Chapter: Miss Bart's telegram caught Lawrence Selden at the door of his hotel; and
having read it, he turned back to wait for Dorset. The message
necessarily left large gaps for conjecture; but all that he had recently
heard and seen made these but too easy to fill in. On the whole he was
surprised; for though he had perceived that the situation contained all
the elements of an explosion, he had often enough, in the range of his
personal experience, seen just such combinations subside into
harmlessness. Still, Dorset's spasmodic temper, and his wife's reckless
disregard of appearances, gave the situation a peculiar insecurity; and
it was less from the sense of any special relation to the case than from
a purely professional zeal, that Selden resolved to guide the pair to
safety. Whether, in the present instance, safety for either lay in
repairing so damaged a tie, it was no business of his to consider: he had
only, on general principles, to think of averting a scandal, and his
desire to avert it was increased by his fear of its involving Miss Bart.
There was nothing specific in this apprehension; he merely wished to
spare her the embarrassment of being ever so remotely connected with the
public washing of the Dorset linen.

How exhaustive and unpleasant such a process would be, he saw even more
vividly after his two hours' talk with poor Dorset. If anything came out
at all, it would be such a vast unpacking of accumulated moral rags as
left him, after his visitor had gone, with the feeling that he must fling
open the windows and have his room swept out. But nothing should come
out; and happily for his side of the case, the dirty rags, however pieced
together, could not, without considerable difficulty, be turned into a
homogeneous grievance. The torn edges did not always fit--there were
missing bits, there were disparities of size and colour, all of which it
was naturally Selden's business to make the most of in putting them under
his client's eye. But to a man in Dorset's mood the completest
demonstration could not carry conviction, and Selden saw that for the
moment all he could do was to soothe and temporize, to offer sympathy and
to counsel prudence. He let Dorset depart charged to the brim with the
sense that, till their next meeting, he must maintain a strictly
noncommittal attitude; that, in short, his share in the game consisted
for the present in looking on. Selden knew, however, that he could not
long keep such violences in equilibrium; and he promised to meet Dorset,
the next morning, at an hotel in Monte Carlo. Meanwhile he counted not a
little on the reaction of weakness and self-distrust that, in such
natures, follows on every unwonted expenditure of moral force; and his
telegraphic reply to Miss Bart consisted simply in the injunction:
"Assume that everything is as usual."

On this assumption, in fact, the early part of the following day was
lived through. Dorset, as if in obedience to Lily's imperative bidding,
had actually returned in time for a late dinner on the yacht. The repast
had been the most difficult moment of the day. Dorset was sunk in one of
the abysmal silences which so commonly followed on what his wife called
his "attacks" that it was easy, before the servants, to refer it to this
cause; but Bertha herself seemed, perversely enough, little disposed to
make use of this obvious means of protection. She simply left the brunt
of the situation on her husband's hands, as if too absorbed in a
grievance of her own to suspect that she might be the object of one
herself. To Lily this attitude was the most ominous, because the most
perplexing, element in the situation. As she tried to fan the weak
flicker of talk, to build up, again and again, the crumbling structure of
"appearances," her own attention was perpetually distracted by the
question: "What on earth can she be driving at?" There was something
positively exasperating in Bertha's attitude of isolated defiance. If
only she would have given her friend a hint they might still have worked
together successfully; but how could Lily be of use, while she was thus
obstinately shut out from participation? To be of use was what she
honestly wanted; and not for her own sake but for the Dorsets'. She had
not thought of her own situation at all: she was simply engrossed in
trying to put a little order in theirs. But the close of the short dreary
evening left her with a sense of effort hopelessly wasted. She had not
tried to see Dorset alone: she had positively shrunk from a renewal of
his confidences. It was Bertha whose confidence she sought, and who
should as eagerly have invited her own; and Bertha, as if in the
infatuation of self-destruction, was actually pushing away her rescuing
hand.

