Chapter: It seemed to Lily, as Mrs. Peniston's door closed on her, that she was
taking a final leave of her old life. The future stretched before her
dull and bare as the deserted length of Fifth Avenue, and opportunities
showed as meagrely as the few cabs trailing in quest of fares that did
not come. The completeness of the analogy was, however, disturbed as she
reached the sidewalk by the rapid approach of a hansom which pulled up at
sight of her.

From beneath its luggage-laden top, she caught the wave of a signalling
hand; and the next moment Mrs. Fisher, springing to the street, had
folded her in a demonstrative embrace.

"My dear, you don't mean to say you're still in town? When I saw you the
other day at Sherry's I didn't have time to ask----" She broke off, and
added with a burst of frankness: "The truth is I was HORRID, Lily, and
I've wanted to tell you so ever since."

"Oh----" Miss Bart protested, drawing back from her penitent clasp; but
Mrs. Fisher went on with her usual directness: "Look here, Lily, don't
let's beat about the bush: half the trouble in life is caused by
pretending there isn't any. That's not my way, and I can only say I'm
thoroughly ashamed of myself for following the other women's lead. But
we'll talk of that by and bye--tell me now where you're staying and what
your plans are. I don't suppose you're keeping house in there with Grace
Stepney, eh?--and it struck me you might be rather at loose ends."

In Lily's present mood there was no resisting the honest friendliness of
this appeal, and she said with a smile: "I am at loose ends for the
moment, but Gerty Farish is still in town, and she's good enough to let
me be with her whenever she can spare the time."

Mrs. Fisher made a slight grimace. "H'm--that's a temperate joy.  Oh, I
know--Gerty's a trump, and worth all the rest of us put together; but A
LA LONGUE you're used to a little higher seasoning, aren't you, dear?
And besides, I suppose she'll be off herself before long--the first of
August, you say? Well, look here, you can't spend your summer in town;
we'll talk of that later too. But meanwhile, what do you say to putting a
few things in a trunk and coming down with me to the Sam Gormers'
tonight?"

And as Lily stared at the breathless suddenness of the suggestion, she
continued with her easy laugh: "You don't know them and they don't know
you; but that don't make a rap of difference. They've taken the Van
Alstyne place at Roslyn, and I've got CARTE BLANCHE to bring my friends
down there--the more the merrier. They do things awfully well, and
there's to be rather a jolly party there this week----" she broke off,
checked by an undefinable change in Miss Bart's expression. "Oh, I don't
mean YOUR particular set, you know: rather a different crowd, but very
good fun. The fact is, the Gormers have struck out on a line of their
own: what they want is to have a good time, and to have it in their own
way. They gave the other thing a few months' trial, under my
distinguished auspices, and they were really doing extremely
well--getting on a good deal faster than the Brys, just because they
didn't care as much--but suddenly they decided that the whole business
bored them, and that what they wanted was a crowd they could really feel
at home with. Rather original of them, don't you think so? Mattie Gormer
HAS got aspirations still; women always have; but she's awfully
easy-going, and Sam won't be bothered, and they both like to be the most
important people in sight, so they've started a sort of continuous
performance of their own, a kind of social Coney Island, where everybody
is welcome who can make noise enough and doesn't put on airs.  I think
it's awfully good fun myself--some of the artistic set, you know, any
pretty actress that's going, and so on. This week, for instance, they
have Audrey Anstell, who made such a hit last spring in 'The Winning of
Winny'; and Paul Morpeth--he's painting Mattie Gormer--and the Dick
Bellingers, and Kate Corby--well, every one you can think of who's jolly
and makes a row. Now don't stand there with your nose in the air, my
dear--it will be a good deal better than a broiling Sunday in town, and
you'll find clever people as well as noisy ones--Morpeth, who admires
Mattie enormously, always brings one or two of his set."

Mrs. Fisher drew Lily toward the hansom with friendly authority.  "Jump
in now, there's a dear, and we'll drive round to your hotel and have your
things packed, and then we'll have tea, and the two maids can meet us at
the train."



