ing in his attitude made him
seem a simple and kindly being compared to the small critical creature
who endured his homage. Yes, he would be kind--Lily, from the threshold,
had time to feel--kind in his gross, unscrupulous, rapacious way, the way
of the predatory creature with his mate. She had but a moment in which
to consider whether this glimpse of the fireside man mitigated her
repugnance, or gave it, rather, a more concrete and intimate form; for at
sight of her he was immediately on his feet again, the florid and
dominant Rosedale of Mattie Gormer's drawing-room.

It was no surprise to Lily to find that he had been selected as her only
fellow-guest. Though she and her hostess had not met since the latter's
tentative discussion of her future, Lily knew that the acuteness which
enabled Mrs. Fisher to lay a safe and pleasant course through a world of
antagonistic forces was not infrequently exercised for the benefit of her
friends. It was, in fact, characteristic of Carry that, while she
actively gleaned her own stores from the fields of affluence, her real
sympathies were on the other side--with the unlucky, the unpopular, the
unsuccessful, with all her hungry fellow-toilers in the shorn stubble of
success.

Mrs. Fisher's experience guarded her against the mistake of exposing
Lily, for the first evening, to the unmitigated impression of Rosedale's
personality. Kate Corby and two or three men dropped in to dinner, and
Lily, alive to every detail of her friend's method, saw that such
opportunities as had been contrived for her were to be deferred till she
had, as it were, gained courage to make effectual use of them. She had a
sense of acquiescing in this plan with the passiveness of a sufferer
resigned to the surgeon's touch; and this feeling of almost lethargic
helplessness continued when, after the departure of the guests, Mrs.
Fisher followed her upstairs.

"May I come in and smoke a cigarette over your fire? If we talk in my
room we shall disturb the child." Mrs. Fisher looked about her with the
eye of the solicitous hostess. "I hope you've managed to make yourself
comfortable, dear? Isn't it a jolly little house? It's such a blessing to
have a few quiet weeks with the baby."

Carry, in her rare moments of prosperity, became so expansively maternal
that Miss Bart sometimes wondered whether, if she could ever get time and
money enough, she would not end by devoting them both to her daughter.

"It's a well-ea