The House of Mirth

by Edith Wharton

Lily flushed under the shadow of her drooping hair. “The world is too vile,” she murmured, averting herself from Mrs. Fisher’s anxious scrutiny. “It’s not a pretty place; and the only way to keep a footing in it is to fight it on its own terms—and above all, my dear, not alone!” Mrs. Fisher gathered up her floating implications in a resolute grasp. “You’ve told me so little that I can only guess what has been happening; but in the rush we all live in, there’s no time to keep on hating any one without a cause, and if Bertha is still nasty enough to want to injure you with other people, it must be because she’s still afraid of you. From her standpoint there’s only one reason for being afraid of you; and my own idea is that if you want to punish her, you hold the means in your hand. I believe you can marry George Dorset to-morrow; but if you don’t care for that particular form of retaliation, the only thing to save you from Bertha is to marry somebody else.”