The House of Mirth
ran against a small glossy-looking man with a gardenia in his coat,
who raised his hat with a surprised exclamation.
“Miss Bart? Well—of all people! This IS luck,” he declared; and she
caught a twinkle of amused curiosity between his screwed-up lids.
“Oh, Mr. Rosedale—how are you?” she said, perceiving that the
irrepressible annoyance on her face was reflected in the sudden
intimacy of his smile.
Mr. Rosedale stood scanning her with interest and approval. He
was a plump rosy man of the blond Jewish type, with smart London
clothes fitting him like upholstery, and small sidelong eyes which
gave him the air of appraising people as if they were bric-a-brac.
He glanced up interrogatively at the porch of the Benedick.
“Been up to town for a little shopping, I suppose?” he said, in a
tone which had the familiarity of a touch.
Miss Bart shrank from it slightly, and then flung herself into
precipitate explanations.
“Yes—I came up to see my dress-maker. I am just on my way to catch
the train to the Trenors’.”
“Ah—your dress-maker; just so,” he said blandly. “I didn’t know
there were any dress-makers in the Benedick.”
“The Benedick?” She looked gently puzzled. “Is that the name of
this building?”
“Yes, that’s the name: I believe it’s an old word for bachelor,
isn’t it? I happen to own the building—that’s the way I know.” His
smile deepened as he added with increasing assurance: “But you must
let me take you to the station. The Trenors are at Bellomont, of
course? You’ve barely time to catch the five-forty. The dress-maker
kept you waiting, I suppose.”
Lily stiffened under the pleasantry.
“Oh, thanks,” she stammered; and at that moment her eye caught
a hansom drifting down Madison Avenue, and she hailed it with a
desperate gesture.
“You’re very kind; but I couldn’t think of troubling you,” she
said, extending her hand to Mr. Rosedale; and heedless of his
protestations, she sprang into the rescuing vehicle, and called out
a breathless order to the driver.
Chapter 2
In the hansom she leaned back with a sigh. Why must a girl pay so
dearly for her least escape from routine? Why could one never do
a natural thing without having to screen it behind a structure of
artifice? She had yielded to a passing impulse in going to Lawrence
Selden’s rooms, and it was so seldom that she could allow herself
the luxury of an impulse! This one, at any rate, was going to cost
her rather more than she could afford. She was vexed to see that,
in spite of so many years of vigilance, she had blundered twice
within five minutes. That stupid story about her dress-maker was
bad enough—it would have been so simple to tell Rosedale that she
had been taking tea with Selden! The mere statement of the fact
would have rendered it innocuous. But, after having let herself
be surprised in a falsehood, it was doubly stupid to snub the
witness of her discomfiture. If she had had the presence of mind to
let Rosedale drive her to the station, the concession might have
purchased his silence. He had his race’s accuracy in the appraisal
of values, and to be seen walking down the platform at the crowded
afternoon hour in the company of Miss Lily Bart would have been
money in his pocket, as he might himself have phrased it. He knew,
of course, that there would be a large house-party at Bellomont,
and the possibility of being taken for one of Mrs. Trenor’s guests
was doubtless included in his calculations. Mr. Rosedale was still
at a stage in his social ascent when it was of importance to
produce such impressions.
The provoking part was that Lily knew all this—knew how easy it
would have been to silence him on the spot, and how difficult it
might be to do so afterward. Mr. Simon Rosedale was a man who
made it his business to know everything about every one, whose
idea of showing himself to be at home in society was to display
an inconvenient familiarity with the habits of those with whom
he wished to be thought intimate. Lily was sure that within
twenty-four hours the story of her visiting her dress-maker at
the Benedick would be in active circulation among Mr. Rosedale’s
acquaintances. The worst of it was that she had always snubbed and
ignored him. On his first appearance—when her improvident cousin,
Jack Stepney, had obtained for him (in return for favours too
easily guessed) a card to one of the vast impersonal Van Osburgh
“crushes”—Rosedale, with that mixture of artistic sensibility and
business astuteness which characterizes his race, had instantly
gravitated toward Miss Bart. She understood his motives, for
her own course was guided by as nice calculations. Training and
experience had taught her to be hospitable to newcomers, since the
most unpromising might be useful later on, and there were plenty
of available OUBLIETTES to swallow them if they were not. But
some intuitive repugnance, getting the better of years of social
discipline, had made her push Mr. Rosedale into his OUBLIETTE
without a trial. He had left behind only the ripple of amusement
which his speedy despatch had caused among her friends; and though
later (to shift the metaphor) he reappeared lower down the stream,
it was only in fleeting glimpses, with long submergences between.
Hitherto Lily had been undisturbed by scruples. In her little set
Mr. Rosedale had been pronounced “impossible,” and Jack Stepney
roundly snubbed for his attempt to pay his debts in dinner
invitations. Even Mrs. Trenor, whose taste for variety had led
her into some hazardous experiments, resisted Jack’s attempts to
disguise Mr. Rosedale as a novelty, and declared that he was the
same little Jew who had been served up and rejected at the social
board a dozen times within her memory; and while Judy Trenor was
obdurate there was small chance of Mr. Rosedale’s penetrating
beyond the outer limbo of the Van Osburgh crushes. Jack gave up the
contest with a laughing “You’ll see,” and, sticking manfully to his
guns, showed himself with Rosedale at the fashionable restaurants,
in company with the personally vivid if socially obscure ladies who
are available for such purposes. But the attempt had hitherto been
vain, and as Rosedale undoubtedly paid for the dinners, the laugh
remained with his debtor.
