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diff --git a/541-0.txt b/541-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fe286dc --- /dev/null +++ b/541-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11576 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 541 *** + + + + +The Age of Innocence + +by Edith Wharton + + + + +Book I + + + + +I. + + +On a January evening of the early seventies, Christine Nilsson was +singing in Faust at the Academy of Music in New York. + +Though there was already talk of the erection, in remote metropolitan +distances "above the Forties," of a new Opera House which should +compete in costliness and splendour with those of the great European +capitals, the world of fashion was still content to reassemble every +winter in the shabby red and gold boxes of the sociable old Academy. +Conservatives cherished it for being small and inconvenient, and thus +keeping out the "new people" whom New York was beginning to dread and +yet be drawn to; and the sentimental clung to it for its historic +associations, and the musical for its excellent acoustics, always so +problematic a quality in halls built for the hearing of music. + +It was Madame Nilsson's first appearance that winter, and what the +daily press had already learned to describe as "an exceptionally +brilliant audience" had gathered to hear her, transported through +the slippery, snowy streets in private broughams, in the spacious +family landau, or in the humbler but more convenient "Brown coupe." +To come to the Opera in a Brown coupe was almost as honourable a way +of arriving as in one's own carriage; and departure by the same means +had the immense advantage of enabling one (with a playful allusion to +democratic principles) to scramble into the first Brown conveyance in +the line, instead of waiting till the cold-and-gin congested nose of +one's own coachman gleamed under the portico of the Academy. It was +one of the great livery-stableman's most masterly intuitions to have +discovered that Americans want to get away from amusement even more +quickly than they want to get to it. + +When Newland Archer opened the door at the back of the club box the +curtain had just gone up on the garden scene. There was no reason +why the young man should not have come earlier, for he had dined at +seven, alone with his mother and sister, and had lingered afterward +over a cigar in the Gothic library with glazed black-walnut bookcases +and finial-topped chairs which was the only room in the house where +Mrs. Archer allowed smoking. But, in the first place, New York was +a metropolis, and perfectly aware that in metropolises it was "not +the thing" to arrive early at the opera; and what was or was not +"the thing" played a part as important in Newland Archer's New York +as the inscrutable totem terrors that had ruled the destinies of his +forefathers thousands of years ago. + +The second reason for his delay was a personal one. He had dawdled +over his cigar because he was at heart a dilettante, and thinking +over a pleasure to come often gave him a subtler satisfaction than +its realisation. This was especially the case when the pleasure was +a delicate one, as his pleasures mostly were; and on this occasion +the moment he looked forward to was so rare and exquisite in quality +that--well, if he had timed his arrival in accord with the prima +donna's stage-manager he could not have entered the Academy at a more +significant moment than just as she was singing: "He loves me--he loves +me not--_he loves me_!--" and sprinkling the falling daisy petals with +notes as clear as dew. + +She sang, of course, "_M'ama_!" and not "he loves me," since an +unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required +that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists +should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of +English-speaking audiences. This seemed as natural to Newland Archer +as all the other conventions on which his life was moulded: such as +the duty of using two silver-backed brushes with his monogram in blue +enamel to part his hair, and of never appearing in society without a +flower (preferably a gardenia) in his buttonhole. + +"_M'ama ... non m'ama ..._" the prima donna sang, and "_M'ama_!", with +a final burst of love triumphant, as she pressed the dishevelled daisy +to her lips and lifted her large eyes to the sophisticated countenance +of the little brown Faust-Capoul, who was vainly trying, in a tight +purple velvet doublet and plumed cap, to look as pure and true as his +artless victim. + +Newland Archer, leaning against the wall at the back of the club box, +turned his eyes from the stage and scanned the opposite side of the +house. Directly facing him was the box of old Mrs. Manson Mingott, +whose monstrous obesity had long since made it impossible for her +to attend the Opera, but who was always represented on fashionable +nights by some of the younger members of the family. On this occasion, +the front of the box was filled by her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Lovell +Mingott, and her daughter, Mrs. Welland; and slightly withdrawn behind +these brocaded matrons sat a young girl in white with eyes ecstatically +fixed on the stage-lovers. As Madame Nilsson's "_M'ama_!" thrilled +out above the silent house (the boxes always stopped talking during +the Daisy Song) a warm pink mounted to the girl's cheek, mantled her +brow to the roots of her fair braids, and suffused the young slope of +her breast to the line where it met a modest tulle tucker fastened +with a single gardenia. She dropped her eyes to the immense bouquet +of lilies-of-the-valley on her knee, and Newland Archer saw her +white-gloved finger-tips touch the flowers softly. He drew a breath of +satisfied vanity and