The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton (phonics reader .txt) 📗

with a sigh which reflected the perplexity of her departing visitor. “But that isn’t all; it isn’t even the worst. It seems that Ned has quarrelled with the Dorsets; or at least Bertha won’t allow him to see her, and he is so unhappy about it that he has taken to gambling again, and going about with all sorts of queer people. And cousin Grace Van Osburgh accuses him of having had a very bad influence on Freddy, who left Harvard last spring, and has been a great deal with Ned ever since. She sent for Miss Jane, and made a dreadful scene; and Jack Stepney and Herbert Melson, who were there too, told Miss Jane that Freddy was threatening to marry some dreadful woman to whom Ned had introduced him, and that they could do nothing with him because now he’s of age he has his own money. You can fancy how poor Miss Jane felt⁠—she came to me at once, and seemed to think that if I could get her something to do she could earn enough to pay Ned’s debts and send him away⁠—I’m afraid she has no idea how long it would take her to pay for one of his evenings at bridge. And he was horribly in debt when he came back from the cruise⁠—I can’t see why he should have spent so much more money under Bertha’s influence than Carry’s: can you?”

Lily met this query with an impatient gesture. “My dear Gerty, I always understand how people can spend much more money⁠—never how they can spend any less!”

She loosened her furs and settled herself in Gerty’s easy-chair, while her friend busied herself with the teacups.

“But what can they do⁠—the Miss Silvertons? How do they mean to support themselves?” she asked, conscious that the note of irritation still persisted in her voice. It was the very last topic she had meant to discuss⁠—it really did not interest her in the least⁠—but she was seized by a sudden perverse curiosity to know how the two colourless shrinking victims of young Silverton’s sentimental experiments meant to cope with the grim necessity which lurked so close to her own threshold.

“I don’t know⁠—I am trying to find something for them. Miss Jane reads aloud very nicely⁠—but it’s so hard to find anyone who is willing to be read to. And Miss Annie paints a little⁠—”

“Oh, I know⁠—apple-blossoms on blotting-paper; just the kind of thing I shall be doing myself before long!” exclaimed Lily, starting up with a vehemence of movement that threatened destruction to Miss Farish’s fragile tea-table.

Lily bent over to steady the cups; then she sank back into her seat. “I’d forgotten there was no room to dash about in⁠—how beautifully one does have to behave in a small flat! Oh, Gerty, I wasn’t meant to be good,” she sighed out incoherently.

Gerty lifted an apprehensive look to her pale face, in which the eyes shone with a peculiar sleepless lustre.

“You look horribly tired, Lily; take your tea, and let me give you this cushion to lean against.”

Miss Bart accepted the cup of tea, but put back the cushion with an impatient hand.

“Don’t give me that! I don’t want to lean back⁠—I shall go to sleep if I do.”

“Well, why not, dear? I’ll be as quiet as a mouse,” Gerty urged affectionately.

“No⁠—no; don’t be quiet; talk to me⁠—keep me awake! I don’t sleep at night, and in the afternoon a dreadful drowsiness creeps over me.”

“You don’t sleep at night? Since when?”

“I don’t know⁠—I can’t remember.” She rose and put the empty cup on the tea-tray. “Another, and stronger, please; if I don’t keep awake now I shall see horrors tonight⁠—perfect horrors!”

“But they’ll be worse if you drink too much tea.”

“No, no⁠—give it to me; and don’t preach, please,” Lily returned imperiously. Her voice had a dangerous edge, and Gerty noticed that her hand shook as she held it out to receive the second cup.

“But you look so tired: I’m sure you must be ill⁠—”

Miss Bart set down her cup with a start. “Do I look ill? Does my face show it?” She rose and walked quickly toward the little mirror above the writing-table. “What a horrid looking-glass⁠—it’s all blotched and discoloured. Anyone would look ghastly in it!” She turned back, fixing her plaintive eyes on Gerty. “You stupid dear, why do you say such odious things to me? It’s enough to make one ill to be told one looks so! And looking ill means looking ugly.” She caught Gerty’s wrists, and drew her close to the window. “After all, I’d rather know the truth. Look me straight in the face, Gerty, and tell me: am I perfectly frightful?”

“You’re perfectly beautiful now, Lily: your eyes are shining, and your cheeks have grown so pink all of a sudden⁠—”

“Ah, they were pale, then⁠—ghastly pale, when I came in? Why don’t you tell me frankly that I’m a wreck? My eyes are bright now because I’m so nervous⁠—but in the mornings they look like lead. And I can see the lines coming in my face⁠—the lines of worry and disappointment and failure! Every sleepless night leaves a new one⁠—and how can I sleep, when I have such dreadful things to think about?”

“Dreadful things⁠—what things?” asked Gerty, gently detaching her wrists from her friend’s feverish fingers.

“What things? Well, poverty, for one⁠—and I don’t know any that’s more dreadful.” Lily turned away and sank with sudden weariness into the easy-chair near the tea-table. “You asked me just now if I could understand why Ned Silverton spent so much money. Of course I understand⁠—he spends it on living with the rich. You think we live on the rich, rather than with them: and so we do, in a sense⁠—but it’s a privilege we have to pay for! We eat their dinners, and drink their wine, and smoke their cigarettes, and use their carriages and their opera-boxes and their private cars⁠—yes, but there’s a tax to pay on every one of those luxuries. The man pays