prompt:
Chapter: 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.

Mrs. Peniston followed the rise and culmination of the season as keenly
as the most active sharer in its gaieties; and, as a looker-on, she
enjoyed opportunities of comparison and generalization such as those who
take part must proverbially forego. No one could have kept a more
accurate record of social fluctuations, or have put a more unerring
finger on the distinguishing features of each season: its dulness, its
extravagance, its lack of balls or excess of divorces. She had a special
memory for the vicissitudes of the "new people" who rose to the surface
with each recurring tide, and were either submerged beneath its rush or
landed triumphantly beyond the reach of envious breakers; and she was apt
to display a remarkable retrospective insight into their ultimate fate,
so that, when they had fulfilled their destiny, she was almost always
able to say to Grace Stepney--the recipient of her prophecies--that she
had known exactly what would happen.

This particular season Mrs. Peniston would have characterized as that in
which everybody "felt poor" except the Welly Brys and Mr. Simon Rosedale.
It had been a bad autumn in Wall Street, where prices fell in accordance
with that peculiar law which proves railway stocks and bales of cotton to
be more sensitive to the allotment of executive power than many estimable
citizens trained to all the advantages of self-government. Even fortunes
supposed to be independent of the market either betrayed a secret
dependence on it, or suffered from a sympathetic affection: fashion
sulked in its country houses, or came to town incognito, general
entertainments were discountenanced, and informality and short dinners
became the fashion.

But society, amused for a while at playing Cinderella, soon wearied of
the hearthside role, and welcomed the Fairy Godmother in the shape of any
magician powerful enough to turn the shrunken pumpkin back again into the
golden coach. The mere fact of growing richer at a time when most
people's investments are shrinking, is calculated to attract envious
attention; and according to Wall Street rumours, Welly Bry and Rosedale
had found the secret of performing this miracle.

Rosedale, in particular, was said to have doubled his fortune, and there
was talk of his buying the newly-finished house of one of the victims of
the crash, who, in the space of twelve short months, had made the same
number of millions, built a house in Fifth Avenue, filled a
picture-gallery with old masters, entertained all New York in it, and
been smuggled out of the country between a trained nurse and a doctor,
while his creditors mounted guard over the old masters, and his guests
explained to each other that they had dined with him only because they
wanted to see the pictures. Mr. Rosedale meant to have a less meteoric
career. He knew he should have to go slowly, and the instincts of his
race fitted him to suffer rebuffs and put up with delays. But he was
prompt to perceive that the general dulness of the season afforded him an
unusual opportunity to shine, and he set about with patient industry to
form a background for his growing glory.  Mrs. Fisher was of immense
service to him at this period. She had set off so many newcomers on the
social stage that she was like one of those pieces of stock scenery which
tell the experienced spectator exactly what is going to take place. But
Mr. Rosedale wanted, in the long run, a more individual environment. He
was sensitive to shades of difference which Miss Bart would never have
credited him with perceiving, because he had no corresponding variations
of manner; and it was becoming more and more clear to him that Miss Bart
herself possessed precisely the complementary qualities needed to round
off his social personality.

Such details did not fall within the range of Mrs. Peniston's vision.
Like many minds of panoramic sweep, hers was apt to overlook the MINUTIAE
of the foreground, and she was much more likely to know where Carry
Fisher had found the Welly Brys' CHEF for them, than what was happening
to her own niece. She was not, however, without purveyors of information
ready to supplement her deficiencies. Grace Stepney's mind was like a
kind of moral fly-paper, to which the buzzing items of gossip were drawn
by a fatal attraction, and where they hung fast in the toils of an
inexorable memory. Lily would have been surprised to know how many
trivial facts concerning herself were lodged in Miss Stepney's head. She
was quite aware that she was of interest to dingy people, but she assumed
that there is only one form of dinginess, and that admiration for
brilliancy is the natural expression of its inferior state. She knew that
Gerty Farish admired her blindly, and therefore supposed that she
inspired the same sentiments in Grace Stepney, whom she classified as a
Gerty Farish without the saving traits of youth and enthusiasm.

In reality, the two differed from each other as much as they differed
from the object of their mutual contemplation. Miss Farish's heart was a
fountain of tender illusions, Miss Stepney's a precise register of facts
as manifested in their relation to herself. She had sensibilities which,
to Lily, would have seemed comic in a person with a freckled nose and red
eyelids, who lived in a boarding-house and admired Mrs. Peniston's
drawing-room; but poor Grace's limitations gave them a more concentrated
inner life, as poor soil starves certain plants into intenser
efflorescence. She had in truth no abstract propensity to malice: she did
not dislike Lily because the latter was brilliant and predominant, but
because she thought that Lily disliked her. It is less mortifying to
believe one's self unpopular than insignificant, and vanity prefers to
assume that indifference is a latent form of unfriendliness. Even such
scant civilities as Lily accorded to Mr. Rosedale would have made Miss
Stepney her friend for life; but how could she foresee that such a friend
was worth cultivating? How, moreover, can a young woman who has never
been ignored measure the pang which this injury inflicts? And, lastly,
how could Lily, accustomed to choose between a pressure of engagements,
guess that she had mortally offended Miss Stepney by causing her to be
excluded from one of Mrs. Peniston's infrequent dinner-parties?

Mrs. Peniston disliked giving dinners, but she had a high sense of family
obligation, and on the Jack Stepneys' return from their honeymoon she
felt it incumbent upon her to light the drawing-room lamps and extract
her best silver from the Safe Deposit vaults. Mrs. Peniston's rare
entertainments were preceded by days of heart-rending vacillation as to
every detail of the feast, from the seating of the guests to the pattern
of the table-cloth, and in the course of one of these preliminary
discussions she had imprudently suggested to her cousin Grace that, as
the dinner was a family affair, she might be included in it. For a week
the prospect had lighted up Miss Stepney's colourless existence; then she
had been given to understand that it would be more convenient to have her
another day. Miss Stepney knew exactly what had happened. Lily, to whom
family reunions were occasions of unalloyed dulness, had persuaded her
aunt that a dinner of "smart" people would be much more to the taste of
the young couple, and Mrs. Peniston, who leaned helplessly on her niece
in social matters, had been prevailed upon to pronounce Grace's exile.
After all, Grace could come any other day; why should she mind being put
off?

It was precisely because Miss Stepney could come any other day--and
because she knew her relations were in the secret of her unoccupied
evenings--that this incident loomed gigantically on her horizon. She was
aware that she had Lily to thank for it; and dull resentment was turned
to active animosity.

Mrs. Peniston, on whom she had looked in a day or two after the dinner,
laid down her crochet-work and turned abruptly from her oblique survey of
Fifth Avenue.

"Gus Trenor?--Lily and Gus Trenor?" she said, growing so suddenly pale
that her visitor was almost alarmed.

"Oh, cousin Julia . . . of course I don't mean . . ."

"I don't know what you DO mean," said Mrs. Peniston, with a frightened
quiver in her small fretful voice. "Such things were never heard of in my
day. And my own niece! I'm not sure I understand you. Do people say he's
in love with her?"

Mrs. Peniston's horror was genuine. Though she boasted an unequalled
familiarity with the secret chronicles of society, she had the innocence
of the school-girl who regards wickedness as a part of "history," and to
whom it never occurs that the scandals she reads of in lesson-hours may
be repeating themselves in the next street. Mrs. Peniston had kept her
imagination shrouded, like the drawing-room furniture. She knew, of
course, that society was "very much changed," and that many women her
mother would have thought "peculiar" were now in a position to be
critical about their visiting-lists; she had discussed the perils of
divorce with her rector, and had felt thankful at times that Lily was
still unmarried; but the idea that any scandal could attach to a young
girl's name, above all that it could be lightly coupled with that of a
married man, was so new to her that she was as much aghast as if she had
been accused of leaving her carpets down all summer, or of violating any
of the other cardinal laws of housekeeping.