his eyes returned to the stage. + +No expense had been spared on the setting, which was acknowledged to +be very beautiful even by people who shared his acquaintance with the +Opera houses of Paris and Vienna. The foreground, to the footlights, +was covered with emerald green cloth. In the middle distance +symmetrical mounds of woolly green moss bounded by croquet hoops formed +the base of shrubs shaped like orange-trees but studded with large +pink and red roses. Gigantic pansies, considerably larger than the +roses, and closely resembling the floral pen-wipers made by female +parishioners for fashionable clergymen, sprang from the moss beneath +the rose-trees; and here and there a daisy grafted on a rose-branch +flowered with a luxuriance prophetic of Mr. Luther Burbank's far-off +prodigies. + +In the centre of this enchanted garden Madame Nilsson, in white +cashmere slashed with pale blue satin, a reticule dangling from a +blue girdle, and large yellow braids carefully disposed on each side +of her muslin chemisette, listened with downcast eyes to M. Capoul's +impassioned wooing, and affected a guileless incomprehension of his +designs whenever, by word or glance, he persuasively indicated the +ground floor window of the neat brick villa projecting obliquely from +the right wing. + +"The darling!" thought Newland Archer, his glance flitting back to +the young girl with the lilies-of-the-valley. "She doesn't even guess +what it's all about." And he contemplated her absorbed young face +with a thrill of possessorship in which pride in his own masculine +initiation was mingled with a tender reverence for her abysmal purity. +"We'll read Faust together ... by the Italian lakes ..." he thought, +somewhat hazily confusing the scene of his projected honey-moon with +the masterpieces of literature which it would be his manly privilege to +reveal to his bride. It was only that afternoon that May Welland had +let him guess that she "cared" (New York's consecrated phrase of maiden +avowal), and already his imagination, leaping ahead of the engagement +ring, the betrothal kiss and the march from Lohengrin, pictured her at +his side in some scene of old European witchery. + +He did not in the least wish the future Mrs. Newland Archer to be a +simpleton. He meant her (thanks to his enlightening companionship) to +develop a social tact and readiness of wit enabling her to hold her own +with the most popular married women of the "younger set," in which it +was the recognised custom to attract masculine homage while playfully +discouraging it. If he had probed to the bottom of his vanity (as he +sometimes nearly did) he would have found there the wish that his wife +should be as worldly-wise and as eager to please as the married lady +whose charms had held his fancy through two mildly agitated years; +without, of course, any hint of the frailty which had so nearly marred +that unhappy being's life, and had disarranged his own plans for a +whole winter. + +How this miracle of fire and ice was to be created, and to sustain +itself in a harsh world, he had never taken the time to think out; +but he was content to hold his view without analysing it, since he +knew it was that of all the carefully-brushed, white-waistcoated, +button-hole-flowered gentlemen who succeeded each other in the +club box, exchanged friendly greetings with him, and turned their +opera-glasses critically on the circle of ladies who were the product +of the system. In matters intellectual and artistic Newland Archer felt +himself distinctly the superior of these chosen specimens of old New +York gentility; he had probably read more, thought more, and even seen +a good deal more of the world, than any other man of the number. Singly +they betrayed their inferiority; but grouped together they represented +"New York," and the habit of masculine solidarity made him accept their +doctrine on all the issues called moral. He instinctively felt that +in this respect it would be troublesome--and also rather bad form--to +strike out for himself. + +"Well--upon my soul!" exclaimed Lawrence Lefferts, turning his +opera-glass abruptly away from the stage. Lawrence Lefferts was, +on the whole, the foremost authority on "form" in New York. He had +probably devoted more time than any one else to the study of this +intricate and fascinating question; but study alone could not account +for his complete and easy competence. One had only to look at him, +from the slant of his bald forehead and the curve of his beautiful +fair moustache to the long patent-leather feet at the other end of +his lean and elegant person, to feel that the knowledge of "form" +must be congenital in any one who knew how to wear such good clothes +so carelessly and carry such height with so much lounging grace. As a +young admirer had once said of him: "If anybody can tell a fellow just +when to wear a black tie with evening clothes and when not to, it's +Larry Lefferts." And on the question of pumps versus patent-leather +"Oxfords" his authority had never been disputed. + +"My God!" he said; and silently handed his glass to old Sillerton +Jackson. + +Newland Archer, following Lefferts's glance, saw with surprise that his +exclamation had been occasioned by the entry of a new figure into old +Mrs. Mingott's box. It was that of a slim young woman, a little less +tall than May Welland, with brown hair growing in close curls about her +temples and held in place by a narrow band of diamonds. The suggestion +of this headdress, which gave her what was then called a "Josephine +look," was carried out in the cut of the dark blue velvet gown rather +theatrically caught up under her bosom by a girdle with a large +old-fashioned clasp. The wearer of this unusual dress, who seemed quite +unconscious of the attention it was