in their frequent
passages through town.

To this end she assiduously showed herself at the restaurants they
frequented, where, attended by the troubled Gerty, she lunched
luxuriously, as she said, on her expectations.

"My dear Gerty, you wouldn't have me let the head-waiter see that I've
nothing to live on but Aunt Julia's legacy? Think of Grace Stepney's
satisfaction if she came in and found us lunching on cold mutton and tea!
What sweet shall we have today, dear--COUPE JACQUES or PECHES A LA MELBA?"

She dropped the MENU abruptly, with a quick heightening of colour, and
Gerty, following her glance, was aware of the advance, from an inner
room, of a party headed by Mrs. Trenor and Carry Fisher. It was
impossible for these ladies and their companions--among whom Lily had at
once distinguished both Trenor and Rosedale--not to pass, in going out,
the table at which the two girls were seated; and Gerty's sense of the
fact betrayed itself in the helpless trepidation of her manner. Miss
Bart, on the contrary, borne forward on the wave of her buoyant grace,
and neither shrinking from her friends nor appearing to lie in wait for
them, gave to the encounter the touch of naturalness which she could
impart to the most strained situations. Such embarrassment as was shown
was on Mrs. Trenor's side, and manifested itself in the mingling of
exaggerated warmth with imperceptible reservations. Her loudly affirmed
pleasure at seeing Miss Bart took the form of a nebulous generalization,
which included neither enquiries as to her future nor the expression of a
definite wish to see her again. Lily, well-versed in the language of
these omissions, knew that they were equally intelligible to the other
members of the party: even Rosedale, flushed as he was with the
importance of keeping such company, at once took the temperature of Mrs.
Trenor's cordiality, and reflected it in his off-hand greeting of Miss
Bart. Trenor, red and uncomfortable, had cut short his salutations on the
pretext of a word to say to the head-waiter; and the rest of the group
soon melted away in Mrs. Trenor's wake.

It was over in a moment--the waiter, MENU in hand, still hung on the
result of the choice between COUPE JACQUES and PECHES A LA MELBA--but
Miss Bart, in the interval, had taken the measure of her fate. Where Judy
Trenor led, all the world would follow; and Lily had the doomed sense of
the castaway who has signalled in vain to fleeing sails.

In a fla