big Van Osburgh crushes; and all he now needed was
a wife whose affiliations would shorten the last tedious steps of his
ascent. It was with that object that, a year earlier, he had fixed his
affections on Miss Bart; but in the interval he had mounted nearer to the
goal, while she had lost the power to abbreviate the remaining steps of
the way. All this she saw with the clearness of vision that came to her
in moments of despondency. It was success that dazzled her--she could
distinguish facts plainly enough in the twilight of failure. And the
twilight, as she now sought to pierce it, was gradually lighted by a
faint spark of reassurance. Under the utilitarian motive of Rosedale's
wooing she had felt, clearly enough, the heat of personal inclination.
She would not have detested him so heartily had she not known that he
dared to admire her. What, then, if the passion persisted, though the
other motive had ceased to sustain it? She had never even tried to please
him--he had been drawn to her in spite of her manifest disdain. What if
she now chose to exert the power which, even in its passive state, he had
felt so strongly? What if she made him marry her for love, now that he
had no other reason for marrying her?

Chapter 6

As became persons of their rising consequence, the Gormers were engaged
in building a country-house on Long Island; and it was a part of Miss
Bart's duty to attend her hostess on frequent visits of inspection to the
new estate. There, while Mrs. Gormer plunged into problems of lighting
and sanitation, Lily had leisure to wander, in the bright autumn air,
along the tree-fringed bay to which the land declined. Little as she was
addicted to solitude, there had come to be moments when it seemed a
welcome escape from the empty noises of her life. She was weary of being
swept passively along a current of pleasure and business in which she had
no share; weary of seeing other people pursue amusement and squander
money, while she felt herself of no more account among them than an
expensive toy in the hands of a spoiled child.

It was in this frame of mind that, striking back from the shore one
morning into the windings of an unfamiliar lane, she came suddenly upon
the figure of George Dorset. The Dorset place was in the immediate
neighbourhood of the Gormers' newly-acquired estate, and in her
motor-flights thither with Mrs. Gormer, Lily had caught one or two
passing glimpses of the couple; but they moved