attracting, stood a moment in the +centre of the box, discussing with Mrs. Welland the propriety of taking +the latter's place in the front right-hand corner; then she yielded +with a slight smile, and seated herself in line with Mrs. Welland's +sister-in-law, Mrs. Lovell Mingott, who was installed in the opposite +corner. + +Mr. Sillerton Jackson had returned the opera-glass to Lawrence +Lefferts. The whole of the club turned instinctively, waiting to +hear what the old man had to say; for old Mr. Jackson was as great +an authority on "family" as Lawrence Lefferts was on "form." He +knew all the ramifications of New York's cousinships; and could not +only elucidate such complicated questions as that of the connection +between the Mingotts (through the Thorleys) with the Dallases of +South Carolina, and that of the relationship of the elder branch of +Philadelphia Thorleys to the Albany Chiverses (on no account to be +confused with the Manson Chiverses of University Place), but could also +enumerate the leading characteristics of each family: as, for instance, +the fabulous stinginess of the younger lines of Leffertses (the Long +Island ones); or the fatal tendency of the Rushworths to make foolish +matches; or the insanity recurring in every second generation of the +Albany Chiverses, with whom their New York cousins had always refused +to intermarry--with the disastrous exception of poor Medora Manson, +who, as everybody knew ... but then her mother was a Rushworth. + +In addition to this forest of family trees, Mr. Sillerton Jackson +carried between his narrow hollow temples, and under his soft thatch +of silver hair, a register of most of the scandals and mysteries that +had smouldered under the unruffled surface of New York society within +the last fifty years. So far indeed did his information extend, and +so acutely retentive was his memory, that he was supposed to be the +only man who could have told you who Julius Beaufort, the banker, +really was, and what had become of handsome Bob Spicer, old Mrs. Manson +Mingott's father, who had disappeared so mysteriously (with a large +sum of trust money) less than a year after his marriage, on the very +day that a beautiful Spanish dancer who had been delighting thronged +audiences in the old Opera-house on the Battery had taken ship for +Cuba. But these mysteries, and many others, were closely locked in Mr. +Jackson's breast; for not only did his keen sense of honour forbid his +repeating anything privately imparted, but he was fully aware that his +reputation for discretion increased his opportunities of finding out +what he wanted to know. + +The club box, therefore, waited in visible suspense while Mr. Sillerton +Jackson handed back Lawrence Lefferts's opera-glass. For a moment he +silently scrutinised the attentive group out of his filmy blue eyes +overhung by old veined lids; then he gave his moustache a thoughtful +twist, and said simply: "I didn't think the Mingotts would have tried +it on." + + + + +II. + + +Newland Archer, during this brief episode, had been thrown into a +strange state of embarrassment. + +It was annoying that the box which was thus attracting the undivided +attention of masculine New York should be that in which his betrothed +was seated between her mother and aunt; and for a moment he could not +identify the lady in the Empire dress, nor imagine why her presence +created such excitement among the initiated. Then light dawned on him, +and with it came a momentary rush of indignation. No, indeed; no one +would have thought the Mingotts would have tried it on! + +But they had; they undoubtedly had; for the low-toned comments behind +him left no doubt in Archer's mind that the young woman was May +Welland's cousin, the cousin always referred to in the family as "poor +Ellen Olenska." Archer knew that she had suddenly arrived from Europe +a day or two previously; he had even heard from Miss Welland (not +disapprovingly) that she had been to see poor Ellen, who was staying +with old Mrs. Mingott. Archer entirely approved of family solidarity, +and one of the qualities he most admired in the Mingotts was their +resolute championship of the few black sheep that their blameless stock +had produced. There was nothing mean or ungenerous in the young man's +heart, and he was glad that his future wife should not be restrained by +false prudery from being kind (in private) to her unhappy cousin; but +to receive Countess Olenska in the family circle was a different thing +from producing her in public, at the Opera of all places, and in the +very box with the young girl whose engagement to him, Newland Archer, +was to be announced within a few weeks. No, he felt as old Sillerton +Jackson felt; he did not think the Mingotts would have tried it on! + +He knew, of course, that whatever man dared (within Fifth Avenue's +limits) that old Mrs. Manson Mingott, the Matriarch of the line, would +dare. He had always admired the high and mighty old lady, who, in spite +of having been only Catherine Spicer of Staten Island, with a father +mysteriously discredited, and neither money nor position enough to +make people forget it, had allied herself with the head of the wealthy +Mingott line, married two of her daughters to "foreigners" (an Italian +marquis and an English banker), and put the crowning touch to her +audacities by building a large house of pale cream-coloured stone (when +brown sandstone seemed as much the only wear as a frock-coat in the +afternoon) in an inaccessible wilderness near the Central Park. + +Old Mrs. Mingott's foreign daughters had become a legend. They never +came back to see their mother, and the latter being, like many persons +of active mind and dominating will, sedentary and corpulent in her +habit, had philosophically remained at home. But the