House of Mirth (Barnes & Noble Classics - Edith Wharton [168]
“I don’t know,” she said, when he had ceased to speak, “why you imagine me to be situated as you describe; but as you have always told me that the sole object of a bringing-up like mine was to teach a girl to get what she wants, why not assume that that is precisely what I am doing?”
The smile with which she summed up her case was like a clear barrier raised against farther confidences: its brightness held him at such a distance that he had a sense of being almost out of hearing as he rejoined: “I am not sure that I have ever called you a successful example of that kind of bringing-up.”
Her colour rose a little at the implication, but she steeled herself with a light laugh.
“Ah, wait a little longer—give me a little more time before you decide!” And as he wavered before her, still watching for a break in the impenetrable front she presented: “Don’t give me up; I may still do credit to my training!” she affirmed.
IO
“LOOK AT THOSE SPANGLES, Miss Bart—every one of ’em sewed on crooked.”
The tall forewoman, a pinched perpendicular figure, dropped the condemned structure of wire and net on the table at Lily’s aide, and passed on to the next figure in the line.
There were twenty of them in the work-room, their fagged profiles, under exaggerated hair, bowed in the harsh north light above the utensils of their art; for it was something more than an industry, surely, this creation of ever-varied settings for the face of fortunate womanhood. Their own faces were sallow with the unwholesome-ness of hot air and sedentary toil, rather than with any actual signs of want: they were employed in a fashionable millinery establishment, and were fairly well clothed and well paid; but the youngest among them was as dull and colourless as the middle-aged. In the whole work-room there was only one skin beneath which the blood still visibly played; and that now burned with vexation as Miss Bart, under the lash of the forewoman’s comment, began to strip the hat-frame of its overlapping spangles.
To Gerty Farish’s hopeful spirit a solution appeared to have been reached when she remembered how beautifully Lily could trim hats. Instances of young lady-milliners establishing themselves under fashionable patronage, and imparting to their “creations” that indefinable touch which the professional hand can never give, had flattered Gerty’s visions of the future, and convinced even Lily that her separation from Mrs. Norma Hatch need not reduce her to dependence on her friends.
The parting had occurred a few weeks after Selden’s visit, and would have taken place sooner had it not been for the resistance set up in Lily by his ill-starred offer of advice. The sense of being involved in a transaction she would not have cared to examine too closely had soon afterward defined itself in the light of a hint from Mr. Stancy that, if she “saw them through,” she would have no reason to be sorry. The implication that such loyalty would meet with a direct reward had hastened her flight, and flung her back, ashamed and penitent, on the broad bosom of Gerty’s sympathy. She did not, however, propose to lie there prone, and Gerty’s inspiration about the hats at once revived her hopes of profitable activity. Here was, after all, something that her charming listless hands could really do; she had no doubt of their capacity for knotting a ribbon or placing a flower to advantage. And of course only these finishing touches would be expected of her: subordinate fingers, blunt, grey, needle-pricked fingers, would prepare the shapes and stitch the linings, while she presided over the charming little front shop—a shop all white panels, mirrors, and moss-green hangings—where her finished creations, hats, wreaths,