Lily, going to bed early, had left the couple to themselves; and it
seemed part of the general mystery in which she moved that more than an
hour should elapse before she heard Bertha walk down the silent passage
and regain her room. The morrow, rising on an apparent continuance of the
same conditions, revealed nothing of what had occurred between the
confronted pair. One fact alone outwardly proclaimed the change they were
all conspiring to ignore; and that was the non-appearance of Ned
Silverton. No one referred to it, and this tacit avoidance of the subject
kept it in the immediate foreground of consciousness. But there was
another change, perceptible only to Lily; and that was that Dorset now
avoided her almost as pointedly as his wife. Perhaps he was repenting his
rash outpourings of the previous day; perhaps only trying, in his clumsy
way, to conform to Selden's counsel to behave "as usual." Such
instructions no more make for easiness of attitude than the
photographer's behest to "look natural"; and in a creature as unconscious
as poor Dorset of the appearance he habitually presented, the struggle to
maintain a pose was sure to result in queer contortions.

It resulted, at any rate, in throwing Lily strangely on her own
resources. She had learned, on leaving her room, that Mrs. Dorset was
still invisible, and that Dorset had left the yacht early; and feeling
too restless to remain alone, she too had herself ferried ashore.
Straying toward the Casino, she attached herself to a group of
acquaintances from Nice, with whom she lunched, and in whose company she
was returning to the rooms when she encountered Selden crossing the
square. She could not, at the moment, separate herself definitely from
her party, who had hospitably assumed that she would remain with them
till they took their departure; but she found time for a momentary pause
of enquiry, to which he promptly returned: "I've seen him again--he's
just left me."

She waited before him anxiously. "Well? what has happened? What WILL
happen?"

"Nothing as yet--and nothing in the future, I think."

"It's over, then? It's settled? You're sure?"

He smiled. "Give me time. I'm not sure--but I'm a good deal surer." And
with that she had to content herself, and hasten on to the expectant
group on the steps.

Selden had in fact given her the utmost measure of his sureness, had even
stretched it a shade to meet the anxiety in her eyes.  And now, as he
turned away, strolling down the hill toward the station, that anxiety
remained with him as the visible justification of his own. It was not,
indeed, anything specific that he feared: there had been a literal truth
in his declaration that he did not think anything would happen. What
troubled him was that, though Dorset's attitude had perceptibly changed,
the change was not clearly to be accounted for. It had certainly not been
produced by Selden's arguments, or by the action of his own soberer
reason. Five minutes' talk sufficed to show that some alien influence had
been at work, and that it had not so much subdued his resentment as
weakened his will, so that he moved under it in a state of apathy, like a
dangerous lunatic who has been drugged.  Temporarily, no doubt, however
exerted, it worked for the general safety: the question was how long it
would last, and by what kind of reaction it was likely to be followed. On
these points Selden could gain no light; for he saw that one effect of
the transformation had been to shut him off from free communion with
Dorset. The latter, indeed, was still moved by the irresistible desire to
discuss his wrong; but, though he revolved about it with the same forlorn
tenacity, Selden was aware that something always restrained him from full
expression. His state was one to produce first weariness and then
impatience in his hearer; and when their talk was over, Selden began to
feel that he had done his utmost, and might justifiably wash his hands of
the sequel.