Mr. Rosedale, it will be seen, was thus far not a factor to be
feared—unless one put one’s self in his power. And this was
precisely what Miss Bart had done. Her clumsy fib had let him see
that she had something to conceal; and she was sure he had a score
to settle with her. Something in his smile told her he had not
forgotten. She turned from the thought with a little shiver, but
it hung on her all the way to the station, and dogged her down the
platform with the persistency of Mr. Rosedale himself.
She had just time to take her seat before the train started; but
having arranged herself in her corner with the instinctive feeling
for effect which never forsook her, she glanced about in the hope
of seeing some other member of the Trenors’ party. She wanted to
get away from herself, and conversation was the only means of
escape that she knew.
Her search was rewarded by the discovery of a very blond young man
with a soft reddish beard, who, at the other end of the carriage,
appeared to be dissembling himself behind an unfolded newspaper.
Lily’s eye brightened, and a faint smile relaxed the drawn lines
of her mouth. She had known that Mr. Percy Gryce was to be at
Bellomont, but she had not counted on the luck of having him to
herself in the train; and the fact banished all perturbing thoughts
of Mr. Rosedale. Perhaps, after all, the day was to end more
favourably than it had begun.
She began to cut the pages of a novel, tranquilly studying her
prey through downcast lashes while she organized a method of
attack. Something in his attitude of conscious absorption told
her that he was aware of her presence: no one had ever been quite
so engrossed in an evening paper! She guessed that he was too shy
to come up to her, and that she would have to devise some means
of approach which should not appear to be an advance on her part.
It amused her to think that any one as rich as Mr. Percy Gryce
should be shy; but she was gifted with treasures of indulgence for
such idiosyncrasies, and besides, his timidity might serve her
purpose better than too much assurance. She had the art of giving
self-confidence to the embarrassed, but she was not equally sure of
being able to embarrass the self-confident.
She waited till the train had emerged from the tunnel and was
racing between the ragged edges of the northern suburbs. Then,
as it lowered its speed near Yonkers, she rose from her seat and
drifted slowly down the carriage. As she passed Mr. Gryce, the
train gave a lurch, and he was aware of a slender hand gripping the
back of his chair. He rose with a start, his ingenuous face looking
as though it had been dipped in crimson: even the reddish tint in
his beard seemed to deepen. The train swayed again, almost flinging
Miss Bart into his arms.
She steadied herself with a laugh and drew back; but he was
enveloped in the scent of her dress, and his shoulder had felt her
fugitive touch.
“Oh, Mr. Gryce, is it you? I’m so sorry—I was trying to find the
porter and get some tea.”
She held out her hand as the train resumed its level rush, and they
stood exchanging a few words in the aisle. Yes—he was going to
Bellomont. He had heard she was to be of the party—he blushed again
as he admitted it. And was he to be there for a whole week? How
delightful!
But at this point one or two belated passengers from the last
station forced their way into the carriage, and Lily had to retreat
to her seat.
“The chair next to mine is empty—do take it,” she said over her
shoulder; and Mr. Gryce, with considerable embarrassment, succeeded
in effecting an exchange which enabled him to transport himself and
his bags to her side.
“Ah—and here is the porter, and perhaps we can have some tea.”
She signalled to that official, and in a moment, with the ease that
seemed to attend the fulfilment of all her wishes, a little table
had been set up between the seats, and she had helped Mr. Gryce to
bestow his encumbering properties beneath it.
When the tea came he watched her in silent fascination while
her hands flitted above the tray, looking miraculously fine and
slender in contrast to the coarse china and lumpy bread. It seemed
wonderful to him that any one should perform with such careless
ease the difficult task of making tea in public in a lurching
train. He would never have dared to order it for himself, lest he
should attract the notice of his fellow-passengers; but, secure in
the shelter of her conspicuousness, he sipped the inky draught with
a delicious sense of exhilaration.
Lily, with the flavour of Selden’s caravan tea on her lips, had
no great fancy to drown it in the railway brew which seemed such
nectar to her companion; but, rightly judging that one of the
charms of tea is the fact of drinking it together, she proceeded
to give the last touch to Mr. Gryce’s enjoyment by smiling at him
across her lifted cup.
“Is it quite right—I haven’t made it too strong?” she asked
solicitously; and he replied with conviction that he had never
tasted better tea.
“I daresay it is true,” she reflected; and her imagination was
fired by the thought that Mr. Gryce, who might have sounded the
depths of the most complex self-indulgence, was perhaps actually
taking his first journey alone with a pretty woman.
It struck her as providential that she should be the instrument
of his initiation. Some girls would not have known how to
manage him. They would have over-emphasized the novelty of the
adventure, trying to make him feel in it the zest of an escapade.