wn
toward the unfinished house, where she fancied that her hostess might be
speculating, not too resignedly, on the cause of her delay; for, like
many unpunctual persons, Mrs. Gormer disliked to be kept waiting.

As Miss Bart reached the avenue, however, she saw a smart phaeton with a
high-stepping pair disappear behind the shrubbery in the direction of the
gate; and on the doorstep stood Mrs. Gormer, with a glow of retrospective
pleasure on her open countenance. At sight of Lily the glow deepened to
an embarrassed red, and she said with a slight laugh: "Did you see my
visitor? Oh, I thought you came back by the avenue. It was Mrs. George
Dorset--she said she'd dropped in to make a neighbourly call."

Lily met the announcement with her usual composure, though her experience
of Bertha's idiosyncrasies would not have led her to include the
neighbourly instinct among them; and Mrs. Gormer, relieved to see that
she gave no sign of surprise, went on with a deprecating laugh: "Of
course what really brought her was curiosity--she made me take her all
over the house. But no one could have been nicer--no airs, you know, and
so good-natured: I can quite see why people think her so fascinating."

This surprising event, coinciding too completely with her meeting with
Dorset to be regarded as contingent upon it, had yet immediately struck
Lily with a vague sense of foreboding. It was not in Bertha's habits to
be neighbourly, much less to make advances to any one outside the
immediate circle of her affinities. She had always consistently ignored
the world of outer aspirants, or had recognized its individual members
only when prompted by motives of self-interest; and the very
capriciousness of her condescensions had, as Lily was aware, given them
special value in the eyes of the persons she distinguished. Lily saw this
now in Mrs. Gormer's unconcealable complacency, and in the happy
irrelevance with which, for the next day or two, she quoted Bertha's
opinions and speculated on the origin of her gown. All the secret
ambitions which Mrs. Gormer's native indolence, and the attitude of her
companions, kept in habitual abeyance, were now germinating afresh in the
glow of Bertha's advances; and whatever the cause of the latter, Lily saw
that, if they were followed up, they were likely to have a disturbing
effect upon her own future.

She had arranged to break the length of her stay with her new friends by
one or two visits to other acqua