It was in this mind that he had been making his way back to the station
when Miss Bart crossed his path; but though, after his brief word with
her, he kept mechanically on his course, he was conscious of a gradual
change in his purpose. The change had been produced by the look in her
eyes; and in his eagerness to define the nature of that look, he dropped
into a seat in the gardens, and sat brooding upon the question.  It was
natural enough, in all conscience, that she should appear anxious: a
young woman placed, in the close intimacy of a yachting-cruise, between a
couple on the verge of disaster, could hardly, aside from her concern for
her friends, be insensible to the awkwardness of her own position. The
worst of it was that, in interpreting Miss Bart's state of mind, so many
alternative readings were possible; and one of these, in Selden's
troubled mind, took the ugly form suggested by Mrs. Fisher. If the girl
was afraid, was she afraid for herself or for her friends? And to what
degree was her dread of a catastrophe intensified by the sense of being
fatally involved in it? The burden of offence lying manifestly with Mrs.
Dorset, this conjecture seemed on the face of it gratuitously unkind; but
Selden knew that in the most one-sided matrimonial quarrel there are
generally counter-charges to be brought, and that they are brought with
the greater audacity where the original grievance is so emphatic. Mrs.
Fisher had not hesitated to suggest the likelihood of Dorset's marrying
Miss Bart if "anything happened"; and though Mrs. Fisher's conclusions
were notoriously rash, she was shrewd enough in reading the signs from
which they were drawn. Dorset had apparently shown marked interest in the
girl, and this interest might be used to cruel advantage in his wife's
struggle for rehabilitation. Selden knew that Bertha would fight to the
last round of powder: the rashness of her conduct was illogically
combined with a cold determination to escape its consequences. She could
be as unscrupulous in fighting for herself as she was reckless in
courting danger, and whatever came to her hand at such moments was likely
to be used as a defensive missile. He did not, as yet, see clearly just
what course she was likely to take, but his perplexity increased his
apprehension, and with it the sense that, before leaving, he must speak
again with Miss Bart. Whatever her share in the situation--and he had
always honestly tried to resist judging her by her surroundings--however
free she might be from any personal connection with it, she would be
better out of the way of a possible crash; and since she had appealed to
him for help, it was clearly his business to tell her so.

This decision at last brought him to his feet, and carried him back to
the gambling rooms, within whose doors he had seen her disappearing; but
a prolonged exploration of the crowd failed to put him on her traces. He
saw instead, to his surprise, Ned Silverton loitering somewhat
ostentatiously about the tables; and the discovery that this actor in the
drama was not only hovering in the wings, but actually inviting the
exposure of the footlights, though it might have seemed to imply that all
peril was over, served rather to deepen Selden's sense of foreboding.
Charged with this impression he returned to the square, hoping to see
Miss Bart move across it, as every one in Monte Carlo seemed inevitably
to do at least a dozen times a day; but here again he waited vainly for a
glimpse of her, and the conclusion was slowly forced on him that she had
gone back to the Sabrina. It would be difficult to follow her there, and
still more difficult, should he do so, to contrive the opportunity for a
private word; and he had almost decided on the unsatisfactory alternative
of writing, when the ceaseless diorama of the square suddenly unrolled
before him the figures of Lord Hubert and Mrs. Bry.

Hailing them at once with his question, he learned from Lord Hubert that
Miss Bart had just returned to the Sabrina in Dorset's company; an
announcement so evidently disconcerting to him that Mrs. Bry, after a
glance from her companion, which seemed to act like the pressure on a
spring, brought forth the prompt proposal that he should come and meet
his friends at dinner that evening--"At Becassin's--a little dinner to
the Duchess," she flashed out before Lord Hubert had time to remove the
pressure.

Selden's sense of the privilege of being included in such company brought
him early in the evening to the door of the restaurant, where he paused
to scan the ranks of diners approaching down the brightly lit terrace.
There, while the Brys hovered within over the last agitating alternatives
of the MENU, he kept watch for the guests from the Sabrina, who at length
rose on the horizon in company with the Duchess, Lord and Lady Skiddaw
and the Stepneys.  From this group it was easy for him to detach Miss
Bart on the pretext of a moment's glance into one of the brilliant shops
along the terrace, and to say to her, while they lingered together in the
white dazzle of a jeweller's window: "I stopped over to see you--to beg
of you to leave the yacht."

The eyes she turned on him showed a quick gleam of her former fear. "To
leave--? What do you mean? What has happened?"

"Nothing. But if anything should, why be in the way of it?"

The glare from the jeweller's window, deepening the pallour of her face,
gave to its delicate lines the sharpness of a tragic mask.  "Nothing
will, I am sure; but while there's even a doubt left, how can you think I
would leave Bertha?"

The words rang out on a note of contempt--was it possibly of contempt for
himself? Well, he was willing to risk its renewal to the extent of
insisting, with an undeniable throb of added interest: "You have yourself
to think of, you know--" to which, with a strange fall of sadness in her
voice, she answered, meeting his eyes: "If you knew how little difference
that makes!"

"Oh, well, nothing WILL happen," he said, more for his own reassurance
than for hers; and "Nothing, nothing, of course!" she valiantly assented,
as they turned to overtake their companions.