Miss Stepney, when her first fright had subsided, began to feel the
superiority that greater breadth of mind confers. It was really pitiable
to be as ignorant of the world as Mrs. Peniston!  She smiled at the
latter's question. "People always say unpleasant things--and certainly
they're a great deal together. A friend of mine met them the other
afternoon in the Park--quite late, after the lamps were lit. It's a pity
Lily makes herself so conspicuous."

"CONSPICUOUS!" gasped Mrs. Peniston. She bent forward, lowering her voice
to mitigate the horror. "What sort of things do they say? That he means
to get a divorce and marry her?"

Grace Stepney laughed outright. "Dear me, no! He would hardly do that.
It--it's a flirtation--nothing more."

"A flirtation? Between my niece and a married man? Do you mean to tell me
that, with Lily's looks and advantages, she could find no better use for
her time than to waste it on a fat stupid man almost old enough to be her
father?" This argument had such a convincing ring that it gave Mrs.
Peniston sufficient reassurance to pick up her work, while she waited for
Grace Stepney to rally her scattered forces.

But Miss Stepney was on the spot in an instant. "That's the worst of
it--people say she isn't wasting her time! Every one knows, as you say,
that Lily is too handsome and--and charming--to devote herself to a man
like Gus Trenor unless--"

"Unless?" echoed Mrs. Peniston. Her visitor drew breath nervously. It was
agreeable to shock Mrs. Peniston, but not to shock her to the verge of
anger. Miss Stepney was not sufficiently familiar with the classic drama
to have recalled in advance how bearers of bad tidings are proverbially
received, but she now had a rapid vision of forfeited dinners and a
reduced wardrobe as the possible consequence of her disinterestedness. To
the honour of her sex, however, hatred of Lily prevailed over more
personal considerations. Mrs. Peniston had chosen the wrong moment to
boast of her niece's charms.

"Unless," said Grace, leaning forward to speak with low-toned emphasis,
"unless there are material advantages to be gained by making herself
agreeable to him."

She felt that the moment was tremendous, and remembered suddenly that
Mrs. Peniston's black brocade, with the cut jet fringe, would have been
hers at the end of the season.

Mrs. Peniston put down her work again. Another aspect of the same idea
had presented itself to her, and she felt that it was beneath her dignity
to have her nerves racked by a dependent relative who wore her old
clothes.

"If you take pleasure in annoying me by mysterious insinuations," she
said coldly, "you might at least have chosen a more suitable time than
just as I am recovering from the strain of giving a large dinner."

The mention of the dinner dispelled Miss Stepney's last scruples.  "I
don't know why I should be accused of taking pleasure in telling you
about Lily. I was sure I shouldn't get any thanks for it," she returned
with a flare of temper. "But I have some family feeling left, and as you
are the only person who has any authority over Lily, I thought you ought
to know what is being said of her."

"Well," said Mrs. Peniston, "what I complain of is that you haven't told
me yet what IS being said."

"I didn't suppose I should have to put it so plainly. People say that Gus
Trenor pays her bills."

"Pays her bills--her bills?" Mrs. Peniston broke into a laugh. "I can't
imagine where you can have picked up such rubbish. Lily has her own
income--and I provide for her very handsomely--"

"Oh, we all know that," interposed Miss Stepney drily. "But Lily wears a
great many smart gowns--"

"I like her to be well-dressed--it's only suitable!"

"Certainly; but then there are her gambling debts besides."

Miss Stepney, in the beginning, had not meant to bring up this point; but
Mrs. Peniston had only her own incredulity to blame.  She was like the
stiff-necked unbelievers of Scripture, who must be annihilated to be
convinced.

"Gambling debts? Lily?" Mrs. Peniston's voice shook with anger and
bewilderment. She wondered whether Grace Stepney had gone out of her
mind. "What do you mean by her gambling debts?"

"Simply that if one plays bridge for money in Lily's set one is liable to
lose a great deal--and I don't suppose Lily always wins."

"Who told you that my niece played cards for money?"

"Mercy, cousin Julia, don't look at me as if I were trying to turn you
against Lily! Everybody knows she is crazy about bridge.  Mrs. Gryce told
me herself that it was her gambling that frightened Percy Gryce--it seems
he was really taken with her at first. But, of course, among Lily's
friends it's quite the custom for girls to play for money.  In fact,
people are inclined to excuse her on that account----"

"To excuse her for what?"

"For being hard up--and accepting attentions from men like Gus
Trenor--and George Dorset----"

Mrs. Peniston gave another cry. "George Dorset? Is there any one else?  I
should like to know the worst, if you please."

"Don't put it in that way, cousin Julia. Lately Lily has been a good deal
with the Dorsets, and he seems to admire her--but of course that's only
natural. And I'm sure there is no truth in the horrid things people say;
but she HAS been spending a great deal of money this winter. Evie Van
Osburgh was at Celeste's ordering her trousseau the other day--yes, the
marriage takes place next month--and she told me that Celeste showed her
the most exquisite things she was just sending home to Lily. And people
say that Judy Trenor has quarrelled with her on account of Gus; but I'm
sure I'm sorry I spoke, though I only meant it as a kindness."

Mrs. Peniston's genuine incredulity enabled her to dismiss Miss Stepney
with a disdain which boded ill for that lady's prospect of succeeding to
the black brocade; but minds impenetrable to reason have generally some
crack through which suspicion filters, and her visitor's insinuations did
not glide off as easily as she had expected. Mrs. Peniston disliked
scenes, and her determination to avoid them had always led her to hold
herself aloof from the details of Lily's life.  In her youth, girls had
not been supposed to require close supervision.  They were generally
assumed to be taken up with the legitimate business of courtship and
marriage, and interference in such affairs on the part of their natural
guardians was considered as unwarrantable as a spectator's suddenly
joining in a game. There had of course been "fast" girls even in Mrs.
Peniston's early experience; but their fastness, at worst, was understood
to be a mere excess of animal spirits, against which there could be no
graver charge than that of being "unladylike." The modern fastness
appeared synonymous with immorality, and the mere idea of immorality was
as offensive to Mrs. Peniston as a smell of cooking in the drawing-room:
it was one of the conceptions her mind refused to admit.

She had no immediate intention of repeating to Lily what she had heard,
or even of trying to ascertain its truth by means of discreet
interrogation. To do so might be to provoke a scene; and a scene, in the
shaken state of Mrs. Peniston's nerves, with the effects of her dinner
not worn off, and her mind still tremulous with new impressions, was a
risk she deemed it her duty to avoid.  But there remained in her thoughts
a settled deposit of resentment against her niece, all the denser because
it was not to be cleared by explanation or discussion.  It was horrible
of a young girl to let herself be talked about; however unfounded the
charges against her, she must be to blame for their having been made.
Mrs. Peniston felt as if there had been a contagious illness in the
house, and she was doomed to sit shivering among her contaminated
furniture.

Miss Bart had in fact been treading a devious way, and none of her
critics could have been more alive to the fact than herself; but she had
a fatalistic sense of being drawn from one wrong turning to another,
without ever perceiving the right road till it was too late to take it.