cream-coloured +house (supposed to be modelled on the private hotels of the Parisian +aristocracy) was there as a visible proof of her moral courage; and +she throned in it, among pre-Revolutionary furniture and souvenirs of +the Tuileries of Louis Napoleon (where she had shone in her middle +age), as placidly as if there were nothing peculiar in living above +Thirty-fourth Street, or in having French windows that opened like +doors instead of sashes that pushed up. + +Every one (including Mr. Sillerton Jackson) was agreed that old +Catherine had never had beauty--a gift which, in the eyes of New York, +justified every success, and excused a certain number of failings. +Unkind people said that, like her Imperial namesake, she had won her +way to success by strength of will and hardness of heart, and a kind of +haughty effrontery that was somehow justified by the extreme decency +and dignity of her private life. Mr. Manson Mingott had died when she +was only twenty-eight, and had "tied up" the money with an additional +caution born of the general distrust of the Spicers; but his bold young +widow went her way fearlessly, mingled freely in foreign society, +married her daughters in heaven knew what corrupt and fashionable +circles, hobnobbed with Dukes and Ambassadors, associated familiarly +with Papists, entertained Opera singers, and was the intimate friend of +Mme. Taglioni; and all the while (as Sillerton Jackson was the first +to proclaim) there had never been a breath on her reputation; the +only respect, he always added, in which she differed from the earlier +Catherine. + +Mrs. Manson Mingott had long since succeeded in untying her husband's +fortune, and had lived in affluence for half a century; but memories +of her early straits had made her excessively thrifty, and though, +when she bought a dress or a piece of furniture, she took care that it +should be of the best, she could not bring herself to spend much on +the transient pleasures of the table. Therefore, for totally different +reasons, her food was as poor as Mrs. Archer's, and her wines did +nothing to redeem it. Her relatives considered that the penury of her +table discredited the Mingott name, which had always been associated +with good living; but people continued to come to her in spite of the +"made dishes" and flat champagne, and in reply to the remonstrances of +her son Lovell (who tried to retrieve the family credit by having the +best chef in New York) she used to say laughingly: "What's the use of +two good cooks in one family, now that I've married the girls and can't +eat sauces?" + +Newland Archer, as he mused on these things, had once more turned +his eyes toward the Mingott box. He saw that Mrs. Welland and her +sister-in-law were facing their semicircle of critics with the +Mingottian _aplomb_ which old Catherine had inculcated in all her +tribe, and that only May Welland betrayed, by a heightened colour +(perhaps due to the knowledge that he was watching her) a sense of the +gravity of the situation. As for the cause of the commotion, she sat +gracefully in her corner of the box, her eyes fixed on the stage, and +revealing, as she leaned forward, a little more shoulder and bosom than +New York was accustomed to seeing, at least in ladies who had reasons +for wishing to pass unnoticed. + +Few things seemed to Newland Archer more awful than an offence against +"Taste," that far-off divinity of whom "Form" was the mere visible +representative and vicegerent. Madame Olenska's pale and serious face +appealed to his fancy as suited to the occasion and to her unhappy +situation; but the way her dress (which had no tucker) sloped away from +her thin shoulders shocked and troubled him. He hated to think of May +Welland's being exposed to the influence of a young woman so careless +of the dictates of Taste. + +"After all," he heard one of the younger men begin behind him +(everybody talked through the Mephistopheles-and-Martha scenes), "after +all, just _what_ happened?" + +"Well--she left him; nobody attempts to deny that." + +"He's an awful brute, isn't he?" continued the young enquirer, a candid +Thorley, who was evidently preparing to enter the lists as the lady's +champion. + +"The very worst; I knew him at Nice," said Lawrence Lefferts with +authority. "A half-paralysed white sneering fellow--rather handsome +head, but eyes with a lot of lashes. Well, I'll tell you the sort: when +he wasn't with women he was collecting china. Paying any price for +both, I understand." + +There was a general laugh, and the young champion said: "Well, +then----?" + +"Well, then; she bolted with his secretary." + +"Oh, I see." The champion's face fell. + +"It didn't last long, though: I heard of her a few months later living +alone in Venice. I believe Lovell Mingott went out to get her. He said +she was desperately unhappy. That's all right--but this parading her at +the Opera's another thing." + +"Perhaps," young Thorley hazarded, "she's too unhappy to be left at +home." + +This was greeted with an irreverent laugh, and the youth blushed +deeply, and tried to look as if he had meant to insinuate what knowing +people called a "_double entendre_." + +"Well--it's queer to have brought Miss Welland, anyhow," some one said +in a low tone, with a side-glance at Archer. + +"Oh, that's part of the campaign: Granny's orders, no doubt," Lefferts +laughed. "When the old lady does a thing she does it thoroughly." + +The act was ending, and there was a general stir in the box. Suddenly +Newland Archer felt himself impelled to decisive action. The desire +to be the first man to enter Mrs. Mingott's box, to proclaim to +the waiting world his engagement to May Welland, and to see her +through whatever difficulties her cousin's anomalous situation might +involve her in; this