roke
of business, thanks to Stepney's friend Rosedale: by the way, Miss Lily,
I wish you'd try to persuade Judy to be decently civil to that chap. He's
going to be rich enough to buy us all out one of these days, and if she'd
only ask him to dine now and then I could get almost anything out of him.
The man is mad to know the people who don't want to know him, and when a
fellow's in that state there is nothing he won't do for the first woman
who takes him up."

Lily hesitated a moment. The first part of her companion's discourse had
started an interesting train of thought, which was rudely interrupted by
the mention of Mr. Rosedale's name. She uttered a faint protest.

"But you know Jack did try to take him about, and he was impossible."

"Oh, hang it--because he's fat and shiny, and has a sloppy manner! Well,
all I can say is that the people who are clever enough to be civil to him
now will make a mighty good thing of it. A few years from now he'll be in
it whether we want him or not, and then he won't be giving away a
half-a-million tip for a dinner."

Lily's mind had reverted from the intrusive personality of Mr. Rosedale
to the train of thought set in motion by Trenor's first words. This vast
mysterious Wall Street world of "tips" and "deals"--might she not find in
it the means of escape from her dreary predicament? She had often heard
of women making money in this way through their friends: she had no more
notion than most of her sex of the exact nature of the transaction, and
its vagueness seemed to diminish its indelicacy. She could not, indeed,
imagine herself, in any extremity, stooping to extract a "tip" from Mr.
Rosedale; but at her side was a man in possession of that precious
commodity, and who, as the husband of her dearest friend, stood to her in
a relation of almost fraternal intimacy.

In her inmost heart Lily knew it was not by appealing to the fraternal
instinct that she was likely to move Gus Trenor; but this way of
explaining the situation helped to drape its crudity, and she was always
scrupulous about keeping up appearances to herself. Her personal
fastidiousness had a moral equivalent, and when she made a tour of
inspection in her own mind there were certain closed doors she did not
open.

As they reached the gates of Bellomont she turned to Trenor with a smile.
"The afternoon is so perfect--don't you want to drive me a little
farther? I've been rather out of spirits all day, and it's so re