الفصل الفصل 17 · 第17章

Miss Bart, emerging late the next morning from her cabin, found

herself alone on the deck of the Sabrina.

The cushioned chairs, disposed expectantly under the wide awning,

showed no signs of recent occupancy, and she presently learned

from a steward that Mrs. Dorset had not yet appeared, and that

the gentlemen—separately—had gone ashore as soon as they had

breakfasted. Supplied with these facts, Lily leaned awhile over the

side, giving herself up to a leisurely enjoyment of the spectacle

before her. Unclouded sunlight enveloped sea and shore in a bath

of purest radiancy. The purpling waters drew a sharp white line of

foam at the base of the shore; against its irregular eminences,

hotels and villas flashed from the greyish verdure of olive and

eucalyptus; and the background of bare and finely-pencilled

mountains quivered in a pale intensity of light.

How beautiful it was—and how she loved beauty! She had always

felt that her sensibility in this direction made up for certain

obtusenesses of feeling of which she was less proud; and during the

last three months she had indulged it passionately. The Dorsets’

invitation to go abroad with them had come as an almost miraculous

release from crushing difficulties; and her faculty for renewing

herself in new scenes, and casting off problems of conduct as

easily as the surroundings in which they had arisen, made the mere

change from one place to another seem, not merely a postponement,

but a solution of her troubles. Moral complications existed for her

only in the environment that had produced them; she did not mean

to slight or ignore them, but they lost their reality when they

changed their background. She could not have remained in New York

without repaying the money she owed to Trenor; to acquit herself

of that odious debt she might even have faced a marriage with

Rosedale; but the accident of placing the Atlantic between herself

and her obligations made them dwindle out of sight as if they had

been milestones and she had travelled past them.

Her two months on the Sabrina had been especially calculated to

aid this illusion of distance. She had been plunged into new

scenes, and had found in them a renewal of old hopes and ambitions.

The cruise itself charmed her as a romantic adventure. She was

vaguely touched by the names and scenes amid which she moved, and

had listened to Ned Silverton reading Theocritus by moonlight,

as the yacht rounded the Sicilian promontories, with a thrill

of the nerves that confirmed her belief in her intellectual

superiority. But the weeks at Cannes and Nice had really given

her more pleasure. The gratification of being welcomed in high

company, and of making her own ascendency felt there, so that she

found herself figuring once more as the “beautiful Miss Bart” in

the interesting journal devoted to recording the least movements

of her cosmopolitan companions—all these experiences tended to

throw into the extreme background of memory the prosaic and sordid

difficulties from which she had escaped.

If she was faintly aware of fresh difficulties ahead, she was

sure of her ability to meet them: it was characteristic of her to

feel that the only problems she could not solve were those with

which she was familiar. Meanwhile she could honestly be proud of

the skill with which she had adapted herself to somewhat delicate

conditions. She had reason to think that she had made herself

equally necessary to her host and hostess; and if only she had seen

any perfectly irreproachable means of drawing a financial profit

from the situation, there would have been no cloud on her horizon.

The truth was that her funds, as usual, were inconveniently low;

and to neither Dorset nor his wife could this vulgar embarrassment

be safely hinted. Still, the need was not a pressing one; she could

worry along, as she had so often done before, with the hope of some

happy change of fortune to sustain her; and meanwhile life was

gay and beautiful and easy, and she was conscious of figuring not

unworthily in such a setting.

She was engaged to breakfast that morning with the Duchess of

Beltshire, and at twelve o’clock she asked to be set ashore in the

gig. Before this she had sent her maid to enquire if she might see

Mrs. Dorset; but the reply came back that the latter was tired,

and trying to sleep. Lily thought she understood the reason of

the rebuff. Her hostess had not been included in the Duchess’s

invitation, though she herself had made the most loyal efforts in

that direction. But her grace was impervious to hints, and invited

or omitted as she chose. It was not Lily’s fault if Mrs. Dorset’s

complicated attitudes did not fall in with the Duchess’s easy gait.

The Duchess, who seldom explained herself, had not formulated her

objection beyond saying: “She’s rather a bore, you know. The only

one of your friends I like is that little Mr. Bry—HE’S funny—” but

Lily knew enough not to press the point, and was not altogether

sorry to be thus distinguished at her friend’s expense. Bertha

certainly HAD grown tiresome since she had taken to poetry and Ned

Silverton.

