Chapter: The light projected on the situation by Mrs. Fisher had the cheerless
distinctness of a winter dawn. It outlined the facts with a cold
precision unmodified by shade or colour, and refracted, as it were, from
the blank walls of the surrounding limitations: she had opened windows
from which no sky was ever visible. But the idealist subdued to vulgar
necessities must employ vulgar minds to draw the inferences to which he
cannot stoop; and it was easier for Lily to let Mrs. Fisher formulate her
case than to put it plainly to herself. Once confronted with it, however,
she went the full length of its consequences; and these had never been
more clearly present to her than when, the next afternoon, she set out
for a walk with Rosedale.

It was one of those still November days when the air is haunted with the
light of summer, and something in the lines of the landscape, and in the
golden haze which bathed them, recalled to Miss Bart the September
afternoon when she had climbed the slopes of Bellomont with Selden. The
importunate memory was kept before her by its ironic contrast to her
present situation, since her walk with Selden had represented an
irresistible flight from just such a climax as the present excursion was
designed to bring about. But other memories importuned her also; the
recollection of similar situations, as skillfully led up to, but through
some malice of fortune, or her own unsteadiness of purpose, always
failing of the intended result. Well, her purpose was steady enough now.
She saw that the whole weary work of rehabilitation must begin again, and
against far greater odds, if Bertha Dorset should succeed in breaking up
her friendship with the Gormers; and her longing for shelter and security
was intensified by the passionate desire to triumph over Bertha, as only
wealth and predominance could triumph over her. As the wife of
Rosedale--the Rosedale she felt it in her power to create--she would at
least present an invulnerable front to her enemy.

She had to draw upon this thought, as upon some fiery stimulant, to keep
up her part in the scene toward which Rosedale was too frankly tending.
As she walked beside him, shrinking in every nerve from the way in which
his look and tone made free of her, yet telling herself that this
momentary endurance of his mood was the price she must pay for her
ultimate power over him, she tried to calculate the exact point at which
concession must turn to resistance, and the price HE would have to pay be
made equally clear to him. But his dapper self-confidence seemed
impenetrable to such hints, and she had a sense of something hard and
self-contained behind the superficial warmth of his manner.

They had been seated for some time in the seclusion of a rocky glen above
the lake, when she suddenly cut short the culmination of an impassioned
period by turning upon him the grave loveliness of her gaze.

"I DO believe what you say, Mr. Rosedale," she said quietly; "and I am
ready to marry you whenever you wish."

Rosedale, reddening to the roots of his glossy hair, received this
announcement with a recoil which carried him to his feet, where he halted
before her in an attitude of almost comic discomfiture.

"For I suppose that is what you do wish," she continued, in the same
quiet tone. "And, though I was unable to consent when you spoke to me in
this way before, I am ready, now that I know you so much better, to trust
my happiness to your hands."

She spoke with the noble directness which she could command on such
occasions, and which was like a large steady light thrown across the
tortuous darkness of the situation. In its inconvenient brightness
Rosedale seemed to waver a moment, as though conscious that every avenue
of escape was unpleasantly illuminated.

Then he gave a short laugh, and drew out a gold cigarette-case, in which,
with plump jewelled fingers, he groped for a gold-tipped cigarette.
Selecting one, he paused to contemplate it a moment before saying: "My
dear Miss Lily, I'm sorry if there's been any little misapprehension
between us-but you made me feel my suit was so hopeless that I had really
no intention of renewing it."

Lily's blood tingled with the grossness of the rebuff; but she checked
the first leap of her anger, and said in a tone of gentle dignity: "I
have no one but myself to blame if I gave you the impression that my
decision was final."

Her word-play was always too quick for him, and this reply held him in
puzzled silence while she extended her hand and added, with the faintest
inflection of sadness in her voice: "Before we bid each other goodbye, I
want at least to thank you for having once thought of me as you did."

The touch of her hand, the moving softness of her look, thrilled a
vulnerable fibre in Rosedale. It was her exquisite inaccessibleness, the
sense of distance she could convey without a hint of disdain, that made
it most difficult for him to give her up.

"Why do you talk of saying goodbye? Ain't we going to be good friends all
the same?" he urged, without releasing her hand.

