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You're built to win it. Welcome to Snewscast. The podcast is designed to help you fall asleep, find us on Snewscast.com and follow us on social at Snewscast to connect with us as well. This episode is brought to you by Phantoms of Delight. Tonight, we'll read the opening to the House of Murth, a 1905 Noll. The New York City socialite.

The commercial and critical success of the House of Murth solidified Warren's reputation as a major novelist. The central theme of the House of Murth is essentially the struggle between who we are and what society tells us we should be. Thus, it is considered by many to be as relevant today as it was in 1905. Let's get cozy. Close your eyes. Relax your body into the softness of your bed. Now, take a few deep breaths. and paused and surprise. In the afternoon rush of the Grand Central Station, his eyes had been refreshed by the sight of Miss Lilly Bart. It was a Monday in early September, and he was returning to his work from a hurried dip into the country. But what was Miss Bart doing in town at that season? If she had appeared to be catching a train, he might have inferred that he had come on her in the act of transition between one and another of the country houses, which disputed her presence after the close of the Newport season, but her desultory air perplexed him. She stood apart from the crowd, letting it drift by her to the platform or the street, and wearing an air of airresolution which might, as he surmised, be the mask of a very definite purpose. It struck him at once that she was waiting for someone, but he hardly knew why the idea arrested him. There was nothing new about I Bart, yet he could never see her without a faint movement of interest. It was characteristic of her that she always roused speculation that her simplest acts seemed the result of far-reaching intentions. An impulse of curiosity made him turn out his direct line to the door and stroll past her. He knew that if she did not wish to be seen, she would contrive to elude him, and it amused him to think of putting her skill to the test. Mr. Selden, what good luck! She came forward smiling, eager almost in her resolve to intercept him. One or two persons in brushing past them lingered to look. For Miss Bart was a figure to arrest even the suburban traveler rushing to his last train. Selden had never seen her more radiant. Her vivid head, relieved against the dull tense of the crowd, made her more conspicuous than in a ballroom. And under her dark hat and veil she regained the girlish smoothness, the purity of tint that she was beginning to lose after eleven years of late hours and indefatigable dancing. Is it really eleven years? Selt and found himself wondering, and had she indeed reached the nine and twentyth birthday with which her rivals credited her? What luck, she repeated, how nice of you to come to my rescue." He responded joyfully that to do so was his mission in life, and asked what form the rescue was to take. Oh, almost any, even to sitting on a bench and talking to me. One sits out on a cotillion. Why not sit out a train? It isn't a bit hotter here than in Mrs. Van Osberg's conservatory. And some of the women are not a bit uglier. She broke off laughing to explain that she had come up to town from Dixido on her way to the Gus Trenners at Belomont and had missed the 315 train to Rheinbeck. And there isn't another till half past five. She consulted the little jeweled watch among our laces. Just two hours to wait, and I don't know what to do with myself. My maid came up this morning to do some shopping for me, and was to go on to Belmont at one o'clock, and my aunt's house is closed, and I don't know a soul in town. She glanced plaintively about the situation. It is hotter than Mrs. Van Osberg's after all. If you can spare the time, do take me somewhere for a breath of air. He declared himself entirely at her disposal. The adventure struck him as diverting. As a spectator, he had always enjoyed Lily Bart, and his course lay so far out of her orbit that it amused him to be drawn for a moment into the sudden intimacy which her proposal implied. we we go over to Sherries for a cup of tea? She smiled assentingly and then made a slight grimace. So many people come up to town on a Monday, one is sure to meet a lot of boars. I'm as old as the hills, of course, and it ought not to make any difference. But, if I'm old enough, you're not. She objected galey. I'm dying for tea. But isn't there a quieter place?" He answered her smile, which rested on him vividly. Her discretion interested him almost as much as her impudences. He was so sure that both were part of the same carefully elaborated plan. In judging Miss Bart, he had always made use of the argument from design. The resources of New York are rather meager, he said, but I'll find a handsome first, and then we'll invent something. He let her through the throng of returning holiday-makers, past shallow-faced girls, preposterous hats, and women struggling with paper bundles and palm leaf fans. the dingingness, the crudity of this average section of womanhood, made him feel how highly specialized Lily Bart was. A rapid shower had cooled the air and The clouds still hung refreshingly over the moist street.