impulse had abruptly overruled all scruples and +hesitations, and sent him hurrying through the red corridors to the +farther side of the house. + +As he entered the box his eyes met Miss Welland's, and he saw that she +had instantly understood his motive, though the family dignity which +both considered so high a virtue would not permit her to tell him so. +The persons of their world lived in an atmosphere of faint implications +and pale delicacies, and the fact that he and she understood each other +without a word seemed to the young man to bring them nearer than any +explanation would have done. Her eyes said: "You see why Mamma brought +me," and his answered: "I would not for the world have had you stay +away." + +"You know my niece Countess Olenska?" Mrs. Welland enquired as she +shook hands with her future son-in-law. Archer bowed without extending +his hand, as was the custom on being introduced to a lady; and Ellen +Olenska bent her head slightly, keeping her own pale-gloved hands +clasped on her huge fan of eagle feathers. Having greeted Mrs. Lovell +Mingott, a large blonde lady in creaking satin, he sat down beside his +betrothed, and said in a low tone: "I hope you've told Madame Olenska +that we're engaged? I want everybody to know--I want you to let me +announce it this evening at the ball." + +Miss Welland's face grew rosy as the dawn, and she looked at him with +radiant eyes. "If you can persuade Mamma," she said; "but why should we +change what is already settled?" He made no answer but that which his +eyes returned, and she added, still more confidently smiling: "Tell my +cousin yourself: I give you leave. She says she used to play with you +when you were children." + +She made way for him by pushing back her chair, and promptly, and a +little ostentatiously, with the desire that the whole house should see +what he was doing, Archer seated himself at the Countess Olenska's side. + +"We _did_ use to play together, didn't we?" she asked, turning her +grave eyes to his. "You were a horrid boy, and kissed me once behind a +door; but it was your cousin Vandie Newland, who never looked at me, +that I was in love with." Her glance swept the horse-shoe curve of +boxes. "Ah, how this brings it all back to me--I see everybody here in +knickerbockers and pantalettes," she said, with her trailing slightly +foreign accent, her eyes returning to his face. + +Agreeable as their expression was, the young man was shocked that they +should reflect so unseemly a picture of the august tribunal before +which, at that very moment, her case was being tried. Nothing could +be in worse taste than misplaced flippancy; and he answered somewhat +stiffly: "Yes, you have been away a very long time." + +"Oh, centuries and centuries; so long," she said, "that I'm sure +I'm dead and buried, and this dear old place is heaven;" which, for +reasons he could not define, struck Newland Archer as an even more +disrespectful way of describing New York society. + + + + +III. + + +It invariably happened in the same way. + +Mrs. Julius Beaufort, on the night of her annual ball, never failed to +appear at the Opera; indeed, she always gave her ball on an Opera night +in order to emphasise her complete superiority to household cares, +and her possession of a staff of servants competent to organise every +detail of the entertainment in her absence. + +The Beauforts' house was one of the few in New York that possessed +a ball-room (it antedated even Mrs. Manson Mingott's and the Headly +Chiverses'); and at a time when it was beginning to be thought +"provincial" to put a "crash" over the drawing-room floor and move the +furniture upstairs, the possession of a ball-room that was used for no +other purpose, and left for three-hundred-and-sixty-four days of the +year to shuttered darkness, with its gilt chairs stacked in a corner +and its chandelier in a bag; this undoubted superiority was felt to +compensate for whatever was regrettable in the Beaufort past. + +Mrs. Archer, who was fond of coining her social philosophy into axioms, +had once said: "We all have our pet common people--" and though the +phrase was a daring one, its truth was secretly admitted in many an +exclusive bosom. But the Beauforts were not exactly common; some people +said they were even worse. Mrs. Beaufort belonged indeed to one of +America's most honoured families; she had been the lovely Regina Dallas +(of the South Carolina branch), a penniless beauty introduced to New +York society by her cousin, the imprudent Medora Manson, who was always +doing the wrong thing from the right motive. When one was related +to the Mansons and the Rushworths one had a "_droit de cité_" (as Mr. +Sillerton Jackson, who had frequented the Tuileries, called it) in New +York society; but did one not forfeit it in marrying Julius Beaufort? + +The question was: who was Beaufort? He passed for an Englishman, +was agreeable, handsome, ill-tempered, hospitable and witty. He had +come to America with letters of recommendation from old Mrs. Manson +Mingott's English son-in-law, the banker, and had speedily made himself +an important position in the world of affairs; but his habits were +dissipated, his tongue was bitter, his antecedents were mysterious; and +when Medora Manson announced her cousin's engagement to him it was felt +to be one more act of folly in poor Medora's long record of imprudences. + +But folly is as often justified of her children as wisdom, and two +years after young Mrs. Beaufort's marriage it was admitted that she +had the most distinguished house in New York. No one knew exactly how +the miracle was accomplished. She was indolent, passive, the caustic +even called her dull; but dressed like an idol, hung with pearls, +growing younger and blonder and more beautiful each year, she throned +in Mr. Beaufort's heavy brown-stone palace, and drew all the world +there without lifting her jewelled little finger. The knowing people +said it was Beaufort himself who trained the servants, taught the chef +new dishes, told the gardeners what hot-house flowers to grow for +the dinner-table and the drawing-rooms, selected the guests, brewed +the after-dinner punch and dictated the little notes his wife wrote +to her friends. If he did, these domestic activities were privately +performed, and he presented to the world the appearance of a careless +and hospitable millionaire strolling into his own drawing-room with the +detachment of an invited guest, and saying: "My wife's gloxinias are a +marvel, aren't they? I believe she gets them out from Kew." + +Mr. Beaufort's secret, people were agreed, was the way he carried +things off. It was all very well to whisper that he had been "helped" +to leave England by the international banking-house in which he had +been employed; he carried off that rumour as easily as the rest--though +New York's business conscience was no less sensitive than its moral +standard--he carried everything before him, and all New York into his +drawing-rooms, and for over twenty years now people had said they +were "going to the Beauforts'" with the same tone of security as if +they had said they were going to Mrs. Manson Mingott's, and with the +added satisfaction of knowing they would get hot canvas-back ducks +and vintage wines, instead of tepid Veuve Clicquot without a year and +warmed-up croquettes from Philadelphia. + +Mrs. Beaufort, then, had as usual appeared in her box just before the +Jewel Song; and when, again as usual, she rose at the end of the third +act, drew her opera cloak about her lovely shoulders, and disappeared, +New York knew that meant that half an hour later the ball would begin. + +The Beaufort house was one that New Yorkers were proud to show to +foreigners, especially on the night of the annual ball. The Beauforts +had been among the first people in New York to own their own red +velvet carpet and have it rolled down the steps by their own footmen, +under their own awning, instead of hiring it with the supper and the +ball-room chairs. They had also inaugurated the custom of letting the +ladies take their cloaks off in the hall, instead of shuffling up to +the hostess's bedroom and recurling their hair with the aid of the +gas-burner; Beaufort was understood to have said that he supposed all +his wife's friends had maids who saw to it that they were properly +_coiffées_ when they left home. + +Then the house had been boldly planned with a ball-room, so that, +instead of squeezing through a narrow passage to get to it (as at +the Chiverses') one marched solemnly down a vista of enfiladed +drawing-rooms (the sea-green, the crimson and the bouton d'or), seeing +from afar the many-candled lustres reflected in the polished parquetry, +and beyond that the depths of a conservatory where camellias and +tree-ferns arched their costly foliage over seats of black and gold +bamboo. + +Newland Archer, as became a young man of his position, strolled in +somewhat late. He had left his overcoat with the silk-stockinged +footmen (the stockings were one of Beaufort's few fatuities), had +dawdled a while in the library hung with Spanish leather and furnished +with Buhl and malachite, where a few men were chatting and putting +on their dancing-gloves, and had finally joined the line of guests +whom Mrs. Beaufort was receiving on the threshold of the crimson +drawing-room. + +Archer was distinctly nervous. He had not gone back to his club after +the Opera (as the young bloods usually did), but, the night being fine, +had walked for some distance up Fifth Avenue before turning back in the +direction of the Beauforts' house. He was definitely afraid that the +Mingotts might be going too far; that, in fact, they might have Granny +Mingott's orders to bring the Countess Olenska to the ball. + +From the tone of the club box he had perceived how grave a mistake +that would be; and, though he was more than ever determined to "see +the thing through," he felt less chivalrously eager to champion his +betrothed's cousin than before their brief talk at the Opera. + +Wandering on to the bouton d'or drawing-room (where Beaufort had had +the audacity to hang "Love Victorious," the much-discussed nude of +Bouguereau) Archer found Mrs. Welland and her daughter standing near +the ball-room door. Couples were already gliding over the floor beyond: +the light of the wax candles fell on revolving tulle skirts, on girlish +heads wreathed with modest blossoms, on the dashing aigrettes and +ornaments of the young married women's coiffures, and on the glitter of +highly glazed shirt-fronts and fresh _glacé_ gloves. + +Miss Welland, evidently about to join the dancers, hung on the +threshold, her lilies-of-the-valley in her hand (she carried no other +bouquet), her face a little pale, her eyes burning with a candid +excitement. A group of young men and girls were gathered about her, +and there was much hand-clasping, laughing and pleasantry on which +Mrs. Welland, standing slightly apart, shed the beam of a qualified +approval. It was evident that Miss Welland was in the act of announcing +her engagement, while her mother affected the air of parental +reluctance considered suitable to the occasion. + +Archer paused a moment. It was at his express wish that the +announcement had been made, and yet it was not thus that he would have +wished to have his happiness known. To proclaim it in the heat and +noise of a crowded ball-room was to rob it of the fine bloom of privacy +which should belong to things nearest the heart. His joy was so deep +that this blurring of the surface left its essence untouched; but he +would have