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February 2 - February 12, 1990
it was characteristic of her that she always roused speculation, that her simplest acts seemed the result of far-reaching intentions.
But he could never be long with her without trying to find a reason for what she was doing,
Cressida
in mythology, an archetype of a faithless lover
Raith.”
Wraith?
“Disappointed? Had you known her before?” “Mercy, no—never saw her till yesterday.
Isn't it rather an overstatement to say one is "awfully disappointed" in someone that was unknown until only yesterday?
It was rather that he had preserved a certain social detachment, a happy air of viewing the show objectively,
Lily smiled at her classification of her friends. How different they had seemed to her a few hours ago! Then they had symbolized what she was gaining, now they stood for what she was giving up. That very afternoon they had seemed full of brilliant qualities; now she saw that they were merely dull in a loud way.
Under the glitter of their opportunities she saw the poverty of their achievement.
All her plans for the day had been built on the assumption that it was to see her that Selden had come to Bellomont. She had expected, when she came downstairs, to find him on the watch for her; and she had found him, instead, in a situation which might well denote that he had been on the watch for another lady.
It did not occur to her that Selden might have been actuated merely by the desire to spend a Sunday out of town:
“That’s just what I don’t know; and to find out, it is my business to get to church before the service is over.” “Exactly; and it is my business to prevent your doing so;
“Won’t you devote your afternoon to it? You know I must be off tomorrow morning. We’ll take a walk, and you can thank me at your leisure.”
Selden is toying with Lily. He knows she should devote the afternoon to Percy Gryce - especially after skipping church only to have Gryce come upon the two of them socializing after church. But his ego can't resist dangling the opportunity of an afternoon with him, just to see which she will choose.
His reputed cultivation was generally regarded as a slight obstacle to easy intercourse, but Lily, who prided herself on her broad-minded recognition of literature, and always carried an Omar Khayam in her travelling-bag, was attracted by this attribute, which she felt would have had
but this air of friendly aloofness, as far removed as possible from any assertion of personal advantage, was the quality which piqued Lily’s interest.
She admired him most of all, perhaps, for being able to convey as distinct a sense of superiority as the richest man she had ever met.
his words were too acute not to strike her sense of humour.
“My idea of success,” he said, “is personal freedom.”
But suddenly she turned on him with a kind of vehemence. “Why do you do this to me?” she cried. “Why do you make the things I have chosen seem hateful to me, if you have nothing to give me instead?”
“No, I have nothing to give you instead,” he said, sitting up and turning so that he faced her. “If I had, it should be yours, you know.” She received this abrupt declaration in a way even stranger than the manner of its making: she dropped her face on her hands and he saw that for a moment she wept.
“But you belittle ME, don’t you,” she returned gently, “in being so sure they are the only things I care for?” Selden felt an inner start; but it was only the last quiver of his egoism. Almost at once he answered quite simply: “But you do care for them, don’t you? And no wishing of mine can alter that.”
“Do you want to marry me?” she asked. He broke into a laugh. “No, I don’t want to—but perhaps I should if you did!” “That’s what I told you—you’re so sure of me that you can amuse yourself with experiments.
but if marrying you is one of them, I will take the risk.” She smiled faintly. “It would be a great risk, certainly—I have never concealed from you how great.” “Ah, it’s you who are the coward!” he exclaimed.
“Were you serious?” she asked, with an odd thrill of gaiety which she might have caught up, in haste, from a heap of stock inflections, without having time to select the just note. Selden’s voice was under better control. “Why not?” he returned. “You see I took no risks in being so.”
I have never recovered my self-respect since you showed me how poor and unimportant my ambitions were.”
“I thought, on the contrary,” he returned lightly, “that I had been the means of proving they were more important to you than anything else.”
By replying in this manner, isn't Selden purposely adding further injury to Lily? Telling her that her goal of marrying for money is the most important ambition she has?
As she did so, it struck her with a flash of irony that she was indebted to Gus Trenor for the means of buying them.
If Gus Trenor hadn't provided her with the "stock tips" and the cash only earlier in tbe day, Lily would not have had the funds to purchase Bertha Dorset's letters to Lawrence Selden.