How delicious! Let us walk a little," she said, as they emerged from the station. They turned into Madison Avenue and began to stroll northward. As she moved beside him with her long light step, Selden was conscious of taking a luxurious pleasure in her nearness. In the modeling of her little ear, the crisp upward wave of her hair was it ever so slightly brightened by art and the thick planting of her straight black lashes. Everything about her at once vigorous and exquisite at once strong and fine. He had a confused sense that she must have cost a great deal to make,

that a great, many dull and ugly people must, in some mysterious way, have been sacrificed to produce her. He was aware that the qualities distinguishing her from the herd were chiefly external, As though a fine glaze of beauty and vestidiousness had been applied to vulgar clay. Yet the analogy left him unsatisfied, for a coarse texture will not take a high finish, and was it not possible that the material was fine, but the circumstance had fashioned it into a few tile shape. As he reached this point in his speculations, the sun came out, and her lifted parasol cut off his enjoyment. A moment or two later, she paused with a sigh. Oh dear, I'm so hot and thirsty. And what a hideous place New York is. She looked despairingly up and down the dreary thoroughfare. Other cities put on their best clothes in summer, but New York seems to sit in its shirt sleeves. Her eyes wander down one of the side streets.

Someone has had the humanity to plant a few trees over there. Let us go into the shade. I am glad my street meets with your approval," said Selden, as they turn the corner.

Your street?

Do you live here?

She glanced with interest along the new brick and limestone housefronts, fantastically varied in obedience to the American craving for novelty, but fresh and inviting with their awnings and flower boxes.

Ah, yes, to be sure, the Benedict. What a nice looking building. I don't think I've ever seen it before. She looked across at the flat house with its marble porch and pseudo-Georgian facade. Which are your windows, those with the awnings down? On the top floor, yes. And that nice little balcony is yours. How cool it looks up there. He paused for a moment. Come up and see. He suggested. I can give you a cup of tea in no time, and you won't meet any boars. Her color deepened. She still had the art of blushing at the right time, but she took the suggestion as lightly as it was made. Why not? It's too tempting. I'll take the risk," she declared. Oh, I'm not dangerous," he said in the same key. In truth, he had never liked her as well as at that moment. He knew she had accepted without afterthought. He could never be a factor in her calculations, and there was a surprise, a refreshment almost, in the spontaneity of her consent. On the threshold, he paused a moment, feeling for his latch-key. There's no one here, but I have a servant who is supposed to come in the mornings, and it's just possible he may have put out the tea-things and provided some cake. He ushered her into a slip of a hall hung with old prints. She noticed the letters and notes heaped on the table among his gloves and sticks.

Then she found herself in a small library, dark but cheerful, with its walls of books a pleasantly faded turkey rug, a littered desk and, as he had foretold, a tea tray on a low table near the window. A breeze had sprung up, swaying inward the muslin curtains, and bringing a fresh scent of mini-net and betunias from the flower box on the balcony. Lily sank with the sigh into one of the shabby leather chairs. How delicious to have a place like this altar oneself. She leaned back in a luxury of discontent. Selden was rummaging in a cupboard for the cake. One woman, he said, have been known to enjoy the privileges of a flat. Oh, governesses or widows, but not girls, not poor miserable, marriageable girls. I even know a girl who lives in a flat. She sat up in surprise. You do? I do. He assured her, emerging from the cupboard with the sought-for kick. Oh, I know. You mean G, fairish. She smiled a little unkindly, but I said, marriageable. And besides, she has a little horrid place, and no maid, and such strange things to eat. Her cook does the washing, and the food tastes of soap. I should hate that, you know. You shouldn't dine with her on wash days, set seldom, cutting the cake. They both laughed, and he knelt by the table to light the lamp under the kettle. While she measured out the tea into a little pot of green glaze, as he watched her hand polished as a bit of old ivory with its slender pink nails and the sapphire bracelets slipping over her wrist, he was struck with the irony of suggesting to her such a life as his cousin Kirtut Faresh had chosen. She was so evidently the victim of the civilization which had produced her that the links of her bracelet seemed like manacles, chaining her to her fate. She seemed to read his thought. It was hard of me to say that of Gerdy. She said, with charming compunction, I forgot she was your cousin, but we're so different, you know. She likes being good, and I like being happy. And besides, she is free and I am not. If I were, I dare say I could manage to be happy, even in her flat. It must be pure bliss to arrange the furniture just as one likes and and give all the horrors to the ash man. If I could only do over my on-strawing room, I know I should be a better woman. Is it so very bad? He asked sympathetically. to smile that him across the tea pot, which she was holding up to be filled. That shows how you seldom come there. Why don't you come off in her? When I do come, it's not to look at Mrs. Penestance furniture. nonsense. She said. You don't come at all, and yet we get on so well when we meet. Perhaps that's the reason he answered promptly. I'm afraid I haven't any cream. Shall you mind a slice of lemon instead? I shall like it better. She waited while he cut the lemon and dropped a thin disk into her cup. But that is not the reason she insisted. The reason for what? For you never coming. leaned forward with a shade of perplexity in her charming eyes. I wish I knew. I wish I could make you out. Of course, I know that there are men who don't like me. One can tell that at a glance. And there are others who are afraid They of me. They think I want to marry them. She smiled up at him frankly, but I don't think you dislike me, and you can't possibly think I want to marry you. No, I absolve you of that, he agreed. Well then. He had carried his cup to the fireplace and stood leaning against the chimney-piece and looking down on her with an air of indolent amusement. The provocation in her eyes increased his amusement. He had not supposed she would waste her powder on such small game, but perhaps she was only keeping her hand in. Or perhaps a girl of her type had no conversation but of the personal kind. any rate, she was amazingly pretty, and he had asked her to tea,

and must live up to his obligations. While then, he said with a plunge, perhaps that's the reason. What?