Lily, who considered herself above narrow prejudices, had not imagined
that the fact of letting Gus Trenor make a little money for her would
ever disturb her self-complacency. And the fact in itself still seemed
harmless enough; only it was a fertile source of harmful complications.
As she exhausted the amusement of spending the money these complications
became more pressing, and Lily, whose mind could be severely logical in
tracing the causes of her ill-luck to others, justified herself by the
thought that she owed all her troubles to the enmity of Bertha Dorset.
This enmity, however, had apparently expired in a renewal of friendliness
between the two women. Lily's visit to the Dorsets had resulted, for
both, in the discovery that they could be of use to each other; and the
civilized instinct finds a subtler pleasure in making use of its
antagonist than in confounding him.  Mrs. Dorset was, in fact, engaged in
a new sentimental experiment, of which Mrs. Fisher's late property, Ned
Silverton, was the rosy victim; and at such moments, as Judy Trenor had
once remarked, she felt a peculiar need of distracting her husband's
attention. Dorset was as difficult to amuse as a savage; but even his
self-engrossment was not proof against Lily's arts, or rather these were
especially adapted to soothe an uneasy egoism. Her experience with Percy
Gryce stood her in good stead in ministering to Dorset's humours, and if
the incentive to please was less urgent, the difficulties of her
situation were teaching her to make much of minor opportunities.

Intimacy with the Dorsets was not likely to lessen such difficulties on
the material side. Mrs. Dorset had none of Judy Trenor's lavish impulses,
and Dorset's admiration was not likely to express itself in financial
"tips," even had Lily cared to renew her experiences in that line. What
she required, for the moment, of the Dorsets' friendship, was simply its
social sanction. She knew that people were beginning to talk of her; but
this fact did not alarm her as it had alarmed Mrs. Peniston. In her set
such gossip was not unusual, and a handsome girl who flirted with a
married man was merely assumed to be pressing to the limit of her
opportunities. It was Trenor himself who frightened her.  Their walk in
the Park had not been a success.  Trenor had married young, and since his
marriage his intercourse with women had not taken the form of the
sentimental small-talk which doubles upon itself like the paths in a
maze. He was first puzzled and then irritated to find himself always led
back to the same starting-point, and Lily felt that she was gradually
losing control of the situation. Trenor was in truth in an unmanageable
mood. In spite of his understanding with Rosedale he had been somewhat
heavily "touched" by the fall in stocks; his household expenses weighed
on him, and he seemed to be meeting, on all sides, a sullen opposition to
his wishes, instead of the easy good luck he had hitherto encountered.

Mrs. Trenor was still at Bellomont, keeping the town-house open, and
descending on it now and then for a taste of the world, but preferring
the recurrent excitement of week-end parties to the restrictions of a
dull season. Since the holidays she had not urged Lily to return to
Bellomont, and the first time they met in town Lily fancied there was a
shade of coldness in her manner.  Was it merely the expression of her
displeasure at Miss Bart's neglect, or had disquieting rumours reached
her? The latter contingency seemed improbable, yet Lily was not without a
sense of uneasiness. If her roaming sympathies had struck root anywhere,
it was in her friendship with Judy Trenor. She believed in the sincerity
of her friend's affection, though it sometimes showed itself in
self-interested ways, and she shrank with peculiar reluctance from any
risk of estranging it. But, aside from this, she was keenly conscious of
the way in which such an estrangement would react on herself. The fact
that Gus Trenor was Judy's husband was at times Lily's strongest reason
for disliking him, and for resenting the obligation under which he had
placed her. To set her doubts at rest, Miss Bart, soon after the New
Year, "proposed" herself for a week-end at Bellomont. She had learned in
advance that the presence of a large party would protect her from too
great assiduity on Trenor's part, and his wife's telegraphic "come by all
means" seemed to assure her of her usual welcome.

Judy received her amicably. The cares of a large party always prevailed
over personal feelings, and Lily saw no change in her hostess's manner.
Nevertheless, she was soon aware that the experiment of coming to
Bellomont was destined not to be successful. The party was made up of
what Mrs. Trenor called "poky people"--her generic name for persons who
did not play bridge--and, it being her habit to group all such
obstructionists in one class, she usually invited them together,
regardless of their other characteristics. The result was apt to be an
irreducible combination of persons having no other quality in common than
their abstinence from bridge, and the antagonisms developed in a group
lacking the one taste which might have amalgamated them, were in this
case aggravated by bad weather, and by the ill-concealed boredom of their
host and hostess. In such emergencies, Judy would usually have turned to
Lily to fuse the discordant elements; and Miss Bart, assuming that such a
service was expected of her, threw herself into it with her accustomed
zeal. But at the outset she perceived a subtle resistance to her efforts.
If Mrs. Trenor's manner toward her was unchanged, there was certainly a
faint coldness in that of the other ladies. An occasional caustic
allusion to "your friends the Wellington Brys," or to "the little Jew who
has bought the Greiner house--some one told us you knew him, Miss
Bart,"--showed Lily that she was in disfavour with that portion of
society which, while contributing least to its amusement, has assumed the
right to decide what forms that amusement shall take. The indication was
a slight one, and a year ago Lily would have smiled at it, trusting to
the charm of her personality to dispel any prejudice against her. But now
she had grown more sensitive to criticism and less confident in her power
of disarming it. She knew, moreover, that if the ladies at Bellomont
permitted themselves to criticize her friends openly, it was a proof that
they were not afraid of subjecting her to the same treatment behind her
back. The nervous dread lest anything in Trenor's manner should seem to
justify their disapproval made her seek every pretext for avoiding him,
and she left Bellomont conscious of having failed in every purpose which
had taken her there.

In town she returned to preoccupations which, for the moment, had the
happy effect of banishing troublesome thoughts. The Welly Brys, after
much debate, and anxious counsel with their newly acquired friends, had
decided on the bold move of giving a general entertainment. To attack
society collectively, when one's means of approach are limited to a few
acquaintances, is like advancing into a strange country with an
insufficient number of scouts; but such rash tactics have sometimes led
to brilliant victories, and the Brys had determined to put their fate to
the touch. Mrs. Fisher, to whom they had entrusted the conduct of the
affair, had decided that TABLEAUX VIVANTS and expensive music were the
two baits most likely to attract the desired prey, and after prolonged
negotiations, and the kind of wire-pulling in which she was known to
excel, she had induced a dozen fashionable women to exhibit themselves in
a series of pictures which, by a farther miracle of persuasion, the
distinguished portrait painter, Paul Morpeth, had been prevailed upon to
organize.

Lily was in her element on such occasions. Under Morpeth's guidance her
vivid plastic sense, hitherto nurtured on no higher food than
dress-making and upholstery, found eager expression in the disposal of
draperies, the study of attitudes, the shifting of lights and shadows.
Her dramatic instinct was roused by the choice of subjects, and the
gorgeous reproductions of historic dress stirred an imagination which
only visual impressions could reach. But keenest of all was the
exhilaration of displaying her own beauty under a new aspect: of showing
that her loveliness was no mere fixed quality, but an element shaping all
emotions to fresh forms of grace.

Mrs. Fisher's measures had been well-taken, and society, surprised in a
dull moment, succumbed to the temptation of Mrs. Bry's hospitality. The
protesting minority were forgotten in the throng which abjured and came;
and the audience was almost as brilliant as the show.

Lawrence Selden was among those who had yielded to the proffered
inducements. If he did not often act on the accepted social axiom that a
man may go where he pleases, it was because he had long since learned
that his pleasures were mainly to be found in a small group of the
like-minded. But he enjoyed spectacular effects, and was not insensible
to the part money plays in their production: all he asked was that the
very rich should live up to their calling as stage-managers, and not
spend their money in a dull way. This the Brys could certainly not be
charged with doing. Their recently built house, whatever it might lack as
a frame for domesticity, was almost as well-designed for the display of a
festal assemblage as one of those airy pleasure-halls which the Italian
architects improvised to set off the hospitality of princes.  The air of
improvisation was in fact strikingly present: so recent, so
rapidly-evoked was the whole MISE-EN-SCENE that one had to touch the
marble columns to learn they were not of cardboard, to seat one's self in
one of the damask-and-gold arm-chairs to be sure it was not painted
against the wall.

