The House of Mirth | Page 4

not," she objected gaily. "I'm dying for tea--but isn't there a quieter place?"
He answered her smile, which rested on him vividly. Her discretions interested him
almost as much as her imprudences: he was so sure that both were part of the same
carefully-elaborated plan. In judging Miss Bart, he had always made use of the "argument
from design."
"The resources of New York are rather meagre," he said; "but I'll find a hansom first, and
then we'll invent something." He led her through the throng of returning holiday-makers,
past sallow-faced girls in preposterous hats, and flat-chested women struggling with
paper bundles and palm-leaf fans. Was it possible that she belonged to the same race?
The dinginess, the crudity of this average section of womanhood made him feel how
highly specialized she was.
A rapid shower had cooled the air, and clouds still hung refreshingly over the moist
street.
"How delicious! Let us walk a little," she said as they emerged from the station.
They turned into Madison Avenue and began to stroll northward. As she moved beside
him, with her long light step, Selden was conscious of taking a luxurious pleasure in her
nearness: in the modelling of her little ear, the crisp upward wave of her hair--was it ever
so slightly brightened by art?--and the thick planting of her straight black lashes.
Everything about her was at once vigorous and exquisite, at once strong and fine. He had
a confused sense that she must have cost a great deal to make, that a great many dull and
ugly people must, in some mysterious way, have been sacrificed to produce her. He was
aware that the qualities distinguishing her from the herd of her sex were chiefly external:
as though a fine glaze of beauty and fastidiousness had been applied to vulgar clay. Yet
the analogy left him unsatisfied, for a coarse texture will not take a high finish; and was it
not possible that the material was fine, but that circumstance had fashioned it into a futile
shape?
As he reached this point in his speculations the sun came out, and her lifted parasol cut
off his enjoyment. A moment or two later she paused with a sigh.
"Oh, dear, I'm so hot and thirsty--and what a hideous place New York is!" She looked
despairingly up and down the dreary thoroughfare. "Other cities put on their best clothes
in summer, but New York seems to sit in its shirtsleeves." Her eyes wandered down one
of the side-streets. "Someone has had the humanity to plant a few trees over there. Let us
go into the shade."
"I am glad my street meets with your approval," said Selden as they turned the corner.
"Your street? Do you live here?"

She glanced with interest along the new brick and limestone house-fronts, fantastically
varied in obedience to the American craving for novelty, but fresh and inviting with their
awnings and flower-boxes.
"Ah, yes--to be sure: THE BENEDICK. What a nice-looking building! I don't think I've
ever seen it before." She looked across at the flat-house with its marble porch and
pseudo-Georgian facade. "Which are your windows? Those with the awnings down?"
"On the top floor--yes."
"And that nice little balcony is yours? How cool it looks up there!"
He paused a moment. "Come up and see," he suggested. "I can give you a cup of tea in no
time--and you won't meet any bores."
Her colour deepened--she still had the art of blushing at the right time--but she took the
suggestion as lightly as it was made.
"Why not? It's too tempting--I'll take the risk," she declared.
"Oh, I'm not dangerous," he said in the same key. In truth, he had never liked her as well
as at that moment. He knew she had accepted without afterthought: he could never be a
factor in her calculations, and there was a surprise, a refreshment almost, in the
spontaneity of her consent.
On the threshold he paused a moment, feeling for his latchkey.
"There's no one here; but I have a servant who is supposed to come in the mornings, and
it's just possible he may have put out the tea-things and provided some cake."
He ushered her into a slip of a hall hung with old prints. She noticed the letters and notes
heaped on the table among his gloves and sticks; then she found herself in a small library,
dark but cheerful, with its walls of books, a pleasantly faded Turkey rug, a littered desk
and, as he had foretold, a tea-tray on a low table near the window. A breeze had sprung
up, swaying inward the muslin curtains, and bringing a fresh scent of mignonette and
petunias from the flower-box on the balcony.
Lily sank with a sigh into one of the