Selden met this with an unusual seriousness: she had never seen him so little master of the situation, so plainly at the mercy of any obstructions she might 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 in truth felt his long absence as one of the chief bitternesses of the last months: his desertion had wounded sensibilities far below the surface of her pride.
Selden met the challenge with directness. "Why should I have come, unless I thought I could be of use to you? It is my only excuse for imagining you could want me."This struck her as a clumsy evasion, and the thought gave a flash of keenness to her answer. "Then you have come now because you think you can be of use to me?"He hesitated again. "Yes: in the modest capacity of a person to talk things over with."For a clever man it was certainly a stupid beginning; and the idea that his awkwardness was due to the fear of her attaching a personal significance to his visit, chilled her pleasure in seeing him. Even under the most adverse conditions, that pleasure always made itself felt: she might hate him, 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. In his presence a sudden stillness came upon her, and the turmoil of her spirit ceased; but an impulse of resistance to this stealing influence now prompted her to say: "It's very good of you to present yourself in that capacity; but what makes you think I have anything particular to talk about?"Though she kept the even tone of light intercourse, the question was framed in a way to remind him that his good offices were unsought; and for a moment Selden was checked by it. The situation between them was one which could have been 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 glittering irony, as they faced each other from the opposite comers of one of Mrs.
Hatch's elephantine sofas. The sofa in question, and the apartment peopled by its monstrous mates, served at length to suggest the turn of Selden's reply.
"Gerty told me that you were acting as Mrs. Hatch's secretary;and I knew she was anxious to hear how you were getting on."Miss Bart received this explanation without perceptible softening. "Why didn't she look me up herself, then?" she asked.
"Because, as you didn't send her your address, she was afraid of being importunate." Selden continued with a smile: "You see no such scruples restrained me; but then I haven't as much to risk if I incur your displeasure."Lily answered his smile. "You haven't incurred it as yet; but Ihave an idea that you are going to."
"That rests with you, doesn't it? You see my initiative doesn't go beyond putting myself at your disposal.""But in what capacity? What am I to do with you?" she asked in the same light tone.
Selden again glanced about Mrs. Hatch's drawing-room; then he said, with a decision which he seemed to have gathered from this final inspection: "You are to let me take you away from here."Lily flushed at the suddenness of the attack; then she stiffened under it and said coldly: "And may I ask where you mean me to go?""Back to Gerty in the first place, if you will; the essential thing is that it should be away from here."The unusual harshness of his tone might have shown her how much the words cost him; but she was in no state to measure his feelings while her 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 and unwarrantably to break into her life with this strange assumption of authority, was to rouse in her every instinct of pride and self-defence.
"I am very much obliged to you," she said, "for taking such an interest in my plans; but I am quite contented where I am, and have no intention of leaving.
"Selden had risen, and was standing before her in an attitude of uncontrollable expectancy.
"That simply means that you don't know where you are!" he exclaimed.
Lily rose also, with a quick flash of anger. "If you have come here to say disagreeable things about Mrs. Hatch---""It is only with your relation to Mrs. Hatch that I am concerned.""My relation to Mrs. Hatch is one I have no reason to be ashamed of. She has helped me to earn a living when my old friends were quite resigned to seeing me starve.""Nonsense! Starvation is not the only alternative. You know you can always find a home with Gerty till you are independent again.""You show such an intimate acquaintance with my affairs that Isuppose you mean--till my aunt's legacy is paid?""I do mean that; Gerty told me of it," Selden acknowledged without embarrassment. He was too much in earnest now to feel any false constraint in speaking his mind.
"But Gerty does not happen to know," Miss Bart rejoined, "that Iowe every penny of that legacy."
"Good God!" Selden exclaimed, startled out of his composure by the abruptness of the statement.
"Every penny of it, and more too," Lily repeated; "and you now perhaps see why I prefer to remain with Mrs. Hatch rather than take advantage of Gerty's kindness. I have no money left, except my small income, and I must earn something more to keep myself alive."Selden hesitated a moment; then he rejoined in a quieter tone:
