|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: now that her consciousness was once more putting forth its eager
feelers, she saw that her presence was becoming an embarrassment
to him. Such a situation can be saved only by an immediate
outrush of feeling; and on Selden's side the determining impulse
was still lacking.
The discovery did not disturb Lily as it might once have done.
She had passed beyond the phase of well-bred reciprocity, in
which every demonstration must be scrupulously proportioned to
the emotion it elicits, and generosity of feeling is the only
ostentation condemned. But the sense of loneliness returned with
redoubled force as she saw herself forever shut out from Selden's
| 
