-was hard enough to the lingering pride in her; but she realized,
with a pang of self-contempt, that to be excluded from it would, after
all, be harder still. For, almost at once, she had felt the insidious
charm of slipping back into a life where every material difficulty was
smoothed away. The sudden escape from a stifling hotel in a dusty
deserted city to the space and luxury of a great country-house fanned by
sea breezes, had produced a state of moral lassitude agreeable enough
after the nervous tension and physical discomfort of the past weeks. For
the moment she must yield to the refreshment her senses craved--after
that she would reconsider her situation, and take counsel with her
dignity. Her enjoyment of her surroundings was, indeed, tinged by the
unpleasant consideration that she was accepting the hospitality and
courting the approval of people she had disdained under other conditions.
But she was growing less sensitive on such points: a hard glaze of
indifference was fast forming over her delicacies and susceptibilities,
and each concession to expediency hardened the surface a little more.

On the Monday, when the party disbanded with uproarious adieux, the
return to town threw into stronger relief the charms of the life she was
leaving. The other guests were dispersing to take up the same existence
in a different setting: some at Newport, some at Bar Harbour, some in the
elaborate rusticity of an Adirondack camp. Even Gerty Farish, who
welcomed Lily's return with tender solicitude, would soon be preparing to
join the aunt with whom she spent her summers on Lake George: only Lily
herself remained without plan or purpose, stranded in a backwater of the
great current of pleasure. But Carry Fisher, who had insisted on
transporting her to her own house, where she herself was to perch for a
day or two on the way to the Brys' camp, came to the rescue with a new
suggestion.

"Look here, Lily--I'll tell you what it is: I want you to take my place
with Mattie Gormer this summer. They're taking a party out to Alaska next
month in their private car, and Mattie, who is the laziest woman alive,
wants me to go with them, and relieve her of the bother of arranging
things; but the Brys want me too--oh, yes, we've made it up: didn't I
tell you?--and, to put it frankly, though I like the Gormers best,
there's more profit for me in the Brys. The fact is, they want to try
Newport this summer, and if I can make it a success for t