House of Mirth (Barnes & Noble Classics - Edith Wharton [111]
“I mean to have her too,” he repeated, with a laugh intended to strengthen his self-assurance. “I generally have got what I wanted in life, Miss Bart. I wanted money, and I’ve got more than I know how to invest; and now the money doesn’t seem to be of any account unless I can spend it on the right woman. That’s what I want to do with it: I want my wife to make all the other women feel small. I’d never grudge a dollar that was spent on that. But it isn’t every woman can do it, no matter how much you spend on her. There was a girl in some history book who wanted gold shields, or something, and the fellows threw ‘em at her, and she was crushed under ’em: they killed her.3 Well, that’s true enough: some women looked buried under their jewelry. What I want is a woman who’ll hold her head higher the more diamonds I put on it. And when I looked at you the other night at the Brys‘, in that plain white dress, looking as if you had a crown on, I said to myself: ‘By gad, if she had one she’d wear it as if it grew on her ’ ”
Still Lily did not speak, and he continued, warming with his theme: “Tell you what it is, though, that kind of woman costs more than all the rest of ‘em put together. If a woman’s going to ignore her pearls, they want to be better than anybody else’s—and so it is with everything else. You know what I mean—you know it’s only the showy things that are cheap. Well, I should want my wife to be able to take the earth for granted if she wanted to. I know there’s one thing vulgar about money, and that’s the thinking about it; and my wife would never have to demean herself in that way.” He paused, and then added, with an unfortunate lapse to an earlier manner: “I guess you know the lady I’ve got in view, Miss Bart.”
Lily raised her head, brightening a little under the challenge. Even through the dark tumult of her thoughts, the clink of Mr. Rosedale’s millions had a faintly seductive note. Oh, for enough of them to cancel her one miserable debt. But the man behind them grew increasingly repugnant in the light of Selden’s expected coming. The contrast was too grotesque: she could scarcely suppress the smile it provoked. She decided that directness would be best.
“If you mean me, Mr. Rosedale, I am very grateful—very much flattered; but I don’t know what I have ever done to make you think—”
“Oh, if you mean you’re not dead in love with me, I’ve got sense enough left to see that. And I ain’t talking to you as if you were—I presume I know the kind of talk that’s expected under those circumstances. I’m confoundedly gone on you—that’s about the size of it—and I’m just giving you a plain business statement of the consequences. You’re not very fond of me—yet—but you’re fond of luxury, and style, and amusement, and of not having to worry about cash. You like to have a good time, and not to have to settle for it; and what I propose to do is to provide for the good time and do the settling.”
He paused, and she returned with a chilling smile: “You are mistaken in one point, Mr. Rosedale: whatever I enjoy I am prepared to settle for.”
She spoke with the intention of making him see that, if his words implied a tentative allusion to her private affairs, she was prepared to meet and repudiate it. But if he recognized her meaning it failed to abash him, and he went on in the same tone: “I didn’t mean to give offence; excuse me if I’ve spoken too plainly. But why ain’t you straight with me—why do you put up that kind of bluff? You know there’ve been times when you were bothered—damned bothered—and as a girl gets older, and things keep moving along, why, before she knows it, the things she wants are liable to move past her and not come back. I don’t say it’s anywhere near that with you yet; but you’ve had a taste of bothers that a girl like yourself ought never to have known about, and what I’m offering you is the chance to turn your back on them once for all.”
The colour burned in Lily’s face as he ended; there was no mistaking