The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (if you liked this book .TXT) 📕

her straying hands. “Lily, look at me! Something has happened⁠—an accident? You have been frightened⁠—what has frightened you? Tell me if you can⁠—a word or two⁠—so that I can help you.”

Lily shook her head.

“I am not frightened: that’s not the word. Can you imagine looking into your glass some morning and seeing a disfigurement⁠—some hideous change that has come to you while you slept? Well, I seem to myself like that⁠—I can’t bear to see myself in my own thoughts⁠—I hate ugliness, you know⁠—I’ve always turned from it⁠—but I can’t explain to you⁠—you wouldn’t understand.”

She lifted her head and her eyes fell on the clock.

“How long the night is! And I know I shan’t sleep tomorrow. Someone told me my father used to lie sleepless and think of horrors. And he was not wicked, only unfortunate⁠—and I see now how he must have suffered, lying alone with his thoughts! But I am bad⁠—a bad girl⁠—all my thoughts are bad⁠—I have always had bad people about me. Is that any excuse? I thought I could manage my own life⁠—I was proud⁠—proud! but now I’m on their level⁠—”

Sobs shook her, and she bowed to them like a tree in a dry storm.

Gerty knelt beside her, waiting, with the patience born of experience, till this gust of misery should loosen fresh speech. She had first imagined some physical shock, some peril of the crowded streets, since Lily was presumably on her way home from Carry Fisher’s; but she now saw that other nerve-centres were smitten, and her mind trembled back from conjecture.

Lily’s sobs ceased, and she lifted her head.

“There are bad girls in your slums. Tell me⁠—do they ever pick themselves up? Ever forget, and feel as they did before?”

“Lily! you mustn’t speak so⁠—you’re dreaming.”

“Don’t they always go from bad to worse? There’s no turning back⁠—your old self rejects you, and shuts you out.”

She rose, stretching her arms as if in utter physical weariness. “Go to bed, dear! You work hard and get up early. I’ll watch here by the fire, and you’ll leave the light, and your door open. All I want is to feel that you are near me.” She laid both hands on Gerty’s shoulders, with a smile that was like sunrise on a sea strewn with wreckage.

“I can’t leave you, Lily. Come and lie on my bed. Your hands are frozen⁠—you must undress and be made warm.” Gerty paused with sudden compunction. “But Mrs. Peniston⁠—it’s past midnight! What will she think?”

“She goes to bed. I have a latchkey. It doesn’t matter⁠—I can’t go back there.”

“There’s no need to: you shall stay here. But you must tell me where you have been. Listen, Lily⁠—it will help you to speak!” She regained Miss Bart’s hands, and pressed them against her. “Try to tell me⁠—it will clear your poor head. Listen⁠—you were dining at Carry Fisher’s.” Gerty paused and added with a flash of heroism: “Lawrence Selden went from here to find you.”

At the word, Lily’s face melted from locked anguish to the open misery of a child. Her lips trembled and her gaze widened with tears.

“He went to find me? And I missed him! Oh, Gerty, he tried to help me. He told me⁠—he warned me long ago⁠—he foresaw that I should grow hateful to myself!”

The name, as Gerty saw with a clutch at the heart, had loosened the springs of self-pity in her friend’s dry breast, and tear by tear Lily poured out the measure of her anguish. She had dropped sideways in Gerty’s big armchair, her head buried where lately Selden’s had leaned, in a beauty of abandonment that drove home to Gerty’s aching senses the inevitableness of her own defeat. Ah, it needed no deliberate purpose on Lily’s part to rob her of her dream! To look on that prone loveliness was to see in it a natural force, to recognize that love and power belong to such as Lily, as renunciation and service are the lot of those they despoil. But if Selden’s infatuation seemed a fatal necessity, the effect that his name produced shook Gerty’s steadfastness with a last pang. Men pass through such superhuman loves and outlive them: they are the probation subduing the heart to human joys. How gladly Gerty would have welcomed the ministry of healing: how willingly have soothed the sufferer back to tolerance of life! But Lily’s self-betrayal took this last hope from her. The mortal maid on the shore is helpless against the siren who loves her prey: such victims are floated back dead from their adventure.

Lily sprang up and caught her with strong hands. “Gerty, you know him⁠—you understand him⁠—tell me; if I went to him, if I told him everything⁠—if I said: ‘I am bad through and through⁠—I want admiration, I want excitement, I want money⁠—’ yes, money! That’s my shame, Gerty⁠—and it’s known, it’s said of me⁠—it’s what men think of me⁠—If I said it all to him⁠—told him the whole story⁠—said plainly: ‘I’ve sunk lower than the lowest, for I’ve taken what they take, and not paid as they pay’⁠—oh, Gerty, you know him, you can speak for him: if I told him everything would he loathe me? Or would he pity me, and understand me, and save me from loathing myself?”

Gerty stood cold and passive. She knew the hour of her probation had come, and her poor heart beat wildly against its destiny. As a dark river sweeps by under a lightning flash, she saw her chance of happiness surge past under a flash of temptation. What prevented her from saying: “He is like other men?” She was not so sure of him, after all! But to do so would have been like blaspheming her love. She could not put him before herself in any light but the noblest: she must trust him to the height of her own passion.

“Yes: I know him; he will help you,” she said; and in a moment Lily’s passion was weeping itself out against her breast.

There was but one bed