It was a good deal better than a broiling Sunday in town--of that no
doubt remained to Lily as, reclining in the shade of a leafy verandah,
she looked seaward across a stretch of greensward picturesquely dotted
with groups of ladies in lace raiment and men in tennis flannels. The
huge Van Alstyne house and its rambling dependencies were packed to their
fullest capacity with the Gormers' week-end guests, who now, in the
radiance of the Sunday forenoon, were dispersing themselves over the
grounds in quest of the various distractions the place afforded:
distractions ranging from tennis-courts to shooting-galleries, from
bridge and whiskey within doors to motors and steam-launches without.
Lily had the odd sense of having been caught up into the crowd as
carelessly as a passenger is gathered in by an express train. The blonde
and genial Mrs. Gormer might, indeed, have figured the conductor, calmly
assigning seats to the rush of travellers, while Carry Fisher represented
the porter pushing their bags into place, giving them their numbers for
the dining-car, and warning them when their station was at hand. The
train, meanwhile, had scarcely slackened speed--life whizzed on with a
deafening' rattle and roar, in which one traveller at least found a
welcome refuge from the sound of her own thoughts.  The Gormer MILIEU
represented a social out-skirt which Lily had always fastidiously
avoided; but it struck her, now that she was in it, as only a flamboyant
copy of her own world, a caricature approximating the real thing as the
"society play" approaches the manners of the drawing-room. The people
about her were doing the same things as the Trenors, the Van Osburghs and
the Dorsets: the difference lay in a hundred shades of aspect and manner,
from the pattern of the men's waistcoats to the inflexion of the women's
voices. Everything was pitched in a higher key, and there was more of
each thing: more noise, more colour, more champagne, more
familiarity--but also greater good-nature, less rivalry, and a fresher
capacity for enjoyment.

Miss Bart's arrival had been welcomed with an uncritical friendliness
that first irritated her pride and then brought her to a sharp sense of
her own situation--of the place in life which, for the moment, she must
accept and make the best of.  These people knew her story--of that her
first long talk with Carry Fisher had left no doubt: she was publicly
branded as the heroine of a "queer" episode--but instead of shrinking
from her as her own friends had done, they received her without question
into the easy promiscuity of their lives. They swallowed her past as
easily as they did Miss Anstell's, and with no apparent sense of any
difference in the size of the mouthful: all they asked was that she
should--in her own way, for they recognized a diversity of
gifts--contribute as much to the general amusement as that graceful
actress, whose talents, when off the stage, were of the most varied
order. Lily felt at once that any tendency to be "stuck-up," to mark a
sense of differences and distinctions, would be fatal to her continuance
in the Gormer set. To be taken in on such terms--and into such a
world!--was hard enough to the lingering pride in her; but she realized,
with a pang of self-contempt, that to be excluded from it would, after
all, be harder still. For, almost at once, she had felt the insidious
charm of slipping back into a life where every material difficulty was
smoothed away. The sudden escape from a stifling hotel in a dusty
deserted city to the space and luxury of a great country-house fanned by
sea breezes, had produced a state of moral lassitude agreeable enough
after the nervous tension and physical discomfort of the past weeks. For
the moment she must yield to the refreshment her senses craved--after
that she would reconsider her situation, and take counsel with her
dignity. Her enjoyment of her surroundings was, indeed, tinged by the
unpleasant consideration that she was accepting the hospitality and
courting the approval of people she had disdained under other conditions.
But she was growing less sensitive on such points: a hard glaze of
indifference was fast forming over her delicacies and susceptibilities,
and each concession to expediency hardened the surface a little more.

On the Monday, when the party disbanded with uproarious adieux, the
return to town threw into stronger relief the charms of the life she was
leaving. The other guests were dispersing to take up the same existence
in a different setting: some at Newport, some at Bar Harbour, some in the
elaborate rusticity of an Adirondack camp. Even Gerty Farish, who
welcomed Lily's return with tender solicitude, would soon be preparing to
join the aunt with whom she spent her summers on Lake George: only Lily
herself remained without plan or purpose, stranded in a backwater of the
great current of pleasure. But Carry Fisher, who had insisted on
transporting her to her own house, where she herself was to perch for a
day or two on the way to the Brys' camp, came to the rescue with a new
suggestion.

"Look here, Lily--I'll tell you what it is: I want you to take my place
with Mattie Gormer this summer. They're taking a party out to Alaska next
month in their private car, and Mattie, who is the laziest woman alive,
wants me to go with them, and relieve her of the bother of arranging
things; but the Brys want me too--oh, yes, we've made it up: didn't I
tell you?--and, to put it frankly, though I like the Gormers best,
there's more profit for me in the Brys. The fact is, they want to try
Newport this summer, and if I can make it a success for them they--well,
they'll make it a success for me." Mrs. Fisher clasped her hands
enthusiastically. "Do you know, Lily, the more I think of my idea the
better I like it--quite as much for you as for myself. The Gormers have
both taken a tremendous fancy to you, and the trip to Alaska
is--well--the very thing I should want for you just at present."

Miss Bart lifted her eyes with a keen glance. "To take me out of my
friends' way, you mean?" she said quietly; and Mrs. Fisher responded with
a deprecating kiss: "To keep you out of their sight till they realize how
much they miss you."



