Her experience with Percy Gryce stood her in good stead in ministering to Dorset's humours, and if the incentive to please was less urgent, the difficulties of her situation were teaching her to make much of minor opportunities.
Intimacy with the Dorsets was not likely to lessen such difficulties on the material side.

Mrs.Dorset had none of Judy Trenor's lavish impulses, and Dorset's admiration was not likely to express itself in financial "tips," even had Lily cared to renew her experiences in that line.

What she required, for the moment, of the Dorsets' friendship, was simply its social sanction.

She knew that people were beginning to talk of her; but this fact did not alarm her as it had alarmed Mrs.Peniston.In her set such gossip was not unusual, and a handsome girl who flirted with a married man was merely assumed to be pressing to the limit of her opportunities.

It was Trenor himself who frightened her.