Chapter: When Lily woke she had the bed to herself, and the winter light was in
the room.

She sat up, bewildered by the strangeness of her surroundings; then
memory returned, and she looked about her with a shiver. In the cold
slant of light reflected from the back wall of a neighbouring building,
she saw her evening dress and opera cloak lying in a tawdry heap on a
chair. Finery laid off is as unappetizing as the remains of a feast, and
it occurred to Lily that, at home, her maid's vigilance had always spared
her the sight of such incongruities. Her body ached with fatigue, and
with the constriction of her attitude in Gerty's bed. All through her
troubled sleep she had been conscious of having no space to toss in, and
the long effort to remain motionless made her feel as if she had spent
her night in a train.

This sense of physical discomfort was the first to assert itself; then
she perceived, beneath it, a corresponding mental prostration, a languor
of horror more insufferable than the first rush of her disgust.  The
thought of having to wake every morning with this weight on her breast
roused her tired mind to fresh effort. She must find some way out of the
slough into which she had stumbled: it was not so much compunction as the
dread of her morning thoughts that pressed on her the need of action. But
she was unutterably tired; it was weariness to think connectedly. She lay
back, looking about the poor slit of a room with a renewal of physical
distaste. The outer air, penned between high buildings, brought no
freshness through the window; steam-heat was beginning to sing in a coil
of dingy pipes, and a smell of cooking penetrated the crack of the door.

The door opened, and Gerty, dressed and hatted, entered with a cup of
tea. Her face looked sallow and swollen in the dreary light, and her dull
hair shaded imperceptibly into the tones of her skin.

She glanced shyly at Lily, asking in an embarrassed tone how she felt;
Lily answered with the same constraint, and raised herself up to drink
the tea.

"I must have been over-tired last night; I think I had a nervous attack
in the carriage," she said, as the drink brought clearness to her
sluggish thoughts.

"You were not well; I am so glad you came here," Gerty returned.

"But how am I to get home? And Aunt Julia--?"

"She knows; I telephoned early, and your maid has brought your things.
But won't you eat something? I scrambled the eggs myself."

Lily could not eat; but the tea strengthened her to rise and dress under
her maid's searching gaze. It was a relief to her that Gerty was obliged
to hasten away: the two kissed silently, but without a trace of the
previous night's emotion.

Lily found Mrs. Peniston in a state of agitation. She had sent for Grace
Stepney and was taking digitalis. Lily breasted the storm of enquiries as
best she could, explaining that she had had an attack of faintness on her
way back from Carry Fisher's; that, fearing she would not have strength
to reach home, she had gone to Miss Farish's instead; but that a quiet
night had restored her, and that she had no need of a doctor.

This was a relief to Mrs. Peniston, who could give herself up to her own
symptoms, and Lily was advised to go and lie down, her aunt's panacea for
all physical and moral disorders. In the solitude of her own room she was
brought back to a sharp contemplation of facts. Her daylight view of them
necessarily differed from the cloudy vision of the night. The winged
furies were now prowling gossips who dropped in on each other for tea.
But her fears seemed the uglier, thus shorn of their vagueness; and
besides, she had to act, not rave. For the first time she forced herself
to reckon up the exact amount of her debt to Trenor; and the result of
this hateful computation was the discovery that she had, in all, received
nine thousand dollars from him. The flimsy pretext on which it had been
given and received shrivelled up in the blaze of her shame: she knew that
not a penny of it was her own, and that to restore her self-respect she
must at once repay the whole amount. The inability thus to solace her
outraged feelings gave her a paralyzing sense of insignificance. She was
realizing for the first time that a woman's dignity may cost more to keep
up than her carriage; and that the maintenance of a moral attribute
should be dependent on dollars and cents, made the world appear a more
sordid place than she had conceived it.

After luncheon, when Grace Stepney's prying eyes had been removed, Lily
asked for a word with her aunt. The two ladies went upstairs to the
sitting-room, where Mrs. Peniston seated herself in her black satin
arm-chair tufted with yellow buttons, beside a bead-work table bearing a
bronze box with a miniature of Beatrice Cenci in the lid. Lily felt for
these objects the same distaste which the prisoner may entertain for the
fittings of the court-room. It was here that her aunt received her rare
confidences, and the pink-eyed smirk of the turbaned Beatrice was
associated in her mind with the gradual fading of the smile from Mrs.
Peniston's lips. That lady's dread of a scene gave her an inexorableness
which the greatest strength of character could not have produced, since
it was independent of all considerations of right or wrong; and knowing
this, Lily seldom ventured to assail it. She had never felt less like
making the attempt than on the present occasion; but she had sought in
vain for any other means of escape from an intolerable situation.

