The Hermit and the Wild Woman, and Other Stories

untry and town, and Fifth Avenue, still deserted at the week-end, showed from Monday to Frid

ok in upon the scene. Mrs. Gormer, among the rest, was not above seizing such an occasion for the display of herself and her horses; and Lily was given one or two opportunities of appearing at her friend's side in the most conspicuous box the house afforded. But this lingering semblance of intimacy made her only the more conscious of a change in the relation between Mattie and herself, of a dawning discrimination, a gradually formed social standard, emerging from Mrs. Gormer's chaotic view of life. It was inevitab

to her old habits of life marked her as being unmistakably excluded from them. If one were not a part of the season's fixed routine, one swung unsphered in a void of social non-existence. Lily, for all her dissatisfied dreaming, had never really conceived the possibility of revolving about a different centre: it was easy enough to despise the world, but decidedly difficult to find any other habitable region. Her sense of irony never quite deserted her, and she could still note, with self-directed derision, the abnormal value suddenly acquired by the most tiresome and insignificant details of her former life. Its very drudgeries had a charm now that she was invol

ved, and really felt herself entitled to, was a situation in which the noblest attitude should also be the easiest. Hitherto her intermittent impulses of resistance had sufficed to maintain her self-respect. If she slipped she recovered her footing, and it was only afterward that she was aware of havi

but she saw her passionately and irretrievably pledged to the ruinous policy of "keeping up." Gerty could smile now at her own early dream of her friend's renovation through adversity: she understood clearly enough that Lily was not of th

he put into execution the belated resolve to visit her friend, this sense of shrunken opportunities possessed her with unusual intensity. The walk up Fifth Avenue, unfolding before her, in the brilliance of the hard winter sunlight, an interminable procession of fastidiously-equipped carriages-giving her, through the little squares of brougham-windows, peeps of familiar profiles bent above visiting-lists, of hurried hands dispensing notes and cards to attendant footmen-this glimpse of the

ith me: she and her sister want to do something to support themse

ss Bart asked with a touch of irritation: she ha

rtha Dorset would be such a good influence, because she doesn't care for cards, and-well, she talked quite beautifully to poor Miss Jane about feeling as if Ned w

uence on Freddy, who left Harvard last spring, and has been a great deal with Ned ever since. She sent for Miss Jane, and made a dreadful scene; and Jack Stepney and Herbert Melson, who were there too, told Miss Jane that Freddy was threatening to marry some dreadful woman to whom Ned had introduced him, and that they could do nothing with him because now he's of age he has his own money. You can fancy how poor Mi

dear Gerty, I always understand how people can spen

elf in Gerty's easy-chair, while her f

. It was the very last topic she had meant to discuss-it really did not interest her in the least-but she was seized by a sudden perverse curiosity to know how t

ne reads aloud very nicely-but it's so hard to find any one w

l be doing myself before long!" exclaimed Lily, starting up with a vehemenc

en there was no room to dash about in-how beautifully one does have to behave in

her pale face, in which the eyes sh

take your tea, and let me give y

of tea, but put back the cu

n't want to lean back-I s

be as quiet as a mouse,"

wake! I don't sleep at night, and in the aft

eep at night?

up on the tea-tray. "Another, and stronger, please; if I don'

worse if you dri

imperiously. Her voice had a dangerous edge, and Gerty noticed t

tired: I'm sure y

scoloured. Any one would look ghastly in it!" She turned back, fixing her plaintive eyes on Gerty. "You stupid dear, why do you say such odious things to me? It's enough to make one ill to be told one looks so!