Selden, who had put one of these seats to the test, found himself, from
an angle of the ball-room, surveying the scene with frank enjoyment.  The
company, in obedience to the decorative instinct which calls for fine
clothes in fine surroundings, had dressed rather with an eye to Mrs.
Bry's background than to herself. The seated throng, filling the immense
room without undue crowding, presented a surface of rich tissues and
jewelled shoulders in harmony with the festooned and gilded walls, and
the flushed splendours of the Venetian ceiling. At the farther end of the
room a stage had been constructed behind a proscenium arch curtained with
folds of old damask; but in the pause before the parting of the folds
there was little thought of what they might reveal, for every woman who
had accepted Mrs. Bry's invitation was engaged in trying to find out how
many of her friends had done the same.

Gerty Farish, seated next to Selden, was lost in that indiscriminate and
uncritical enjoyment so irritating to Miss Bart's finer perceptions. It
may be that Selden's nearness had something to do with the quality of his
cousin's pleasure; but Miss Farish was so little accustomed to refer her
enjoyment of such scenes to her own share in them, that she was merely
conscious of a deeper sense of contentment.

"Wasn't it dear of Lily to get me an invitation? Of course it would never
have occurred to Carry Fisher to put me on the list, and I should have
been so sorry to miss seeing it all--and especially Lily herself.  Some
one told me the ceiling was by Veronese--you would know, of course,
Lawrence. I suppose it's very beautiful, but his women are so dreadfully
fat. Goddesses?  Well, I can only say that if they'd been mortals and had
to wear corsets, it would have been better for them. I think our women
are much handsomer. And this room is wonderfully becoming--every one
looks so well! Did you ever see such jewels? Do look at Mrs. George
Dorset's pearls--I suppose the smallest of them would pay the rent of our
Girls' Club for a year. Not that I ought to complain about the club;
every one has been so wonderfully kind.  Did I tell you that Lily had
given us three hundred dollars?  Wasn't it splendid of her? And then she
collected a lot of money from her friends--Mrs. Bry gave us five hundred,
and Mr. Rosedale a thousand. I wish Lily were not so nice to Mr.
Rosedale, but she says it's no use being rude to him, because he doesn't
see the difference. She really can't bear to hurt people's feelings--it
makes me so angry when I hear her called cold and conceited! The girls at
the club don't call her that. Do you know she has been there with me
twice?--yes, Lily! And you should have seen their eyes! One of them said
it was as good as a day in the country just to look at her. And she sat
there, and laughed and talked with them--not a bit as if she were being
CHARITABLE, you know, but as if she liked it as much as they did. They've
been asking ever since when she's coming back; and she's promised
me----oh!"

Miss Farish's confidences were cut short by the parting of the curtain on
the first TABLEAU--a group of nymphs dancing across flower-strewn sward
in the rhythmic postures of Botticelli's Spring. TABLEAUX VIVANTS depend
for their effect not only on the happy disposal of lights and the
delusive-interposition of layers of gauze, but on a corresponding
adjustment of the mental vision.  To unfurnished minds they remain, in
spite of every enhancement of art, only a superior kind of wax-works; but
to the responsive fancy they may give magic glimpses of the boundary
world between fact and imagination. Selden's mind was of this order: he
could yield to vision-making influences as completely as a child to the
spell of a fairy-tale. Mrs. Bry's TABLEAUX wanted none of the qualities
which go to the producing of such illusions, and under Morpeth's
organizing hand the pictures succeeded each other with the rhythmic march
of some splendid frieze, in which the fugitive curves of living flesh and
the wandering light of young eyes have been subdued to plastic harmony
without losing the charm of life.

The scenes were taken from old pictures, and the participators had been
cleverly fitted with characters suited to their types.  No one, for
instance, could have made a more typical Goya than Carry Fisher, with her
short dark-skinned face, the exaggerated glow of her eyes, the
provocation of her frankly-painted smile. A brilliant Miss Smedden from
Brooklyn showed to perfection the sumptuous curves of Titian's Daughter,
lifting her gold salver laden with grapes above the harmonizing gold of
rippled hair and rich brocade, and a young Mrs. Van Alstyne, who showed
the frailer Dutch type, with high blue-veined forehead and pale eyes and
lashes, made a characteristic Vandyck, in black satin, against a
curtained archway. Then there were Kauffmann nymphs garlanding the altar
of Love; a Veronese supper, all sheeny textures, pearl-woven heads and
marble architecture; and a Watteau group of lute-playing comedians,
lounging by a fountain in a sunlit glade.

Each evanescent picture touched the vision-building faculty in Selden,
leading him so far down the vistas of fancy that even Gerty Farish's
running commentary--"Oh, how lovely Lulu Melson looks!" or: "That must be
Kate Corby, to the right there, in purple"--did not break the spell of
the illusion. Indeed, so skilfully had the personality of the actors been
subdued to the scenes they figured in that even the least imaginative of
the audience must have felt a thrill of contrast when the curtain
suddenly parted on a picture which was simply and undisguisedly the
portrait of Miss Bart.

Here there could be no mistaking the predominance of personality--the
unanimous "Oh!" of the spectators was a tribute, not to the brush-work of
Reynolds's "Mrs. Lloyd" but to the flesh and blood loveliness of Lily
Bart. She had shown her artistic intelligence in selecting a type so like
her own that she could embody the person represented without ceasing to
be herself. It was as though she had stepped, not out of, but into,
Reynolds's canvas, banishing the phantom of his dead beauty by the beams
of her living grace. The impulse to show herself in a splendid
setting--she had thought for a moment of representing Tiepolo's
Cleopatra--had yielded to the truer instinct of trusting to her
unassisted beauty, and she had purposely chosen a picture without
distracting accessories of dress or surroundings.  Her pale draperies,
and the background of foliage against which she stood, served only to
relieve the long dryad-like curves that swept upward from her poised foot
to her lifted arm. The noble buoyancy of her attitude, its suggestion of
soaring grace, revealed the touch of poetry in her beauty that Selden
always felt in her presence, yet lost the sense of when he was not with
her. Its expression was now so vivid that for the first time he seemed to
see before him the real Lily Bart, divested of the trivialities of her
little world, and catching for a moment a note of that eternal harmony of
which her beauty was a part.

"Deuced bold thing to show herself in that get-up; but, gad, there isn't
a break in the lines anywhere, and I suppose she wanted us to know it!"

These words, uttered by that experienced connoisseur, Mr. Ned Van
Alstyne, whose scented white moustache had brushed Selden's shoulder
whenever the parting of the curtains presented any exceptional
opportunity for the study of the female outline, affected their hearer in
an unexpected way. It was not the first time that Selden had heard Lily's
beauty lightly remarked on, and hitherto the tone of the comments had
imperceptibly coloured his view of her. But now it woke only a motion of
indignant contempt.  This was the world she lived in, these were the
standards by which she was fated to be measured! Does one go to Caliban
for a judgment on Miranda?

In the long moment before the curtain fell, he had time to feel the whole
tragedy of her life. It was as though her beauty, thus detached from all
that cheapened and vulgarized it, had held out suppliant hands to him
from the world in which he and she had once met for a moment, and where
he felt an overmastering longing to be with her again.

