Chapter: It spoke much for the depth of Mrs. Trenor's friendship that her voice,
in admonishing Miss Bart, took the same note of personal despair as if
she had been lamenting the collapse of a house-party.

"All I can say is, Lily, that I can't make you out!" She leaned back,
sighing, in the morning abandon of lace and muslin, turning an
indifferent shoulder to the heaped-up importunities of her desk, while
she considered, with the eye of a physician who has given up the case,
the erect exterior of the patient confronting her.

"If you hadn't told me you were going in for him seriously--but I'm sure
you made that plain enough from the beginning! Why else did you ask me to
let you off bridge, and to keep away Carry and Kate Corby? I don't
suppose you did it because he amused you; we could none of us imagine
your putting up with him for a moment unless you meant to marry him. And
I'm sure everybody played fair! They all wanted to help it along. Even
Bertha kept her hands off--I will say that--till Lawrence came down and
you dragged him away from her. After that she had a right to
retaliate--why on earth did you interfere with her? You've known Lawrence
Selden for years--why did you behave as if you had just discovered him?
If you had a grudge against Bertha it was a stupid time to show it--you
could have paid her back just as well after you were married! I told you
Bertha was dangerous. She was in an odious mood when she came here, but
Lawrence's turning up put her in a good humour, and if you'd only let her
think he came for HER it would have never occurred to her to play you
this trick. Oh, Lily, you'll never do anything if you're not serious!"

Miss Bart accepted this exhortation in a spirit of the purest
impartiality. Why should she have been angry? It was the voice of her own
conscience which spoke to her through Mrs. Trenor's reproachful accents.
But even to her own conscience she must trump up a semblance of defence.
"I only took a day off--I thought he meant to stay on all this week, and
I knew Mr. Selden was leaving this morning."

Mrs. Trenor brushed aside the plea with a gesture which laid bare its
weakness.

"He did mean to stay--that's the worst of it. It shows that he's run away
from you; that Bertha's done her work and poisoned him thoroughly."

Lily gave a slight laugh. "Oh, if he's running I'll overtake him!"

Her friend threw out an arresting hand. "Whatever you do, Lily, do
nothing!"

Miss Bart received the warning with a smile. "I don't mean, literally, to
take the next train. There are ways----" But she did not go on to specify
them.

Mrs. Trenor sharply corrected the tense. "There WERE ways--plenty of
them! I didn't suppose you needed to have them pointed out.  But don't
deceive yourself--he's thoroughly frightened. He has run straight home to
his mother, and she'll protect him!"

"Oh, to the death," Lily agreed, dimpling at the vision.

"How you can LAUGH----" her friend rebuked her; and she dropped back to a
soberer perception of things with the question: "What was it Bertha
really told him?"

"Don't ask me--horrors! She seemed to have raked up everything.  Oh, you
know what I mean--of course there isn't anything, REALLY; but I suppose
she brought in Prince Varigliano--and Lord Hubert--and there was some
story of your having borrowed money of old Ned Van Alstyne: did you ever?"

"He is my father's cousin," Miss Bart interposed.

"Well, of course she left THAT out. It seems Ned told Carry Fisher; and
she told Bertha, naturally. They're all alike, you know: they hold their
tongues for years, and you think you're safe, but when their opportunity
comes they remember everything."

Lily had grown pale: her voice had a harsh note in it. "It was some money
I lost at bridge at the Van Osburghs'. I repaid it, of course."

"Ah, well, they wouldn't remember that; besides, it was the idea of the
gambling debt that frightened Percy. Oh, Bertha knew her man--she knew
just what to tell him!"

