me."
This struck her as a clumsy evasion, and the thought gave a flash
of keenness to her answer. "Then you have come now because you
think you can be of use to me?"
He hesitated again. "Yes: in the modest capacity of a person to
talk things over with."
For a clever man it was certainly a stupid beginning; and the
idea that his awkwardness was due to the fear of her attaching a
personal significance to his visit, chilled her pleasure in
seeing him. Even under the most adverse conditions, that pleasure
always made itself felt: she might hate him, but she had never
been able to wish him out of the room. She was very near hating
him now; yet the sound of his voice, the way the light fell on
his thin dark hair, the way he sat and moved and wore his
clothes--she was conscious that even these trivial things were
inwoven with her deepest life. In his presence a sudden stillness
came upon her, and the turmoil of her spirit ceased; but an
impulse of resistance to this stealing influence now prompted her
to say: "It's very good of you to present yourself in that
capacity; but what makes you think I have anything particular to
talk about?"
Though she kept the even tone of light intercourse, the question
was framed in a way to remind him that his good offices were
unsought; and for a moment Selden was checked by it. The
situation between them was one which could have been cleared up
only by a sudden explosion of feeling; and their whole training
and habit of mind were against the chances of such an
explosion. Selden's calmness seemed rather to harden into
resistance, and Miss Bart's into a surface of glittering irony,
as they faced each other from the opposite comers of one of Mrs.
Hatch's elephantine sofas. The sofa in question, and the
apartment peopled by its monstrous mates, served at length to
suggest the turn of Selden's reply.
"Gerty told me that you were acting as Mrs. Hatch's secretary;
and I knew she was anxious to hear how you were getting on."
Miss Bart received this explanation without perceptible
softening. "Why didn't she look me up herself, then?" she asked.
"Because, as you didn't send her your address, she was afraid of
being importunate." Selden continued with a smile: "You see no
such scruples restrained me; but then I haven't as much to risk
if I incur your displeasure."
Lily answered his smile. "You haven't incurred it as yet; but I
have an idea that you are going to."
"That rests with you, doesn't it? You see my initiative doesn't
go beyond putting myself at your disposal."
"But in what capacity? What am I to do with you?" she asked in
the same light tone.
Selden again glanced about Mrs. Hatch's drawing-room; then he
said, with a decision which he seemed to have gathered from this
final inspection: "You are to let me take you away from here."
Lily flushed at the suddenness of the attack; then she stiffened
under it and said coldly: "And may I ask where you mean me to
go?"
"Back to Gerty in the first place, if you will; the essential
thing is that it should be away from here." _
Read next: BOOK II: WEB PAGE 19
Read previous: BOOK II: WEB PAGE 17
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