him aside as she willed, without having to regard him as
a possible factor in her plans, filled Lily Bart with envy. She had been
bored all the afternoon by Percy Gryce--the mere thought seemed to waken
an echo of his droning voice--but she could not ignore him on the morrow,
she must follow up her success, must submit to more boredom, must be
ready with fresh compliances and adaptabilities, and all on the bare
chance that he might ultimately decide to do her the honour of boring her
for life.

It was a hateful fate--but how escape from it? What choice had she? To be
herself, or a Gerty Farish. As she entered her bedroom, with its
softly-shaded lights, her lace dressing-gown lying across the silken
bedspread, her little embroidered slippers before the fire, a vase of
carnations filling the air with perfume, and the last novels and
magazines lying uncut on a table beside the reading-lamp, she had a
vision of Miss Farish's cramped flat, with its cheap conveniences and
hideous wall-papers. No; she was not made for mean and shabby
surroundings, for the squalid compromises of poverty. Her whole being
dilated in an atmosphere of luxury; it was the background she required,
the only climate she could breathe in. But the luxury of others was not
what she wanted. A few years ago it had sufficed her: she had taken her
daily meed of pleasure without caring who provided it. Now she was
beginning to chafe at the obligations it imposed, to feel herself a mere
pensioner on the splendour which had once seemed to belong to her. There
were even moments when she was conscious of having to pay her way.

For a long time she had refused to play bridge. She knew she could not
afford it, and she was afraid of acquiring so expensive a taste. She had
seen the danger exemplified in more than one of her associates--in young
Ned Silverton, for instance, the charming fair boy now seated in abject
rapture at the elbow of Mrs. Fisher, a striking divorcee with eyes and
gowns as emphatic as the head-lines of her "case." Lily could remember
when young Silverton had stumbled into their circle, with the air of a
strayed Arcadian who has published chamung [Updater's note: charming?]
sonnets in his college journal. Since then he had developed a taste for
Mrs. Fisher and bridge, and the latter at least had involved him in
expenses from which he had been more than once rescued by harassed maiden
sisters, who treasured the sonnets, and went without sugar in the