Miss Bart went with the Gormers to Alaska; and the expedition, if it did
not produce the effect anticipated by her friend, had at least the
negative advantage of removing her from the fiery centre of criticism and
discussion. Gerty Farish had opposed the plan with all the energy of her
somewhat inarticulate nature. She had even offered to give up her visit
to Lake George, and remain in town with Miss Bart, if the latter would
renounce her journey; but Lily could disguise her real distaste for this
plan under a sufficiently valid reason.

"You dear innocent, don't you see," she protested, "that Carry is quite
right, and that I must take up my usual life, and go about among people
as much as possible? If my old friends choose to believe lies about me I
shall have to make new ones, that's all; and you know beggars mustn't be
choosers. Not that I don't like Mattie Gormer--I DO like her: she's kind
and honest and unaffected; and don't you suppose I feel grateful to her
for making me welcome at a time when, as you've yourself seen, my own
family have unanimously washed their hands of me?"

Gerty shook her head, mutely unconvinced. She felt not only that Lily was
cheapening herself by making use of an intimacy she would never have
cultivated from choice, but that, in drifting back now to her former
manner of life, she was forfeiting her last chance of ever escaping from
it. Gerty had but an obscure conception of what Lily's actual experience
had been: but its consequences had established a lasting hold on her pity
since the memorable night when she had offered up her own secret hope to
her friend's extremity. To characters like Gerty's such a sacrifice
constitutes a moral claim on the part of the person in whose behalf it
has been made. Having once helped Lily, she must continue to help her;
and helping her, must believe in her, because faith is the main-spring of
such natures. But even if Miss Bart, after her renewed taste of the
amenities of life, could have returned to the barrenness of a New York
August, mitigated only by poor Gerty's presence, her worldly wisdom would
have counselled her against such an act of abnegation. She knew that
Carry Fisher was right: that an opportune absence might be the first step
toward rehabilitation, and that, at any rate, to linger on in town out of
season was a fatal admission of defeat.  From the Gormers' tumultuous
progress across their native continent, she returned with an altered view
of her situation.  The renewed habit of luxury--the daily waking to an
assured absence of care and presence of material ease--gradually blunted
her appreciation of these values, and left her more conscious of the void
they could not fill. Mattie Gormer's undiscriminating good-nature, and
the slap-dash sociability of her friends, who treated Lily precisely as
they treated each other--all these characteristic notes of difference
began to wear upon her endurance; and the more she saw to criticize in
her companions, the less justification she found for making use of them.
The longing to get back to her former surroundings hardened to a fixed
idea; but with the strengthening of her purpose came the inevitable
perception that, to attain it, she must exact fresh concessions from her
pride. These, for the moment, took the unpleasant form of continuing to
cling to her hosts after their return from Alaska. Little as she was in
the key of their MILIEU, her immense social facility, her long habit of
adapting herself to others without suffering her own outline to be
blurred, the skilled manipulation of all the polished implements of her
craft, had won for her an important place in the Gormer group. If their
resonant hilarity could never be hers, she contributed a note of easy
elegance more valuable to Mattie Gormer than the louder passages of the
band. Sam Gormer and his special cronies stood indeed a little in awe of
her; but Mattie's following, headed by Paul Morpeth, made her feel that
they prized her for the very qualities they most conspicuously lacked. If
Morpeth, whose social indolence was as great as his artistic activity,
had abandoned himself to the easy current of the Gormer existence, where
the minor exactions of politeness were unknown or ignored, and a man
could either break his engagements, or keep them in a painting-jacket and
slippers, he still preserved his sense of differences, and his
appreciation of graces he had no time to cultivate. During the
preparations for the Brys' TABLEAUX he had been immensely struck by
Lily's plastic possibilities--"not the face: too self-controlled for
expression; but the rest of her--gad, what a model she'd make!"--and
though his abhorrence of the world in which he had seen her was too great
for him to think of seeking her there, he was fully alive to the
privilege of having her to look at and listen to while he lounged in
Mattie Gormer's dishevelled drawing-room.

Lily had thus formed, in the tumult of her surroundings, a little nucleus
of friendly relations which mitigated the crudeness of her course in
lingering with the Gormers after their return. Nor was she without pale
glimpses of her own world, especially since the breaking-up of the
Newport season had set the social current once more toward Long Island.
Kate Corby, whose tastes made her as promiscuous as Carry Fisher was
rendered by her necessities, occasionally descended on the Gormers,
where, after a first stare of surprise, she took Lily's presence almost
too much as a matter of course. Mrs. Fisher, too, appearing frequently in
the neighbourhood, drove over to impart her experiences and give Lily
what she called the latest report from the weather-bureau; and the
latter, who had never directly invited her confidence, could yet talk
with her more freely than with Gerty Farish, in whose presence it was
impossible even to admit the existence of much that Mrs. Fisher
conveniently took for granted.