In the thronged restaurant, taking their places about Mrs. Bry's
illuminated board, their confidence seemed to gain support from the
familiarity of their surroundings. Here were Dorset and his wife once
more presenting their customary faces to the world, she engrossed in
establishing her relation with an intensely new gown, he shrinking with
dyspeptic dread from the multiplied solicitations of the MENU. The mere
fact that they thus showed themselves together, with the utmost openness
the place afforded, seemed to declare beyond a doubt that their
differences were composed. How this end had been attained was still
matter for wonder, but it was clear that for the moment Miss Bart rested
confidently in the result; and Selden tried to achieve the same view by
telling himself that her opportunities for observation had been ampler
than his own.

Meanwhile, as the dinner advanced through a labyrinth of courses, in
which it became clear that Mrs. Bry had occasionally broken away from
Lord Hubert's restraining hand, Selden's general watchfulness began to
lose itself in a particular study of Miss Bart. It was one of the days
when she was so handsome that to be handsome was enough, and all the
rest--her grace, her quickness, her social felicities--seemed the
overflow of a bounteous nature. But what especially struck him was the
way in which she detached herself, by a hundred undefinable shades, from
the persons who most abounded in her own style. It was in just such
company, the fine flower and complete expression of the state she aspired
to, that the differences came out with special poignancy, her grace
cheapening the other women's smartness as her finely-discriminated
silences made their chatter dull. The strain of the last hours had
restored to her face the deeper eloquence which Selden had lately missed
in it, and the bravery of her words to him still fluttered in her voice
and eyes. Yes, she was matchless--it was the one word for her; and he
could give his admiration the freer play because so little personal
feeling remained in it. His real detachment from her had taken place, not
at the lurid moment of disenchantment, but now, in the sober after-light
of discrimination, where he saw her definitely divided from him by the
crudeness of a choice which seemed to deny the very differences he felt
in her. It was before him again in its completeness--the choice in which
she was content to rest: in the stupid costliness of the food and the
showy dulness of the talk, in the freedom of speech which never arrived
at wit and the freedom of act which never made for romance. The strident
setting of the restaurant, in which their table seemed set apart in a
special glare of publicity, and the presence at it of little Dabham of
the "Riviera Notes," emphasized the ideals of a world where
conspicuousness passed for distinction, and the society column had become
the roll of fame.

It was as the immortalizer of such occasions that little Dabham, wedged
in modest watchfulness between two brilliant neighbours, suddenly became
the centre of Selden's scrutiny. How much did he know of what was going
on, and how much, for his purpose, was still worth finding out? His
little eyes were like tentacles thrown out to catch the floating
intimations with which, to Selden, the air at moments seemed thick; then
again it cleared to its normal emptiness, and he could see nothing in it
for the journalist but leisure to note the elegance of the ladies' gowns.
Mrs. Dorset's, in particular, challenged all the wealth of Mr. Dabham's
vocabulary: it had surprises and subtleties worthy of what he would have
called "the literary style." At first, as Selden had noticed, it had been
almost too preoccupying to its wearer; but now she was in full command of
it, and was even producing her effects with unwonted freedom. Was she
not, indeed, too free, too fluent, for perfect naturalness? And was not
Dorset, to whom his glance had passed by a natural transition, too
jerkily wavering between the same extremes?  Dorset indeed was always
jerky; but it seemed to Selden that tonight each vibration swung him
farther from his centre.

The dinner, meanwhile, was moving to its triumphant close, to the evident
satisfaction of Mrs. Bry, who, throned in apoplectic majesty between Lord
Skiddaw and Lord Hubert, seemed in spirit to be calling on Mrs. Fisher to
witness her achievement. Short of Mrs. Fisher her audience might have
been called complete; for the restaurant was crowded with persons mainly
gathered there for the purpose of spectatorship, and accurately posted as
to the names and faces of the celebrities they had come to see. Mrs. Bry,
conscious that all her feminine guests came under that heading, and that
each one looked her part to admiration, shone on Lily with all the
pent-up gratitude that Mrs. Fisher had failed to deserve. Selden,
catching the glance, wondered what part Miss Bart had played in
organizing the entertainment. She did, at least, a great deal to adorn
it; and as he watched the bright security with which she bore herself, he
smiled to think that he should have fancied her in need of help. Never
had she appeared more serenely mistress of the situation than when, at
the moment of dispersal, detaching herself a little from the group about
the table, she turned with a smile and a graceful slant of the shoulders
to receive her cloak from Dorset.

