Chapter: Miss Bart, emerging late the next morning from her cabin, found herself
alone on the deck of the Sabrina. The cushioned chairs, disposed
expectantly under the wide awning, showed no signs of recent occupancy,
and she presently learned from a steward that Mrs. Dorset had not yet
appeared, and that the gentlemen--separately--had gone ashore as soon as
they had breakfasted. Supplied with these facts, Lily leaned awhile over
the side, giving herself up to a leisurely enjoyment of the spectacle
before her. Unclouded sunlight enveloped sea and shore in a bath of
purest radiancy. The purpling waters drew a sharp white line of foam at
the base of the shore; against its irregular eminences, hotels and villas
flashed from the greyish verdure of olive and eucalyptus; and the
background of bare and finely-pencilled mountains quivered in a pale
intensity of light.


How beautiful it was--and how she loved beauty! She had always felt that
her sensibility in this direction made up for certain obtusenesses of
feeling of which she was less proud; and during the last three months she
had indulged it passionately. The Dorsets' invitation to go abroad with
them had come as an almost miraculous release from crushing difficulties;
and her faculty for renewing herself in new scenes, and casting off
problems of conduct as easily as the surroundings in which they had
arisen, made the mere change from one place to another seem, not merely a
postponement, but a solution of her troubles. Moral complications existed
for her only in the environment that had produced them; she did not mean
to slight or ignore them, but they lost their reality when they changed
their background. She could not have remained in New York without
repaying the money she owed to Trenor; to acquit herself of that odious
debt she might even have faced a marriage with Rosedale; but the accident
of placing the Atlantic between herself and her obligations made them
dwindle out of sight as if they had been milestones and she had travelled
past them.

Her two months on the Sabrina had been especially calculated to aid this
illusion of distance. She had been plunged into new scenes, and had found
in them a renewal of old hopes and ambitions. The cruise itself charmed
her as a romantic adventure.  She was vaguely touched by the names and
scenes amid which she moved, and had listened to Ned Silverton reading
Theocritus by moonlight, as the yacht rounded the Sicilian promontories,
with a thrill of the nerves that confirmed her belief in her intellectual
superiority. But the weeks at Cannes and Nice had really given her more
pleasure. The gratification of being welcomed in high company, and of
making her own ascendency felt there, so that she found herself figuring
once more as the "beautiful Miss Bart" in the interesting journal devoted
to recording the least movements of her cosmopolitan companions--all
these experiences tended to throw into the extreme background of memory
the prosaic and sordid difficulties from which she had escaped.

If she was faintly aware of fresh difficulties ahead, she was sure of her
ability to meet them: it was characteristic of her to feel that the only
problems she could not solve were those with which she was familiar.
Meanwhile she could honestly be proud of the skill with which she had
adapted herself to somewhat delicate conditions. She had reason to think
that she had made herself equally necessary to her host and hostess; and
if only she had seen any perfectly irreproachable means of drawing a
financial profit from the situation, there would have been no cloud on
her horizon. The truth was that her funds, as usual, were inconveniently
low; and to neither Dorset nor his wife could this vulgar embarrassment
be safely hinted. Still, the need was not a pressing one; she could worry
along, as she had so often done before, with the hope of some happy
change of fortune to sustain her; and meanwhile life was gay and
beautiful and easy, and she was conscious of figuring not unworthily in
such a setting.

She was engaged to breakfast that morning with the Duchess of Beltshire,
and at twelve o'clock she asked to be set ashore in the gig.  Before this
she had sent her maid to enquire if she might see Mrs. Dorset; but the
reply came back that the latter was tired, and trying to sleep. Lily
thought she understood the reason of the rebuff. Her hostess had not been
included in the Duchess's invitation, though she herself had made the
most loyal efforts in that direction. But her grace was impervious to
hints, and invited or omitted as she chose. It was not Lily's fault if
Mrs. Dorset's complicated attitudes did not fall in with the Duchess's
easy gait. The Duchess, who seldom explained herself, had not formulated
her objection beyond saying: "She's rather a bore, you know. The only one
of your friends I like is that little Mr. Bry--HE'S funny--" but Lily
knew enough not to press the point, and was not altogether sorry to be
thus distinguished at her friend's expense. Bertha certainly HAD grown
tiresome since she had taken to poetry and Ned Silverton.