your eyes are shining, and your cheek

use I'm so nervous-but in the mornings they look like lead. And I can see the lines coming in my face-the lines of worry and disapp

d Gerty, gently detaching her wrist

e rich, rather than with them: and so we do, in a sense-but it's a privilege we have to pay for! We eat their dinners, and drink their wine, and smoke their cigarettes, and use their carriages and their opera-boxes and their private cars-yes, but there's a tax to pay on every one of those luxuries. The man pays it by big tips to the se

ropped above her fagged brilliant gaze, Gerty had a startled perception of the change in her face-of the way in whi

in this way much longer, you know-I'm nearly at the end of my tether. And then what can I do-how on earth am I to keep myself alive? I see myself reduced to the fate of that poor Silverton woman-slinking about to employment agenc

ng her hair with a light hand, drawing down her veil, and giving a dexterous touch to her furs. "Of course, you know, it hasn't come to the employment agencies and the painted blotting-pads yet; but I'm rather hard-up just for the moment, and if I could find s

boarding-house, or the provisional hospitality of a bed in Gerty Farish's sitting-room, was an expedient which could only postpone the problem confronting her; and it seemed wiser as well as more agreeable to remain where she was and find some means of earning he

iculty of discovering a workable vein in the vague wealth of Lily's graces. Mrs. Fisher was full of indirect expedients for enabling her friends to earn a living, and could conscientiously assert that she had put several opportunities of this kind before Lily; but more legitimate methods of bread-winning were as much out of her line as they were beyond the capacity of the sufferers she was generally called upon to assist. Lily's failure to profit by t

erself visibly identified with them, as long as the illusion could be maintained. Pitiable as such an attitude seemed to Gerty, she could not judge it as harshly as Selden, for instance, might have done. She had not forgotten the night of emotion when she and Lily had lain in each other's arms, and she had seemed to feel her very heart's blood passing into her friend. The sacrifice she had made had seemed unavailing enough; no trace

ed without seeking to explain it. To Gerty herself it would once have seemed impossible that she should ever again talk freely with him of Lily Bart; but what had passed in the secrecy of her own breas

presented himself on a Sunday afternoon, had lingered on through the dowdy animation of his cousin's tea-hour, conscious of something in her voic

use gave her time for a

I've perpetually missed see

he brink of her subject when he relieved her by adding: "I've wanted to see her-b

re reason: she's b

being with t

hat too is at an end now, I think. You know people have

ontinued to explain: "Judy Trenor and her own family have deserted her too-and all because Bertha Dorset has said such horrible things. An

ess steps in the circumscribed space between door and window. "Yes-she's been abominably treated; b

disappointment. "There would be other way

little sofa which projected from the hearth. "What are

g of the fact that you and she used to be great friends-that she used to care immensely for what you thought of her-and that

: "But, though you immensely exaggerate the importance of anything I could do for Miss Bart, you can't exaggerate my readiness to do it-if you ask me to." He laid his hand for a moment on hers, and there passed between them, on the current of the rare contact, one of those e

uld reach out a hand and show her the other side-show her how much is left in life and in herself--" Gerty broke off, abashed at the sound of her own eloquence, and impeded by the difficulty of giving precise expression to her vague yearning for her friend's retrieval. "I can't help her myself: she's passed out of my reach," she continued. "I think she's afraid of being a burden to me. When she was last here, two weeks ago, she seemed dreadfully worried about her future: she said Carry Fisher was trying to find something for her to do. A few days later

e of expression. When his cousin ended, he said with a slight smile: "Since you've learned the wisdom of waiting, I don't see why you urge me to rush in-

or Alaska with the Gormers. The revelation of this suddenly-established intimacy effectually chilled his desire to see her. If, at a moment when her whole life seemed to be breaking up, she could cheerfully commit its reconstruction to the Gormers, there was no reason why such accidents should ever strike her as irreparable. Every step she took seemed in fact to carry her farther from the region where, once or twice, he and she had met for an illumi

ought of Lily Bart. To hear that she was in need of help-even such vague help as he could offer-was to be at once repossessed by that thought; and by th

away; but, on his pressing his enquiries, the clerk remembered that she had

was sought for. The process lasted long enough for uneasiness to turn to apprehension; but when at length a slip of paper was handed him, and he read on it: "Care of Mrs. Norma Hat