ve them a more concentrated
inner life, as poor soil starves certain plants into intenser
efflorescence. She had in truth no abstract propensity to malice: she did
not dislike Lily because the latter was brilliant and predominant, but
because she thought that Lily disliked her. It is less mortifying to
believe one's self unpopular than insignificant, and vanity prefers to
assume that indifference is a latent form of unfriendliness. Even such
scant civilities as Lily accorded to Mr. Rosedale would have made Miss
Stepney her friend for life; but how could she foresee that such a friend
was worth cultivating? How, moreover, can a young woman who has never
been ignored measure the pang which this injury inflicts? And, lastly,
how could Lily, accustomed to choose between a pressure of engagements,
guess that she had mortally offended Miss Stepney by causing her to be
excluded from one of Mrs. Peniston's infrequent dinner-parties?

Mrs. Peniston disliked giving dinners, but she had a high sense of family
obligation, and on the Jack Stepneys' return from their honeymoon she
felt it incumbent upon her to light the drawing-room lamps and extract
her best silver from the Safe Deposit vaults. Mrs. Peniston's rare
entertainments were preceded by days of heart-rending vacillation as to
every detail of the feast, from the seating of the guests to the pattern
of the table-cloth, and in the course of one of these preliminary
discussions she had imprudently suggested to her cousin Grace that, as
the dinner was a family affair, she might be included in it. For a week
the prospect had lighted up Miss Stepney's colourless existence; then she
had been given to understand that it would be more convenient to have her
another day. Miss Stepney knew exactly what had happened. Lily, to whom
family reunions were occasions of unalloyed dulness, had persuaded her
aunt that a dinner of "smart" people would be much more to the taste of
the young couple, and Mrs. Peniston, who leaned helplessly on her niece
in social matters, had been prevailed upon to pronounce Grace's exile.
After all, Grace could come any other day; why should she mind being put
off?

It was precisely because Miss Stepney could come any other day--and
because she knew her relations were in the secret of her unoccupied
evenings--that this incident loomed gigantically on her horizon. She was
aware that she had Lily to thank for it; and dull resentment was turned
to active animosity.