In this strain Mrs. Trenor continued for nearly an hour to admonish her
friend. Miss Bart listened with admirable equanimity. Her naturally good
temper had been disciplined by years of enforced compliance, since she
had almost always had to attain her ends by the circuitous path of other
people's; and, being naturally inclined to face unpleasant facts as soon
as they presented themselves, she was not sorry to hear an impartial
statement of what her folly was likely to cost, the more so as her own
thoughts were still insisting on the other side of the case.  Presented
in the light of Mrs. Trenor's vigorous comments, the reckoning was
certainly a formidable one, and Lily, as she listened, found herself
gradually reverting to her friend's view of the situation. Mrs. Trenor's
words were moreover emphasized for her hearer by anxieties which she
herself could scarcely guess. Affluence, unless stimulated by a keen
imagination, forms but the vaguest notion of the practical strain of
poverty. Judy knew it must be "horrid" for poor Lily to have to stop to
consider whether she could afford real lace on her petticoats, and not to
have a motor-car and a steam-yacht at her orders; but the daily friction
of unpaid bills, the daily nibble of small temptations to expenditure,
were trials as far out of her experience as the domestic problems of the
char-woman. Mrs. Trenor's unconsciousness of the real stress of the
situation had the effect of making it more galling to Lily. While her
friend reproached her for missing the opportunity to eclipse her rivals,
she was once more battling in imagination with the mounting tide of
indebtedness from which she had so nearly escaped. What wind of folly had
driven her out again on those dark seas?

If anything was needed to put the last touch to her self-abasement it was
the sense of the way her old life was opening its ruts again to receive
her. Yesterday her fancy had fluttered free pinions above a choice of
occupations; now she had to drop to the level of the familiar routine, in
which moments of seeming brilliancy and freedom alternated with long
hours of subjection.

She laid a deprecating hand on her friend's. "Dear Judy! I'm sorry to
have been such a bore, and you are very good to me. But you must have
some letters for me to answer--let me at least be useful."

She settled herself at the desk, and Mrs. Trenor accepted her resumption
of the morning's task with a sigh which implied that, after all, she had
proved herself unfit for higher uses.

The luncheon table showed a depleted circle. All the men but Jack Stepney
and Dorset had returned to town (it seemed to Lily a last touch of irony
that Selden and Percy Gryce should have gone in the same train), and Lady
Cressida and the attendant Wetheralls had been despatched by motor to
lunch at a distant country-house.  At such moments of diminished interest
it was usual for Mrs. Dorset to keep her room till the afternoon; but on
this occasion she drifted in when luncheon was half over, hollowed-eyed
and drooping, but with an edge of malice under her indifference.

She raised her eyebrows as she looked about the table. "How few of us are
left! I do so enjoy the quiet--don't you, Lily? I wish the men would
always stop away--it's really much nicer without them. Oh, you don't
count, George: one doesn't have to talk to one's husband. But I thought
Mr. Gryce was to stay for the rest of the week?" she added enquiringly.
"Didn't he intend to, Judy?  He's such a nice boy--I wonder what drove
him away? He is rather shy, and I'm afraid we may have shocked him: he
has been brought up in such an old-fashioned way.  Do you know, Lily, he
told me he had never seen a girl play cards for money till he saw you
doing it the other night? And he lives on the interest of his income, and
always has a lot left over to invest!"

Mrs. Fisher leaned forward eagerly. "I do believe it is some one's duty
to educate that young man. It is shocking that he has never been made to
realize his duties as a citizen. Every wealthy man should be compelled to
study the laws of his country."

Mrs. Dorset glanced at her quietly. "I think he HAS studied the divorce
laws. He told me he had promised the Bishop to sign some kind of a
petition against divorce."

Mrs. Fisher reddened under her powder, and Stepney said with a laughing
glance at Miss Bart: "I suppose he is thinking of marriage, and wants to
tinker up the old ship before he goes aboard."

His betrothed looked shocked at the metaphor, and George Dorset exclaimed
with a sardonic growl: "Poor devil! It isn't the ship that will do for
him, it's the crew."

"Or the stowaways," said Miss Corby brightly. "If I contemplated a voyage
with him I should try to start with a friend in the hold."

