Edith Wharton: Complete Works. Edith Wharton

reasonableness was maintained only at the cost of not seeing her; but, though nothing in life was as sweet as the sense of her power over him, she saw the danger of allowing the episode of the previous night to have a sequel. Since she could not marry him, it would be kinder to him, as well as easier for herself, to write a line amicably evading his request to see her: he was not the man to mistake such a hint, and when next they met it would be on their usual friendly footing.

      Lily sprang out of bed, and went straight to her desk. She wanted to write at once, while she could trust to the strength of her resolve. She was still languid from her brief sleep and the exhilaration of the evening, and the sight of Selden’s writing brought back the culminating moment of her triumph: the moment when she had read in his eyes that no philosophy was proof against her power. It would be pleasant to have that sensation again … no one else could give it to her in its fulness; and she could not bear to mar her mood of luxurious retrospection by an act of definite refusal. She took up her pen and wrote hastily: “Tomorrow at four;” murmuring to herself, as she slipped the sheet into its envelope: “I can easily put him off when tomorrow comes.”

      Judy Trenor’s summons was very welcome to Lily. It was the first time she had received a direct communication from Bellomont since the close of her last visit there, and she was still visited by the dread of having incurred Judy’s displeasure. But this characteristic command seemed to reestablish their former relations; and Lily smiled at the thought that her friend had probably summoned her in order to hear about the Brys’ entertainment. Mrs. Trenor had absented herself from the feast, perhaps for the reason so frankly enunciated by her husband, perhaps because, as Mrs. Fisher somewhat differently put it, she “couldn’t bear new people when she hadn’t discovered them herself.” At any rate, though she remained haughtily at Bellomont, Lily suspected in her a devouring eagerness to hear of what she had missed, and to learn exactly in what measure Mrs. Wellington Bry had surpassed all previous competitors for social recognition. Lily was quite ready to gratify this curiosity, but it happened that she was dining out. She determined, however, to see Mrs. Trenor for a few moments, and ringing for her maid she despatched a telegram to say that she would be with her friend that evening at ten.

      She was dining with Mrs. Fisher, who had gathered at an informal feast a few of the performers of the previous evening. There was to be plantation music in the studio after dinner—for Mrs. Fisher, despairing of the republic, had taken up modelling, and annexed to her small crowded house a spacious apartment, which, whatever its uses in her hours of plastic inspiration, served at other times for the exercise of an indefatigable hospitality. Lily was reluctant to leave, for the dinner was amusing, and she would have liked to lounge over a cigarette and hear a few songs; but she could not break her engagement with Judy, and shortly after ten she asked her hostess to ring for a hansom, and drove up Fifth Avenue to the Trenors’.

      She waited long enough on the doorstep to wonder that Judy’s presence in town was not signalized by a greater promptness in admitting her; and her surprise was increased when, instead of the expected footman, pushing his shoulders into a tardy coat, a shabby care-taking person in calico let her into the shrouded hall. Trenor, however, appeared at once on the threshold of the drawing-room, welcoming her with unusual volubility while he relieved her of her cloak and drew her into the room.

      “Come along to the den; it’s the only comfortable place in the house. Doesn’t this room look as if it was waiting for the body to be brought down? Can’t see why Judy keeps the house wrapped up in this awful slippery white stuff—it’s enough to give a fellow pneumonia to walk through these rooms on a cold day. You look a little pinched yourself, by the way: it’s rather a sharp night out. I noticed it walking up from the club. Come along, and I’ll give you a nip of brandy, and you can toast yourself over the fire and try some of my new Egyptians—that little Turkish chap at the Embassy put me on to a brand that I want you to try, and if you like ‘em I’ll get out a lot for you: they don’t have ‘em here yet, but I’ll cable.”

      He led her through the house to the large room at the back, where Mrs. Trenor usually sat, and where, even in her absence, there was an air of occupancy. Here, as usual, were flowers, newspapers, a littered writing-table, and a general aspect of lamp-lit familiarity, so that it was a surprise not to see Judy’s energetic figure start up from the arm-chair near the fire.

      It was apparently Trenor himself who had been occupying the seat in question, for it was overhung by a cloud of cigar smoke, and near it stood one of those intricate folding tables which British ingenuity has devised to facilitate the circulation of tobacco and spirits. The sight of such appliances in a drawing-room was not unusual in Lily’s set, where smoking and drinking were unrestricted by considerations of time and place, and her first movement was to help herself to one of the cigarettes recommended by Trenor, while she checked his loquacity by asking, with a surprised glance: “Where’s Judy?”

      Trenor, a little heated by his unusual flow of words, and perhaps by prolonged propinquity with the decanters, was bending over the latter to decipher their silver labels.

      “Here, now, Lily, just a drop of cognac in a little fizzy water—you do look pinched, you know: I swear the end of your nose is red. I’ll take another glass to keep you company—Judy?—Why, you see, Judy’s got a devil of a headache—quite knocked out with it, poor thing—she asked me to explain—make it all right, you know—Do come up to the fire, though; you look dead-beat, really. Now do let me make you comfortable, there’s a good girl.”

      He had taken her hand, half-banteringly, and was drawing her toward a low seat by the hearth; but she stopped and freed herself quietly.

      “Do you mean to say that Judy’s not well enough to see me? Doesn’t she want me to go upstairs?”

      Trenor drained the glass he had filled for himself, and paused to set it down before he answered.

      “Why, no—the fact is, she’s not up to seeing anybody. It came on suddenly, you know, and she asked me to tell you how awfully sorry she was—if she’d known where you were dining she’d have sent you word.”

      “She did know where I was dining; I mentioned it in my telegram. But it doesn’t matter, of course. I suppose if she’s so poorly she won’t go back to Bellomont in the morning, and I can come and see her then.”

      “Yes: exactly—that’s capital. I’ll tell her you’ll pop in tomorrow morning. And now do sit down a minute, there’s a dear, and let’s have a nice quiet jaw together. You won’t take a drop, just for sociability? Tell me what you think of that cigarette. Why, don’t you like it? What are you chucking it away for?”

      “I am chucking it away because I must go, if you’ll have the goodness to call a cab for me,” Lily returned with a smile.

      She did not like Trenor’s unusual excitability, with its too evident explanation, and the thought of being alone with him, with her friend out of reach upstairs, at the other end of the great empty house, did not conduce to a desire to prolong their tête-à-tête.

      But Trenor, with a promptness which did not escape her, had moved between herself and the door.

      “Why must you go, I should like to know? If Judy’d been here you’d have sat gossiping till all hours—and you can’t even give me five minutes! It’s always the same story. Last night I couldn’t get near you—I went to that damned vulgar party just to see you, and there was everybody talking about you, and asking me if I’d ever seen anything so stunning, and when I tried to come up and say a word, you never took any notice, but just went on laughing and joking with a lot of asses who only wanted to be able to swagger about afterward, and look knowing when you were mentioned.”

      He paused, flushed by his diatribe, and fixing on her a look in which resentment was the ingredient she least disliked. But she had regained her presence of mind, and stood composedly in the middle of the room, while her slight smile seemed to put an ever increasing distance between herself and Trenor.

      Across it she said: “Don’t be absurd, Gus. It’s past eleven, and I must really ask you to ring for a cab.”

      He remained