The dinner had been protracted over Mr. Bry's exceptional cigars and a
bewildering array of liqueurs, and many of the other tables were empty;
but a sufficient number of diners still lingered to give relief to the
leave-taking of Mrs. Bry's distinguished guests. This ceremony was drawn
out and complicated by the fact that it involved, on the part of the
Duchess and Lady Skiddaw, definite farewells, and pledges of speedy
reunion in Paris, where they were to pause and replenish their wardrobes
on the way to England. The quality of Mrs. Bry's hospitality, and of the
tips her husband had presumably imparted, lent to the manner of the
English ladies a general effusiveness which shed the rosiest light over
their hostess's future. In its glow Mrs. Dorset and the Stepneys were
also visibly included, and the whole scene had touches of intimacy worth
their weight in gold to the watchful pen of Mr. Dabham.

A glance at her watch caused the Duchess to exclaim to her sister that
they had just time to dash for their train, and the flurry of this
departure over, the Stepneys, who had their motor at the door, offered to
convey the Dorsets and Miss Bart to the quay.  The offer was accepted,
and Mrs. Dorset moved away with her husband in attendance.  Miss Bart had
lingered for a last word with Lord Hubert, and Stepney, on whom Mr. Bry
was pressing a final, and still more expensive, cigar, called out: "Come
on, Lily, if you're going back to the yacht."

Lily turned to obey; but as she did so, Mrs. Dorset, who had paused on
her way out, moved a few steps back toward the table.

"Miss Bart is not going back to the yacht," she said in a voice of
singular distinctness.

A startled look ran from eye to eye; Mrs. Bry crimsoned to the verge of
congestion, Mrs. Stepney slipped nervously behind her husband, and
Selden, in the general turmoil of his sensations, was mainly conscious of
a longing to grip Dabham by the collar and fling him out into the street.

Dorset, meanwhile, had stepped back to his wife's side. His face was
white, and he looked about him with cowed angry eyes.  "Bertha!--Miss
Bart . . . this is some misunderstanding . . .  some mistake . . ."

"Miss Bart remains here," his wife rejoined incisively. "And, I think,
George, we had better not detain Mrs. Stepney any longer."

Miss Bart, during this brief exchange of words, remained in admirable
erectness, slightly isolated from the embarrassed group about her. She
had paled a little under the shock of the insult, but the discomposure of
the surrounding faces was not reflected in her own. The faint disdain of
her smile seemed to lift her high above her antagonist's reach, and it
was not till she had given Mrs. Dorset the full measure of the distance
between them that she turned and extended her hand to her hostess.

"I am joining the Duchess tomorrow," she explained, "and it seemed easier
for me to remain on shore for the night."

She held firmly to Mrs. Bry's wavering eye while she gave this
explanation, but when it was over Selden saw her send a tentative glance
from one to another of the women's faces. She read their incredulity in
their averted looks, and in the mute wretchedness of the men behind them,
and for a miserable half-second he thought she quivered on the brink of
failure. Then, turning to him with an easy gesture, and the pale bravery
of her recovered smile--"Dear Mr. Selden," she said, "you promised to see
me to my cab."



Outside, the sky was gusty and overcast, and as Lily and Selden moved
toward the deserted gardens below the restaurant, spurts of warm rain
blew fitfully against their faces. The fiction of the cab had been
tacitly abandoned; they walked on in silence, her hand on his arm, till
the deeper shade of the gardens received them, and pausing beside a
bench, he said: "Sit down a moment."

