silence. He had his race's accuracy in the appraisal of values, and
to be seen walking down the platform at the crowded afternoon hour in the
company of Miss Lily Bart would have been money in his pocket, as he
might himself have phrased it. He knew, of course, that there would be a
large house-party at Bellomont, and the possibility of being taken for
one of Mrs. Trenor's guests was doubtless included in his calculations.
Mr. Rosedale was still at a stage in his social ascent when it was of
importance to produce such impressions.

The provoking part was that Lily knew all this--knew how easy it would
have been to silence him on the spot, and how difficult it might be to do
so afterward. Mr. Simon Rosedale was a man who made it his business to
know everything about every one, whose idea of showing himself to be at
home in society was to display an inconvenient familiarity with the
habits of those with whom he wished to be thought intimate. Lily was sure
that within twenty-four hours the story of her visiting her dress-maker
at the Benedick would be in active circulation among Mr. Rosedale's
acquaintances. The worst of it was that she had always snubbed and
ignored him. On his first appearance--when her improvident cousin, Jack
Stepney, had obtained for him (in return for favours too easily guessed)
a card to one of the vast impersonal Van Osburgh "crushes"--Rosedale,
with that mixture of artistic sensibility and business astuteness which
characterizes his race, had instantly gravitated toward Miss Bart. She
understood his motives, for her own course was guided by as nice
calculations. Training and experience had taught her to be hospitable to
newcomers, since the most unpromising might be useful later on, and there
were plenty of available OUBLIETTES to swallow them if they were not. But
some intuitive repugnance, getting the better of years of social
discipline, had made her push Mr. Rosedale into his OUBLIETTE without a
trial. He had left behind only the ripple of amusement which his speedy
despatch had caused among her friends; and though later (to shift the
metaphor) he reappeared lower down the stream, it was only in fleeting
glimpses, with long submergences between.

Hitherto Lily had been undisturbed by scruples. In her little set Mr.
Rosedale had been pronounced "impossible," and Jack Stepney roundly
snubbed for his attempt to pay his debts in dinner invitations. Even Mrs.
Trenor, whose taste for variety had le