Mrs. Peniston examined her critically. "You're a bad colour, Lily: this
incessant rushing about is beginning to tell on you," she said.

Miss Bart saw an opening. "I don't think it's that, Aunt Julia; I've had
worries," she replied.

"Ah," said Mrs. Peniston, shutting her lips with the snap of a purse
closing against a beggar.

"I'm sorry to bother you with them," Lily continued, "but I really
believe my faintness last night was brought on partly by anxious
thoughts--"

"I should have said Carry Fisher's cook was enough to account for it.
She has a woman who was with Maria Melson in 1891--the spring of the year
we went to Aix--and I remember dining there two days before we sailed,
and feeling SURE the coppers hadn't been scoured."

"I don't think I ate much; I can't eat or sleep." Lily paused, and then
said abruptly: "The fact is, Aunt Julia, I owe some money."

Mrs. Peniston's face clouded perceptibly, but did not express the
astonishment her niece had expected. She was silent, and Lily was forced
to continue: "I have been foolish----"

"No doubt you have: extremely foolish," Mrs. Peniston interposed.  "I
fail to see how any one with your income, and no expenses--not to mention
the handsome presents I've always given you----"

"Oh, you've been most generous, Aunt Julia; I shall never forget your
kindness. But perhaps you don't quite realize the expense a girl is put
to nowadays----"

"I don't realize that YOU are put to any expense except for your clothes
and your railway fares. I expect you to be handsomely dressed; but I paid
Celeste's bill for you last October."

Lily hesitated: her aunt's implacable memory had never been more
inconvenient. "You were as kind as possible; but I have had to get a few
things since----"

"What kind of things? Clothes? How much have you spent? Let me see the
bill--I daresay the woman is swindling you."

"Oh, no, I think not: clothes have grown so frightfully expensive; and
one needs so many different kinds, with country visits, and golf and
skating, and Aiken and Tuxedo----"

"Let me see the bill," Mrs. Peniston repeated.

Lily hesitated again. In the first place, Mme. Celeste had not yet sent
in her account, and secondly, the amount it represented was only a
fraction of the sum that Lily needed.

"She hasn't sent in the bill for my winter things, but I KNOW it's large;
and there are one or two other things; I've been careless and
imprudent--I'm frightened to think of what I owe----"

She raised the troubled loveliness of her face to Mrs. Peniston, vainly
hoping that a sight so moving to the other sex might not be without
effect upon her own. But the effect produced was that of making Mrs.
Peniston shrink back apprehensively.

"Really, Lily, you are old enough to manage your own affairs, and after
frightening me to death by your performance of last night you might at
least choose a better time to worry me with such matters." Mrs. Peniston
glanced at the clock, and swallowed a tablet of digitalis. "If you owe
Celeste another thousand, she may send me her account," she added, as
though to end the discussion at any cost.

"I am very sorry, Aunt Julia; I hate to trouble you at such a time; but I
have really no choice--I ought to have spoken sooner--I owe a great deal
more than a thousand dollars."

"A great deal more? Do you owe two? She must have robbed you!"

"I told you it was not only Celeste. I--there are other bills--more
pressing--that must be settled."

"What on earth have you been buying? Jewelry? You must have gone off your
head," said Mrs. Peniston with asperity. "But if you have run into debt,
you must suffer the consequences, and put aside your monthly income till
your bills are paid. If you stay quietly here until next spring, instead
of racing about all over the country, you will have no expenses at all,
and surely in four or five months you can settle the rest of your bills
if I pay the dress-maker now."

Lily was again silent. She knew she could not hope to extract even a
thousand dollars from Mrs. Peniston on the mere plea of paying Celeste's
bill: Mrs. Peniston would expect to go over the dress-maker's account,
and would make out the cheque to her and not to Lily. And yet the money
must be obtained before the day was over!