He was roused by the pressure of ecstatic fingers. "Wasn't she too
beautiful, Lawrence? Don't you like her best in that simple dress? It
makes her look like the real Lily--the Lily I know."

He met Gerty Farish's brimming gaze. "The Lily we know," he corrected;
and his cousin, beaming at the implied understanding, exclaimed joyfully:
"I'll tell her that! She always says you dislike her."

The performance over, Selden's first impulse was to seek Miss Bart.
During the interlude of music which succeeded the TABLEAUX, the actors
had seated themselves here and there in the audience, diversifying its
conventional appearance by the varied picturesqueness of their dress.
Lily, however, was not among them, and her absence served to protract the
effect she had produced on Selden: it would have broken the spell to see
her too soon in the surroundings from which accident had so happily
detached her. They had not met since the day of the Van Osburgh wedding,
and on his side the avoidance had been intentional.  Tonight, however, he
knew that, sooner or later, he should find himself at her side; and
though he let the dispersing crowd drift him whither it would, without
making an immediate effort to reach her, his procrastination was not due
to any lingering resistance, but to the desire to luxuriate a moment in
the sense of complete surrender.

Lily had not an instant's doubt as to the meaning of the murmur greeting
her appearance. No other tableau had been received with that precise note
of approval: it had obviously been called forth by herself, and not by
the picture she impersonated. She had feared at the last moment that she
was risking too much in dispensing with the advantages of a more
sumptuous setting, and the completeness of her triumph gave her an
intoxicating sense of recovered power. Not caring to diminish the
impression she had produced, she held herself aloof from the audience
till the movement of dispersal before supper, and thus had a second
opportunity of showing herself to advantage, as the throng poured slowly
into the empty drawing-room where she was standing.

She was soon the centre of a group which increased and renewed itself as
the circulation became general, and the individual comments on her
success were a delightful prolongation of the collective applause. At
such moments she lost something of her natural fastidiousness, and cared
less for the quality of the admiration received than for its quantity.
Differences of personality were merged in a warm atmosphere of praise, in
which her beauty expanded like a flower in sunlight; and if Selden had
approached a moment or two sooner he would have seen her turning on Ned
Van Alstyne and George Dorset the look he had dreamed of capturing for
himself.

Fortune willed, however, that the hurried approach of Mrs. Fisher, as
whose aide-de-camp Van Alstyne was acting, should break up the group
before Selden reached the threshold of the room. One or two of the men
wandered off in search of their partners for supper, and the others,
noticing Selden's approach, gave way to him in accordance with the tacit
freemasonry of the ball-room. Lily was therefore standing alone when he
reached her; and finding the expected look in her eye, he had the
satisfaction of supposing he had kindled it. The look did indeed deepen
as it rested on him, for even in that moment of self-intoxication Lily
felt the quicker beat of life that his nearness always produced.  She
read, too, in his answering gaze the delicious confirmation of her
triumph, and for the moment it seemed to her that it was for him only she
cared to be beautiful.

Selden had given her his arm without speaking. She took it in silence,
and they moved away, not toward the supper-room, but against the tide
which was setting thither. The faces about her flowed by like the
streaming images of sleep: she hardly noticed where Selden was leading
her, till they passed through a glass doorway at the end of the long
suite of rooms and stood suddenly in the fragrant hush of a garden.
Gravel grated beneath their feet, and about them was the transparent
dimness of a midsummer night. Hanging lights made emerald caverns in the
depths of foliage, and whitened the spray of a fountain falling among
lilies. The magic place was deserted: there was no sound but the splash
of the water on the lily-pads, and a distant drift of music that might
have been blown across a sleeping lake.

Selden and Lily stood still, accepting the unreality of the scene as a
part of their own dream-like sensations. It would not have surprised them
to feel a summer breeze on their faces, or to see the lights among the
boughs reduplicated in the arch of a starry sky. The strange solitude
about them was no stranger than the sweetness of being alone in it
together. At length Lily withdrew her hand, and moved away a step, so
that her white-robed slimness was outlined against the dusk of the
branches. Selden followed her, and still without speaking they seated
themselves on a bench beside the fountain.

Suddenly she raised her eyes with the beseeching earnestness of a child.
"You never speak to me--you think hard things of me," she murmured.

"I think of you at any rate, God knows!" he said.

"Then why do we never see each other? Why can't we be friends?  You
promised once to help me," she continued in the same tone, as though the
words were drawn from her unwillingly.

"The only way I can help you is by loving you," Selden said in a low
voice.

She made no reply, but her face turned to him with the soft motion of a
flower. His own met it slowly, and their lips touched. She drew back and
rose from her seat. Selden rose too, and they stood facing each other.
Suddenly she caught his hand and pressed it a moment against her cheek.

"Ah, love me, love me--but don't tell me so!" she sighed with her eyes in
his; and before he could speak she had turned and slipped through the
arch of boughs, disappearing in the brightness of the room beyond.

Selden stood where she had left him. He knew too well the transiency of
exquisite moments to attempt to follow her; but presently he reentered
the house and made his way through the deserted rooms to the door. A few
sumptuously-cloaked ladies were already gathered in the marble vestibule,
and in the coat-room he found Van Alstyne and Gus Trenor.

The former, at Selden's approach, paused in the careful selection of a
cigar from one of the silver boxes invitingly set out near the door.

"Hallo, Selden, going too? You're an Epicurean like myself, I see: you
don't want to see all those goddesses gobbling terrapin.  Gad, what a
show of good-looking women; but not one of 'em could touch that little
cousin of mine. Talk of jewels--what's a woman want with jewels when
she's got herself to show? The trouble is that all these fal-bals they
wear cover up their figures when they've got 'em. I never knew till
tonight what an outline Lily has."