She drew it away quietly. "What is your idea of being good friends?" she
returned with a slight smile. "Making love to me without asking me to
marry you?" Rosedale laughed with a recovered sense of ease.

"Well, that's about the size of it, I suppose. I can't help making love
to you--I don't see how any man could; but I don't mean to ask you to
marry me as long as I can keep out of it."

She continued to smile. "I like your frankness; but I am afraid our
friendship can hardly continue on those terms." She turned away, as
though to mark that its final term had in fact been reached, and he
followed her for a few steps with a baffled sense of her having after all
kept the game in her own hands.

"Miss Lily----" he began impulsively; but she walked on without seeming
to hear him.

He overtook her in a few quick strides, and laid an entreating hand on
her arm. "Miss Lily--don't hurry away like that. You're beastly hard on a
fellow; but if you don't mind speaking the truth I don't see why you
shouldn't allow me to do the same."

She had paused a moment with raised brows, drawing away instinctively
from his touch, though she made no effort to evade his words.

"I was under the impression," she rejoined, "that you had done so without
waiting for my permission."

"Well--why shouldn't you hear my reasons for doing it, then?  We're
neither of us such new hands that a little plain speaking is going to
hurt us. I'm all broken up on you: there's nothing new in that. I'm more
in love with you than I was this time last year; but I've got to face the
fact that the situation is changed."

She continued to confront him with the same air of ironic composure.
"You mean to say that I'm not as desirable a match as you thought me?"

"Yes; that's what I do mean," he answered resolutely. "I won't go into
what's happened. I don't believe the stories about you--I don't WANT to
believe them. But they're there, and my not believing them ain't going to
alter the situation."

She flushed to her temples, but the extremity of her need checked the
retort on her lip and she continued to face him composedly.  "If they are
not true," she said, "doesn't THAT alter the situation?"

He met this with a steady gaze of his small stock-taking eyes, which made
her feel herself no more than some superfine human merchandise. "I
believe it does in novels; but I'm certain it don't in real life. You
know that as well as I do: if we're speaking the truth, let's speak the
whole truth. Last year I was wild to marry you, and you wouldn't look at
me: this year--well, you appear to be willing. Now, what has changed in
the interval?  Your situation, that's all. Then you thought you could do
better; now----"

"You think you can?" broke from her ironically.

"Why, yes, I do: in one way, that is." He stood before her, his hands in
his pockets, his chest sturdily expanded under its vivid waistcoat.
"It's this way, you see: I've had a pretty steady grind of it these last
years, working up my social position.  Think it's funny I should say
that? Why should I mind saying I want to get into society? A man ain't
ashamed to say he wants to own a racing stable or a picture gallery.
Well, a taste for society's just another kind of hobby.  Perhaps I want
to get even with some of the people who cold-shouldered me last year--put
it that way if it sounds better. Anyhow, I want to have the run of the
best houses; and I'm getting it too, little by little. But I know the
quickest way to queer yourself with the right people is to be seen with
the wrong ones; and that's the reason I want to avoid mistakes."

Miss Bart continued to stand before him in a silence that might have
expressed either mockery or a half-reluctant respect for his candour, and
after a moment's pause he went on: "There it is, you see. I'm more in
love with you than ever, but if I married you now I'd queer myself for
good and all, and everything I've worked for all these years would be
wasted."

She received this with a look from which all tinge of resentment had
faded. After the tissue of social falsehoods in which she had so long
moved it was refreshing to step into the open daylight of an avowed
expediency.

"I understand you," she said. "A year ago I should have been of use to
you, and now I should be an encumbrance; and I like you for telling me so
quite honestly." She extended her hand with a smile.

Again the gesture had a disturbing effect upon Mr. Rosedale's
self-command. "By George, you're a dead game sport, you are!" he
exclaimed; and as she began once more to move away, he broke out
suddenly--"Miss Lily--stop. You know I don't believe those stories--I
believe they were all got up by a woman who didn't hesitate to sacrifice
you to her own convenience----"

Lily drew away with a movement of quick disdain: it was easier to endure
his insolence than his commiseration.

"You are very kind; but I don't think we need discuss the matter farther."