"The debts I speak of are--different--not like tradesmen's bills," she
began confusedly; but Mrs. Peniston's look made her almost afraid to
continue. Could it be that her aunt suspected anything? The idea
precipitated Lily's avowal.

"The fact is, I've played cards a good deal--bridge; the women all do it;
girls too--it's expected. Sometimes I've won--won a good deal--but lately
I've been unlucky--and of course such debts can't be paid off
gradually----"

She paused: Mrs. Peniston's face seemed to be petrifying as she listened.

"Cards--you've played cards for money? It's true, then: when I was told
so I wouldn't believe it. I won't ask if the other horrors I was told
were true too; I've heard enough for the state of my nerves. When I think
of the example you've had in this house! But I suppose it's your foreign
bringing-up--no one knew where your mother picked up her friends. And her
Sundays were a scandal--that I know."

Mrs. Peniston wheeled round suddenly. "You play cards on Sunday?"

Lily flushed with the recollection of certain rainy Sundays at Bellomont
and with the Dorsets.

"You're hard on me, Aunt Julia: I have never really cared for cards, but
a girl hates to be thought priggish and superior, and one drifts into
doing what the others do. I've had a dreadful lesson, and if you'll help
me out this time I promise you--"

Mrs. Peniston raised her hand warningly. "You needn't make any promises:
it's unnecessary. When I offered you a home I didn't undertake to pay
your gambling debts."

"Aunt Julia! You don't mean that you won't help me?"

"I shall certainly not do anything to give the impression that I
countenance your behaviour. If you really owe your dress-maker, I will
settle with her--beyond that I recognize no obligation to assume your
debts."

Lily had risen, and stood pale and quivering before her aunt.  Pride
stormed in her, but humiliation forced the cry from her lips: "Aunt
Julia, I shall be disgraced--I--" But she could go no farther. If her
aunt turned such a stony ear to the fiction of the gambling debts, in
what spirit would she receive the terrible avowal of the truth?

"I consider that you ARE disgraced, Lily: disgraced by your conduct far
more than by its results. You say your friends have persuaded you to play
cards with them; well, they may as well learn a lesson too. They can
probably afford to lose a little money--and at any rate, I am not going
to waste any of mine in paying them. And now I must ask you to leave
me--this scene has been extremely painful, and I have my own health to
consider.  Draw down the blinds, please; and tell Jennings I will see no
one this afternoon but Grace Stepney."

Lily went up to her own room and bolted the door. She was trembling with
fear and anger--the rush of the furies' wings was in her ears. She walked
up and down the room with blind irregular steps. The last door of escape
was closed--she felt herself shut in with her dishonour.

Suddenly her wild pacing brought her before the clock on the
chimney-piece. Its hands stood at half-past three, and she remembered
that Selden was to come to her at four. She had meant to put him off with
a word--but now her heart leaped at the thought of seeing him. Was there
not a promise of rescue in his love? As she had lain at Gerty's side the
night before, she had thought of his coming, and of the sweetness of
weeping out her pain upon his breast. Of course she had meant to clear
herself of its consequences before she met him--she had never really
doubted that Mrs. Peniston would come to her aid. And she had felt, even
in the full storm of her misery, that Selden's love could not be her
ultimate refuge; only it would be so sweet to take a moment's shelter
there, while she gathered fresh strength to go on.

But now his love was her only hope, and as she sat alone with her
wretchedness the thought of confiding in him became as seductive as the
river's flow to the suicide. The first plunge would be terrible--but
afterward, what blessedness might come! She remembered Gerty's words: "I
know him--he will help you"; and her mind clung to them as a sick person
might cling to a healing relic. Oh, if he really understood--if he would
help her to gather up her broken life, and put it together in some new
semblance in which no trace of the past should remain! He had always made
her feel that she was worthy of better things, and she had never been in
greater need of such solace. Once and again she shrank at the thought of
imperilling his love by her confession: for love was what she needed--it
would take the glow of passion to weld together the shattered fragments
of her self-esteem. But she recurred to Gerty's words and held fast to
them. She was sure that Gerty knew Selden's feeling for her, and it had
never dawned upon her blindness that Gerty's own judgment of him was
coloured by emotions far more ardent than her own.