No insect hangs its nest on threads as frail as those which will sustain the weight of human vanity; and the sense of being of importance among the insignificant was enough to restore to Miss Bart the gratifying consciousness of power.
When Mr. Rosedale took leave, he carried with him, not only her acceptance of his invitation,
What was Lily thinking???
Such details did not fall within the range of Mrs. Peniston’s vision. Like many minds of panoramic sweep, hers was apt to overlook the MINUTIAE of the foreground, and she was much more likely to know where Carry Fisher had found the Welly Brys’ CHEF for them, than what was happening to her own niece.
Lily, to whom family reunions were occasions of unalloyed dulness, had persuaded her aunt that a dinner of “smart” people would be much more to the taste of the young couple,
and Lily, whose mind could be severely logical in tracing the causes of her ill-luck to others,
And she had felt, even in the full storm of her misery, that Selden’s love could not be her ultimate refuge; only it would be so sweet to take a moment’s shelter there, while she gathered fresh strength to go on.
Never had she appeared more serenely mistress of the situation than when, at the moment of dispersal, detaching herself a little from the group about the table, she turned with a smile and a graceful slant of the shoulders to receive her cloak from Dorset.
That was stupid of her
“I am joining the Duchess tomorrow,” she explained, “and it seemed easier for me to remain on shore for the night.”
She did not indeed let her imagination range beyond the day of plighting: after that everything faded into a haze of material well-being,
She had learned, in her long vigils, that there were certain things not good to think of, certain midnight images that must at any cost be exorcised—and one of these was the image of herself as Rosedale’s wife.
“That’s what Bertha means, isn’t it?” Miss Bart went on steadily. “For of course she always means something; and before I left Long Island I saw that she was beginning to lay her toils for Mattie.” Mrs. Fisher sighed evasively. “She has her fast now, at any rate. To think of that loud independence of Mattie’s being only a subtler form of snobbishness! Bertha can already make her believe anything she pleases—and I’m afraid she’s begun, my poor child, by insinuating horrors about you.”
Mrs. Fisher gathered up her floating implications in a resolute grasp.
As if they were her skirts
recalled to Miss Bart the September afternoon when she had climbed the slopes of Bellomont with Selden.
The importunate memory was kept before her by its ironic contrast to her present situation, since her walk with Selden had represented an irresistible flight from just such a climax as the present excursion was designed to bring about.
the Rosedale she felt it in her power to create
“I DO believe what you say, Mr. Rosedale,” she said quietly; “and I am ready to marry you whenever you wish.”
!!!
but I don’t mean to ask you to marry me as long as I can keep out of it.”
She received this with a look from which all tinge of resentment had faded. After the tissue of social falsehoods in which she had so long moved it was refreshing to step into the open daylight of an avowed expediency.
“A year ago I should have been of use to you, and now I should be an encumbrance; and I like you for telling me so quite honestly.”
“The wonder to me is that you’ve waited so long to get square with that woman, when you’ve had the power in your hands.” She continued silent under the rush of astonishment that his words produced, and he moved a step closer to ask with low-toned directness: “Why don’t you use those letters of hers you bought last year?”
How does Rosedale know about the letters?
the only way for you to start fresh is to get Bertha Dorset to back you up, instead of trying to fight her.”
Is Rosedale proposing Lily hold the letters over Bertha? Rather than turning them over to George (as proof of Bertha's serial adultery)?
found herself held fast in the grasp of his argument by the mere cold strength of its presentation.
Completely pragmatic
And it was not, after the first moment, the horror of the idea that held her spell-bound, subdued to his will; it was rather its subtle affinity to her own inmost cravings. He would marry her tomorrow if she could regain Bertha Dorset’s friendship; and to induce the open resumption of that friendship, and the tacit retractation of all that had caused its withdrawal, she had only to put to the lady the latent menace contained in the packet so miraculously delivered into her hands.
reduced the transaction to a private understanding, of which no third person need have the remotest hint. Put by Rosedale in terms of businesslike give-and-take, this understanding took on the harmless air of a mutual accommodation, like a transfer of property or a revision of boundary lines.
