She wanted happiness--wanted it as fiercely and unscrupulously as Lily did, but without Lily's power of obtaining it.

And in her conscious impotence she lay shivering, and hated her friend---- A ring at the door-bell caught her to her feet.

She struck a light and stood startled, listening.

For a moment her heart beat incoherently, then she felt the sobering touch of fact, and remembered that such calls were not unknown in her charitable work.

She flung on her dressing-gown to answer the summons, and unlocking her door, confronted the shining vision of Lily Bart.
Gerty's first movement was one of revulsion.