On the whole, it was a relief to break away now and then from the
Sabrina; and the Duchess's little breakfast, organized by Lord Hubert
with all his usual virtuosity, was the pleasanter to Lily for not
including her travelling-companions. Dorset, of late, had grown more than
usually morose and incalculable, and Ned Silverton went about with an air
that seemed to challenge the universe. The freedom and lightness of the
ducal intercourse made an agreeable change from these complications, and
Lily was tempted, after luncheon, to adjourn in the wake of her
companions to the hectic atmosphere of the Casino. She did not mean to
play; her diminished pocket-money offered small scope for the adventure;
but it amused her to sit on a divan, under the doubtful protection of the
Duchess's back, while the latter hung above her stakes at a neighbouring
table.

The rooms were packed with the gazing throng which, in the afternoon
hours, trickles heavily between the tables, like the Sunday crowd in a
lion-house. In the stagnant flow of the mass, identities were hardly
distinguishable; but Lily presently saw Mrs. Bry cleaving her determined
way through the doors, and, in the broad wake she left, the light figure
of Mrs. Fisher bobbing after her like a row-boat at the stern of a tug.
Mrs. Bry pressed on, evidently animated by the resolve to reach a certain
point in the rooms; but Mrs. Fisher, as she passed Lily, broke from her
towing-line, and let herself float to the girl's side.

"Lose her?" she echoed the latter's query, with an indifferent glance at
Mrs. Bry's retreating back. "I daresay--it doesn't matter: I HAVE lost
her already." And, as Lily exclaimed, she added: "We had an awful row
this morning. You know, of course, that the Duchess chucked her at dinner
last night, and she thinks it was my fault--my want of management. The
worst of it is, the message--just a mere word by telephone--came so late
that the dinner HAD to be paid for; and Becassin HAD run it up--it had
been so drummed into him that the Duchess was coming!" Mrs. Fisher
indulged in a faint laugh at the remembrance. "Paying for what she
doesn't get rankles so dreadfully with Louisa: I can't make her see that
it's one of the preliminary steps to getting what you haven't paid
for--and as I was the nearest thing to smash, she smashed me to atoms,
poor dear!"

Lily murmured her commiseration. Impulses of sympathy came naturally to
her, and it was instinctive to proffer her help to Mrs. Fisher.

"If there's anything I can do--if it's only a question of meeting the
Duchess! I heard her say she thought Mr. Bry amusing----"

But Mrs. Fisher interposed with a decisive gesture. "My dear, I have my
pride: the pride of my trade. I couldn't manage the Duchess, and I can't
palm off your arts on Louisa Bry as mine.  I've taken the final step: I
go to Paris tonight with the Sam Gormers. THEY'RE still in the elementary
stage; an Italian Prince is a great deal more than a Prince to them, and
they're always on the brink of taking a courier for one.  To save them
from that is my present mission." She laughed again at the picture. "But
before I go I want to make my last will and testament--I want to leave
you the Brys."

"Me?" Miss Bart joined in her amusement. "It's charming of you to
remember me, dear; but really----"

"You're already so well provided for?" Mrs. Fisher flashed a sharp glance
at her. "ARE you, though, Lily--to the point of rejecting my offer?"

Miss Bart coloured slowly. "What I really meant was, that the Brys
wouldn't in the least care to be so disposed of."

Mrs. Fisher continued to probe her embarrassment with an unflinching eye.
"What you really meant was that you've snubbed the Brys horribly; and you
know that they know----"

"Carry!"

"Oh, on certain sides Louisa bristles with perceptions. If you'd even
managed to have them asked once on the Sabrina--especially when royalties
were coming! But it's not too late," she ended earnestly, "it's not too
late for either of you."

Lily smiled. "Stay over, and I'll get the Duchess to dine with them."

"I shan't stay over--the Gormers have paid for my SALON-LIT," said Mrs.
Fisher with simplicity. "But get the Duchess to dine with them all the
same."

Lily's smile again flowed into a slight laugh: her friend's importunity
was beginning to strike her as irrelevant. "I'm sorry I have been
negligent about the Brys----" she began.