On the whole, it was a relief to break away now and then from

the Sabrina; and the Duchess’s little breakfast, organized by

Lord Hubert with all his usual virtuosity, was the pleasanter

to Lily for not including her travelling-companions. Dorset, of

late, had grown more than usually morose and incalculable, and

Ned Silverton went about with an air that seemed to challenge the

universe. The freedom and lightness of the ducal intercourse made

an agreeable change from these complications, and Lily was tempted,

after luncheon, to adjourn in the wake of her companions to the

hectic atmosphere of the Casino. She did not mean to play; her

diminished pocket-money offered small scope for the adventure; but

it amused her to sit on a divan, under the doubtful protection of

the Duchess’s back, while the latter hung above her stakes at a

neighbouring table.

The rooms were packed with the gazing throng which, in the

afternoon hours, trickles heavily between the tables, like the

Sunday crowd in a lion-house. In the stagnant flow of the mass,

identities were hardly distinguishable; but Lily presently saw

Mrs. Bry cleaving her determined way through the doors, and, in

the broad wake she left, the light figure of Mrs. Fisher bobbing

after her like a row-boat at the stern of a tug. Mrs. Bry pressed

on, evidently animated by the resolve to reach a certain point in

the rooms; but Mrs. Fisher, as she passed Lily, broke from her

towing-line, and let herself float to the girl’s side.

“Lose her?” she echoed the latter’s query, with an indifferent

glance at Mrs. Bry’s retreating back. “I daresay—it doesn’t matter:

I HAVE lost her already.” And, as Lily exclaimed, she added: “We

had an awful row this morning. You know, of course, that the

Duchess chucked her at dinner last night, and she thinks it was my

fault—my want of management. The worst of it is, the message—just a

mere word by telephone—came so late that the dinner HAD to be paid

for; and Becassin HAD run it up—it had been so drummed into him

that the Duchess was coming!” Mrs. Fisher indulged in a faint laugh

at the remembrance. “Paying for what she doesn’t get rankles so

dreadfully with Louisa: I can’t make her see that it’s one of the

preliminary steps to getting what you haven’t paid for—and as I was

the nearest thing to smash, she smashed me to atoms, poor dear!”

Lily murmured her commiseration. Impulses of sympathy came

naturally to her, and it was instinctive to proffer her help to

Mrs. Fisher.

“If there’s anything I can do—if it’s only a question of meeting

the Duchess! I heard her say she thought Mr. Bry amusing——”

But Mrs. Fisher interposed with a decisive gesture. “My dear,

I have my pride: the pride of my trade. I couldn’t manage the

Duchess, and I can’t palm off your arts on Louisa Bry as mine. I’ve

taken the final step: I go to Paris tonight with the Sam Gormers.

THEY’RE still in the elementary stage; an Italian Prince is a great

deal more than a Prince to them, and they’re always on the brink

of taking a courier for one. To save them from that is my present

mission.” She laughed again at the picture. “But before I go I want

to make my last will and testament—I want to leave you the Brys.”

“Me?” Miss Bart joined in her amusement. “It’s charming of you to

remember me, dear; but really——”

“You’re already so well provided for?” Mrs. Fisher flashed a sharp

glance at her. “ARE you, though, Lily—to the point of rejecting my

offer?”

Miss Bart coloured slowly. “What I really meant was, that the Brys

wouldn’t in the least care to be so disposed of.”

Mrs. Fisher continued to probe her embarrassment with an

unflinching eye. “What you really meant was that you’ve snubbed the

Brys horribly; and you know that they know——”

“Carry!”

“Oh, on certain sides Louisa bristles with perceptions. If you’d

even managed to have them asked once on the Sabrina—especially when

royalties were coming! But it’s not too late,” she ended earnestly,

“it’s not too late for either of you.”

Lily smiled. “Stay over, and I’ll get the Duchess to dine with

them.”

“I shan’t stay over—the Gormers have paid for my SALON-LIT,” said

Mrs. Fisher with simplicity. “But get the Duchess to dine with them

all the same.”

Lily’s smile again flowed into a slight laugh: her friend’s

importunity was beginning to strike her as irrelevant. “I’m sorry I

have been negligent about the Brys——” she began.

“Oh, as to the Brys—it’s you I’m thinking of,” said Mrs. Fisher

abruptly. She paused, and then, bending forward, with a lowered

voice: “You know we all went on to Nice last night when the Duchess

chucked us. It was Louisa’s idea—I told her what I thought of it.”

Miss Bart assented. “Yes—I caught sight of you on the way back, at

the station.”