She dropped to the seat without answering, but the electric lamp at the
bend of the path shed a gleam on the struggling misery of her face.
Selden sat down beside her, waiting for her to speak, fearful lest any
word he chose should touch too roughly on her wound, and kept also from
free utterance by the wretched doubt which had slowly renewed itself
within him. What had brought her to this pass? What weakness had placed
her so abominably at her enemy's mercy? And why should Bertha Dorset have
turned into an enemy at the very moment when she so obviously needed the
support of her sex? Even while his nerves raged at the subjection of
husbands to their wives, and at the cruelty of women to their kind,
reason obstinately harped on the proverbial relation between smoke and
fire. The memory of Mrs. Fisher's hints, and the corroboration of his own
impressions, while they deepened his pity also increased his constraint,
since, whichever way he sought a free outlet for sympathy, it was blocked
by the fear of committing a blunder.

Suddenly it struck him that his silence must seem almost as accusatory as
that of the men he had despised for turning from her; but before he could
find the fitting word she had cut him short with a question.

"Do you know of a quiet hotel? I can send for my maid in the morning."

"An hotel--HERE--that you can go to alone? It's not possible."

She met this with a pale gleam of her old playfulness. "What IS, then?
It's too wet to sleep in the gardens."

"But there must be some one----"

"Some one to whom I can go? Of course--any number--but at THIS hour?  You
see my change of plan was rather sudden----"

"Good God--if you'd listened to me!" he cried, venting his helplessness
in a burst of anger.

She still held him off with the gentle mockery of her smile. "But haven't
I?" she rejoined. "You advised me to leave the yacht, and I'm leaving it."

He saw then, with a pang of self-reproach, that she meant neither to
explain nor to defend herself; that by his miserable silence he had
forfeited all chance of helping her, and that the decisive hour was past.

She had risen, and stood before him in a kind of clouded majesty, like
some deposed princess moving tranquilly to exile.

"Lily!" he exclaimed, with a note of despairing appeal; but--"Oh, not
now," she gently admonished him; and then, in all the sweetness of her
recovered composure: "Since I must find shelter somewhere, and since
you're so kindly here to help me----"

He gathered himself up at the challenge. "You will do as I tell you?
There's but one thing, then; you must go straight to your cousins, the
Stepneys."

"Oh--" broke from her with a movement of instinctive resistance; but he
insisted: "Come--it's late, and you must appear to have gone there
directly."

He had drawn her hand into his arm, but she held him back with a last
gesture of protest. "I can't--I can't--not that--you don't know Gwen: you
mustn't ask me!"

"I MUST ask you--you must obey me," he persisted, though infected at
heart by her own fear.

Her voice sank to a whisper: "And if she refuses?"--but, "Oh, trust
me--trust me!" he could only insist in return; and yielding to his touch,
she let him lead her back in silence to the edge of the square.

In the cab they continued to remain silent through the brief drive which
carried them to the illuminated portals of the Stepneys' hotel.  Here he
left her outside, in the darkness of the raised hood, while his name was
sent up to Stepney, and he paced the showy hall, awaiting the latter's
descent. Ten minutes later the two men passed out together between the
gold-laced custodians of the threshold; but in the vestibule Stepney drew
up with a last flare of reluctance.

"It's understood, then?" he stipulated nervously, with his hand on
Selden's arm. "She leaves tomorrow by the early train--and my wife's
asleep, and can't be disturbed."

 Selden receives Lily's telegram requesting his intercession on behalf of the Dorsets. Selden meets with Dorset and fears the worst for Lily's reputation. Lily remains aboard the Sabrina despite the tension between the Dorsets and Bertha's harsh treatment of Lily. Lily goes to town and encounters Selden, who relates his concern for Lily's reputation. He worries that Lily is unable to defend herself socially from Bertha's wrath, and advises Lily to leave the Dorsets' yacht during a dinner hosted by the Brys. Lily asserts that she is in no danger, but Selden's fears are later realized when Bertha announces to the group that Lily will not return with them to the Sabrina. Selden accompanies Lily from the dinner party, vowing to help her find a place to stay. He receives Stepney's permission to let Lily spend the night at their hotel provided that she not disturb Stepney's sleeping wife, Gwen, and that she leave by train the following morning.

