She did not wish to see him again, not because she feared his influence, but because his presence always had the effect of cheapening her aspirations, of throwing her whole world out of focus.
Besides, he was a living reminder of the worst mistake in her career, and the fact that he had been its cause did not soften her feelings toward him.

She could still imagine an ideal state of existence in which, all else being superadded, intercourse with Selden might be the last touch of luxury; but in the world as it was, such a privilege was likely to cost more than it was worth.
"Lily, dear, I never saw you look so lovely! You look as if something delightful had just happened to you!" The young lady who thus formulated her admiration of her brilliant friend did not, in her own person, suggest such happy possibilities.

Miss Gertrude Farish, in fact, typified the mediocre and the ineffectual.

If there were compensating qualities in her wide frank glance and the freshness of her smile, these were qualities which only the sympathetic observer would perceive before noticing that her eyes were of a workaday grey and her lips without haunting curves.

Lily's own view of her wavered between pity for her limitations and impatience at her cheerful acceptance of them.