“Well, the man who was in the carriage with you and George

Dorset—that horrid little Dabham who does ‘Society Notes from

the Riviera’—had been dining with us at Nice. And he’s telling

everybody that you and Dorset came back alone after midnight.”

“Alone—? When he was with us?” Lily laughed, but her laugh faded

into gravity under the prolonged implication of Mrs. Fisher’s look.

“We DID come back alone—if that’s so very dreadful! But whose fault

was it? The Duchess was spending the night at Cimiez with the Crown

Princess; Bertha got bored with the show, and went off early,

promising to meet us at the station. We turned up on time, but she

didn’t—she didn’t turn up at all!”

Miss Bart made this announcement in the tone of one who presents,

with careless assurance, a complete vindication; but Mrs. Fisher

received it in a manner almost inconsequent. She seemed to have

lost sight of her friend’s part in the incident: her inward vision

had taken another slant.

“Bertha never turned up at all? Then how on earth did she get back?”

“Oh, by the next train, I suppose; there were two extra ones for

the FETE. At any rate, I know she’s safe on the yacht, though I

haven’t yet seen her; but you see it was not my fault,” Lily summed

up.

“Not your fault that Bertha didn’t turn up? My poor child, if only

you don’t have to pay for it!” Mrs. Fisher rose—she had seen Mrs.

Bry surging back in her direction. “There’s Louisa, and I must

be off—oh, we’re on the best of terms externally; we’re lunching

together; but at heart it’s ME she’s lunching on,” she explained;

and with a last hand-clasp and a last look, she added: “Remember, I

leave her to you; she’s hovering now, ready to take you in.”

* * * * *

Lily carried the impression of Mrs. Fisher’s leave-taking away with

her from the Casino doors. She had accomplished, before leaving,

the first step toward her reinstatement in Mrs. Bry’s good graces.

An affable advance—a vague murmur that they must see more of each

other—an allusive glance to a near future that was felt to include

the Duchess as well as the Sabrina—how easily it was all done, if

one possessed the knack of doing it! She wondered at herself, as

she had so often wondered, that, possessing the knack, she did not

more consistently exercise it. But sometimes she was forgetful—and

sometimes, could it be that she was proud? Today, at any rate, she

had been vaguely conscious of a reason for sinking her pride, had

in fact even sunk it to the point of suggesting to Lord Hubert

Dacey, whom she ran across on the Casino steps, that he might

really get the Duchess to dine with the Brys, if SHE undertook to

have them asked on the Sabrina. Lord Hubert had promised his help,

with the readiness on which she could always count: it was his only

way of ever reminding her that he had once been ready to do so much

more for her. Her path, in short, seemed to smooth itself before

her as she advanced; yet the faint stir of uneasiness persisted.

Had it been produced, she wondered, by her chance meeting with

Selden? She thought not—time and change seemed so completely to

have relegated him to his proper distance. The sudden and exquisite

reaction from her anxieties had had the effect of throwing the

recent past so far back that even Selden, as part of it, retained

a certain air of unreality. And he had made it so clear that they

were not to meet again; that he had merely dropped down to Nice

for a day or two, and had almost his foot on the next steamer.

No—that part of the past had merely surged up for a moment on the

fleeing surface of events; and now that it was submerged again, the

uncertainty, the apprehension persisted.

They grew to sudden acuteness as she caught sight of George Dorset

descending the steps of the Hotel de Paris and making for her

across the square. She had meant to drive down to the quay and

regain the yacht; but she now had the immediate impression that

something more was to happen first.

“Which way are you going? Shall we walk a bit?” he began, putting

the second question before the first was answered, and not waiting

for a reply to either before he directed her silently toward the

comparative seclusion of the lower gardens.

She detected in him at once all the signs of extreme nervous

tension. The skin was puffed out under his sunken eyes, and its

sallowness had paled to a leaden white against which his irregular

eyebrows and long reddish moustache were relieved with a saturnine

effect. His appearance, in short, presented an odd mixture of the

bedraggled and the ferocious.

He walked beside her in silence, with quick precipitate steps, till

they reached the embowered slopes to the east of the Casino; then,

pulling up abruptly, he said: “Have you seen Bertha?”

“No—when I left the yacht she was not yet up.”

He received this with a laugh like the whirring sound in a disabled

clock. “Not yet up? Had she gone to bed? Do you know at what time

she came on board? This morning at seven!” he exclaimed.

“At seven?” Lily started. “What happened—an accident to the train?”