"Oh, as to the Brys--it's you I'm thinking of," said Mrs. Fisher
abruptly. She paused, and then, bending forward, with a lowered voice:
"You know we all went on to Nice last night when the Duchess chucked us.
It was Louisa's idea--I told her what I thought of it."

Miss Bart assented. "Yes--I caught sight of you on the way back, at the
station."

"Well, the man who was in the carriage with you and George Dorset--that
horrid little Dabham who does 'Society Notes from the Riviera'--had been
dining with us at Nice. And he's telling everybody that you and Dorset
came back alone after midnight."

"Alone--? When he was with us?" Lily laughed, but her laugh faded into
gravity under the prolonged implication of Mrs. Fisher's look. "We DID
come back alone--if that's so very dreadful! But whose fault was it?  The
Duchess was spending the night at Cimiez with the Crown Princess; Bertha
got bored with the show, and went off early, promising to meet us at the
station. We turned up on time, but she didn't--she didn't turn up at all!"

Miss Bart made this announcement in the tone of one who presents, with
careless assurance, a complete vindication; but Mrs. Fisher received it
in a manner almost inconsequent. She seemed to have lost sight of her
friend's part in the incident: her inward vision had taken another slant.

"Bertha never turned up at all? Then how on earth did she get back?"

"Oh, by the next train, I suppose; there were two extra ones for the
FETE. At any rate, I know she's safe on the yacht, though I haven't yet
seen her; but you see it was not my fault," Lily summed up.

"Not your fault that Bertha didn't turn up? My poor child, if only you
don't have to pay for it!" Mrs. Fisher rose--she had seen Mrs. Bry
surging back in her direction. "There's Louisa, and I must be off--oh,
we're on the best of terms externally; we're lunching together; but at
heart it's ME she's lunching on," she explained; and with a last
hand-clasp and a last look, she added: "Remember, I leave her to you;
she's hovering now, ready to take you in."



Lily carried the impression of Mrs. Fisher's leave-taking away with her
from the Casino doors. She had accomplished, before leaving, the first
step toward her reinstatement in Mrs. Bry's good graces. An affable
advance--a vague murmur that they must see more of each other--an
allusive glance to a near future that was felt to include the Duchess as
well as the Sabrina--how easily it was all done, if one possessed the
knack of doing it!  She wondered at herself, as she had so often
wondered, that, possessing the knack, she did not more consistently
exercise it.  But sometimes she was forgetful--and sometimes, could it be
that she was proud? Today, at any rate, she had been vaguely conscious of
a reason for sinking her pride, had in fact even sunk it to the point of
suggesting to Lord Hubert Dacey, whom she ran across on the Casino steps,
that he might really get the Duchess to dine with the Brys, if SHE
undertook to have them asked on the Sabrina. Lord Hubert had promised his
help, with the readiness on which she could always count: it was his only
way of ever reminding her that he had once been ready to do so much more
for her. Her path, in short, seemed to smooth itself before her as she
advanced; yet the faint stir of uneasiness persisted. Had it been
produced, she wondered, by her chance meeting with Selden?  She thought
not--time and change seemed so completely to have relegated him to his
proper distance. The sudden and exquisite reaction from her anxieties had
had the effect of throwing the recent past so far back that even Selden,
as part of it, retained a certain air of unreality. And he had made it so
clear that they were not to meet again; that he had merely dropped down
to Nice for a day or two, and had almost his foot on the next steamer.
No--that part of the past had merely surged up for a moment on the
fleeing surface of events; and now that it was submerged again, the
uncertainty, the apprehension persisted.

They grew to sudden acuteness as she caught sight of George Dorset
descending the steps of the Hotel de Paris and making for her across the
square. She had meant to drive down to the quay and regain the yacht; but
she now had the immediate impression that something more was to happen
first.

"Which way are you going? Shall we walk a bit?" he began, putting the
second question before the first was answered, and not waiting for a
reply to either before he directed her silently toward the comparative
seclusion of the lower gardens.

She detected in him at once all the signs of extreme nervous tension.
The skin was puffed out under his sunken eyes, and its sallowness had
paled to a leaden white against which his irregular eyebrows and long
reddish moustache were relieved with a saturnine effect. His appearance,
in short, presented an odd mixture of the bedraggled and the ferocious.

He walked beside her in silence, with quick precipitate steps, till they
reached the embowered slopes to the east of the Casino; then, pulling up
abruptly, he said: "Have you seen Bertha?"

"No--when I left the yacht she was not yet up."

He received this with a laugh like the whirring sound in a disabled
clock. "Not yet up? Had she gone to bed? Do you know at what time she
came on board? This morning at seven!" he exclaimed.

"At seven?" Lily started. "What happened--an accident to the train?"

He laughed again. "They missed the train--all the trains--they had to
drive back."

"Well----?" She hesitated, feeling at once how little even this necessity
accounted for the fatal lapse of hours.

"Well, they couldn't get a carriage at once--at that time of night, you
know--" the explanatory note made it almost seem as though he were
putting the case for his wife--"and when they finally did, it was only a
one-horse cab, and the horse was lame!"

"How tiresome! I see," she affirmed, with the more earnestness because
she was so nervously conscious that she did not; and after a pause she
added: "I'm so sorry--but ought we to have waited?"

"Waited for the one-horse cab? It would scarcely have carried the four of
us, do you think?"

She took this in what seemed the only possible way, with a laugh intended
to sink the question itself in his humorous treatment of it.  "Well, it
would have been difficult; we should have had to walk by turns. But it
would have been jolly to see the sunrise."

"Yes: the sunrise WAS jolly," he agreed.

"Was it? You saw it, then?"

"I saw it, yes; from the deck. I waited up for them."

"Naturally--I suppose you were worried. Why didn't you call on me to
share your vigil?"

He stood still, dragging at his moustache with a lean weak hand.  "I
don't think you would have cared for its DENOUEMENT," he said with sudden
grimness.

Again she was disconcerted by the abrupt change in his tone, and as in
one flash she saw the peril of the moment, and the need of keeping her
sense of it out of her eyes.

"DENOUEMENT--isn't that too big a word for such a small incident?  The
worst of it, after all, is the fatigue which Bertha has probably slept
off by this time."

She clung to the note bravely, though its futility was now plain to her
in the glare of his miserable eyes.

"Don't--don't----!" he broke out, with the hurt cry of a child; and while
she tried to merge her sympathy, and her resolve to ignore any cause for
it, in one ambiguous murmur of deprecation, he dropped down on the bench
near which they had paused, and poured out the wretchedness of his soul.

It was a dreadful hour--an hour from which she emerged shrinking and
seared, as though her lids had been scorched by its actual glare. It was
not that she had never had premonitory glimpses of such an outbreak; but
rather because, here and there throughout the three months, the surface
of life had shown such ominous cracks and vapours that her fears had
always been on the alert for an upheaval. There had been moments when the
situation had presented itself under a homelier yet more vivid
image--that of a shaky vehicle, dashed by unbroken steeds over a bumping
road, while she cowered within, aware that the harness wanted mending,
and wondering what would give way first.  Well--everything had given way
now; and the wonder was that the crazy outfit had held together so long.
Her sense of being involved in the crash, instead of merely witnessing it
from the road, was intensified by the way in which Dorset, through his
furies of denunciation and wild reactions of self-contempt, made her feel
the need he had of her, the place she had taken in his life. But for her,
what ear would have been open to his cries?  And what hand but hers could
drag him up again to a footing of sanity and self-respect? All through
the stress of the struggle with him, she had been conscious of something
faintly maternal in her efforts to guide and uplift him. But for the
present, if he clung to her, it was not in order to be dragged up, but to
feel some one floundering in the depths with him: he wanted her to suffer
with him, not to help him to suffer less.

Happily for both, there was little physical strength to sustain his
frenzy. It left him, collapsed and breathing heavily, to an apathy so
deep and prolonged that Lily almost feared the passers-by would think it
the result of a seizure, and stop to offer their aid. But Monte Carlo is,
of all places, the one where the human bond is least close, and odd
sights are the least arresting. If a glance or two lingered on the
couple, no intrusive sympathy disturbed them; and it was Lily herself who
broke the silence by rising from her seat. With the clearing of her
vision the sweep of peril had extended, and she saw that the post of
danger was no longer at Dorset's side.

"If you won't go back, I must--don't make me leave you!" she urged.

But he remained mutely resistant, and she added: "What are you going to
do? You really can't sit here all night."

