The House of Mirth

Lily begins to realize that destructive complications have arisen from letting Gus make money for her, “but she had a fatalistic sense of being drawn from one wrong turning to another, without ever perceiving the right road till it was too late to take it” (135). She blames her bad luck on the earlier enmity of Bertha, but Lily spends more time with the Dorsets because of the social protection they provide her from gossip. Bertha uses Lily to distract her husband’s attention from her affair with Ned Silverton.

Frightened of Gus, Lily feels as if she is losing control of their arrangement. She detects a new coldness in the manner of her friend Judy. Lily joins a large house party at Bellomont but discovers that the female guests openly criticize her association with the Wellington Brys and Rosedale.

The Brys, with the assistance of Carry Fisher and the eminent portrait painter, Paul Morpeth, decide to host a brilliant entertainment to advance in society. Tableaux vivants, in which fashionable ladies pose in recreations of famous paintings, attract a large audience. Artistic Lily is in her element in this situation. Selden attends the gathering as a connoisseur of aesthetic effects.