Four o'clock found her in the drawing-room: she was sure that Selden
would be punctual. But the hour came and passed--it moved on feverishly,
measured by her impatient heart-beats. She had time to take a fresh
survey of her wretchedness, and to fluctuate anew between the impulse to
confide in Selden and the dread of destroying his illusions.  But as the
minutes passed the need of throwing herself on his comprehension became
more urgent: she could not bear the weight of her misery alone. There
would be a perilous moment, perhaps: but could she not trust to her
beauty to bridge it over, to land her safe in the shelter of his devotion?

But the hour sped on and Selden did not come. Doubtless he had been
detained, or had misread her hurriedly scrawled note, taking the four for
a five. The ringing of the door-bell a few minutes after five confirmed
this supposition, and made Lily hastily resolve to write more legibly in
future. The sound of steps in the hall, and of the butler's voice
preceding them, poured fresh energy into her veins. She felt herself once
more the alert and competent moulder of emergencies, and the remembrance
of her power over Selden flushed her with sudden confidence. But when the
drawing-room door opened it was Rosedale who came in.

The reaction caused her a sharp pang, but after a passing movement of
irritation at the clumsiness of fate, and at her own carelessness in not
denying the door to all but Selden, she controlled herself and greeted
Rosedale amicably. It was annoying that Selden, when he came, should find
that particular visitor in possession, but Lily was mistress of the art
of ridding herself of superfluous company, and to her present mood
Rosedale seemed distinctly negligible.

His own view of the situation forced itself upon her after a few moments'
conversation. She had caught at the Brys' entertainment as an easy
impersonal subject, likely to tide them over the interval till Selden
appeared, but Mr. Rosedale, tenaciously planted beside the tea-table, his
hands in his pockets, his legs a little too freely extended, at once gave
the topic a personal turn.

"Pretty well done--well, yes, I suppose it was: Welly Bry's got his back
up and don't mean to let go till he's got the hang of the thing.  Of
course, there were things here and there--things Mrs. Fisher couldn't be
expected to see to--the champagne wasn't cold, and the coats got mixed in
the coat-room. I would have spent more money on the music. But that's my
character: if I want a thing I'm willing to pay: I don't go up to the
counter, and then wonder if the article's worth the price. I wouldn't be
satisfied to entertain like the Welly Brys; I'd want something that would
look more easy and natural, more as if I took it in my stride. And it
takes just two things to do that, Miss Bart: money, and the right woman
to spend it."

He paused, and examined her attentively while she affected to rearrange
the tea-cups.

"I've got the money," he continued, clearing his throat, "and what I want
is the woman--and I mean to have her too."

He leaned forward a little, resting his hands on the head of his
walking-stick. He had seen men of Ned Van Alstyne's type bring their hats
and sticks into a drawing-room, and he thought it added a touch of
elegant familiarity to their appearance.

Lily was silent, smiling faintly, with her eyes absently resting on his
face. She was in reality reflecting that a declaration would take some
time to make, and that Selden must surely appear before the moment of
refusal had been reached. Her brooding look, as of a mind withdrawn yet
not averted, seemed to Mr. Rosedale full of a subtle encouragement. He
would not have liked any evidence of eagerness.

"I mean to have her too," he repeated, with a laugh intended to
strengthen his self-assurance. "I generally HAVE got what I wanted in
life, Miss Bart. I wanted money, and I've got more than I know how to
invest; and now the money doesn't seem to be of any account unless I can
spend it on the right woman. That's what I want to do with it: I want my
wife to make all the other women feel small. I'd never grudge a dollar
that was spent on that. But it isn't every woman can do it, no matter how
much you spend on her. There was a girl in some history book who wanted
gold shields, or something, and the fellows threw 'em at her, and she was
crushed under 'em: they killed her. Well, that's true enough: some women
looked buried under their jewelry. What I want is a woman who'll hold her
head higher the more diamonds I put on it.  And when I looked at you the
other night at the Brys', in that plain white dress, looking as if you
had a crown on, I said to myself: 'By gad, if she had one she'd wear it
as if it grew on her.'"