He laughed again. “They missed the train—all the trains—they had to

drive back.”

“Well——?” She hesitated, feeling at once how little even this

necessity accounted for the fatal lapse of hours.

“Well, they couldn’t get a carriage at once—at that time of night,

you know—” the explanatory note made it almost seem as though he

were putting the case for his wife—“and when they finally did, it

was only a one-horse cab, and the horse was lame!”

“How tiresome! I see,” she affirmed, with the more earnestness

because she was so nervously conscious that she did not; and after

a pause she added: “I’m so sorry—but ought we to have waited?”

“Waited for the one-horse cab? It would scarcely have carried the

four of us, do you think?”

She took this in what seemed the only possible way, with a laugh

intended to sink the question itself in his humorous treatment of

it. “Well, it would have been difficult; we should have had to walk

by turns. But it would have been jolly to see the sunrise.”

“Yes: the sunrise WAS jolly,” he agreed.

“Was it? You saw it, then?”

“I saw it, yes; from the deck. I waited up for them.”

“Naturally—I suppose you were worried. Why didn’t you call on me to

share your vigil?”

He stood still, dragging at his moustache with a lean weak hand. “I

don’t think you would have cared for its DENOUEMENT,” he said with

sudden grimness.

Again she was disconcerted by the abrupt change in his tone, and

as in one flash she saw the peril of the moment, and the need of

keeping her sense of it out of her eyes.

“DENOUEMENT—isn’t that too big a word for such a small incident?

The worst of it, after all, is the fatigue which Bertha has

probably slept off by this time.”

She clung to the note bravely, though its futility was now plain to

her in the glare of his miserable eyes.

“Don’t—don’t——!” he broke out, with the hurt cry of a child; and

while she tried to merge her sympathy, and her resolve to ignore

any cause for it, in one ambiguous murmur of deprecation, he

dropped down on the bench near which they had paused, and poured

out the wretchedness of his soul.

It was a dreadful hour—an hour from which she emerged shrinking

and seared, as though her lids had been scorched by its actual

glare. It was not that she had never had premonitory glimpses of

such an outbreak; but rather because, here and there throughout

the three months, the surface of life had shown such ominous

cracks and vapours that her fears had always been on the alert

for an upheaval. There had been moments when the situation had

presented itself under a homelier yet more vivid image—that of a

shaky vehicle, dashed by unbroken steeds over a bumping road, while

she cowered within, aware that the harness wanted mending, and

wondering what would give way first. Well—everything had given way

now; and the wonder was that the crazy outfit had held together so

long. Her sense of being involved in the crash, instead of merely

witnessing it from the road, was intensified by the way in which

Dorset, through his furies of denunciation and wild reactions of

self-contempt, made her feel the need he had of her, the place she

had taken in his life. But for her, what ear would have been open

to his cries? And what hand but hers could drag him up again to a

footing of sanity and self-respect? All through the stress of the

struggle with him, she had been conscious of something faintly

maternal in her efforts to guide and uplift him. But for the

present, if he clung to her, it was not in order to be dragged up,

but to feel some one floundering in the depths with him: he wanted

her to suffer with him, not to help him to suffer less.

Happily for both, there was little physical strength to sustain his

frenzy. It left him, collapsed and breathing heavily, to an apathy

so deep and prolonged that Lily almost feared the passers-by would

think it the result of a seizure, and stop to offer their aid. But

Monte Carlo is, of all places, the one where the human bond is

least close, and odd sights are the least arresting. If a glance

or two lingered on the couple, no intrusive sympathy disturbed

them; and it was Lily herself who broke the silence by rising from

her seat. With the clearing of her vision the sweep of peril had

extended, and she saw that the post of danger was no longer at

Dorset’s side.

“If you won’t go back, I must—don’t make me leave you!” she urged.

But he remained mutely resistant, and she added: “What are you

going to do? You really can’t sit here all night.”

“I can go to an hotel. I can telegraph my lawyers.” He sat up,

roused by a new thought. “By Jove, Selden’s at Nice—I’ll send for

Selden!”

Lily, at this, reseated herself with a cry of alarm. “No, no, NO!”

she protested.

He swung round on her distrustfully. “Why not Selden? He’s a lawyer

isn’t he? One will do as well as another in a case like this.”

“As badly as another, you mean. I thought you relied on ME to help

you.”

“You do—by being so sweet and patient with me. If it hadn’t been

for you I’d have ended the thing long ago. But now it’s got to

end.” He rose suddenly, straightening himself with an effort. “You

can’t want to see me ridiculous.”

