The House of Mirth | Page 3

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The House of Mirth BY EDITH WHARTON

BOOK ONE


Chapter 1
Selden paused in surprise. In the afternoon rush of the Grand Central Station his eyes had
been refreshed by the sight of Miss Lily Bart.
It was a Monday in early September, and he was returning to his work from a hurried dip
into the country; but what was Miss Bart doing in town at that season? If she had
appeared to be catching a train, he might have inferred that he had come on her in the act
of transition between one and another of the country-houses which disputed her presence

after the close of the Newport season; but her desultory air perplexed him. She stood
apart from the crowd, letting it drift by her to the platform or the street, and wearing an
air of irresolution which might, as he surmised, be the mask of a very definite purpose. It
struck him at once that she was waiting for some one, but he hardly knew why the idea
arrested him. There was nothing new about Lily Bart, yet he could never see her without
a faint movement of interest: it was characteristic of her that she always roused
speculation, that her simplest acts seemed the result of far-reaching intentions.
An impulse of curiosity made him turn out of his direct line to the door, and stroll past
her. He knew that if she did not wish to be seen she would contrive to elude him; and it
amused him to think of putting her skill to the test.
"Mr. Selden--what good luck!"
She came forward smiling, eager almost, in her resolve to intercept him. One or two
persons, in brushing past them, lingered to look; for Miss Bart was a figure to arrest even
the suburban traveller rushing to his last train.
Selden had never seen her more radiant. Her vivid head, relieved against the dull tints of
the crowd, made her more conspicuous than in a ball-room, and under her dark hat and
veil she regained the girlish smoothness, the purity of tint, that she was beginning to lose
after eleven years of late hours and indefatigable dancing. Was it really eleven years,
Selden found himself wondering, and had she indeed reached the nine-and-twentieth
birthday with which her rivals credited her?
"What luck!" she repeated. "How nice of you to come to my rescue!"
He responded joyfully that to do so was his mission in life, and asked what form the
rescue was to take.
"Oh, almost any--even to sitting on a bench and talking to me. One sits out a
cotillion--why not sit out a train? It isn't a bit hotter here than in Mrs. Van Osburgh's
conservatory--and some of the women are not a bit uglier." She broke off, laughing, to
explain that she had come up to town from Tuxedo, on her way to the Gus Trenors' at
Bellomont, and had missed the three-fifteen train to Rhinebeck. "And there isn't another
till half-past five." She consulted the little jewelled watch among her laces. "Just two
hours to wait. And I don't know what to do with myself. My maid came up this morning
to do some shopping for me, and was to go on to Bellomont at one o'clock, and my aunt's
house is closed, and I don't know a soul in town." She glanced plaintively about the
station. "It IS hotter than Mrs. Van Osburgh's, after all. If you can spare the time, do take
me somewhere for a breath of air."
He declared himself entirely at her disposal: the adventure struck him as diverting. As a
spectator, he had always enjoyed Lily Bart; and his course lay so far out of her orbit that
it amused him to be drawn for a moment into the sudden intimacy which her proposal
implied.
"Shall we go over to Sherry's for a cup of tea?"

She smiled assentingly, and then made a slight grimace.
"So many people come up to town on a Monday--one is sure to meet a lot of bores. I'm as
old as the hills, of course, and it ought not to make any difference; but if I'M old enough,
you're