liked to keep the surface pure too. It was something of a +satisfaction to find that May Welland shared this feeling. Her eyes +fled to his beseechingly, and their look said: "Remember, we're doing +this because it's right." + +No appeal could have found a more immediate response in Archer's +breast; but he wished that the necessity of their action had been +represented by some ideal reason, and not simply by poor Ellen Olenska. +The group about Miss Welland made way for him with significant smiles, +and after taking his share of the felicitations he drew his betrothed +into the middle of the ball-room floor and put his arm about her waist. + +"Now we shan't have to talk," he said, smiling into her candid eyes, as +they floated away on the soft waves of the Blue Danube. + +She made no answer. Her lips trembled into a smile, but the eyes +remained distant and serious, as if bent on some ineffable vision. +"Dear," Archer whispered, pressing her to him: it was borne in on him +that the first hours of being engaged, even if spent in a ball-room, +had in them something grave and sacramental. What a new life it was +going to be, with this whiteness, radiance, goodness at one's side! + +The dance over, the two, as became an affianced couple, wandered into +the conservatory; and sitting behind a tall screen of tree-ferns and +camellias Newland pressed her gloved hand to his lips. + +"You see I did as you asked me to," she said. + +"Yes: I couldn't wait," he answered smiling. After a moment he added: +"Only I wish it hadn't had to be at a ball." + +"Yes, I know." She met his glance comprehendingly. "But after all--even +here we're alone together, aren't we?" + +"Oh, dearest--always!" Archer cried. + +Evidently she was always going to understand; she was always going +to say the right thing. The discovery made the cup of his bliss +overflow, and he went on gaily: "The worst of it is that I want to +kiss you and I can't." As he spoke he took a swift glance about the +conservatory, assured himself of their momentary privacy, and catching +her to him laid a fugitive pressure on her lips. To counteract the +audacity of this proceeding he led her to a bamboo sofa in a less +secluded part of the conservatory, and sitting down beside her broke a +lily-of-the-valley from her bouquet. She sat silent, and the world lay +like a sunlit valley at their feet. + +"Did you tell my cousin Ellen?" she asked presently, as if she spoke +through a dream. + +He roused himself, and remembered that he had not done so. Some +invincible repugnance to speak of such things to the strange foreign +woman had checked the words on his lips. + +"No--I hadn't the chance after all," he said, fibbing hastily. + +"Ah." She looked disappointed, but gently resolved on gaining her +point. "You must, then, for I didn't either; and I shouldn't like her +to think--" + +"Of course not. But aren't you, after all, the person to do it?" + +She pondered on this. "If I'd done it at the right time, yes: but +now that there's been a delay I think you must explain that I'd +asked you to tell her at the Opera, before our speaking about it to +everybody here. Otherwise she might think I had forgotten her. You +see, she's one of the family, and she's been away so long that she's +rather--sensitive." + +Archer looked at her glowingly. "Dear and great angel! Of course I'll +tell her." He glanced a trifle apprehensively toward the crowded +ball-room. "But I haven't seen her yet. Has she come?" + +"No; at the last minute she decided not to." + +"At the last minute?" he echoed, betraying his surprise that she should +ever have considered the alternative possible. + +"Yes. She's awfully fond of dancing," the young girl answered simply. +"But suddenly she made up her mind that her dress wasn't smart enough +for a ball, though we thought it so lovely; and so my aunt had to take +her home." + +"Oh, well--" said Archer with happy indifference. Nothing about his +betrothed pleased him more than her resolute determination to carry to +its utmost limit that ritual of ignoring the "unpleasant" in which they +had both been brought up. + +"She knows as well as I do," he reflected, "the real reason of her +cousin's staying away; but I shall never let her see by the least sign +that I am conscious of there being a shadow of a shade on poor Ellen +Olenska's reputation." + + + + +IV. + + +In the course of the next day the first of the usual betrothal visits +were exchanged. The New York ritual was precise and inflexible in such +matters; and in conformity with it Newland Archer first went with his +mother and sister to call on Mrs. Welland, after which he and Mrs. +Welland and May drove out to old Mrs. Manson Mingott's to receive that +venerable ancestress's blessing. + +A visit to Mrs. Manson Mingott was always an amusing episode to the +young man. The house in itself was already an historic document, +though not, of course, as venerable as certain other old family houses +in University Place and lower Fifth Avenue. Those were of the purest +1830, with a grim harmony of cabbage-rose-garlanded carpets, rosewood +consoles, round-arched fire-places with black marble mantels, and +immense glazed book-cases of mahogany; whereas old Mrs. Mingott, who +had built her house later, had bodily cast out the massive furniture +of her prime, and mingled with the Mingott heirlooms the frivolous +upholstery of the Second Empire. It was her habit to sit in a window +of her sitting-room on the ground floor, as if watching calmly for +life and fashion to flow northward to her solitary doors. She seemed +in no hurry to have them come, for her patience was equalled by her +confidence. She was sure that presently the hoardings, the quarries, +the one-story saloons, the wooden green-houses in ragged gardens, and +the rocks from which