As she reached Fiftieth Street the clouds broke abruptly, and a
rush of cold rain slanted into her face. She had no umbrella and
the moisture quickly penetrated her thin spring dress. She was
still half a mile from her destination, and she decided to walk
across to Madison Avenue and take the electric car. As she turned
into the side street, a vague memory stirred in her. The row of
budding trees, the new brick and limestone house-fronts, the
Georgian flat-house with flowerboxes on its balconies, were
merged together into the setting of a familiar scene. It was down
this street that she had walked with Selden, that September day
two years ago; a few yards ahead was the doorway they had entered
together. The recollection loosened a throng of benumbed
sensations--longings, regrets, imaginings, the throbbing brood of
the only spring her heart had ever known. It was strange to find
herself passing his house on such an errand. She seemed suddenly
to see her action as he would see it--and the fact of his own
connection with it, the fact that, to attain her end, she must
trade on his name, and profit by a secret of his past, chilled
her blood with shame. What a long way she had travelled since the
day of their first talk together! Even then her feet had been set
in the path she was now following--even then she had resisted the
hand he had held out.
All her resentment of his fancied coldness was swept away in this
overwhelming rush of recollection. Twice he had been
ready to help her--to help her by loving her, as he had said--and
if, the third time, he had seemed to fail her, whom but herself
could she accuse? . . . Well, that part of her life was over; she
did not know why her thoughts still clung to it. But the sudden
longing to see him remained; it grew to hunger as she paused on
the pavement opposite his door. The street was dark and empty,
swept by the rain. She had a vision of his quiet room, of the
bookshelves, and the fire on the hearth. She looked up and saw a
light in his window; then she crossed the street and entered the
house.
The library looked as she had pictured it. The green-shaded lamps
made tranquil circles of light in the gathering dusk, a little
fire flickered on the hearth, and Selden's easy-chair, which
stood near it, had been pushed aside when he rose to admit her.
He had checked his first movement of surprise, and stood silent,
waiting for her to speak, while she paused a moment on the
threshold, assailed by a rush of memories.
The scene was unchanged. She recognized the row of shelves from
which he had taken down his La Bruyere, and the worn arm of the
chair he had leaned against while she examined the precious
volume. But then the wide September light had filled the room,
making it seem a part of the outer world: now the shaded lamps
and the warm hearth, detaching it from the gathering darkness of
the street, gave it a sweeter touch of intimacy.
Becoming gradually aware of the surprise under Selden's silence,
Lily turned to him and said simply: "I came to tell you that I
was sorry for the way we parted--for what I said to you that day
at Mrs. Hatch's."
The words rose to her lips spontaneously. Even on her way up the
stairs, she had not thought of preparing a pretext for her visit,
but she now felt an intense longing to dispel the cloud of
misunderstanding that hung between them.
Selden returned her look with a smile. "I was sorry too that we
should have parted in that way; but I am not sure I didn't bring
it on myself. Luckily I had foreseen the risk I was taking---"
"So that you really didn't care---?" broke from her with a flash
of her old irony.
"So that I was prepared for the consequences," he corrected
good-humouredly. "But we'll talk of all this later. Do come and
sit by the fire. I can recommend that arm-chair, if you'll let me
put a cushion behind you."
While he spoke she had moved slowly to the middle of the room,
and paused near his writing-table, where the lamp,
striking upward, cast exaggerated shadows on the pallour of her
delicately-hollowed face.
"You look tired--do sit down," he repeated gently.
She did not seem to hear the request. "I wanted you to know that
I left Mrs. Hatch immediately after I saw you," she said, as
though continuing her confession.
"Yes--yes; I know," he assented, with a rising tinge of
embarrassment.
"And that I did so because you told me to. Before you came I had
already begun to see that it would be impossible to remain with
her--for the reasons you gave me; but I wouldn't admit it--I
wouldn't let you see that I understood what you meant."
"Ah, I might have trusted you to find your own way out--don't
overwhelm me with the sense of my officiousness!"
His light tone, in which, had her nerves been steadier, she would
have recognized the mere effort to bridge over an awkward moment,
jarred on her passionate desire to be understood. In her strange
state of extra-lucidity, which gave her the sense of being
already at the heart of the situation, it seemed incredible that
any one should think it necessary to linger in the conventional
outskirts of word-play and evasion.
"It was not that--I was not ungrateful," she insisted. But the
power of expression failed her suddenly; she felt a tremor in her
throat, and two tears gathered and fell slowly from her eyes.
Selden moved forward and took her hand. "You are very tired. Why
won't you sit down and let me make you comfortable?"
He drew her to the arm-chair near the fire, and placed a cushion
behind her shoulders.
"And now you must let me make you some tea: you know I always
have that amount of hospitality at my command."
She shook her head, and two more tears ran over. But she did not
weep easily, and the long habit of self-control reasserted
itself, though she was still too tremulous to speak.