"It's not her fault if everybody don't know it now," growled Trenor,
flushed with the struggle of getting into his fur-lined coat. "Damned bad
taste, I call it--no, no cigar for me. You can't tell what you're smoking
in one of these new houses--likely as not the CHEF buys the cigars. Stay
for supper? Not if I know it! When people crowd their rooms so that you
can't get near any one you want to speak to, I'd as soon sup in the
elevated at the rush hour. My wife was dead right to stay away: she says
life's too short to spend it in breaking in new people."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Wall Street hits a slump during the holiday season, and all investors, excepting Rosedale and Wellington Bry, suffer financial losses. Rosedale is rumored to have doubled his fortune, thus smoothing his path to acceptance in New York society. He has been friendly with Carry Fisher, who has been beneficial in introducing him to influential persons and to social customs. He desires, however, a more individualized woman in his life and has set his cap in Lily Bart's direction. The narrator recounts a holiday party thrown by Mrs. Peniston to welcome returning newlyweds Jack and Gwen Stepney. Mrs. Peniston's cousin, Grace Stepney, had thought herself invited to the dinner, but discovered she had been removed from the guest list. She suspects that Lily is responsible for the slight, and the relationship between the two women becomes strained. Seizing an opportunity to revenge her slight, Grace tells Mrs. Peniston about the rumors that are circulating about Lily and Trenor. Grace tells Mrs. Peniston that people are talking about an estrangement between Lily and Judy, a result of a flirtation between the younger woman and Trenor. Grace continues that people have been saying that Trenor is paying Lily's bills, including her gambling debts. This statement reveals to Mrs. Peniston that Lily is playing cards for money, an activity unheard of in Mrs. Peniston's limited purview. To further her point, Grace tells Mrs. Peniston that it was Lily's gambling that frightened Gryce away. Grace also informs Mrs. Peniston that it is rumored that Lily has been seen with Dorset, another married man. She recounts that Evie had seen several expensive items of apparel that were being sent to Lily, indicating that Lily is spending extravagantly and beyond her limited means. As Chapter XII opens, Lily has ingratiated herself with the Dorsets in the belief that mending fences with Bertha allows her to find "a subtler pleasure in making use of antagonist than in confounding him." Lily spends much of her time humoring Dorset, an activity far simpler than keeping the increasingly difficult Trenor at bay. Trenor's fortunes were negatively impacted by the stock market crash. Lily suspects that the rumors about her flirtation with Trenor may have gotten back to Judy, which may explain the woman's suddenly cold behavior toward her. The Brys' newly acquired wealth prompts them to throw a large party at their estate with the assistance of Lily and Carry Fisher. Attending the party are Selden and Gerty, both of whom were invited by Lily. Gerty confides to Selden that Lily has donated three hundred dollars to Gerty's philanthropy, her Girls Club, and has convinced the other society women to contribute large amounts as well. The party features a tableau vivant in which volunteers re-create famous scenes of art or history. Lily is featured as the subject of Sir Joshua Reynolds' Mrs. Lloyd, a depiction of such beauty that it elicits gasps of appreciation from the audience. The painting is known for displaying the voluptuous form of its subject in a transparent gauze gown while she carves her lover's name into a tree. Selden's admiration for Lily's portrait prompts him to think "for the first time he seemed to see before him the real Lily Bart, divested of the trivialities of her little world, and catching for a moment a note of that eternal harmony of which her beauty was a part." While some in the audience are scandalized by the exposure of Lily's form, Selden is mesmerized. He looks forward to speaking with her for the first time after intentionally avoiding her since the Stepneys' wedding. The two walk outside, and Selden professes his love to her. The couple kisses, and Lily tells Selden to love her "but don't tell me so." She leaves him alone. Selden leaves the party, but not until he hears Trenor and Ned Van Alstyne discussing Lily's attractiveness.


prompt:
Chapter: Lily woke from happy dreams to find two notes at her bedside.

One was from Mrs. Trenor, who announced that she was coming to town that
afternoon for a flying visit, and hoped Miss Bart would be able to dine
with her. The other was from Selden. He wrote briefly that an important
case called him to Albany, whence he would be unable to return till the
evening, and asked Lily to let him know at what hour on the following day
she would see him.

Lily, leaning back among her pillows, gazed musingly at his letter. The
scene in the Brys' conservatory had been like a part of her dreams; she
had not expected to wake to such evidence of its reality. Her first
movement was one of annoyance: this unforeseen act of Selden's added
another complication to life. It was so unlike him to yield to such an
irrational impulse! Did he really mean to ask her to marry him? She had
once shown him the impossibility of such a hope, and his subsequent
behaviour seemed to prove that he had accepted the situation with a
reasonableness somewhat mortifying to her vanity. It was all the more
agreeable to find that this reasonableness was maintained only at the
cost of not seeing her; but, though nothing in life was as sweet as the
sense of her power over him, she saw the danger of allowing the episode
of the previous night to have a sequel. Since she could not marry him, it
would be kinder to him, as well as easier for herself, to write a line
amicably evading his request to see her: he was not the man to mistake
such a hint, and when next they met it would be on their usual friendly
footing.

Lily sprang out of bed, and went straight to her desk. She wanted to
write at once, while she could trust to the strength of her resolve.  She
was still languid from her brief sleep and the exhilaration of the
evening, and the sight of Selden's writing brought back the culminating
moment of her triumph: the moment when she had read in his eyes that no
philosophy was proof against her power. It would be pleasant to have that
sensation again . . . no one else could give it to her in its fulness;
and she could not bear to mar her mood of luxurious retrospection by an
act of definite refusal. She took up her pen and wrote hastily: "TOMORROW
AT FOUR;" murmuring to herself, as she slipped the sheet into its
envelope: "I can easily put him off when tomorrow comes."

Judy Trenor's summons was very welcome to Lily. It was the first time she
had received a direct communication from Bellomont since the close of her
last visit there, and she was still visited by the dread of having
incurred Judy's displeasure. But this characteristic command seemed to
reestablish their former relations; and Lily smiled at the thought that
her friend had probably summoned her in order to hear about the Brys'
entertainment. Mrs. Trenor had absented herself from the feast, perhaps
for the reason so frankly enunciated by her husband, perhaps because, as
Mrs. Fisher somewhat differently put it, she "couldn't bear new people
when she hadn't discovered them herself." At any rate, though she
remained haughtily at Bellomont, Lily suspected in her a devouring
eagerness to hear of what she had missed, and to learn exactly in what
measure Mrs. Wellington Bry had surpassed all previous competitors for
social recognition. Lily was quite ready to gratify this curiosity, but
it happened that she was dining out. She determined, however, to see Mrs.
Trenor for a few moments, and ringing for her maid she despatched a
telegram to say that she would be with her friend that evening at ten.

She was dining with Mrs. Fisher, who had gathered at an informal feast a
few of the performers of the previous evening. There was to be plantation
music in the studio after dinner--for Mrs. Fisher, despairing of the
republic, had taken up modelling, and annexed to her small crowded house
a spacious apartment, which, whatever its uses in her hours of plastic
inspiration, served at other times for the exercise of an indefatigable
hospitality. Lily was reluctant to leave, for the dinner was amusing, and
she would have liked to lounge over a cigarette and hear a few songs; but
she could not break her engagement with Judy, and shortly after ten she
asked her hostess to ring for a hansom, and drove up Fifth Avenue to the
Trenors'.

She waited long enough on the doorstep to wonder that Judy's presence in
town was not signalized by a greater promptness in admitting her; and her
surprise was increased when, instead of the expected footman, pushing his
shoulders into a tardy coat, a shabby care-taking person in calico let
her into the shrouded hall. Trenor, however, appeared at once on the
threshold of the drawing-room, welcoming her with unusual volubility
while he relieved her of her cloak and drew her into the room.

"Come along to the den; it's the only comfortable place in the house.
Doesn't this room look as if it was waiting for the body to be brought
down? Can't see why Judy keeps the house wrapped up in this awful
slippery white stuff--it's enough to give a fellow pneumonia to walk
through these rooms on a cold day. You look a little pinched yourself, by
the way: it's rather a sharp night out. I noticed it walking up from the
club. Come along, and I'll give you a nip of brandy, and you can toast
yourself over the fire and try some of my new Egyptians--that little
Turkish chap at the Embassy put me on to a brand that I want you to try,
and if you like 'em I'll get out a lot for you: they don't have 'em here
yet, but I'll cable."

He led her through the house to the large room at the back, where Mrs.
Trenor usually sat, and where, even in her absence, there was an air of
occupancy. Here, as usual, were flowers, newspapers, a littered
writing-table, and a general aspect of lamp-lit familiarity, so that it
was a surprise not to see Judy's energetic figure start up from the
arm-chair near the fire.

It was apparently Trenor himself who had been occupying the seat in
question, for it was overhung by a cloud of cigar smoke, and near it
stood one of those intricate folding tables which British ingenuity has
devised to facilitate the circulation of tobacco and spirits. The sight
of such appliances in a drawing-room was not unusual in Lily's set, where
smoking and drinking were unrestricted by considerations of time and
place, and her first movement was to help herself to one of the
cigarettes recommended by Trenor, while she checked his loquacity by
asking, with a surprised glance: "Where's Judy?"

Trenor, a little heated by his unusual flow of words, and perhaps by
prolonged propinquity with the decanters, was bending over the latter to
decipher their silver labels.