Miss Van Osburgh's vague feeling of pique was struggling for appropriate
expression. "I'm sure I don't see why you laugh at him; I think he's very
nice," she exclaimed; "and, at any rate, a girl who married him would
always have enough to be comfortable."

She looked puzzled at the redoubled laughter which hailed her words, but
it might have consoled her to know how deeply they had sunk into the
breast of one of her hearers.

Comfortable! At that moment the word was more eloquent to Lily Bart than
any other in the language. She could not even pause to smile over the
heiress's view of a colossal fortune as a mere shelter against want: her
mind was filled with the vision of what that shelter might have been to
her. Mrs. Dorset's pin-pricks did not smart, for her own irony cut
deeper: no one could hurt her as much as she was hurting herself, for no
one else--not even Judy Trenor--knew the full magnitude of her folly.

She was roused from these unprofitable considerations by a whispered
request from her hostess, who drew her apart as they left the
luncheon-table.

"Lily, dear, if you've nothing special to do, may I tell Carry Fisher
that you intend to drive to the station and fetch Gus? He will be back at
four, and I know she has it in her mind to meet him. Of course I'm very
glad to have him amused, but I happen to know that she has bled him
rather severely since she's been here, and she is so keen about going to
fetch him that I fancy she must have got a lot more bills this morning.
It seems to me," Mrs. Trenor feelingly concluded, "that most of her
alimony is paid by other women's husbands!"

Miss Bart, on her way to the station, had leisure to muse over her
friend's words, and their peculiar application to herself.  Why should
she have to suffer for having once, for a few hours, borrowed money of an
elderly cousin, when a woman like Carry Fisher could make a living
unrebuked from the good-nature of her men friends and the tolerance of
their wives? It all turned on the tiresome distinction between what a
married woman might, and a girl might not, do. Of course it was shocking
for a married woman to borrow money--and Lily was expertly aware of the
implication involved--but still, it was the mere MALUM PROHIBITUM which
the world decries but condones, and which, though it may be punished by
private vengeance, does not provoke the collective disapprobation of
society. To Miss Bart, in short, no such opportunities were possible. She
could of course borrow from her women friends--a hundred here or there,
at the utmost--but they were more ready to give a gown or a trinket, and
looked a little askance when she hinted her preference for a cheque.
Women are not generous lenders, and those among whom her lot was cast
were either in the same case as herself, or else too far removed from it
to understand its necessities.  The result of her meditations was the
decision to join her aunt at Richfield. She could not remain at Bellomont
without playing bridge, and being involved in other expenses; and to
continue her usual series of autumn visits would merely prolong the same
difficulties. She had reached a point where abrupt retrenchment was
necessary, and the only cheap life was a dull life. She would start the
next morning for Richfield.

At the station she thought Gus Trenor seemed surprised, and not wholly
unrelieved, to see her. She yielded up the reins of the light runabout in
which she had driven over, and as he climbed heavily to her side,
crushing her into a scant third of the seat, he said: "Halloo! It isn't
often you honour me. You must have been uncommonly hard up for something
to do."

The afternoon was warm, and propinquity made her more than usually
conscious that he was red and massive, and that beads of moisture had
caused the dust of the train to adhere unpleasantly to the broad expanse
of cheek and neck which he turned to her; but she was aware also, from
the look in his small dull eyes, that the contact with her freshness and
slenderness was as agreeable to him as the sight of a cooling beverage.

The perception of this fact helped her to answer gaily: "It's not often I
have the chance. There are too many ladies to dispute the privilege with
me."

"The privilege of driving me home? Well, I'm glad you won the race,
anyhow. But I know what really happened--my wife sent you. Now didn't
she?"

He had the dull man's unexpected flashes of astuteness, and Lily could
not help joining in the laugh with which he had pounced on the truth.

"You see, Judy thinks I'm the safest person for you to be with; and she's
quite right," she rejoined.

"Oh, is she, though? If she is, it's because you wouldn't waste your time
on an old hulk like me. We married men have to put up with what we can
get: all the prizes are for the clever chaps who've kept a free foot. Let
me light a cigar, will you? I've had a beastly day of it."