"I can go to an hotel. I can telegraph my lawyers." He sat up, roused by
a new thought. "By Jove, Selden's at Nice--I'll send for Selden!"

Lily, at this, reseated herself with a cry of alarm. "No, no, NO!" she
protested.

He swung round on her distrustfully. "Why not Selden? He's a lawyer isn't
he? One will do as well as another in a case like this."

"As badly as another, you mean. I thought you relied on ME to help you."

"You do--by being so sweet and patient with me. If it hadn't been for you
I'd have ended the thing long ago. But now it's got to end." He rose
suddenly, straightening himself with an effort.  "You can't want to see
me ridiculous."

She looked at him kindly. "That's just it." Then, after a moment's
pondering, almost to her own surprise she broke out with a flash of
inspiration: "Well, go over and see Mr. Selden. You'll have time to do it
before dinner."

"Oh, DINNER----" he mocked her; but she left him with the smiling
rejoinder: "Dinner on board, remember; we'll put it off till nine if you
like."

It was past four already; and when a cab had dropped her at the quay, and
she stood waiting for the gig to put off for her, she began to wonder
what had been happening on the yacht. Of Silverton's whereabouts there
had been no mention. Had he returned to the Sabrina? Or could Bertha--the
dread alternative sprang on her suddenly--could Bertha, left to herself,
have gone ashore to rejoin him? Lily's heart stood still at the thought.
All her concern had hitherto been for young Silverton, not only because,
in such affairs, the woman's instinct is to side with the man, but
because his case made a peculiar appeal to her sympathies. He was so
desperately in earnest, poor youth, and his earnestness was of so
different a quality from Bertha's, though hers too was desperate enough.
The difference was that Bertha was in earnest only about herself, while
he was in earnest about her.  But now, at the actual crisis, this
difference seemed to throw the weight of destitution on Bertha's side,
since at least he had her to suffer for, and she had only herself. At any
rate, viewed less ideally, all the disadvantages of such a situation were
for the woman; and it was to Bertha that Lily's sympathies now went out.
She was not fond of Bertha Dorset, but neither was she without a sense of
obligation, the heavier for having so little personal liking to sustain
it. Bertha had been kind to her, they had lived together, during the last
months, on terms of easy friendship, and the sense of friction of which
Lily had recently become aware seemed to make it the more urgent that she
should work undividedly in her friend's interest.

It was in Bertha's interest, certainly, that she had despatched Dorset to
consult with Lawrence Selden. Once the grotesqueness of the situation
accepted, she had seen at a glance that it was the safest in which Dorset
could find himself. Who but Selden could thus miraculously combine the
skill to save Bertha with the obligation of doing so? The consciousness
that much skill would be required made Lily rest thankfully in the
greatness of the obligation. Since he would HAVE to pull Bertha through
she could trust him to find a way; and she put the fulness of her trust
in the telegram she managed to send him on her way to the quay.

Thus far, then, Lily felt that she had done well; and the conviction
strengthened her for the task that remained. She and Bertha had never
been on confidential terms, but at such a crisis the barriers of reserve
must surely fall: Dorset's wild allusions to the scene of the morning
made Lily feel that they were down already, and that any attempt to
rebuild them would be beyond Bertha's strength. She pictured the poor
creature shivering behind her fallen defences and awaiting with suspense
the moment when she could take refuge in the first shelter that offered.
If only that shelter had not already offered itself elsewhere! As the gig
traversed the short distance between the quay and the yacht, Lily grew
more than ever alarmed at the possible consequences of her long absence.
What if the wretched Bertha, finding in all the long hours no soul to
turn to--but by this time Lily's eager foot was on the side-ladder, and
her first step on the Sabrina showed the worst of her apprehensions to be
unfounded; for there, in the luxurious shade of the after-deck, the
wretched Bertha, in full command of her usual attenuated elegance, sat
dispensing tea to the Duchess of Beltshire and Lord Hubert.

The sight filled Lily with such surprise that she felt that Bertha, at
least, must read its meaning in her look, and she was proportionately
disconcerted by the blankness of the look returned. But in an instant she
saw that Mrs. Dorset had, of necessity, to look blank before the others,
and that, to mitigate the effect of her own surprise, she must at once
produce some simple reason for it. The long habit of rapid transitions
made it easy for her to exclaim to the Duchess: "Why, I thought you'd
gone back to the Princess!" and this sufficed for the lady she addressed,
if it was hardly enough for Lord Hubert.

