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

more aware of a certain ambiguity in her situation. It was not that she had, in the conventional sense, any doubt of Mrs. Hatch’s irreproachableness. The lady’s offences were always against taste rather than conduct; her divorce record seemed due to geographical rather than ethical conditions; and her worst laxities were likely to proceed from a wandering and extravagant good-nature. But if Lily did not mind her detaining her manicure for luncheon, or offering the “Beauty-Doctor” a seat in Freddy Van Osburgh’s box at the play, she was not equally at ease in regard to some less apparent lapses from convention. Ned Silverton’s relation to Stancy seemed, for instance, closer and less clear than any natural affinities would warrant; and both appeared united in the effort to cultivate Freddy Van Osburgh’s growing taste for Mrs. Hatch. There was as yet nothing definable in the situation, which might well resolve itself into a huge joke on the part of the other two; but Lily had a vague sense that the subject of their experiment was too young, too rich and too credulous. Her embarrassment was increased by the fact that Freddy seemed to regard her as cooperating with himself in the social development of Mrs. Hatch: a view that suggested, on his part, a permanent interest in the lady’s future. There were moments when Lily found an ironic amusement in this aspect of the case. The thought of launching such a missile as Mrs. Hatch at the perfidious bosom of society was not without its charm: Miss Bart had even beguiled her leisure with visions of the fair Norma introduced for the first time to a family banquet at the Van Osburghs’. But the thought of being personally connected with the transaction was less agreeable; and her momentary flashes of amusement were followed by increasing periods of doubt.

The sense of these doubts was uppermost when, late one afternoon, she was surprised by a visit from Lawrence Selden. He found her alone in the wilderness of pink damask, for in Mrs. Hatch’s world the tea-hour was not dedicated to social rites, and the lady was in the hands of her masseuse.

Selden’s entrance had caused Lily an inward start of embarrassment; but his air of constraint had the effect of restoring her self-possession, and she took at once the tone of surprise and pleasure, wondering frankly that he should have traced her to so unlikely a place, and asking what had inspired him to make the search.

Selden met this with an unusual seriousness: she had never seen him so little master of the situation, so plainly at the mercy of any obstructions she might put in his way. “I wanted to see you,” he said; and she could not resist observing in reply that he had kept his wishes under remarkable control. She had in truth felt his long absence as one of the chief bitternesses of the last months: his desertion had wounded sensibilities far below the surface of her pride.

Selden met the challenge with directness. “Why should I have come, unless I thought I could be of use to you? It is my only excuse for imagining you could want me.”

This struck her as a clumsy evasion, and the thought gave a flash of keenness to her answer. “Then you have come now because you think you can be of use to me?”

He hesitated again. “Yes: in the modest capacity of a person to talk things over with.”

For a clever man it was certainly a stupid beginning; and the idea that his awkwardness was due to the fear of her attaching a personal significance to his visit, chilled her pleasure in seeing him. Even under the most adverse conditions, that pleasure always made itself felt: she might hate him, but she had never been able to wish him out of the room. She was very near hating him now; yet the sound of his voice, the way the light fell on his thin dark hair, the way he sat and moved and wore his clothes⁠—she was conscious that even these trivial things were inwoven with her deepest life. In his presence a sudden stillness came upon her, and the turmoil of her spirit ceased; but an impulse of resistance to this stealing influence now prompted her to say: “It’s very good of you to present yourself in that capacity; but what makes you think I have anything particular to talk about?”

Though she kept the even tone of light intercourse, the question was framed in a way to remind him that his good offices were unsought; and for a moment Selden was checked by it. The situation between them was one which could have been cleared up only by a sudden explosion of feeling; and their whole training and habit of mind were against the chances of such an explosion. Selden’s calmness seemed rather to harden into resistance, and Miss Bart’s into a surface of glittering irony, as they faced each other from the opposite corners of one of Mrs. Hatch’s elephantine sofas. The sofa in question, and the apartment peopled by its monstrous mates, served at length to suggest the turn of Selden’s reply.

“Gerty told me that you were acting as Mrs. Hatch’s secretary; and I knew she was anxious to hear how you were getting on.”

Miss Bart received this explanation without perceptible softening. “Why didn’t she look me up herself, then?” she asked.

“Because, as you didn’t send her your address, she was afraid of being importunate.” Selden continued with a smile: “You see no such scruples restrained me; but then I haven’t as much to risk if I incur your displeasure.”

Lily answered his smile. “You haven’t incurred it as yet; but I have an idea that you are going to.”

“That rests with you, doesn’t it? You see my initiative doesn’t go beyond putting myself at your disposal.”

“But in what capacity? What am I to do with you?” she asked in the same light tone.

Selden again glanced about Mrs. Hatch’s drawing-room; then he said, with a decision which he