Analyzing chapters 9 and 10 or Edith Wharton's House of Mirth is quite the task. Many significant events take place- a great deal of them in Lily's favor! With the news of Percy Gryce's engagement fresh in mind, the first major event in chapter 9 is that minor character Mrs. Haffen actually plays a major role in the plot at this point in time. She shows up at the Peniston household with a stack of letters from Mrs. Dorset to Seldon that Seldon had not taken the time to properly dispose of. These potentially reputation-ruining, sold to Lily, give Lily a whole new power in this "game". Unfortunately, the power is dangerous because while she may be thinking short term of how she could get revenge on Bertha, exposing those letters could have consequences on her own precious reputation in the long run.
Later on in the chapter, I noticed a newer theme introduced. Wharton writes, "...she saw only a future of servitude to the whims of others, never the possibility of asserting her own eager individuality," (Wharton 82). Might that be a new theme? Yes, the idea of materialism is a big theme, but Lily has just come face-to-face with an entirely new realization- that her life is her own life. She ought to figure out who the real Lily Bart is and not worry about who she should be, according to society's standards. Now whether she will actually try this is undecided.
Lastly, the end of chapter 10 sounded to me like foreshadowing. With the mention of the Malay proverb on enemies, and the reminder of Lily's power with the letters, anyone can predict that this will come back to haunt someone, we just don't know who yet.
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