He drew up in the shade of the village street, and passed the reins to
her while he held a match to his cigar. The little flame under his hand
cast a deeper crimson on his puffing face, and Lily averted her eyes with
a momentary feeling of repugnance. And yet some women thought him
handsome!

As she handed back the reins, she said sympathetically: "Did you have
such a lot of tiresome things to do?"

"I should say so--rather!" Trenor, who was seldom listened to, either by
his wife or her friends, settled down into the rare enjoyment of a
confidential talk. "You don't know how a fellow has to hustle to keep
this kind of thing going." He waved his whip in the direction of the
Bellomont acres, which lay outspread before them in opulent undulations.
"Judy has no idea of what she spends--not that there isn't plenty to keep
the thing going," he interrupted himself, "but a man has got to keep his
eyes open and pick up all the tips he can. My father and mother used to
live like fighting-cocks on their income, and put by a good bit of it
too--luckily for me--but at the pace we go now, I don't know where I
should be if it weren't for taking a flyer now and then.  The women all
think--I mean Judy thinks--I've nothing to do but to go down town once a
month and cut off coupons, but the truth is it takes a devilish lot of
hard work to keep the machinery running. Not that I ought to complain
to-day, though," he went on after a moment, "for I did a very neat stroke
of business, thanks to Stepney's friend Rosedale: by the way, Miss Lily,
I wish you'd try to persuade Judy to be decently civil to that chap. He's
going to be rich enough to buy us all out one of these days, and if she'd
only ask him to dine now and then I could get almost anything out of him.
The man is mad to know the people who don't want to know him, and when a
fellow's in that state there is nothing he won't do for the first woman
who takes him up."

Lily hesitated a moment. The first part of her companion's discourse had
started an interesting train of thought, which was rudely interrupted by
the mention of Mr. Rosedale's name. She uttered a faint protest.

"But you know Jack did try to take him about, and he was impossible."

"Oh, hang it--because he's fat and shiny, and has a sloppy manner!  Well,
all I can say is that the people who are clever enough to be civil to him
now will make a mighty good thing of it. A few years from now he'll be in
it whether we want him or not, and then he won't be giving away a
half-a-million tip for a dinner."

Lily's mind had reverted from the intrusive personality of Mr. Rosedale
to the train of thought set in motion by Trenor's first words. This vast
mysterious Wall Street world of "tips" and "deals"--might she not find in
it the means of escape from her dreary predicament? She had often heard
of women making money in this way through their friends: she had no more
notion than most of her sex of the exact nature of the transaction, and
its vagueness seemed to diminish its indelicacy. She could not, indeed,
imagine herself, in any extremity, stooping to extract a "tip" from Mr.
Rosedale; but at her side was a man in possession of that precious
commodity, and who, as the husband of her dearest friend, stood to her in
a relation of almost fraternal intimacy.

In her inmost heart Lily knew it was not by appealing to the fraternal
instinct that she was likely to move Gus Trenor; but this way of
explaining the situation helped to drape its crudity, and she was always
scrupulous about keeping up appearances to herself. Her personal
fastidiousness had a moral equivalent, and when she made a tour of
inspection in her own mind there were certain closed doors she did not
open.

As they reached the gates of Bellomont she turned to Trenor with a smile.
"The afternoon is so perfect--don't you want to drive me a little
farther? I've been rather out of spirits all day, and it's so restful to
be away from people, with some one who won't mind if I'm a little dull."

She looked so plaintively lovely as she proffered the request, so
trustfully sure of his sympathy and understanding, that Trenor felt
himself wishing that his wife could see how other women treated him--not
battered wire-pullers like Mrs. Fisher, but a girl that most men would
have given their boots to get such a look from.

"Out of spirits? Why on earth should you ever be out of spirits?  Is your
last box of Doucet dresses a failure, or did Judy rook you out of
everything at bridge last night?"

