er, they declared, and Lily was such a dear old duck that they didn't
mind doing it to please her, though they couldn't fancy what had put the
idea in her head, and though for their own part they would much rather
have played lawn tennis with Jack and Gwen, if she hadn't told them she
was coming. The Misses Trenor were followed by Lady Cressida Raith, a
weather-beaten person in Liberty silk and ethnological trinkets, who, on
seeing the omnibus, expressed her surprise that they were not to walk
across the park; but at Mrs. Wetherall's horrified protest that the
church was a mile away, her ladyship, after a glance at the height of the
other's heels, acquiesced in the necessity of driving, and poor Mr. Gryce
found himself rolling off between four ladies for whose spiritual welfare
he felt not the least concern.

It might have afforded him some consolation could he have known that Miss
Bart had really meant to go to church. She had even risen earlier than
usual in the execution of her purpose. She had an idea that the sight of
her in a grey gown of devotional cut, with her famous lashes drooped
above a prayer-book, would put the finishing touch to Mr. Gryce's
subjugation, and render inevitable a certain incident which she had
resolved should form a part of the walk they were to take together after
luncheon. Her intentions in short had never been more definite; but poor
Lily, for all the hard glaze of her exterior, was inwardly as malleable
as wax. Her faculty for adapting herself, for entering into other
people's feelings, if it served her now and then in small contingencies,
hampered her in the decisive moments of life. She was like a water-plant
in the flux of the tides, and today the whole current of her mood was
carrying her toward Lawrence Selden. Why had he come? Was it to see
herself or Bertha Dorset? It was the last question which, at that
moment, should have engaged her. She might better have contented herself
with thinking that he had simply responded to the despairing summons of
his hostess, anxious to interpose him between herself and the ill-humour
of Mrs. Dorset. But Lily had not rested till she learned from Mrs. Trenor
that Selden had come of his own accord. "He didn't even wire me--he just
happened to find the trap at the station. Perhaps it's not over with
Bertha after all," Mrs. Trenor musingly concluded; and went away to
arrange her dinner-cards accordingly.

Perhaps it was not, Lily reflected; but it s