next they met it would be on their usual friendly
footing.

Lily sprang out of bed, and went straight to her desk. She wanted to
write at once, while she could trust to the strength of her resolve. She
was still languid from her brief sleep and the exhilaration of the
evening, and the sight of Selden's writing brought back the culminating
moment of her triumph: the moment when she had read in his eyes that no
philosophy was proof against her power. It would be pleasant to have that
sensation again . . . no one else could give it to her in its fulness;
and she could not bear to mar her mood of luxurious retrospection by an
act of definite refusal. She took up her pen and wrote hastily: "TOMORROW
AT FOUR;" murmuring to herself, as she slipped the sheet into its
envelope: "I can easily put him off when tomorrow comes."

Judy Trenor's summons was very welcome to Lily. It was the first time she
had received a direct communication from Bellomont since the close of her
last visit there, and she was still visited by the dread of having
incurred Judy's displeasure. But this characteristic command seemed to
reestablish their former relations; and Lily smiled at the thought that
her friend had probably summoned her in order to hear about the Brys'
entertainment. Mrs. Trenor had absented herself from the feast, perhaps
for the reason so frankly enunciated by her husband, perhaps because, as
Mrs. Fisher somewhat differently put it, she "couldn't bear new people
when she hadn't discovered them herself." At any rate, though she
remained haughtily at Bellomont, Lily suspected in her a devouring
eagerness to hear of what she had missed, and to learn exactly in what
measure Mrs. Wellington Bry had surpassed all previous competitors for
social recognition. Lily was quite ready to gratify this curiosity, but
it happened that she was dining out. She determined, however, to see Mrs.
Trenor for a few moments, and ringing for her maid she despatched a
telegram to say that she would be with her friend that evening at ten.

She was dining with Mrs. Fisher, who had gathered at an informal feast a
few of the performers of the previous evening. There was to be plantation
music in the studio after dinner--for Mrs. Fisher, despairing of the
republic, had taken up modelling, and annexed to her small crowded house
a spacious apartment, which, whatever its uses in her hours of plastic
inspiration, served at other times for the exercise of an inde