"Here, now, Lily, just a drop of cognac in a little fizzy water--you do
look pinched, you know: I swear the end of your nose is red. I'll take
another glass to keep you company--Judy?--Why, you see, Judy's got a
devil of a head ache--quite knocked out with it, poor thing--she asked me
to explain--make it all right, you know--Do come up to the fire, though;
you look dead-beat, really. Now do let me make you comfortable, there's a
good girl."

He had taken her hand, half-banteringly, and was drawing her toward a low
seat by the hearth; but she stopped and freed herself quietly.

"Do you mean to say that Judy's not well enough to see me?  Doesn't she
want me to go upstairs?"

Trenor drained the glass he had filled for himself, and paused to set it
down before he answered.

"Why, no--the fact is, she's not up to seeing anybody. It came on
suddenly, you know, and she asked me to tell you how awfully sorry she
was--if she'd known where you were dining she'd have sent you word."

"She did know where I was dining; I mentioned it in my telegram.  But it
doesn't matter, of course. I suppose if she's so poorly she won't go back
to Bellomont in the morning, and I can come and see her then."

"Yes: exactly--that's capital. I'll tell her you'll pop in tomorrow
morning. And now do sit down a minute, there's a dear, and let's have a
nice quiet jaw together. You won't take a drop, just for sociability?
Tell me what you think of that cigarette.  Why, don't you like it? What
are you chucking it away for?"

"I am chucking it away because I must go, if you'll have the goodness to
call a cab for me," Lily returned with a smile.

She did not like Trenor's unusual excitability, with its too evident
explanation, and the thought of being alone with him, with her friend out
of reach upstairs, at the other end of the great empty house, did not
conduce to a desire to prolong their TETE-A-TETE.

But Trenor, with a promptness which did not escape her, had moved between
herself and the door.

"Why must you go, I should like to know? If Judy'd been here you'd have
sat gossiping till all hours--and you can't even give me five minutes!
It's always the same story. Last night I couldn't get near you--I went to
that damned vulgar party just to see you, and there was everybody talking
about you, and asking me if I'd ever seen anything so stunning, and when
I tried to come up and say a word, you never took any notice, but just
went on laughing and joking with a lot of asses who only wanted to be
able to swagger about afterward, and look knowing when you were
mentioned."

He paused, flushed by his diatribe, and fixing on her a look in which
resentment was the ingredient she least disliked. But she had regained
her presence of mind, and stood composedly in the middle of the room,
while her slight smile seemed to put an ever increasing distance between
herself and Trenor.

Across it she said: "Don't be absurd, Gus. It's past eleven, and I must
really ask you to ring for a cab."

He remained immovable, with the lowering forehead she had grown to detest.

"And supposing I won't ring for one--what'll you do then?"

"I shall go upstairs to Judy if you force me to disturb her."

Trenor drew a step nearer and laid his hand on her arm. "Look here, Lily:
won't you give me five minutes of your own accord?"

"Not tonight, Gus: you----"

"Very good, then: I'll take 'em. And as many more as I want." He had
squared himself on the threshold, his hands thrust deep in his pockets.
He nodded toward the chair on the hearth.

"Go and sit down there, please: I've got a word to say to you."

Lily's quick temper was getting the better of her fears. She drew herself
up and moved toward the door.

"If you have anything to say to me, you must say it another time.  I
shall go up to Judy unless you call a cab for me at once."

He burst into a laugh. "Go upstairs and welcome, my dear; but you won't
find Judy. She ain't there."

Lily cast a startled look upon him. "Do you mean that Judy is not in the
house--not in town?" she exclaimed.

"That's just what I do mean," returned Trenor, his bluster sinking to
sullenness under her look.

"Nonsense--I don't believe you. I am going upstairs," she said
impatiently.

He drew unexpectedly aside, letting her reach the threshold unimpeded.

"Go up and welcome; but my wife is at Bellomont."

But Lily had a flash of reassurance. "If she hadn't come she would have
sent me word----"

"She did; she telephoned me this afternoon to let you know."

"I received no message."

"I didn't send any."

The two measured each other for a moment, but Lily still saw her opponent
through a blur of scorn that made all other considerations indistinct.

"I can't imagine your object in playing such a stupid trick on me; but if
you have fully gratified your peculiar sense of humour I must again ask
you to send for a cab."

It was the wrong note, and she knew it as she spoke. To be stung by irony
it is not necessary to understand it, and the angry streaks on Trenor's
face might have been raised by an actual lash.

"Look here, Lily, don't take that high and mighty tone with me." He had
again moved toward the door, and in her instinctive shrinking from him
she let him regain command of the threshold.  "I DID play a trick on you;
I own up to it; but if you think I'm ashamed you're mistaken. Lord knows
I've been patient enough--I've hung round and looked like an ass.  And
all the while you were letting a lot of other fellows make up to
you . . . letting 'em make fun of me, I daresay . . . I'm not sharp, and
can't dress my friends up to look funny, as you do . . . but I can tell
when it's being done to me . . . I can tell fast enough when I'm made a
fool of . . ."

"Ah, I shouldn't have thought that!" flashed from Lily; but her laugh
dropped to silence under his look.

"No; you wouldn't have thought it; but you'll know better now. That's
what you're here for tonight. I've been waiting for a quiet time to talk
things over, and now I've got it I mean to make you hear me out."

His first rush of inarticulate resentment had been followed by a
steadiness and concentration of tone more disconcerting to Lily than the
excitement preceding it. For a moment her presence of mind forsook her.
She had more than once been in situations where a quick sword-play of wit
had been needful to cover her retreat; but her frightened heart-throbs
told her that here such skill would not avail.

To gain time she repeated: "I don't understand what you want."

Trenor had pushed a chair between herself and the door. He threw himself
in it, and leaned back, looking up at her.

"I'll tell you what I want: I want to know just where you and I stand.
Hang it, the man who pays for the dinner is generally allowed to have a
seat at table."

She flamed with anger and abasement, and the sickening need of having to
conciliate where she longed to humble.

"I don't know what you mean--but you must see, Gus, that I can't stay
here talking to you at this hour----"

"Gad, you go to men's houses fast enough in broad day light--strikes me
you're not always so deuced careful of appearances."

The brutality of the thrust gave her the sense of dizziness that follows
on a physical blow. Rosedale had spoken then--this was the way men talked
of her--She felt suddenly weak and defenceless: there was a throb of
self-pity in her throat. But all the while another self was sharpening
her to vigilance, whispering the terrified warning that every word and
gesture must be measured.

"If you have brought me here to say insulting things----" she began.

Trenor laughed. "Don't talk stage-rot. I don't want to insult you. But a
man's got his feelings--and you've played with mine too long. I didn't
begin this business--kept out of the way, and left the track clear for
the other chaps, till you rummaged me out and set to work to make an ass
of me--and an easy job you had of it, too. That's the trouble--it was too
easy for you--you got reckless--thought you could turn me inside out, and
chuck me in the gutter like an empty purse.  But, by gad, that ain't
playing fair: that's dodging the rules of the game. Of course I know now
what you wanted--it wasn't my beautiful eyes you were after--but I tell
you what, Miss Lily, you've got to pay up for making me think so----"

He rose, squaring his shoulders aggressively, and stepped toward her with
a reddening brow; but she held her footing, though every nerve tore at
her to retreat as he advanced.

"Pay up?" she faltered. "Do you mean that I owe you money?"

