Selden paused in surprise.
In the afternoon rush
of the Grand Central Station
his eyes
had been
refreshed by the sight
of Miss Lily Bart.
It was a Monday
in early September,
and he
was returning to his work
from a hurried
dip into the country;
but what
was Miss Bart
doing in town
at that season?
If she
had appeared
to be catching a train,
he might have inferred
that he
had come
on her
in the act of transition
between one
and another of the country-houses
which disputed her presence
after the close
of the Newport season;
but her desultory air
perplexed him.
She stood
apart from the crowd,
letting it drift
by her to the platform
or the street,
and wearing an air
of irresolution
which might,
as he surmised,
be the mask
of a very definite purpose.
It struck him at once
that she
was waiting for some one,
but he hardly knew
why the idea arrested him.
There was nothing new
about Lily Bart,
yet he
could never see her
without a faint movement
of interest:
it was characteristic of her
that she always roused speculation,
that her simplest acts
seemed the result
of far-reaching intentions.
An impulse of curiosity
made him turn
out of his direct
line to the door,
and stroll past her.
He knew that
if she
did not wish
to be seen
she would contrive
to elude him;
and it amused him
to think
of putting her skill
to the test.
"Mr. Selden
--what good luck!"
She came forward smiling,
eager almost,
in her resolve
to intercept him.
One or two persons,
in brushing past them,
lingered to look;
for Miss Bart
was a figure to arrest
even the suburban traveller
rushing to his last train.
Selden had never
seen her more radiant.
Her vivid head,
relieved against the dull tints
of the crowd,
made her more conspicuous
than in a ball-room,
and under her dark hat
and veil
she regained the girlish smoothness,
the purity of tint,
that she
was beginning
to lose
after eleven years
of late hours
and indefatigable dancing.
Was it really eleven years,
Selden found himself wondering,
and had
she indeed
reached the nine-and-twentieth birthday
with which her rivals
credited her?
"What luck!"
she repeated.
"How nice of you
to come to my rescue!"
He responded joyfully
that to do so
was his mission in life,
and asked
what form the rescue
was to take.
"Oh,
almost any
--even to sitting
on a bench and
talking to me.
One sits out a cotillion
--why not
sit out a train?
It isn't
a bit hotter here
than in Mrs. Van Osburgh's
conservatory
--and some of the women
are not a bit uglier."
She broke off,
laughing,
to explain
that she
had come
up to town from Tuxedo,
on her way
to the Gus Trenors'
at Bellomont,
and had
missed the three-fifteen
train to Rhinebeck.
"And there isn't another
till half-past five."
She consulted
the little jewelled watch
among her laces.
"Just two hours to wait.
And I don't know
what to do with myself.
My maid
came up this morning
to do some shopping
for me,
and was
to go
on to Bellomont
at one o'clock,
and my aunt's house
is closed,
and I
don't know a soul