The fact that you don't want to marry me.

Perhaps I don't regard it as

such a strong inducement to go and see you. He felt a slight shiver down his spine as he ventured this, but her laugh reassured him.

Dear Mr. Seldon, that wasn't worthy of you. It's stupid of you to make love to me, and it isn't like you to be stupid. She leaned back, sipping her tea with an air so enchantingly judicial, that if they hadn't been in her odd strong room, he might almost have tried to disprove her deduction. Don't you see, she continued, that there are men enough to say pleasant things to me, and that what I want is a friend who won't be afraid to say disagreeable ones when I need them. Sometimes I have fancied that you might be that friend. I don't know why, except that you are neither a prick nor a bounder, and that I shouldn't have to pretend with you or be in my guard against you. voice had dropped to a note of seriousness, and she sat gazing up at him with the troubled gravity of a child. You don't know how much I need such a friend. My aunt is full of copybook axioms, but they were all meant to apply to conduct in the early 50s. I always feel that to live up to them would include wearing book muslin, with kiko sleeves, and the other women, my best friends. Well, they use me, or abuse me, but they don't care straw what happens to me. I've been about too long. People are getting tired of me. They are beginning to say I ought to marry. There was a moment's pause during which seldom meditated one or two replies calculated to add a momentary zest to the situation. But he rejected them in favor of the simplest question. Well, why don't you? She colored and laughed. Ha! I see you are a friend after all. And that is one of the disagreeable things I was asking for. It wasn't meant to be disagreeable. He returned amicably. Isn't marriage your vocation? Isn't it what you're brought up for? She sighed. I suppose so. What else is there? Exactly. And so why not take the plunge and have it over? She shrugged her shoulders. You speak as if I ought to marry the first man who came along. I didn't mean to imply that you are as hard put to it as that, but there must be someone with the requisite qualifications. She shook her head wearily. I threw away one or two good chances when I first came out. I suppose every girl does, and you know, I am horribly poor and very expensive. I must have a great deal of money. Selden had turned to reach for a cigarette box on the mantelpiece. What's become of Dilworth? He asked. Oh, his mother was frightened.

She was afraid I should have all the family jewels reset. She wanted me to promise that I wouldn't do over the drawing room. The very thing you were marrying for. Exactly. So she packed him off to India. luck, but you can do better than Dilworth. He offered the box, and she took out three or four cigarettes, putting one between her lips, and slipping the others into a little gold case attached to her long pearl chain. Have I time? Just a whiff then. She leaned forward, holding the tip of her cigarette tears. As she did so, he noted, with a purely impersonal enjoyment, how evenly the black lashes were set in her smooth lids, and how the purplish shade beneath them melted into the pure power of the cheek. She began to saunter about the room, examining the bookshelves between the puffs of her cigarette smoke. Some of the volumes had the ripe rape tents of good tooling and old Morocco.

And her eyes lingered on them caressingly, not with the appreciation of the expert, but with the pleasure and agreeable tones and textures that was one of her innmost susceptibilities. Suddenly her expression changed from desultory enjoyment to active conjecture, and she turned to selden with a question. You collect, don't you? You know about first editions and things. As much as a man may who has no money to spend, now and then I pick up something in the rubbish heap and I go and look on at the big sales, she had again addressed herself to the shelves, but her eyes now swept them inattentively and he saw that she was preoccupied with a new idea. And Americana, do you collect Americana? Seldon stared and laughed. No, that's rather out of my line. I'm not really a collector, you see. I simply like to have good editions of the books I am fond of. She made a slight grimace. And Americana are horribly dull, I suppose. I should fancy so, except to the historian. But your real collector values a thing for its rarity. I don't suppose the buyers of Americana set up reading them all night. Old Jefferson Greys certainly didn't. She was listening with keen attention, and yet they fetch fabulous prices, don't they? It seems so odd to want to pay a lot for an ugly, Thatly printed book that one is never going to read. And I suppose most of the owners of Americana are not historians either. No. Very few of the historians can afford to buy them. They have to use those in the public libraries or in private collections. It seems to be the mere rarity that attracts the average collector. He had seated himself on an arm of the chair near where she was standing, and she continued to question him, asking which were the rarest volumes. Whether the Jefferson Greiss collection was really considered the finest in the world, and what was the largest price ever fetched by a single volume. It was so pleasant to sit there, looking up at her, as she lifted now one book and then another from the shelves, fluttering the pages between her fingers. While her drooping profile was outlined against the warm background of old bindings, that he talked on without pausing to wonder at her sudden interest in so unsuggestive a subject. But he could never be long with her without trying to find a reason for what she was doing. And as she replaced his first edition of of La Breuheir and turned away from the bookcases.