Still Lily did not speak, and he continued, warming with his theme: "Tell
you what it is, though, that kind of woman costs more than all the rest
of 'em put together. If a woman's going to ignore her pearls, they want
to be better than anybody else's--and so it is with everything else. You
know what I mean--you know it's only the showy things that are cheap.
Well, I should want my wife to be able to take the earth for granted if
she wanted to. I know there's one thing vulgar about money, and that's
the thinking about it; and my wife would never have to demean herself in
that way." He paused, and then added, with an unfortunate lapse to an
earlier manner: "I guess you know the lady I've got in view, Miss Bart."

Lily raised her head, brightening a little under the challenge.  Even
through the dark tumult of her thoughts, the clink of Mr. Rosedale's
millions had a faintly seductive note. Oh, for enough of them to cancel
her one miserable debt! But the man behind them grew increasingly
repugnant in the light of Selden's expected coming. The contrast was too
grotesque: she could scarcely suppress the smile it provoked. She decided
that directness would be best.

"If you mean me, Mr. Rosedale, I am very grateful--very much flattered;
but I don't know what I have ever done to make you think--"

"Oh, if you mean you're not dead in love with me, I've got sense enough
left to see that. And I ain't talking to you as if you were--I presume I
know the kind of talk that's expected under those circumstances. I'm
confoundedly gone on you--that's about the size of it--and I'm just
giving you a plain business statement of the consequences. You're not
very fond of me--YET--but you're fond of luxury, and style, and
amusement, and of not having to worry about cash. You like to have a good
time, and not have to settle for it; and what I propose to do is to
provide for the good time and do the settling."

He paused, and she returned with a chilling smile: "You are mistaken in
one point, Mr. Rosedale: whatever I enjoy I am prepared to settle for."

She spoke with the intention of making him see that, if his words implied
a tentative allusion to her private affairs, she was prepared to meet and
repudiate it. But if he recognized her meaning it failed to abash him,
and he went on in the same tone: "I didn't mean to give offence; excuse
me if I've spoken too plainly. But why ain't you straight with me--why do
you put up that kind of bluff? You know there've been times when you were
bothered--damned bothered--and as a girl gets older, and things keep
moving along, why, before she knows it, the things she wants are liable
to move past her and not come back.  I don't say it's anywhere near that
with you yet; but you've had a taste of bothers that a girl like yourself
ought never to have known about, and what I'm offering you is the chance
to turn your back on them once for all."

The colour burned in Lily's face as he ended; there was no mistaking the
point he meant to make, and to permit it to pass unheeded was a fatal
confession of weakness, while to resent it too openly was to risk
offending him at a perilous moment.  Indignation quivered on her lip; but
it was quelled by the secret voice which warned her that she must not
quarrel with him. He knew too much about her, and even at the moment when
it was essential that he should show himself at his best, he did not
scruple to let her see how much he knew. How then would he use his power
when her expression of contempt had dispelled his one motive for
restraint? Her whole future might hinge on her way of answering him: she
had to stop and consider that, in the stress of her other anxieties, as a
breathless fugitive may have to pause at the cross-roads and try to
decide coolly which turn to take.

"You are quite right, Mr. Rosedale. I HAVE had bothers; and I am grateful
to you for wanting to relieve me of them. It is not always easy to be
quite independent and self-respecting when one is poor and lives among
rich people; I have been careless about money, and have worried about my
bills. But I should be selfish and ungrateful if I made that a reason for
accepting all you offer, with no better return to make than the desire to
be free from my anxieties. You must give me time--time to think of your
kindness--and of what I could give you in return for it----"

She held out her hand with a charming gesture in which dismissal was
shorn of its rigour. Its hint of future leniency made Rosedale rise in
obedience to it, a little flushed with his unhoped-for success, and
disciplined by the tradition of his blood to accept what was conceded,
without undue haste to press for more. Something in his prompt
acquiescence frightened her; she felt behind it the stored force of a
patience that might subdue the strongest will. But at least they had
parted amicably, and he was out of the house without meeting
Selden--Selden, whose continued absence now smote her with a new alarm.
Rosedale had remained over an hour, and she understood that it was now
too late to hope for Selden. He would write explaining his absence, of
course; there would be a note from him by the late post. But her
confession would have to be postponed; and the chill of the delay settled
heavily on her fagged spirit.

It lay heavier when the postman's last ring brought no note for her, and
she had to go upstairs to a lonely night--a night as grim and sleepless
as her tortured fancy had pictured it to Gerty. She had never learned to
live with her own thoughts, and to be confronted with them through such
hours of lucid misery made the confused wretchedness of her previous
vigil seem easily bearable.

