The Hermit and the Wild Woman, and Other Stories

ded keenness to the luxury of lying once more in a soft-pillowed bed, and looking across a spacious sunlit room at a breakfast-table set invitingly near the fire. Ana

, as in some dense mild medium impenetrable to discomf

she owned herself unacquainted with Mrs. Hatch, whom she "knew about" through Melville Stancy, a lawyer in his leisure moments, and the Falstaff of a certain section of festive dub life. Socially, Mr. Stancy might have been said to form a connecting link between the Gormer world and the more dimly-lit region on which Miss Bart now found herself entering. It was, however, only figuratively that the illumination of Mrs. Hatch's world could be described as dim: in actual fact, Lily found her seated in a blaze of electric light, impartially projected from various ornam

ngs as richly upholstered as the furniture, beings without definite pursuits or permanent relations, who drifted on a languid tide of curiosity from restaurant to concert-hall, from palm-garden to music-room, from "art exhibit" to dress-maker's opening. High-stepping horses or elaborately equipped motors waited to carry these ladies into vague metropolitan distances, whence they returned, still more wan from the weig

el life in the metropolis. It was he who had selected the horses with which she had taken the blue ribbon at the Show, had introduced her to the photographer whose portraits of her formed the recurring ornament of "Sunday Supplements," and had got together the group which constituted her social world. It was a small group still, with heterogeneous figures suspended in large unpeopled spaces; but Lily did not take long to learn that its regulation was no longer in Mr. Stancy's hands. As often happens, the pupil had outstripped the teacher, and Mrs. Hatch

atch and her friends seemed to float together outside the bounds of time and space. No definite hours were kept; no fixed obligations existed: night and day flowed into one another in a blur of confus

ng-room was one of Lily's first astonishments; but she soon discovered that he was not Mr. Stancy's most important recruit. It was on little Freddy Van Osburgh, the small slim heir of the Van Osburgh millions, that the attention of Mrs. Hatch's group was centred. Freddy, barely out of college, had risen above the horizon since Lily's eclipse, and she now saw with surprise what an effulgence he shed on the outer twilight of Mrs. Hatch's existence. This, then, was one of the things that young men "went in" for when released from the official social routine; this was the kind of "previous engagement" that so frequently caused them to disappoint the hopes of anxious hostesses. Lily had an odd sense of being behind the social tapestry, on the side where the threads were knotted and the loose ends hung. For a mom

roval. Far from asserting the superiority of wealth, her beautiful eyes seemed to urge the plea of inexperience: she wanted to do

ikely to proceed from a wandering and extravagant good-nature. But if Lily did not mind her detaining her manicure for luncheon, or offering the "Beauty-Doctor" a seat in Freddy Van Osburgh's box at the play, she was not equally at ease in regard to some less apparent lapses from convention. Ned Silverton's relation to Stancy seemed, for instance, closer and less clear than any natural affinities would warrant; and both appeared united in the effort to cultivate Freddy Van Osburgh's growing taste for Mrs. Hatch. There was as yet nothing definable in the situation, which might well resolve itself into a huge joke on the part of the other two; but Lily had a vague sense that the subject of their experiment was too young, too rich and too c

rom Lawrence Selden. He found her alone in the wilderness of pink damask, for in Mrs. Hatch's wo

of restoring her self-possession, and she took at once the tone of surprise and pleasure, wondering frankly

put in his way. "I wanted to see you," he said; and she could not resist observing in reply that he had kept his wishes under remarkable control. She had i

I have come, unless I thought I could be of use to you

gave a flash of keenness to her answer. "Then you hav

the modest capacity of a pers

but she had never been able to wish him out of the room. She was very near hating him now; yet the sound of his voice, the way the light fell on his thin dark hair, the way he sat and moved and wore his clothes-she was conscious that even these trivial things were inwoven with her deepest life.

cleared up only by a sudden explosion of feeling; and their whole training and habit of mind were against the chances of such an explosion. Selden's calmness seemed rather to harden into resistance, and Miss Bart's into a surface of g

s. Hatch's secretary; and I knew she was

out perceptible softening. "Why didn't s

portunate." Selden continued with a smile: "You see no such scruples rest

en't incurred it as yet; but I ha

ou see my initiative doesn't go bey

am I to do with you?" she

aid, with a decision which he seemed to have gathered from this

k; then she stiffened under it and said col

if you will; the essential thing is

own were in a flame of revolt. To neglect her, perhaps even to avoid her, at a time when she had most need of her friends, and then suddenly a

ng such an interest in my plans; but I am quite cont

ding before her in an attitude

t you don't know where

anger. "If you have come here to say d

relation to Mrs. Hatch

e ashamed of. She has helped me to earn a living when m

native. You know you can always find a home

ce with my affairs that I suppose you

dged without embarrassment. He was too much in earnest

ow," Miss Bart rejoined, "that I

tartled out of his composure by

to remain with Mrs. Hatch rather than take advantage of Gerty's kindness. I have no mo

so far into the details of the situation-you and she could surely contrive a life together which would put you beyond the

Gerty nor wise for myself." She paused a moment, and as he seemed to await a farther explanation

or suggestion beyond the one I have already made. And my right to make that is simply the univers

that I had been excluded from those sacred precincts long before I met Mrs. Hatch. As far as I can see, there is very little real di

he result of the experiment was disappointing. Selden did not allow the allusion to deflect him from his point; he merely said with completer fulness of emphasis: "The question of being i

over him; and his attitude of sober impartiality, the absence of all response to her appeal, turned her hurt pride to blind resentment of his interference. The conviction that he had been sent by Gerty, and that, whatever straits he conceived her to be in, he

ou describe; but as you have always told me that the sole object of a bringing-up like mine wa

s: its brightness held him at such a distance that he had a sense of being almost out of hearing as he

nger-give me a little more time before you decide!" And as he wavered before her, still watching for a break i