But Rosedale's natural imperviousness to hints made it easy for him to
brush such resistance aside. "I don't want to discuss anything; I just
want to put a plain case before you," he persisted.

She paused in spite of herself, held by the note of a new purpose in his
look and tone; and he went on, keeping his eyes firmly upon her: "The
wonder to me is that you've waited so long to get square with that woman,
when you've had the power in your hands." She continued silent under the
rush of astonishment that his words produced, and he moved a step closer
to ask with low-toned directness: "Why don't you use those letters of
hers you bought last year?"

Lily stood speechless under the shock of the interrogation. In the words
preceding it she had conjectured, at most, an allusion to her supposed
influence over George Dorset; nor did the astonishing indelicacy of the
reference diminish the likelihood of Rosedale's resorting to it. But now
she saw how far short of the mark she had fallen; and the surprise of
learning that he had discovered the secret of the letters left her, for
the moment, unconscious of the special use to which he was in the act of
putting his knowledge.

Her temporary loss of self-possession gave him time to press his point;
and he went on quickly, as though to secure completer control of the
situation: "You see I know where you stand--I know how completely she's
in your power. That sounds like stage-talk, don't it?--but there's a lot
of truth in some of those old gags; and I don't suppose you bought those
letters simply because you're collecting autographs."

She continued to look at him with a deepening bewilderment: her only
clear impression resolved itself into a scared sense of his power.

"You're wondering how I found out about 'em?" he went on, answering her
look with a note of conscious pride. "Perhaps you've forgotten that I'm
the owner of the Benedick--but never mind about that now. Getting on to
things is a mighty useful accomplishment in business, and I've simply
extended it to my private affairs. For this IS partly my affair, you
see--at least, it depends on you to make it so. Let's look the situation
straight in the eye. Mrs. Dorset, for reasons we needn't go into, did you
a beastly bad turn last spring. Everybody knows what Mrs. Dorset is, and
her best friends wouldn't believe her on oath where their own interests
were concerned; but as long as they're out of the row it's much easier to
follow her lead than to set themselves against it, and you've simply been
sacrificed to their laziness and selfishness. Isn't that a pretty fair
statement of the case?--Well, some people say you've got the neatest kind
of an answer in your hands: that George Dorset would marry you tomorrow,
if you'd tell him all you know, and give him the chance to show the lady
the door. I daresay he would; but you don't seem to care for that
particular form of getting even, and, taking a purely business view of
the question, I think you're right. In a deal like that, nobody comes out
with perfectly clean hands, and the only way for you to start fresh is to
get Bertha Dorset to back you up, instead of trying to fight her."

He paused long enough to draw breath, but not to give her time for the
expression of her gathering resistance; and as he pressed on, expounding
and elucidating his idea with the directness of the man who has no doubts
of his cause, she found the indignation gradually freezing on her lip,
found herself held fast in the grasp of his argument by the mere cold
strength of its presentation. There was no time now to wonder how he had
heard of her obtaining the letters: all her world was dark outside the
monstrous glare of his scheme for using them. And it was not, after the
first moment, the horror of the idea that held her spell-bound, subdued
to his will; it was rather its subtle affinity to her own inmost
cravings. He would marry her tomorrow if she could regain Bertha Dorset's
friendship; and to induce the open resumption of that friendship, and the
tacit retractation of all that had caused its withdrawal, she had only to
put to the lady the latent menace contained in the packet so miraculously
delivered into her hands. Lily saw in a flash the advantage of this
course over that which poor Dorset had pressed upon her. The other plan
depended for its success on the infliction of an open injury, while this
reduced the transaction to a private understanding, of which no third
person need have the remotest hint. Put by Rosedale in terms of
business-like give-and-take, this understanding took on the harmless air
of a mutual accommodation, like a transfer of property or a revision of
boundary lines. It certainly simplified life to view it as a perpetual
adjustment, a play of party politics, in which every concession had its
recognized equivalent: Lily's tired mind was fascinated by this escape
from fluctuating ethical estimates into a region of concrete weights and
measures.

