The House of Mirth

Passing through the crowded Grand Central Station one September afternoon, Lawrence Selden caught sight of Miss Lily Bart and stopped, pleased.She stood quite still in the middle of the hurrying crowd, and her bright, finished beauty made everyone around her look grey.He had known her for years, and thought that at twenty-nine she was as lovely as ever, though perhaps a little tired underneath.

Lily saw him and came over, smiling. “Mr. Selden — what good luck. You can save me.”She had missed her train to a country house party, and the next one would not leave for two long hours.She could not bear to sit in the dismal ladies’ waiting room, she said, and did not know what to do with herself.

Selden’s rooms were only a street away, and on an impulse he asked whether she would come and have a cup of tea.A single young woman did not usually visit a bachelor’s flat, and for a moment Lily glanced about her and hesitated.Then she laughed. “How delightful. One of the few pleasures of being poor is that now and then you may do something a little rash.”

For Lily was poor, in her world’s sense of the word, and she had been living for years on visits, invitations, and other people’s houses.She was beautiful and clever and admired, but she had no money and no husband, and both were beginning to feel overdue.The fine gold bracelet on her wrist, Selden thought, might almost have been a chain.

They left the station together and walked toward his building through the warm afternoon streets.On the steps a large charwoman was down on her knees scrubbing, and she lifted her red face and stared hard at Lily.The look was rude and searching, and it left Lily faintly uneasy, though she could not have said why.

“So this is the Benedick,” she said, reading the name above the door. “I never knew where it was.”Selden reminded her that it was a house for single men, and, still amused at her own boldness, she went up with him to tea.