Lily shook her head with a sigh. "I have had to give up Doucet; and
bridge too--I can't afford it. In fact I can't afford any of the things
my friends do, and I am afraid Judy often thinks me a bore because I
don't play cards any longer, and because I am not as smartly dressed as
the other women. But you will think me a bore too if I talk to you about
my worries, and I only mention them because I want you to do me a
favour--the very greatest of favours."

Her eyes sought his once more, and she smiled inwardly at the tinge of
apprehension that she read in them.

"Why, of course--if it's anything I can manage----" He broke off, and she
guessed that his enjoyment was disturbed by the remembrance of Mrs.
Fisher's methods.

"The greatest of favours," she rejoined gently. "The fact is, Judy is
angry with me, and I want you to make my peace."

"Angry with you? Oh, come, nonsense----" his relief broke through in a
laugh. "Why, you know she's devoted to you."

"She is the best friend I have, and that is why I mind having to vex her.
But I daresay you know what she has wanted me to do. She has set her
heart--poor dear--on my marrying--marrying a great deal of money."

She paused with a slight falter of embarrassment, and Trenor, turning
abruptly, fixed on her a look of growing intelligence.

"A great deal of money? Oh, by Jove--you don't mean Gryce?  What--you do?
Oh, no, of course I won't mention it--you can trust me to keep my mouth
shut--but Gryce--good Lord, GRYCE! Did Judy really think you could bring
yourself to marry that portentous little ass? But you couldn't, eh? And
so you gave him the sack, and that's the reason why he lit out by the
first train this morning?" He leaned back, spreading himself farther
across the seat, as if dilated by the joyful sense of his own
discernment. "How on earth could Judy think you would do such a thing? I
could have told her you'd never put up with such a little milksop!"

Lily sighed more deeply. "I sometimes think," she murmured, "that men
understand a woman's motives better than other women do."

"Some men--I'm certain of it! I could have TOLD Judy," he repeated,
exulting in the implied superiority over his wife.

"I thought you would understand; that's why I wanted to speak to you,"
Miss Bart rejoined. "I can't make that kind of marriage; it's impossible.
But neither can I go on living as all the women in my set do. I am almost
entirely dependent on my aunt, and though she is very kind to me she
makes me no regular allowance, and lately I've lost money at cards, and I
don't dare tell her about it. I have paid my card debts, of course, but
there is hardly anything left for my other expenses, and if I go on with
my present life I shall be in horrible difficulties. I have a tiny income
of my own, but I'm afraid it's badly invested, for it seems to bring in
less every year, and I am so ignorant of money matters that I don't know
if my aunt's agent, who looks after it, is a good adviser." She paused a
moment, and added in a lighter tone: "I didn't mean to bore you with all
this, but I want your help in making Judy understand that I can't, at
present, go on living as one must live among you all. I am going away
tomorrow to join my aunt at Richfield, and I shall stay there for the
rest of the autumn, and dismiss my maid and learn how to mend my own
clothes."

At this picture of loveliness in distress, the pathos of which was
heightened by the light touch with which it was drawn, a murmur of
indignant sympathy broke from Trenor. Twenty-four hours earlier, if his
wife had consulted him on the subject of Miss Bart's future, he would
have said that a girl with extravagant tastes and no money had better
marry the first rich man she could get; but with the subject of
discussion at his side, turning to him for sympathy, making him feel that
he understood her better than her dearest friends, and confirming the
assurance by the appeal of her exquisite nearness, he was ready to swear
that such a marriage was a desecration, and that, as a man of honour, he
was bound to do all he could to protect her from the results of her
disinterestedness. This impulse was reinforced by the reflection that if
she had married Gryce she would have been surrounded by flattery and
approval, whereas, having refused to sacrifice herself to expediency, she
was left to bear the whole cost of her resistance. Hang it, if he could
find a way out of such difficulties for a professional sponge like Carry
Fisher, who was simply a mental habit corresponding to the physical
titillations of the cigarette or the cock-tail, he could surely do as
much for a girl who appealed to his highest sympathies, and who brought
her troubles to him with the trustfulness of a child.