"You know I can coax the water to boil in five minutes," Selden
continued, speaking as though she were a troubled child.
His words recalled the vision of that other afternoon
when they had sat together over his tea-table and talked
jestingly of her future. There were moments when that day seemed
more remote than any other event in her life; and yet she could
always relive it in its minutest detail.
She made a gesture of refusal. "No: I drink too much tea. I would
rather sit quiet--I must go in a moment," she added confusedly.
Selden continued to stand near her, leaning against the
mantelpiece. The tinge of constraint was beginning to be more
distinctly perceptible under the friendly ease of his manner. Her
self-absorption had not allowed her to perceive it at first; but
now that her consciousness was once more putting forth its eager
feelers, she saw that her presence was becoming an embarrassment
to him. Such a situation can be saved only by an immediate
outrush of feeling; and on Selden's side the determining impulse
was still lacking.
The discovery did not disturb Lily as it might once have done.
She had passed beyond the phase of well-bred reciprocity, in
which every demonstration must be scrupulously proportioned to
the emotion it elicits, and generosity of feeling is the only
ostentation condemned. But the sense of loneliness returned with
redoubled force as she saw herself forever shut out from Selden's
inmost self. She had come to him with no definite purpose; the
mere longing to see him had directed her; but the secret hope she
had carried with her suddenly revealed itself in its death-pang.
"I must go," she repeated, making a motion to rise from her
chair. "But I may not see you again for a long time, and I wanted
to tell you that I have never forgotten the things you said to me
at Bellomont, and that sometimes--sometimes when I seemed
farthest from remembering them--they have helped me, and kept me
from mistakes; kept me from really becoming what many people have
thought me."
Strive as she would to put some order in her thoughts, the words
would not come more clearly; yet she felt that she could not
leave him without trying to make him understand that she had
saved herself whole from the seeming ruin of her life.
A change had come over Selden's face as she spoke. Its guarded
look had yielded to an expression still untinged by personal
emotion, but full of a gentle understanding.
"I am glad to have you tell me that; but nothing I have said has
really made the difference. The difference is in yourself--it
will always be there. And since it IS there, it can't really
matter to you what people think: you are so sure that your
friends will always understand you."
"Ah, don't say that--don't say that what you have told me has
made no difference. It seems to shut me out--to leave me all
alone with the other people." She had risen and stood before him,
once more completely mastered by the inner urgency of the moment.
The consciousness of his half-divined reluctance had vanished.
Whether he wished it or not, he must see her wholly for once
before they parted.
Her voice had gathered strength, and she looked him gravely in
the eyes as she continued. "Once--twice--you gave me the chance
to escape from my life, and I refused it: refused it because I
was a coward. Afterward I saw my mistake--I saw I could never be
happy with what had contented me before. But it was too late: you
had judged me--I understood. It was too late for happiness--but
not too late to be helped by the thought of what I had missed.
That is all I have lived on--don't take it from me now! Even in
my worst moments it has been like a little light in the darkness.
Some women are strong enough to be good by themselves, but I
needed the help of your belief in me. Perhaps I might have
resisted a great temptation, but the little ones would have
pulled me down. And then I remembered--I remembered your saying
that such a life could never satisfy me; and I was ashamed to
admit to myself that it could. That is what you did for me--that
is what I wanted to thank you for. I wanted to tell you that I
have always remembered; and that I have tried--tried hard . . ."
She broke off suddenly. Her tears had risen again, and in drawing
out her handkerchief her fingers touched the packet in the folds
of her dress. A wave of colour suffused her, and the words died
on her lips. Then she lifted her eyes to his and went on in an
altered voice.
"I have tried hard--but life is difficult, and I am a very
useless person. I can hardly be said to have an independent
existence. I was just a screw or a cog in the great machine
I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was
of no use anywhere else. What can one do when one finds that one
only fits into one hole? One must get back to it or be thrown out
into the rubbish heap--and you don't know what it's like in the
rubbish heap!"
Her lips wavered into a smile--she had been distracted by the
whimsical remembrance of the confidences she had made to him, two
years earlier, in that very room. Then she had been planning to
marry Percy Gryce--what was it she was planning now?
The blood had risen strongly under Selden's dark skin, but his
emotion showed itself only in an added seriousness of manner.
"You have something to tell me--do you mean to marry?" he said
abruptly.
Lily's eyes did not falter, but a look of wonder, of puzzled
self-interrogation, formed itself slowly in their depths. In the
light of his question, she had paused to ask herself if her
decision had really been taken when she entered the room.
"You always told me I should have to come to it sooner or later!"
she said with a faint smile.
"And you have come to it now?"