She looked at him kindly. “That’s just it.” Then, after a moment’s

pondering, almost to her own surprise she broke out with a flash of

inspiration: “Well, go over and see Mr. Selden. You’ll have time to

do it before dinner.”

“Oh, DINNER——” he mocked her; but she left him with the smiling

rejoinder: “Dinner on board, remember; we’ll put it off till nine

if you like.”

It was past four already; and when a cab had dropped her at the

quay, and she stood waiting for the gig to put off for her,

she began to wonder what had been happening on the yacht. Of

Silverton’s whereabouts there had been no mention. Had he returned

to the Sabrina? Or could Bertha—the dread alternative sprang on

her suddenly—could Bertha, left to herself, have gone ashore to

rejoin him? Lily’s heart stood still at the thought. All her

concern had hitherto been for young Silverton, not only because,

in such affairs, the woman’s instinct is to side with the man, but

because his case made a peculiar appeal to her sympathies. He was

so desperately in earnest, poor youth, and his earnestness was of

so different a quality from Bertha’s, though hers too was desperate

enough. The difference was that Bertha was in earnest only about

herself, while he was in earnest about her. But now, at the actual

crisis, this difference seemed to throw the weight of destitution

on Bertha’s side, since at least he had her to suffer for, and

she had only herself. At any rate, viewed less ideally, all the

disadvantages of such a situation were for the woman; and it was

to Bertha that Lily’s sympathies now went out. She was not fond of

Bertha Dorset, but neither was she without a sense of obligation,

the heavier for having so little personal liking to sustain it.

Bertha had been kind to her, they had lived together, during the

last months, on terms of easy friendship, and the sense of friction

of which Lily had recently become aware seemed to make it the more

urgent that she should work undividedly in her friend’s interest.

It was in Bertha’s interest, certainly, that she had despatched

Dorset to consult with Lawrence Selden. Once the grotesqueness

of the situation accepted, she had seen at a glance that it was

the safest in which Dorset could find himself. Who but Selden

could thus miraculously combine the skill to save Bertha with the

obligation of doing so? The consciousness that much skill would

be required made Lily rest thankfully in the greatness of the

obligation. Since he would HAVE to pull Bertha through she could

trust him to find a way; and she put the fulness of her trust in

the telegram she managed to send him on her way to the quay.

Thus far, then, Lily felt that she had done well; and the

conviction strengthened her for the task that remained. She and

Bertha had never been on confidential terms, but at such a crisis

the barriers of reserve must surely fall: Dorset’s wild allusions

to the scene of the morning made Lily feel that they were down

already, and that any attempt to rebuild them would be beyond

Bertha’s strength. She pictured the poor creature shivering behind

her fallen defences and awaiting with suspense the moment when

she could take refuge in the first shelter that offered. If only

that shelter had not already offered itself elsewhere! As the gig

traversed the short distance between the quay and the yacht, Lily

grew more than ever alarmed at the possible consequences of her

long absence. What if the wretched Bertha, finding in all the long

hours no soul to turn to—but by this time Lily’s eager foot was on

the side-ladder, and her first step on the Sabrina showed the worst

of her apprehensions to be unfounded; for there, in the luxurious

shade of the after-deck, the wretched Bertha, in full command of

her usual attenuated elegance, sat dispensing tea to the Duchess of

Beltshire and Lord Hubert.

The sight filled Lily with such surprise that she felt that

Bertha, at least, must read its meaning in her look, and she was

proportionately disconcerted by the blankness of the look returned.

But in an instant she saw that Mrs. Dorset had, of necessity, to

look blank before the others, and that, to mitigate the effect

of her own surprise, she must at once produce some simple reason

for it. The long habit of rapid transitions made it easy for her

to exclaim to the Duchess: “Why, I thought you’d gone back to the

Princess!” and this sufficed for the lady she addressed, if it was

hardly enough for Lord Hubert.

At least it opened the way to a lively explanation of how the

Duchess was, in fact, going back the next moment, but had first

rushed out to the yacht for a word with Mrs. Dorset on the subject

of tomorrow’s dinner—the dinner with the Brys, to which Lord Hubert

had finally insisted on dragging them.

“To save my neck, you know!” he explained, with a glance that

appealed to Lily for some recognition of his promptness; and the

Duchess added, with her noble candour: “Mr. Bry has promised him a

tip, and he says if we go he’ll pass it onto us.”

