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

In fact I can’t afford any of the things my friends do, and I am afraid Judy often thinks me a bore because I don’t play cards any longer, and because I am not as smartly dressed as the other women. But you will think me a bore too if I talk to you about my worries, and I only mention them because I want you to do me a favour⁠—the very greatest of favours.”

Her eyes sought his once more, and she smiled inwardly at the tinge of apprehension that she read in them.

“Why, of course⁠—if it’s anything I can manage⁠—” He broke off, and she guessed that his enjoyment was disturbed by the remembrance of Mrs. Fisher’s methods.

“The greatest of favours,” she rejoined gently. “The fact is, Judy is angry with me, and I want you to make my peace.”

“Angry with you? Oh, come, nonsense⁠—” his relief broke through in a laugh. “Why, you know she’s devoted to you.”

“She is the best friend I have, and that is why I mind having to vex her. But I daresay you know what she has wanted me to do. She has set her heart⁠—poor dear⁠—on my marrying⁠—marrying a great deal of money.”

She paused with a slight falter of embarrassment, and Trenor, turning abruptly, fixed on her a look of growing intelligence.

“A great deal of money? Oh, by Jove⁠—you don’t mean Gryce? What⁠—you do? Oh, no, of course I won’t mention it⁠—you can trust me to keep my mouth shut⁠—but Gryce⁠—good Lord, Gryce! Did Judy really think you could bring yourself to marry that portentous little ass? But you couldn’t, eh? And so you gave him the sack, and that’s the reason why he lit out by the first train this morning?” He leaned back, spreading himself farther across the seat, as if dilated by the joyful sense of his own discernment. “How on earth could Judy think you would do such a thing? I could have told her you’d never put up with such a little milksop!”

Lily sighed more deeply. “I sometimes think,” she murmured, “that men understand a woman’s motives better than other women do.”

“Some men⁠—I’m certain of it! I could have told Judy,” he repeated, exulting in the implied superiority over his wife.

“I thought you would understand; that’s why I wanted to speak to you,” Miss Bart rejoined. “I can’t make that kind of marriage; it’s impossible. But neither can I go on living as all the women in my set do. I am almost entirely dependent on my aunt, and though she is very kind to me she makes me no regular allowance, and lately I’ve lost money at cards, and I don’t dare tell her about it. I have paid my card debts, of course, but there is hardly anything left for my other expenses, and if I go on with my present life I shall be in horrible difficulties. I have a tiny income of my own, but I’m afraid it’s badly invested, for it seems to bring in less every year, and I am so ignorant of money matters that I don’t know if my aunt’s agent, who looks after it, is a good adviser.” She paused a moment, and added in a lighter tone: “I didn’t mean to bore you with all this, but I want your help in making Judy understand that I can’t, at present, go on living as one must live among you all. I am going away tomorrow to join my aunt at Richfield, and I shall stay there for the rest of the autumn, and dismiss my maid and learn how to mend my own clothes.”

At this picture of loveliness in distress, the pathos of which was heightened by the light touch with which it was drawn, a murmur of indignant sympathy broke from Trenor. Twenty-four hours earlier, if his wife had consulted him on the subject of Miss Bart’s future, he would have said that a girl with extravagant tastes and no money had better marry the first rich man she could get; but with the subject of discussion at his side, turning to him for sympathy, making him feel that he understood her better than her dearest friends, and confirming the assurance by the appeal of her exquisite nearness, he was ready to swear that such a marriage was a desecration, and that, as a man of honour, he was bound to do all he could to protect her from the results of her disinterestedness. This impulse was reinforced by the reflection that if she had married Gryce she would have been surrounded by flattery and approval, whereas, having refused to sacrifice herself to expediency, she was left to bear the whole cost of her resistance. Hang it, if he could find a way out of such difficulties for a professional sponge like Carry Fisher, who was simply a mental habit corresponding to the physical titillations of the cigarette or the cocktail, he could surely do as much for a girl who appealed to his highest sympathies, and who brought her troubles to him with the trustfulness of a child.

Trenor and Miss Bart prolonged their drive till long after sunset; and before it was over he had tried, with some show of success, to prove to her that, if she would only trust him, he could make a handsome sum of money for her without endangering the small amount she possessed. She was too genuinely ignorant of the manipulations of the stock-market to understand his technical explanations, or even perhaps to perceive that certain points in them were slurred; the haziness enveloping the transaction served as a veil for her embarrassment, and through the general blur her hopes dilated like lamps in a fog. She understood only that her modest investments were to be mysteriously multiplied without risk to herself; and the assurance that this miracle would take place within a short time, that there would be no tedious interval for suspense and reaction, relieved her of her