As the story of The House of Mirth and the party at Bellomont progressed, I started to get an insight into Lily's background and motives. Lily is well aware of how a dull a person Percy Gryce can be, yet she still has a serious interest in him because of his wealth. Such interest is shown when Wharton writes, "...but she could not ignore him on the morrow, she must follow up her success, must submit to more boredom (19)." Similar to how Lily's mother only saw her husband as someone to provide money for her and Lily, Lily is only interested in Gryce because he could easily supply money for Lily to live her ideal lifestyle.
At the party, Lily became absorbed in a game of bridge in which she lost a sizable amount of money. This simply happened because of Lily's obsession with wealth and money which led to her fascinating at the idea of gaining more by winning a game. Speaking of games, the word "calculations" has appeared several times already in the story. The use of this word makes it seem to me like Lily sees her situation as a sort of like a game. She thinks all she needs to do is to properly calculate the correct solution to her predicament. However, I feel like her method may change with the reappearance of Selden in the story. I think truly that Lily could fall in love with Selden. Eventually, Lily will have to choose between Selden and love or Gryce and money.
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