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

had been brought home to her that as a breadwinner she could never compete with professional ability. Since she had been brought up to be ornamental, she could hardly blame herself for failing to serve any practical purpose; but the discovery put an end to her consoling sense of universal efficiency.

As she turned homeward her thoughts shrank in anticipation from the fact that there would be nothing to get up for the next morning. The luxury of lying late in bed was a pleasure belonging to the life of ease; it had no part in the utilitarian existence of the boardinghouse. She liked to leave her room early, and to return to it as late as possible; and she was walking slowly now in order to postpone the detested approach to her doorstep.

But the doorstep, as she drew near it, acquired a sudden interest from the fact that it was occupied⁠—and indeed filled⁠—by the conspicuous figure of Mr. Rosedale, whose presence seemed to take on an added amplitude from the meanness of his surroundings.

The sight stirred Lily with an irresistible sense of triumph. Rosedale, a day or two after their chance meeting, had called to enquire if she had recovered from her indisposition; but since then she had not seen or heard from him, and his absence seemed to betoken a struggle to keep away, to let her pass once more out of his life. If this were the case, his return showed that the struggle had been unsuccessful, for Lily knew he was not the man to waste his time in an ineffectual sentimental dalliance. He was too busy, too practical, and above all too much preoccupied with his own advancement, to indulge in such unprofitable asides.

In the peacock-blue parlour, with its bunches of dried pampas grass, and discoloured steel engravings of sentimental episodes, he looked about him with unconcealed disgust, laying his hat distrustfully on the dusty console adorned with a Rogers statuette.

Lily sat down on one of the plush and rosewood sofas, and he deposited himself in a rocking-chair draped with a starched antimacassar which scraped unpleasantly against the pink fold of skin above his collar.

“My goodness⁠—you can’t go on living here!” he exclaimed.

Lily smiled at his tone. “I am not sure that I can; but I have gone over my expenses very carefully, and I rather think I shall be able to manage it.”

“Be able to manage it? That’s not what I mean⁠—it’s no place for you!”

“It’s what I mean; for I have been out of work for the last week.”

“Out of work⁠—out of work! What a way for you to talk! The idea of your having to work⁠—it’s preposterous.” He brought out his sentences in short violent jerks, as though they were forced up from a deep inner crater of indignation. “It’s a farce⁠—a crazy farce,” he repeated, his eyes fixed on the long vista of the room reflected in the blotched glass between the windows.

Lily continued to meet his expostulations with a smile. “I don’t know why I should regard myself as an exception⁠—” she began.

“Because you are; that’s why; and your being in a place like this is a damnable outrage. I can’t talk of it calmly.”

She had in truth never seen him so shaken out of his usual glibness; and there was something almost moving to her in his inarticulate struggle with his emotions.

He rose with a start which left the rocking-chair quivering on its beam ends, and placed himself squarely before her.

“Look here, Miss Lily, I’m going to Europe next week: going over to Paris and London for a couple of months⁠—and I can’t leave you like this. I can’t do it. I know it’s none of my business⁠—you’ve let me understand that often enough; but things are worse with you now than they have been before, and you must see that you’ve got to accept help from somebody. You spoke to me the other day about some debt to Trenor. I know what you mean⁠—and I respect you for feeling as you do about it.”

A blush of surprise rose to Lily’s pale face, but before she could interrupt him he had continued eagerly: “Well, I’ll lend you the money to pay Trenor; and I won’t⁠—I⁠—see here, don’t take me up till I’ve finished. What I mean is, it’ll be a plain business arrangement, such as one man would make with another. Now, what have you got to say against that?”

Lily’s blush deepened to a glow in which humiliation and gratitude were mingled; and both sentiments revealed themselves in the unexpected gentleness of her reply.

“Only this: that it is exactly what Gus Trenor proposed; and that I can never again be sure of understanding the plainest business arrangement.” Then, realizing that this answer contained a germ of injustice, she added, even more kindly: “Not that I don’t appreciate your kindness⁠—that I’m not grateful for it. But a business arrangement between us would in any case be impossible, because I shall have no security to give when my debt to Gus Trenor has been paid.”

Rosedale received this statement in silence: he seemed to feel the note of finality in her voice, yet to be unable to accept it as closing the question between them.

In the silence Lily had a clear perception of what was passing through his mind. Whatever perplexity he felt as to the inexorableness of her course⁠—however little he penetrated its motive⁠—she saw that it unmistakably tended to strengthen her hold over him. It was as though the sense in her of unexplained scruples and resistances had the same attraction as the delicacy of feature, the fastidiousness of manner, which gave her an external rarity, an air of being impossible to match. As he advanced in social experience this uniqueness had acquired a greater value for him, as though he were a collector who had learned to distinguish minor differences of design and quality in some long-coveted object.

Lily, perceiving all this, understood that he would marry her at once, on the