He laughed again. "Oh, I'm not asking for payment in kind. But there's
such a thing as fair play--and interest on one's money--and hang me if
I've had as much as a look from you----"

"Your money? What have I to do with your money? You advised me how to
invest mine . . . you must have seen I knew nothing of business . . .
you told me it was all right----"

"It WAS all right--it is, Lily: you're welcome to all of it, and ten
times more. I'm only asking for a word of thanks from you." He was closer
still, with a hand that grew formidable; and the frightened self in her
was dragging the other down.

"I HAVE thanked you; I've shown I was grateful. What more have you done
than any friend might do, or any one accept from a friend?"

Trenor caught her up with a sneer. "I don't doubt you've accepted as much
before--and chucked the other chaps as you'd like to chuck me. I don't
care how you settled your score with them--if you fooled 'em I'm that
much to the good. Don't stare at me like that--I know I'm not talking the
way a man is supposed to talk to a girl--but, hang it, if you don't like
it you can stop me quick enough--you know I'm mad about you--damn the
money, there's plenty more of it--if THAT bothers you . . .  I was a
brute, Lily--Lily!--just look at me----"

Over and over her the sea of humiliation broke--wave crashing on wave so
close that the moral shame was one with the physical dread. It seemed to
her that self-esteem would have made her invulnerable--that it was her
own dishonour which put a fearful solitude about her.

His touch was a shock to her drowning consciousness. She drew back from
him with a desperate assumption of scorn.

"I've told you I don't understand--but if I owe you money you shall be
paid----"

Trenor's face darkened to rage: her recoil of abhorrence had called out
the primitive man.

"Ah--you'll borrow from Selden or Rosedale--and take your chances of
fooling them as you've fooled me! Unless--unless you've settled your
other scores already--and I'm the only one left out in the cold!"

She stood silent, frozen to her place. The words--the words were worse
than the touch! Her heart was beating all over her body--in her throat,
her limbs, her helpless useless hands. Her eyes travelled despairingly
about the room--they lit on the bell, and she remembered that help was in
call. Yes, but scandal with it--a hideous mustering of tongues. No, she
must fight her way out alone. It was enough that the servants knew her to
be in the house with Trenor--there must be nothing to excite conjecture
in her way of leaving it.

She raised her head, and achieved a last clear look at him.

"I am here alone with you," she said. "What more have you to say?"

To her surprise, Trenor answered the look with a speechless stare. With
his last gust of words the flame had died out, leaving him chill and
humbled. It was as though a cold air had dispersed the fumes of his
libations, and the situation loomed before him black and naked as the
ruins of a fire. Old habits, old restraints, the hand of inherited order,
plucked back the bewildered mind which passion had jolted from its ruts.
Trenor's eye had the haggard look of the sleep-walker waked on a deathly
ledge.

"Go home! Go away from here"----he stammered, and turning his back on her
walked toward the hearth.

The sharp release from her fears restored Lily to immediate lucidity.
The collapse of Trenor's will left her in control, and she heard herself,
in a voice that was her own yet outside herself, bidding him ring for the
servant, bidding him give the order for a hansom, directing him to put
her in it when it came. Whence the strength came to her she knew not; but
an insistent voice warned her that she must leave the house openly, and
nerved her, in the hall before the hovering care taker, to exchange light
words with Trenor, and charge him with the usual messages for Judy, while
all the while she shook with inward loathing. On the doorstep, with the
street before her, she felt a mad throb of liberation, intoxicating as
the prisoner's first draught of free air; but the clearness of brain
continued, and she noted the mute aspect of Fifth Avenue, guessed at the
lateness of the hour, and even observed a man's figure--was there
something half-familiar in its outline?--which, as she entered the
hansom, turned from the opposite corner and vanished in the obscurity of
the side street.

But with the turn of the wheels reaction came, and shuddering darkness
closed on her. "I can't think--I can't think," she moaned, and leaned her
head against the rattling side of the cab.  She seemed a stranger to
herself, or rather there were two selves in her, the one she had always
known, and a new abhorrent being to which it found itself chained. She
had once picked up, in a house where she was staying, a translation of
the EUMENIDES, and her imagination had been seized by the high terror of
the scene where Orestes, in the cave of the oracle, finds his implacable
huntresses asleep, and snatches an hour's repose.  Yes, the Furies might
sometimes sleep, but they were there, always there in the dark corners,
and now they were awake and the iron clang of their wings was in her
brain . . . She opened her eyes and saw the streets passing--the familiar
alien streets. All she looked on was the same and yet changed. There was
a great gulf fixed between today and yesterday. Everything in the past
seemed simple, natural, full of daylight--and she was alone in a place of
darkness and pollution.--Alone! It was the loneliness that frightened
her. Her eyes fell on an illuminated clock at a street corner, and she
saw that the hands marked the half hour after eleven. Only half-past
eleven--there were hours and hours left of the night! And she must spend
them alone, shuddering sleepless on her bed. Her soft nature recoiled
from this ordeal, which had none of the stimulus of conflict to goad her
through it. Oh, the slow cold drip of the minutes on her head! She had a
vision of herself lying on the black walnut bed--and the darkness would
frighten her, and if she left the light burning the dreary details of the
room would brand themselves forever on her brain.  She had always hated
her room at Mrs. Peniston's--its ugliness, its impersonality, the fact
that nothing in it was really hers.  To a torn heart uncomforted by human
nearness a room may open almost human arms, and the being to whom no four
walls mean more than any others, is, at such hours, expatriate everywhere.

Lily had no heart to lean on. Her relation with her aunt was as
superficial as that of chance lodgers who pass on the stairs. But even
had the two been in closer contact, it was impossible to think of Mrs.
Peniston's mind as offering shelter or comprehension to such misery as
Lily's. As the pain that can be told is but half a pain, so the pity that
questions has little healing in its touch. What Lily craved was the
darkness made by enfolding arms, the silence which is not solitude, but
compassion holding its breath.

She started up and looked forth on the passing streets.  Gerty!--they
were nearing Gerty's corner. If only she could reach there before this
labouring anguish burst from her breast to her lips--if only she could
feel the hold of Gerty's arms while she shook in the ague-fit of fear
that was coming upon her! She pushed up the door in the roof and called
the address to the driver. It was not so late--Gerty might still be
waking. And even if she were not, the sound of the bell would penetrate
every recess of her tiny apartment, and rouse her to answer her friend's
call.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Lily awakens to find two messages at her bedside. She assumes both are related to her success from the previous evening. The first letter is from Selden, requesting to see her. She fears that Selden will once again propose marriage to her, but sends a reply consenting to meet him the following day. The second letter is from Judy, who also requests to see her that evening. The latter correspondence cheers Lily, because she misses her old friend. When she arrives at the Trenor house that evening, she is led to Judy's study where Trenor is waiting to speak with her. He confesses to employing duplicity in arranging the meeting -- Judy is not home that evening -- which angers Lily. He implores her to listen to him, and blocks the doorway with a chair so that she cannot leave. He accuses her of intentionally making him look foolish as well as taking advantage of his better nature. Lily appeals to Trenor's understanding of societal rules regarding a single woman visiting a man without a chaperone, but Trenor responds that he knows that she had visited Selden alone in his apartment. He tells her that he expects some type of repayment for the financial success he has brought to Lily, and she offers to repay him in kind. She also states that Trenor has done only what any true friend would do for another. He responds that he believes she must have accepted similar kindnesses from many other men. Following the insult, he tells Lily that he is "mad" about her. As suddenly as he had become enraged, Trenor becomes resigned to Lily's diffidence. The narrator explains his reasons for dismissing Lily: "Old habits, old restraints, the hand of inherited order, plucked back the bewildered mind which passion had jolted from its ruts." She leaves and takes a hansom back home. On the way, she recognizes Gerty's apartment, and decides to pay Selden's cousin a visit.