Since the holidays she had not urged Lily to return to Bellomont, and the first time they met in town Lily fancied there was a shade of coldness in her manner.

Was it merely the expression of her displeasure at Miss Bart's neglect, or had disquieting rumours reached her?
The latter contingency seemed improbable, yet Lily was not without a sense of uneasiness.

If her roaming sympathies had struck root anywhere, it was in her friendship with Judy Trenor.

She believed in the sincerity of her friend's affection, though it sometimes showed itself in self-interested ways, and she shrank with peculiar reluctance from any risk of estranging it.

But, aside from this, she was keenly conscious of the way in which such an estrangement would react on herself.