
You play Lily Bart, stranded at Grand Central with an hour to lose and no acceptable reason to be standing alone. 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.
Read The House of Mirth