Mrs. Fisher, moreover, had no embarrassing curiosity. She did not wish to
probe the inwardness of Lily's situation, but simply to view it from the
outside, and draw her conclusions accordingly; and these conclusions, at
the end of a confidential talk, she summed up to her friend in the
succinct remark: "You must marry as soon as you can."

Lily uttered a faint laugh--for once Mrs. Fisher lacked originality.  "Do
you mean, like Gerty Farish, to recommend the unfailing panacea of 'a
good man's love'?"

"No--I don't think either of my candidates would answer to that
description," said Mrs. Fisher after a pause of reflection.

"Either? Are there actually two?"

"Well, perhaps I ought to say one and a half--for the moment."

Miss Bart received this with increasing amusement. "Other things being
equal, I think I should prefer a half-husband: who is he?"

"Don't fly out at me till you hear my reasons--George Dorset."

"Oh----" Lily murmured reproachfully; but Mrs. Fisher pressed on
unrebuffed. "Well, why not? They had a few weeks' honeymoon when they
first got back from Europe, but now things are going badly with them
again. Bertha has been behaving more than ever like a madwoman, and
George's powers of credulity are very nearly exhausted. They're at their
place here, you know, and I spent last Sunday with them. It was a ghastly
party--no one else but poor Neddy Silverton, who looks like a
galley-slave (they used to talk of my making that poor boy unhappy!)--and
after luncheon George carried me off on a long walk, and told me the end
would have to come soon."

Miss Bart made an incredulous gesture. "As far as that goes, the end will
never come--Bertha will always know how to get him back when she wants
him."

Mrs. Fisher continued to observe her tentatively. "Not if he has any one
else to turn to! Yes--that's just what it comes to: the poor creature
can't stand alone. And I remember him such a good fellow, full of life
and enthusiasm." She paused, and went on, dropping her glance from
Lily's: "He wouldn't stay with her ten minutes if he KNEW----"

"Knew----?" Miss Bart repeated.

"What YOU must, for instance--with the opportunities you've had!  If he
had positive proof, I mean----"

Lily interrupted her with a deep blush of displeasure. "Please let us
drop the subject, Carry: it's too odious to me." And to divert her
companion's attention she added, with an attempt at lightness: "And your
second candidate? We must not forget him."

Mrs. Fisher echoed her laugh. "I wonder if you'll cry out just as loud if
I say--Sim Rosedale?"

Miss Bart did not cry out: she sat silent, gazing thoughtfully at her
friend. The suggestion, in truth, gave expression to a possibility which,
in the last weeks, had more than once recurred to her; but after a moment
she said carelessly: "Mr. Rosedale wants a wife who can establish him in
the bosom of the Van Osburghs and Trenors."

Mrs. Fisher caught her up eagerly. "And so YOU could--with his money!
Don't you see how beautifully it would work out for you both?"

"I don't see any way of making him see it," Lily returned, with a laugh
intended to dismiss the subject.

But in reality it lingered with her long after Mrs. Fisher had taken
leave. She had seen very little of Rosedale since her annexation by the
Gormers, for he was still steadily bent on penetrating to the inner
Paradise from which she was now excluded; but once or twice, when nothing
better offered, he had turned up for a Sunday, and on these occasions he
had left her in no doubt as to his view of her situation.  That he still
admired her was, more than ever, offensively evident; for in the Gormer
circle, where he expanded as in his native element, there were no
puzzling conventions to check the full expression of his approval. But it
was in the quality of his admiration that she read his shrewd estimate of
her case. He enjoyed letting the Gormers see that he had known "Miss
Lily"--she was "Miss Lily" to him now--before they had had the faintest
social existence: enjoyed more especially impressing Paul Morpeth with
the distance to which their intimacy dated back. But he let it be felt
that that intimacy was a mere ripple on the surface of a rushing social
current, the kind of relaxation which a man of large interests and
manifold preoccupations permits himself in his hours of ease.