Rosedale, as she listened, seemed to read in her silence not only a
gradual acquiescence in his plan, but a dangerously far-reaching
perception of the chances it offered; for as she continued to stand
before him without speaking, he broke out, with a quick return upon
himself: "You see how simple it is, don't you? Well, don't be carried
away by the idea that it's TOO simple.  It isn't exactly as if you'd
started in with a clean bill of health. Now we're talking let's call
things by their right names, and clear the whole business up. You know
well enough that Bertha Dorset couldn't have touched you if there hadn't
been--well--questions asked before--little points of interrogation, eh?
Bound to happen to a good-looking girl with stingy relatives, I suppose;
anyhow, they DID happen, and she found the ground prepared for her. Do
you see where I'm coming out? You don't want these little questions
cropping up again.  It's one thing to get Bertha Dorset into line--but
what you want is to keep her there. You can frighten her fast enough--but
how are you going to keep her frightened?  By showing her that you're as
powerful as she is. All the letters in the world won't do that for you as
you are now; but with a big backing behind you, you'll keep her just
where you want her to be. That's MY share in the business--that's what
I'm offering you. You can't put the thing through without me--don't run
away with any idea that you can. In six months you'd be back again among
your old worries, or worse ones; and here I am, ready to lift you out of
'em tomorrow if you say so. DO you say so, Miss Lily?" he added, moving
suddenly nearer.

The words, and the movement which accompanied them, combined to startle
Lily out of the state of tranced subservience into which she had
insensibly slipped. Light comes in devious ways to the groping
consciousness, and it came to her now through the disgusted perception
that her would-be accomplice assumed, as a matter of course, the
likelihood of her distrusting him and perhaps trying to cheat him of his
share of the spoils. This glimpse of his inner mind seemed to present the
whole transaction in a new aspect, and she saw that the essential
baseness of the act lay in its freedom from risk.

She drew back with a quick gesture of rejection, saying, in a voice that
was a surprise to her own ears: "You are mistaken--quite mistaken--both
in the facts and in what you infer from them."

Rosedale stared a moment, puzzled by her sudden dash in a direction so
different from that toward which she had appeared to be letting him guide
her.

"Now what on earth does that mean? I thought we understood each other!"
he exclaimed; and to her murmur of "Ah, we do NOW," he retorted with a
sudden burst of violence: "I suppose it's because the letters are to HIM,
then? Well, I'll be damned if I see what thanks you've got from him!"

 Lily has seen Rosedale a few times since her talk with Mrs. Fisher, and it's clear to her that he "admires" her more than ever. While visiting Mrs. Fisher at the Brys' house, Lily bumps into Simon Rosedale again. She observes him with the hostess's daughter and, at seeing him play the paternal role, realizes that he's a kind man. Lily soon realizes that she and Rosedale are Mrs. Fisher's only guests, and that this was match-making on Mrs. Fisher's part. Recently, Mrs. Fisher made it clear to Lily that Mrs. Dorset befriended Mrs. Gormer in order to screw over Lily. In her mind, this means that Bertha is still afraid of Lily, and the only way to stop being enemies with Bertha is to marry someone else . With this in mind, Lily asks Rosedale to take a walk with her. It's November and, as Lily strolls about with Rosedale, she's reminded of the walk she once took with Selden at Bellomont. But she pushes that thought out of her mind. She needs to marry Rosedale so that she'll have the money and power to beat Bertha, once and for all, in the social game. So, she blurts out, "I'm ready to marry you whenever you wish." Rosedale says that, since she turned down his first proposal, he had given up hope of marrying her. Lily is all, "OK, well, nice knowing you," and gets ready to part ways. But Rosedale doesn't want that, either. He wants to hang out with her, just not marry her. Lily says that's impossible. So Rosedale gets down to business. He's in love with her, he says, even more so than when he first proposed. But the situation has changed since then. He needs a wife who can get/keep him on terms with society's elite, and Lily is no longer in a position to do that for him. He offers a solution: make up with Bertha Dorset, and he will marry her. Lily doesn't even want to talk about this, but then Rosedale says that she ought to use those letters she bought from the charwoman. Lily is shocked to hear that he knows about that, but Rosedale reminds her that he owns the Benedick and is aware of everything that goes on. Lily takes the high and mighty moral road, implying that she would never do anything so base. This angers Rosedale, who assumes that her decision is based on Selden's involvement in the letters and her fear of tarnishing his name. The two of them they part ways.

