About this story
Lawrence Selden offers tea in his bachelor rooms nearby — a small, unfashionable freedom that costs almost nothing, which becomes the argument between you. The charwoman watches you into the lift. Downstairs afterwards, Simon Rosedale walks in from the street and asks, pleasantly, which resident you were calling on.
Who you’ll meet
Lawrence Selden inside the brass lift cage of his apartment house, hat in hand and still amused, with Mrs Haffen the charwoman stopped on the marble behind him, taking her good look — the man Lily Bart came to see for tea, and the witness who will hold what she saw.
How it opens
Grand Central's afternoon crowd flowed around you while heat gathered beneath the glass.
Missed trains were forgivable; being seen without a purpose invited costlier explanations.
Lily Bart, alone at this hour and studying advertisements?
You look as if New York has misplaced your private carriage.
Station PorterThe next northbound train is posted for four ten, miss.
Choose
I am between a train and an intolerable hour.
I am observing how freely men may wait alone.