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

had risen and stood before him, once more completely mastered by the inner urgency of the moment. The consciousness of his half-divined reluctance had vanished. Whether he wished it or not, he must see her wholly for once before they parted.

Her voice had gathered strength, and she looked him gravely in the eyes as she continued. “Once⁠—twice⁠—you gave me the chance to escape from my life, and I refused it: refused it because I was a coward. Afterward I saw my mistake⁠—I saw I could never be happy with what had contented me before. But it was too late: you had judged me⁠—I understood. It was too late for happiness⁠—but not too late to be helped by the thought of what I had missed. That is all I have lived on⁠—don’t take it from me now! Even in my worst moments it has been like a little light in the darkness. Some women are strong enough to be good by themselves, but I needed the help of your belief in me. Perhaps I might have resisted a great temptation, but the little ones would have pulled me down. And then I remembered⁠—I remembered your saying that such a life could never satisfy me; and I was ashamed to admit to myself that it could. That is what you did for me⁠—that is what I wanted to thank you for. I wanted to tell you that I have always remembered; and that I have tried⁠—tried hard⁠ ⁠…”

She broke off suddenly. Her tears had risen again, and in drawing out her handkerchief her fingers touched the packet in the folds of her dress. A wave of colour suffused her, and the words died on her lips. Then she lifted her eyes to his and went on in an altered voice.

“I have tried hard⁠—but life is difficult, and I am a very useless person. I can hardly be said to have an independent existence. I was just a screw or a cog in the great machine I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was of no use anywhere else. What can one do when one finds that one only fits into one hole? One must get back to it or be thrown out into the rubbish heap⁠—and you don’t know what it’s like in the rubbish heap!”

Her lips wavered into a smile⁠—she had been distracted by the whimsical remembrance of the confidences she had made to him, two years earlier, in that very room. Then she had been planning to marry Percy Gryce⁠—what was it she was planning now?

The blood had risen strongly under Selden’s dark skin, but his emotion showed itself only in an added seriousness of manner.

“You have something to tell me⁠—do you mean to marry?” he said abruptly.

Lily’s eyes did not falter, but a look of wonder, of puzzled self-interrogation, formed itself slowly in their depths. In the light of his question, she had paused to ask herself if her decision had really been taken when she entered the room.

“You always told me I should have to come to it sooner or later!” she said with a faint smile.

“And you have come to it now?”

“I shall have to come to it⁠—presently. But there is something else I must come to first.” She paused again, trying to transmit to her voice the steadiness of her recovered smile. “There is someone I must say goodbye to. Oh, not you⁠—we are sure to see each other again⁠—but the Lily Bart you knew. I have kept her with me all this time, but now we are going to part, and I have brought her back to you⁠—I am going to leave her here. When I go out presently she will not go with me. I shall like to think that she has stayed with you⁠—and she’ll be no trouble, she’ll take up no room.”

She went toward him, and put out her hand, still smiling. “Will you let her stay with you?” she asked.

He caught her hand, and she felt in his the vibration of feeling that had not yet risen to his lips. “Lily⁠—can’t I help you?” he exclaimed.

She looked at him gently. “Do you remember what you said to me once? That you could help me only by loving me? Well⁠—you did love me for a moment; and it helped me. It has always helped me. But the moment is gone⁠—it was I who let it go. And one must go on living. Goodbye.”

She laid her other hand on his, and they looked at each other with a kind of solemnity, as though they stood in the presence of death. Something in truth lay dead between them⁠—the love she had killed in him and could no longer call to life. But something lived between them also, and leaped up in her like an imperishable flame: it was the love his love had kindled, the passion of her soul for his.

In its light everything else dwindled and fell away from her. She understood now that she could not go forth and leave her old self with him: that self must indeed live on in his presence, but it must still continue to be hers.

Selden had retained her hand, and continued to scrutinize her with a strange sense of foreboding. The external aspect of the situation had vanished for him as completely as for her: he felt it only as one of those rare moments which lift the veil from their faces as they pass.

“Lily,” he said in a low voice, “you mustn’t speak in this way. I can’t let you go without knowing what you mean to do. Things may change⁠—but they don’t pass. You can never go out of my life.”

She met his eyes with an illumined look. “No,” she said. “I see that now. Let us always be friends. Then I shall feel safe, whatever happens.”

“Whatever happens? What do you mean? What is going to happen?”

She turned away quietly and walked toward the hearth.

“Nothing at present⁠—except that