Daylight disbanded the phantom crew, and made it clear to her that she
would hear from Selden before noon; but the day passed without his
writing or coming. Lily remained at home, lunching and dining alone with
her aunt, who complained of flutterings of the heart, and talked icily on
general topics. Mrs. Peniston went to bed early, and when she had gone
Lily sat down and wrote a note to Selden. She was about to ring for a
messenger to despatch it when her eye fell on a paragraph in the evening
paper which lay at her elbow: "Mr. Lawrence Selden was among the
passengers sailing this afternoon for Havana and the West Indies on the
Windward Liner Antilles."

She laid down the paper and sat motionless, staring at her note. She
understood now that he was never coming--that he had gone away because he
was afraid that he might come.  She rose, and walking across the floor
stood gazing at herself for a long time in the brightly-lit mirror above
the mantel-piece.  The lines in her face came out terribly--she looked
old; and when a girl looks old to herself, how does she look to other
people? She moved away, and began to wander aimlessly about the room,
fitting her steps with mechanical precision between the monstrous roses
of Mrs. Peniston's Axminster. Suddenly she noticed that the pen with
which she had written to Selden still rested against the uncovered
inkstand. She seated herself again, and taking out an envelope, addressed
it rapidly to Rosedale. Then she laid out a sheet of paper, and sat over
it with suspended pen. It had been easy enough to write the date, and
"Dear Mr. Rosedale"--but after that her inspiration flagged. She meant to
tell him to come to her, but the words refused to shape themselves. At
length she began: "I have been thinking----" then she laid the pen down,
and sat with her elbows on the table and her face hidden in her hands.

Suddenly she started up at the sound of the door-bell. It was not
late--barely ten o'clock--and there might still be a note from Selden, or
a message--or he might be there himself, on the other side of the door!
The announcement of his sailing might have been a mistake--it might be
another Lawrence Selden who had gone to Havana--all these possibilities
had time to flash through her mind, and build up the conviction that she
was after all to see or hear from him, before the drawing-room door
opened to admit a servant carrying a telegram.

Lily tore it open with shaking hands, and read Bertha Dorset's name below
the message: "Sailing unexpectedly tomorrow. Will you join us on a cruise
in Mediterranean?"




                        BOOK TWO

 When Lily wakes up the next morning, she is more herself again. Which means that she realizes that she spent the night in a cheap bed in an inexpensive and poorly-furnished apartment - and there's no maid to pick up after her. She quickly says her thank-yous to Gerty, explains that she was not herself after a panic attack last night, and returns home to Mrs. Peniston's. Lily collects herself and thinks more reasonably on last night's events. She does the math and realizes she probably owes Gus Trenor about $9,000. She asks to have a private conversation with her aunt. Once alone, she tells her aunt that she owes a great deal of money and needs help. Mrs. Peniston says she will pay the dressmaker another thousand dollars if that's the issue. Lily explains that these aren't bills to tradespeople, and that it's a great deal more than $1,000. She doesn't want to admit the truth, so when Mrs. Peniston presses her for more details, she explains that these are gambling debts. Mrs. Peniston is horrified by the thought of her niece playing cards for money. She refuses to condone Lily's behavior by bailing her out. Lily leaves, more desperate than ever for Selden's help. She knows he's supposed to arrive at 4pm for tea, so she settles down to devising her plan of attack. Unfortunately, 4pm comes and goes with no Selden. As does 5pm. Even more unfortunately, Mr. Rosedale arrives to see Lily before the afternoon is over. He makes with the small talk for about, oh, 2.5 seconds before explaining that he wants to marry her. He knows Lily doesn't love him, but quite frankly, he doesn't care. She needs cash, and he needs the right woman by his side to continue his social ascent. Lily isn't interested, but she's also not stupid enough to turn him down outright. She tells him to give her time to think it over and bids him good-bye. As she is about to write yet another note to Selden, Lily spots a line in the social papers saying that Selden left that morning for the West Indies. She begins writing a letter to Rosedale instead, but struggles with forcing herself to write it. Before she can finish, a telegram arrives from Mrs. Dorset, asking Lily to join her and her husband George on a cruise in the Mediterranean.