He began to ask himself what she had been driving at. Her next question was not of a nature to enlighten him. She paused before him with a smile, which seemed at once designed to admit him to her familiarity, and to remind him of the restrictions it imposed. Don't you ever mind?" she asked suddenly, not being rich enough to buy all the books you want. We followed her glance about the room room with its worn furniture and shabby walls. Don't I just? Do you take me for a saint on a pillar? And having to work? Do you mind that? The work itself is not so bad. I'm rather fond of the law. No, but the being tied down. The routine. Don't you ever want to get away to see new places and people? Horribly, especially when I see all my friends rushing to the steamer. She drew a sympathetic breath. But do you mind enough to marry, to get out of it? Seldon broke into a laugh. God forbid, he declared. She rose with a sigh, tossing her cigarette into the grate. Ah, there's the difference. A girl must, a man may, if he chooses. She surveyed him critically. Your coat's a little shabby, but who cares? It doesn't keep people from asking you to die. If I were shabby, no one would have me. A woman is asked out as much for her clothes, as for herself. The clothes are the background, the frame if you like. They don't make success, but they are part of it. Who wants a dingy woman? We are expected to be pretty and well dressed till we drop. And if we can't keep it up alone, we have to go into partnership. Seldon glanced at her with amusement. It was impossible, even with her lovely eyes imploring him, to take a sentimental view of her case. Ah, well, there must be plenty of capital on the lookout for such an investment. Perhaps you'll meet your fate tonight at the Trenners. She returned his look. I thought you might be going there. Oh, not in that capacity, but there are to be a lot of your set. Gwen Van Osberg, the weather alls, Lady Christina Reith, and the George Dorsets. She paused a moment before the last name and shot a query through her lashes. Mrs. Triner asked me, but I can't get away till the end of the week. And those big parties It's born me. Ah, so they do me. She exclaimed.

Then why go? It's part of the business, you forget. And besides, if I didn't, I should be playing Biseik with my aunt, at Richfield Springs. That's almost as bad as marrying Dilworth, he agreed, and they both laughed for pure pleasure in their sudden intimacy. She glanced at the clock, tear me, I must be off, it's after five. She paused before the mantelpiece, studying herself in the mirror while she adjusted her veil. The attitude revealed the long slope of her slender sides, which gave a kind of wildwood grace to her outline as though she were captured dry-ed, subdued to the conventions of the drawing-room. And Selvin reflected that it was the same streak of Sylvan Freedom in her nature that lent such savor to her artificiality. He followed her across the room to the entrance hall, but on the threshold she held out her hand with a gesture of leave-taking. It's been very delightful, and now you will have to return my visit. But don't you want me to see you to the station? No. Goodbye here, please. She let her hand lie in his moment, smiling up at him. Goodbye then, and good luck at Belomont, he said, opening the door for her. On the landing she paused to look about her. There were a thousand chances to want against her meeting anybody, but one could never tell. And she always paid for her rare indiscretions by a reaction of prudence. There was no one in sight, but a woman who was scrubbing the stairs. Her own stout person and its surrounding implements took up so much room that lily, to pass her, had to gather up her skirts and brush against the wall. As she did so, the woman paused in her work and looked up curiously. her clenched fists on the wet cloth, she had just drawn from her pale. She had a broad, shallow face, slightly pitted with smallpox and thin, straw-colored hair through which her scalp shone unpleasantly. I beg your pardon, said Lily, intending by her politeness to convey a criticism of the

others' manner. The woman, without answering, pushed her pale aside and continued to stare at Miss Bart, swept by with a murmur of silk and linings. Lily felt herself flushing under the look. What did the creature suppose? Could one never do the simplest, the most harmless thing without subjecting oneself to some odious conjecture? Halfway down the next flight, she smiled to think that a woman's stare should so perturb her. The poor thing was probably dazzled by such an unwanted operation. But were such operations unwanted on-sulden stairs? Miss Bart was not familiar with the moral code of bachelor's flat houses and her color rose again as it occurred to her that the woman's persistent gaze implied a grope among past associations. But she put aside the thought with a smile at her own fears.

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