The necessity of accepting this view of their past relation, and of
meeting it in the key of pleasantry prevalent among her new friends, was
deeply humiliating to Lily. But she dared less than ever to quarrel with
Rosedale. She suspected that her rejection rankled among the most
unforgettable of his rebuffs, and the fact that he knew something of her
wretched transaction with Trenor, and was sure to put the basest
construction on it, seemed to place her hopelessly in his power. Yet at
Carry Fisher's suggestion a new hope had stirred in her. Much as she
disliked Rosedale, she no longer absolutely despised him. For he was
gradually attaining his object in life, and that, to Lily, was always
less despicable than to miss it. With the slow unalterable persistency
which she had always felt in him, he was making his way through the dense
mass of social antagonisms. Already his wealth, and the masterly use he
had made of it, were giving him an enviable prominence in the world of
affairs, and placing Wall Street under obligations which only Fifth
Avenue could repay. In response to these claims, his name began to figure
on municipal committees and charitable boards; he appeared at banquets to
distinguished strangers, and his candidacy at one of the fashionable
clubs was discussed with diminishing opposition. He had figured once or
twice at the Trenor dinners, and had learned to speak with just the right
note of disdain of the big Van Osburgh crushes; and all he now needed was
a wife whose affiliations would shorten the last tedious steps of his
ascent.  It was with that object that, a year earlier, he had fixed his
affections on Miss Bart; but in the interval he had mounted nearer to the
goal, while she had lost the power to abbreviate the remaining steps of
the way. All this she saw with the clearness of vision that came to her
in moments of despondency. It was success that dazzled her--she could
distinguish facts plainly enough in the twilight of failure. And the
twilight, as she now sought to pierce it, was gradually lighted by a
faint spark of reassurance. Under the utilitarian motive of Rosedale's
wooing she had felt, clearly enough, the heat of personal inclination.
She would not have detested him so heartily had she not known that he
dared to admire her. What, then, if the passion persisted, though the
other motive had ceased to sustain it? She had never even tried to please
him--he had been drawn to her in spite of her manifest disdain. What if
she now chose to exert the power which, even in its passive state, he had
felt so strongly? What if she made him marry her for love, now that he
had no other reason for marrying her?

 As Lily leaves Grace's, she feels completely hopeless. It's a ripe opportunity for Mrs. Fisher to pull up in a carriage and tell Lily that she should come away with her to dinner at the Gormers'. Remember that Mrs. Fisher became their social coordinator after she left the Brys in Monte Carlo. The Gormers are sort of second tier socialites, as opposed to the most elite group with whom Mrs. Fisher and Lily associated with in Monte Carlo. The wife, Mattie Gormer, has big aspirations to join the social elite. Lily agrees and joins them all for dinner, and is pleased to see that none of them take issue with the rumors of her recent past. At first, it hurts Lily's pride to be a part of the lower social tier. Then, again, she enjoys schmoozing around in luxury once again. Afterwards, she is faced with the question of where to spend her summer. Mrs. Fisher comes to the rescue again. The Gormers want Carry to go with them to Alaska, but the Brys also want her back to spend the summer in Newport with them. She decides she'll go with the Brys - who are higher on the social ladder - so she gives Mattie Gormer and the Alaska trip to Lily. Lily realizes that Mrs. Fisher's strategy is to keep her away from the elite crowd who want to see her ruined right now, but Mrs. Fisher kindly responds that the idea is for them to all realize how much they miss Lily when she's not there. So, Lily goes to Alaska with the Gormers. Gerty disapproves, because she thinks Lily is "cheapening" herself by hanging out with people she otherwise wouldn't have. Gerty is committed to continue helping Lily, and has been ever since that night when she gave up her own hopes for Lawrence Selden in order to rescue Lily from despair. Meanwhile, Lily starts to appreciate all the differences between the second tier and the top tier of the social ladder, and she longs for the old crowd. Still, she doesn't have another option at the moment, so she stays with the Gormers after they come back from Alaska. Among the set is Paul Morpeth who, as an artist, especially appreciates Lily's beauty. There are also those - like Kate Corby and Mrs. Fisher - who spend in time both in the world of the Dorsets and Trenors, and also in the world of the Gormers. One day, Mrs. Fisher takes Lily aside and tells her that she has to marry as soon as possible. Mrs. Fisher has two candidates in mind. The first is George Dorset. Mrs. Fisher says all Lily has to do is firmly state that Bertha indeed had an affair with Ned - to give weight to Dorset's suspicions - and then he'll divorce his wife and marry Lily. Lily vetoes this. The second option she has in mind is Simon Rosedale. Lily certainly doesn't object to this as much as she used to, but she thinks that Simon is probably no longer interested in her, since her fall from grace. Later, Lily re-considers. She knows Rosedale is very much attracted to her and has been for a long time. But she also knows he wants a wife who will keep him in the good graces of people like Bertha and Judy. She decides that, since she can't make him marry her for the social benefits, she'll try and make him marry her for love.