This led to some final pleasantries, in which, as it seemed to

Lily, Mrs. Dorset bore her part with astounding bravery, and at the

close of which Lord Hubert, from half way down the side-ladder,

called back, with an air of numbering heads: “And of course we may

count on Dorset too?”

“Oh, count on him,” his wife assented gaily. She was keeping up

well to the last—but as she turned back from waving her adieux over

the side, Lily said to herself that the mask must drop and the soul

of fear look out.

Mrs. Dorset turned back slowly; perhaps she wanted time to steady

her muscles; at any rate, they were still under perfect control

when, dropping once more into her seat behind the tea-table, she

remarked to Miss Bart with a faint touch of irony: “I suppose I

ought to say good morning.”

If it was a cue, Lily was ready to take it, though with only

the vaguest sense of what was expected of her in return. There

was something unnerving in the contemplation of Mrs. Dorset’s

composure, and she had to force the light tone in which she

answered: “I tried to see you this morning, but you were not yet

up.”

“No—I got to bed late. After we missed you at the station I thought

we ought to wait for you till the last train.” She spoke very

gently, but with just the least tinge of reproach.

“You missed us? You waited for us at the station?” Now indeed Lily

was too far adrift in bewilderment to measure the other’s words or

keep watch on her own. “But I thought you didn’t get to the station

till after the last train had left!”

Mrs. Dorset, examining her between lowered lids, met this with the

immediate query: “Who told you that?”

“George—I saw him just now in the gardens.”

“Ah, is that George’s version? Poor George—he was in no state to

remember what I told him. He had one of his worst attacks this

morning, and I packed him off to see the doctor. Do you know if he

found him?”

Lily, still lost in conjecture, made no reply, and Mrs. Dorset

settled herself indolently in her seat. “He’ll wait to see him; he

was horribly frightened about himself. It’s very bad for him to be

worried, and whenever anything upsetting happens, it always brings

on an attack.”

This time Lily felt sure that a cue was being pressed on her;

but it was put forth with such startling suddenness, and with so

incredible an air of ignoring what it led up to, that she could

only falter out doubtfully: “Anything upsetting?”

“Yes—such as having you so conspicuously on his hands in the small

hours. You know, my dear, you’re rather a big responsibility in

such a scandalous place after midnight.”

At that—at the complete unexpectedness and the inconceivable

audacity of it—Lily could not restrain the tribute of an astonished

laugh.

“Well, really—considering it was you who burdened him with the

responsibility!”

Mrs. Dorset took this with an exquisite mildness. “By not having

the superhuman cleverness to discover you in that frightful rush

for the train? Or the imagination to believe that you’d take it

without us—you and he all alone—instead of waiting quietly in the

station till we DID manage to meet you?”

Lily’s colour rose: it was growing clear to her that Bertha was

pursuing an object, following a line she had marked out for

herself. Only, with such a doom impending, why waste time in these

childish efforts to avert it? The puerility of the attempt disarmed

Lily’s indignation: did it not prove how horribly the poor creature

was frightened?

“No; by our simply all keeping together at Nice,” she returned.

“Keeping together? When it was you who seized the first opportunity

to rush off with the Duchess and her friends? My dear Lily, you are

not a child to be led by the hand!”

“No—nor to be lectured, Bertha, really; if that’s what you are

doing to me now.”

Mrs. Dorset smiled on her reproachfully. “Lecture you—I? Heaven

forbid! I was merely trying to give you a friendly hint. But it’s

usually the other way round, isn’t it? I’m expected to take hints,

not to give them: I’ve positively lived on them all these last

months.”

“Hints—from me to you?” Lily repeated.

“Oh, negative ones merely—what not to be and to do and to see. And

I think I’ve taken them to admiration. Only, my dear, if you’ll let

me say so, I didn’t understand that one of my negative duties was

NOT to warn you when you carried your imprudence too far.”

A chill of fear passed over Miss Bart: a sense of remembered

treachery that was like the gleam of a knife in the dusk. But

compassion, in a moment, got the better of her instinctive

recoil. What was this outpouring of senseless bitterness but the

tracked creature’s attempt to cloud the medium through which it

was fleeing? It was on Lily’s lips to exclaim: “You poor soul,

don’t double and turn—come straight back to me, and we’ll find a

way out!” But the words died under the impenetrable insolence of

Bertha’s smile. Lily sat silent, taking the brunt of it quietly,

letting it spend itself on her to the last drop of its accumulated

falseness; then, without a word, she rose and went down to her

cabin.