"I shall have to come to it--presently. But there is something
else I must come to first." She paused again, trying to transmit
to her voice the steadiness of her recovered smile. "There is
some one I must say goodbye to. Oh, not YOU--we are sure to see
each other again--but the Lily Bart you knew. I have kept her
with me all this time, but now we are going to part, and I have
brought her back to you--I am going to leave her here. When I go
out presently she will not go with me. I shall like to think that
she has stayed with you--and she'll be no trouble, she'll take up
no room."
She went toward him, and put out her hand, still smiling. "Will
you let her stay with you?" she asked.
He caught her hand, and she felt in his the vibration of feeling
that had not yet risen to his lips. "Lily--can't I help you?" he
exclaimed.
She looked at him gently. "Do you remember what you said to me
once? That you could help me only by loving me? Well--you did
love me for a moment; and it helped me. It has always
helped me. But the moment is gone--it was I who let it go. And
one must go on living. Goodbye."
She laid her other hand on his, and they looked at each other
with a kind of solemnity, as though they stood in the presence of
death. Something in truth lay dead between them--the love she had
killed in him and could no longer call to life. But something
lived between them also, and leaped up in her like an
imperishable flame: it was the love his love had kindled, the
passion of her soul for his.
In its light everything else dwindled and fell away from her. She
understood now that she could not go forth and leave her old self
with him: that self must indeed live on in his presence, but it
must still continue to be hers.
Selden had retained her hand, and continued to scrutinize her
with a strange sense of foreboding. The external aspect of the
situation had vanished for him as completely as for her: he felt
it only as one of those rare moments which lift the veil from
their faces as they pass.
"Lily," he said in a low voice, "you mustn't speak in this way. I
can't let you go without knowing what you mean to do. Things may
change--but they don't pass. You can never go out of my life."
She met his eyes with an illumined look. "No," she said. "I see
that now. Let us always be friends. Then I shall feel safe,
whatever happens."
"Whatever happens? What do you mean? What is going to happen?"
She turned away quietly and walked toward the hearth.
"Nothing at present--except that I am very cold, and that before
I go you must make up the fire for me."
She knelt on the hearth-rug, stretching her hands to the embers.
Puzzled by the sudden change in her tone, he mechanically
gathered a handful of wood from the basket and tossed it on the
fire. As he did so, he noticed how thin her hands looked against
the rising light of the flames. He saw too, under the loose lines
of her dress, how the curves of her figure had shrunk to
angularity; he remembered long afterward how the red play of the
flame sharpened the depression of her nostrils, and intensified
the blackness of the shadows which struck up from her cheekbones
to her eyes. She knelt there for a few moments in
silence; a silence which he dared not break. When she rose he
fancied that he saw her draw something from her dress and drop it
into the fire; but he hardly noticed the gesture at the time. His
faculties seemed tranced, and he was still groping for the word
to break the spell. She went up to him and laid her hands on his
shoulders. "Goodbye," she said, and as he bent over her she
touched his forehead with her lips.
The street-lamps were lit, but the rain had ceased, and there was
a momentary revival of light in the upper sky. Lily walked on
unconscious of her surroundings. She was still treading the
buoyant ether which emanates from the high moments of life. But
gradually it shrank away from her and she felt the dull pavement
beneath her feet. The sense of weariness returned with
accumulated force, and for a moment she felt that she could walk
no farther. She had reached the corner of Forty-first Street and
Fifth Avenue, and she remembered that in Bryant Park there were
seats where she might rest.
That melancholy pleasure-ground was almost deserted when she
entered it, and she sank down on an empty bench in the glare of
an electric street-lamp. The warmth of the fire had passed out of
her veins, and she told herself that she must not sit long in the
penetrating dampness which struck up from the wet asphalt. But
her will-power seemed to have spent itself in a last great
effort, and she was lost in the blank reaction which follows on
an unwonted expenditure of energy. And besides, what was there to
go home to? Nothing but the silence of her cheerless room--that
silence of the night which may be more racking to tired nerves
than the most discordant noises: that, and the bottle of chloral
by her bed. The thought of the chloral was the only spot of light
in the dark prospect: she could feel its lulling influence
stealing over her already. But she was troubled by the thought
that it was losing its power--she dared not go back to it too
soon. Of late the sleep it had brought her had been more broken
and less profound; there had been nights when she was perpetually
floating up through it to consciousness. What if the effect of
the drug should gradually fail, as all narcotics were said to
fail? She remembered the chemist's warning against increasing the
dose; and she had heard before of the capricious and incalculable
action of the drug. Her dread of returning to a sleepless night
was so great that she lingered on, hoping that excessive
weariness would reinforce the waning power of the chloral.
Night had now closed in, and the roar of traffic in Forty-second
Street was dying out. As complete darkness fell on the square the
lingering occupants of the benches rose and dispersed; but now
and then a stray figure, hurrying homeward, struck across the
path where Lily sat, looming black for a moment in the white
circle of electric light. One or two of these passers-by
slackened their pace to glance curiously at her lonely figure;
but she was hardly conscious of their scrutiny.