Trenor and Miss Bart prolonged their drive till long after sunset; and
before it was over he had tried, with some show of success, to prove to
her that, if she would only trust him, he could make a handsome sum of
money for her without endangering the small amount she possessed. She was
too genuinely ignorant of the manipulations of the stock-market to
understand his technical explanations, or even perhaps to perceive that
certain points in them were slurred; the haziness enveloping the
transaction served as a veil for her embarrassment, and through the
general blur her hopes dilated like lamps in a fog. She understood only
that her modest investments were to be mysteriously multiplied without
risk to herself; and the assurance that this miracle would take place
within a short time, that there would be no tedious interval for suspense
and reaction, relieved her of her lingering scruples.

Again she felt the lightening of her load, and with it the release of
repressed activities. Her immediate worries conjured, it was easy to
resolve that she would never again find herself in such straits, and as
the need of economy and self-denial receded from her foreground she felt
herself ready to meet any other demand which life might make. Even the
immediate one of letting Trenor, as they drove homeward, lean a little
nearer and rest his hand reassuringly on hers, cost her only a momentary
shiver of reluctance. It was part of the game to make him feel that her
appeal had been an uncalculated impulse, provoked by the liking he
inspired; and the renewed sense of power in handling men, while it
consoled her wounded vanity, helped also to obscure the thought of the
claim at which his manner hinted. He was a coarse dull man who, under all
his show of authority, was a mere supernumerary in the costly show for
which his money paid: surely, to a clever girl, it would be easy to hold
him by his vanity, and so keep the obligation on his side.

 Mrs. Trenor berates Lily for being completely flaky and indecisive. Because Lily took Selden away from Bertha, Bertha retaliated and turned Percy against Lily by giving him all the dirt on her. She told him how Lily gambles, smokes, and doesn't go to church. Now, Percy has left Bellomont, essentially to run away from Lily. It takes a while, but Lily finally realizes how screwed she is. At lunch, Lily discovers that Selden has departed from Bellomont, in addition to Percy. Mrs. Dorset is there, playing nice on the surface, but obviously mean underneath. She's all, "Oooh, Lily, I wonder why Mr. Gryce isn't here anymore! How curious!" and that sort of thing. Lily suffers inwardly at the thought of the rich life she just lost. As Lily heads away from the table, Mrs. Trenor asks her to go to the station and pick up her husband, Gus Trenor, and bring him back to Bellomont. She said she would send Carry Fisher, but she knows that Mrs. Fisher is always trying to get money out of Gus. On the way to the station, Lily devises a plan to get out of her hidden debt with the help of Gus Trenor. Of course, Lily knows that a married woman can do things that a single girl cannot . She decides that she'll have to tread carefully. Gus Trenor is "red and massive." Lily is well aware of the fact that he finds her attractive. Trenor starts talking about his work. He admits to Lily that it takes a lot of time to keep Judy in the lifestyle they live. He also says that he's made a good deal of money trading on tips from Simon Rosedale - he wishes his wife would stop being so snobbish and invite Rosedale to dinner, since he's such a useful business acquaintance to have. Lily realizes this is the angle she can work. When they arrive at Bellomont, she asks Trenor to keep driving, so they can enjoy this nice little carriage ride together a bit more. Lily starts lamenting how awful her financial situation is, how she can't play bridge anymore and can't buy such pretty dresses, etc. She asks for Trenor's help in explaining to Judy that Lily can't stay with them as she does. She needs to go back to her aunt's, where the social pressure to spend money all the time isn't there. This touches Trenor. He hates the thought of the beautiful Lily Bart having to do without. He asks for her to give him the small amount of money she has - about 500 dollars - and let him speculate with it on the stock market. Lily is relieved, and exhilarated with the sense of her own power.