At least it opened the way to a lively explanation of how the Duchess
was, in fact, going back the next moment, but had first rushed out to the
yacht for a word with Mrs. Dorset on the subject of tomorrow's
dinner--the dinner with the Brys, to which Lord Hubert had finally
insisted on dragging them.

"To save my neck, you know!" he explained, with a glance that appealed to
Lily for some recognition of his promptness; and the Duchess added, with
her noble candour: "Mr. Bry has promised him a tip, and he says if we go
he'll pass it onto us."

This led to some final pleasantries, in which, as it seemed to Lily, Mrs.
Dorset bore her part with astounding bravery, and at the close of which
Lord Hubert, from half way down the side-ladder, called back, with an air
of numbering heads: "And of course we may count on Dorset too?"

"Oh, count on him," his wife assented gaily. She was keeping up well to
the last--but as she turned back from waving her adieux over the side,
Lily said to herself that the mask must drop and the soul of fear look
out.

Mrs. Dorset turned back slowly; perhaps she wanted time to steady her
muscles; at any rate, they were still under perfect control when,
dropping once more into her seat behind the tea-table, she remarked to
Miss Bart with a faint touch of irony: "I suppose I ought to say good
morning."

If it was a cue, Lily was ready to take it, though with only the vaguest
sense of what was expected of her in return. There was something
unnerving in the contemplation of Mrs. Dorset's composure, and she had to
force the light tone in which she answered: "I tried to see you this
morning, but you were not yet up."

"No--I got to bed late. After we missed you at the station I thought we
ought to wait for you till the last train." She spoke very gently, but
with just the least tinge of reproach.

"You missed us? You waited for us at the station?" Now indeed Lily was
too far adrift in bewilderment to measure the other's words or keep watch
on her own. "But I thought you didn't get to the station till after the
last train had left!"

Mrs. Dorset, examining her between lowered lids, met this with the
immediate query: "Who told you that?"

"George--I saw him just now in the gardens."

"Ah, is that George's version? Poor George--he was in no state to
remember what I told him. He had one of his worst attacks this morning,
and I packed him off to see the doctor. Do you know if he found him?"

Lily, still lost in conjecture, made no reply, and Mrs. Dorset settled
herself indolently in her seat. "He'll wait to see him; he was horribly
frightened about himself. It's very bad for him to be worried, and
whenever anything upsetting happens, it always brings on an attack."

This time Lily felt sure that a cue was being pressed on her; but it was
put forth with such startling suddenness, and with so incredible an air
of ignoring what it led up to, that she could only falter out doubtfully:
"Anything upsetting?"

"Yes--such as having you so conspicuously on his hands in the small
hours. You know, my dear, you're rather a big responsibility in such a
scandalous place after midnight."

At that--at the complete unexpectedness and the inconceivable audacity of
it--Lily could not restrain the tribute of an astonished laugh.

"Well, really--considering it was you who burdened him with the
responsibility!"

Mrs. Dorset took this with an exquisite mildness. "By not having the
superhuman cleverness to discover you in that frightful rush for the
train? Or the imagination to believe that you'd take it without us--you
and he all alone--instead of waiting quietly in the station till we DID
manage to meet you?"

Lily's colour rose: it was growing clear to her that Bertha was pursuing
an object, following a line she had marked out for herself.  Only, with
such a doom impending, why waste time in these childish efforts to avert
it? The puerility of the attempt disarmed Lily's indignation: did it not
prove how horribly the poor creature was frightened?

"No; by our simply all keeping together at Nice," she returned.

"Keeping together? When it was you who seized the first opportunity to
rush off with the Duchess and her friends? My dear Lily, you are not a
child to be led by the hand!"

"No--nor to be lectured, Bertha, really; if that's what you are doing to
me now."

Mrs. Dorset smiled on her reproachfully. "Lecture you--I? Heaven forbid!
I was merely trying to give you a friendly hint. But it's usually the
other way round, isn't it? I'm expected to take hints, not to give them:
I've positively lived on them all these last months."

"Hints--from me to you?" Lily repeated.

