Lily is twenty-nine years old, which is considered old for a single woman of the era. While admiring Lily’s physical attractiveness, Selden wonders if she has colored her hair while he appreciates that “everything about her was at once vigorous and exquisite, at once strong and fine.”
Wharton reveals that Selden is as interested in Lily’s “discretions . . . almost as much as her imprudences.” Lily’s beauty is remarked upon from Selden’s perspective. He compares her appearance to the comparative plainness of female passersby. Wharton goes on to describe the women as exemplars of the “dinginess, the crudity of this average section of womanhood” in order to differentiate Lily’s beauty from the remainder of humanity. Wharton describes Selden’s thoughts on Lily's attractiveness as an indicator that “a great many dull and ugly people must, in some mysterious way, have been sacrificed to produce her.” Later, Selden admires the “streak of sylvan freedom in her nature that lent such savour to her artificiality.”
Wharton indicates that Lily is still subject to the whims of her culture, however, when she has Selden notice Lily’s blushing when he invites her to visit his rooms: “Her colour deepened—she still had the art of blushing at the right time.” The remark reveals that Lily, while a maverick in some ways, will yield to the restrictions of her social class out of either habit or nature. Wharton furthers this perception by having Lily negatively remark on Gerty Farish as an unmarriageable woman who lives in “a horrid little place, and no maid, and such queer things to eat. Her cook does the washing and the food tastes of soap.”
While Lily apologizes to Selden for the insult on his cousin, she confesses that Gerty “is free and I am not.” Selden reinforces this perception when he envisions the links of Lily’s sapphire bracelet as “manacles chaining her to her fate,” which he believes makes her “the victim of the civilization which had produced her.”
The different opportunities and lifestyle choices between men and women is furthered when Lily and Selden discuss marriage. Lily states that no one would mind if Selden attended a dinner in a worn coat, but that a woman is expected to be well-groomed and pretty, and that “if we can’t keep it up alone, we have to go into partnership.”
She visits the Benedick, the apartment building that is the dwelling place of Selden and that is owned by Rosedale. The name of the building, as Rosedale states, refers to bachelorhood. (Benedick is the bachelor in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.) Rosedale’s acknowledgement that he knows the meaning of the building’s name only because he owns it can be interpreted to mean that Rosedale can only know culture by buying it. This interpretation of the exchange between Rosedale and Lily underscores the previous conversation between Lily and Selden concerning the possession and collecting of rare and antique books. Likewise, a woman of culture such as Lily may also be possessed or owned by a person with the requisite income.
The refined appearance and carefree lifestyle of Lily is contrasted with the cleaning woman she sees on the stairs outside Selden’s apartment. Their encounter also foreshadows Lily’s eventual downfall.
