Lily's nature was incapable of such renewal: she could feel other demands only through her own, and no pain was long vivid which did not press on an answering nerve.

But for the moment she was drawn out of herself by the interest of her direct relation with a world so unlike her own.

She had supplemented her first gift by personal assistance to one or two of Miss Farish's most appealing subjects, and the admiration and interest her presence excited among the tired workers at the club ministered in a new form to her insatiable desire to please.
Gerty Farish was not a close enough reader of character to disentangle the mixed threads of which Lily's philanthropy was woven.

She supposed her beautiful friend to be actuated by the same motive as herself--that sharpening of the moral vision which makes all human suffering so near and insistent that the other aspects of life fade into remoteness.

Gerty lived by such simple formulas that she did not hesitate to class her friend's state with the emotional "change of heart" to which her dealings with the poor had accustomed her; and she rejoiced in the thought that she had been the humble instrument of this renewal.