"Oh, negative ones merely--what not to be and to do and to see.  And I
think I've taken them to admiration. Only, my dear, if you'll let me say
so, I didn't understand that one of my negative duties was NOT to warn
you when you carried your imprudence too far."

A chill of fear passed over Miss Bart: a sense of remembered treachery
that was like the gleam of a knife in the dusk. But compassion, in a
moment, got the better of her instinctive recoil. What was this
outpouring of senseless bitterness but the tracked creature's attempt to
cloud the medium through which it was fleeing? It was on Lily's lips to
exclaim: "You poor soul, don't double and turn--come straight back to me,
and we'll find a way out!" But the words died under the impenetrable
insolence of Bertha's smile. Lily sat silent, taking the brunt of it
quietly, letting it spend itself on her to the last drop of its
accumulated falseness; then, without a word, she rose and went down to
her cabin.

 The next morning, Lily considers her position with the Dorsets. She feels she was lucky to get their invitation when she did. Away from New York, she no longer feels as though she's under Gus Trenor's obligation for the nine grand she owes. Distance makes it all seem irrelevant.... She's also psyched that she's been so well-accepted in Europe. Everybody loves her. She does worry a bit that her personal funds are so low, but, for the moment, she's living off the Dorsets and it doesn't matter. Lily heads ashore for breakfast with the Duchess, but Mrs. Dorset is not invited. Her Grace doesn't care for Bertha, so Lily has had a hard time getting her invited to important events. On her way, Lily bumps into Mrs. Fisher, who plays the same role for the Brys that Lily does for the Dorsets. That is, she's a single woman who acts as a social coordinator and companion in exchange for expensive dinners and lodgings. Mrs. Fisher reveals that she's had "an awful row" with Mrs. Bry, who's angry that the Duchess hasn't been seeing more of her lately. Mrs. Bry thinks it's Mrs. Fisher's fault. As a result, Mrs. Fisher is leaving the Brys and joining Mr. and Mrs. Sam Gormer, who need her help climbing the social ladder more than the Brys do. She's decided to leave the Brys to Lily to take care of. She knows that Lily has snubbed the Brys, but adds that it's not too late. If Lily just gets the Duchess to dine with them tonight, everything will be fine. Mrs. Fisher adds that a writer from the gossip pages - a guy named Dabham - took note of the fact that Lily and Dorset came back to the ship alone after midnight last night. Lily laughs; the only reason they were alone is that Bertha was off with Ned Silverton and couldn't be found! Mrs. Fisher believes Lily, but she sincerely hopes that Lily won't pay for Mrs. Dorset's indiscretions. The two women part. Lily immediately sees Mrs. Bry and is all, "We should hang out!", which appeases the woman. Lily realizes it's so easy to do these things, and wonders why she doesn't do them more often - maybe because of her pride? Next, she runs into Dorset, who seems particularly upset. He tells her that Bertha didn't come aboard the ship until 7am, which means she was out with Ned Silverton all night. Lily realizes what's going on and does her job: distracting Dorset. She tells him that it was nothing and not to worry about it. Dorset responds by unloading all his woes on Lily for the next hour or so. He concludes by saying that he wants Selden as a lawyer. Lily tries to talk him out of pursuing a divorce and out of using Selden as his lawyer. But Dorset is insistent. He says he would have done this long ago if it weren't for Lily's companionship keeping him happy. He departs. Now alone, Lily actually feels sorry for Bertha Dorset, who has been generous to her and who is now basically screwed. As she heads for the yacht, her sympathies build. But, when she finally goes aboard, she finds Bertha with the Duchess and Lord Hubert, having tea. Once the couple departs, the two women are alone. Lily tries to figure out what happened last night, but Bertha tells her that George simply "had one of his worst attacks" and told Lily an odd "version" of the previous night's events. She then blames Lily for being alone with her husband in the small hours of the morning. Lily is all, "Are you kidding?" since the only reason she was alone with George is that Bertha was off with Ned Silverton. But Bertha is hearing none of it; she's determined to blame Lily for this. From the subtext, we can tell that Bertha is jealous of Lily's popularity in Europe and angry that Lily hasn't made a greater effort to keep her included in her social activities with All the Right People. Lily leaves without trying to defend herself against Bertha's accusations of her relationship with George.