goats surveyed the scene, would vanish before +the advance of residences as stately as her own--perhaps (for she was +an impartial woman) even statelier; and that the cobble-stones over +which the old clattering omnibuses bumped would be replaced by smooth +asphalt, such as people reported having seen in Paris. Meanwhile, as +every one she cared to see came to _her_ (and she could fill her rooms +as easily as the Beauforts, and without adding a single item to the +menu of her suppers), she did not suffer from her geographic isolation. + +The immense accretion of flesh which had descended on her in middle +life like a flood of lava on a doomed city had changed her from a +plump active little woman with a neatly-turned foot and ankle into +something as vast and august as a natural phenomenon. She had accepted +this submergence as philosophically as all her other trials, and now, +in extreme old age, was rewarded by presenting to her mirror an almost +unwrinkled expanse of firm pink and white flesh, in the centre of which +the traces of a small face survived as if awaiting excavation. A flight +of smooth double chins led down to the dizzy depths of a still-snowy +bosom veiled in snowy muslins that were held in place by a miniature +portrait of the late Mr. Mingott; and around and below, wave after wave +of black silk surged away over the edges of a capacious armchair, with +two tiny white hands poised like gulls on the surface of the billows. + +The burden of Mrs. Manson Mingott's flesh had long since made it +impossible for her to go up and down stairs, and with characteristic +independence she had made her reception rooms upstairs and established +herself (in flagrant violation of all the New York proprieties) on the +ground floor of her house; so that, as you sat in her sitting-room +window with her, you caught (through a door that was always open, and a +looped-back yellow damask portière) the unexpected vista of a bedroom +with a huge low bed upholstered like a sofa, and a toilet-table with +frivolous lace flounces and a gilt-framed mirror. + +Her visitors were startled and fascinated by the foreignness of this +arrangement, which recalled scenes in French fiction, and architectural +incentives to immorality such as the simple American had never dreamed +of. That was how women with lovers lived in the wicked old societies, +in apartments with all the rooms on one floor, and all the indecent +propinquities that their novels described. It amused Newland Archer +(who had secretly situated the love-scenes of "Monsieur de Camors" +in Mrs. Mingott's bedroom) to picture her blameless life led in the +stage-setting of adultery; but he said to himself, with considerable +admiration, that if a lover had been what she wanted, the intrepid +woman would have had him too. + +To the general relief the Countess Olenska was not present in her +grandmother's drawing-room during the visit of the betrothed couple. +Mrs. Mingott said she had gone out; which, on a day of such glaring +sunlight, and at the "shopping hour," seemed in itself an indelicate +thing for a compromised woman to do. But at any rate it spared them the +embarrassment of her presence, and the faint shadow that her unhappy +past might seem to shed on their radiant future. The visit went off +successfully, as was to have been expected. Old Mrs. Mingott was +delighted with the engagement, which, being long foreseen by watchful +relatives, had been carefully passed upon in family council; and the +engagement ring, a large thick sapphire set in invisible claws, met +with her unqualified admiration. + +"It's the new setting: of course it shows the stone beautifully, but it +looks a little bare to old-fashioned eyes," Mrs. Welland had explained, +with a conciliatory side-glance at her future son-in-law. + +"Old-fashioned eyes? I hope you don't mean mine, my dear? I like all +the novelties," said the ancestress, lifting the stone to her small +bright orbs, which no glasses had ever disfigured. "Very handsome," +she added, returning the jewel; "very liberal. In my time a cameo set +in pearls was thought sufficient. But it's the hand that sets off the +ring, isn't it, my dear Mr. Archer?" and she waved one of her tiny +hands, with small pointed nails and rolls of aged fat encircling the +wrist like ivory bracelets. "Mine was modelled in Rome by the great +Ferrigiani. You should have May's done: no doubt he'll have it done, +my child. Her hand is large--it's these modern sports that spread the +joints--but the skin is white.--And when's the wedding to be?" she +broke off, fixing her eyes on Archer's face. + +"Oh--" Mrs. Welland murmured, while the young man, smiling at his +betrothed, replied: "As soon as ever it can, if only you'll back me up, +Mrs. Mingott." + +"We must give them time to get to know each other a little better, +mamma," Mrs. Welland interposed, with the proper affectation of +reluctance; to which the ancestress rejoined: "Know each other? +Fiddlesticks! Everybody in New York has always known everybody. Let the +young man have his way, my dear; don't wait till the bubble's off the +wine. Marry them before Lent; I may catch pneumonia any winter now, and +I want to give the wedding-breakfast." + +These successive statements were received with the proper expressions +of amusement, incredulity and gratitude; and the visit was breaking up +in a vein of mild pleasantry when the door opened to admit the Countess +Olenska, who entered in bonnet and mantle followed by the unexpected +figure of Julius Beaufort. + +There was a cousinly murmur of pleasure between the ladies, and Mrs. +Mingott held out Ferrigiani's model to the banker. "Ha! Beaufort, this +is a rare favour!" (She had an odd foreign way of addressing men by +their surnames.) + +"Thanks. I wish it might happen oftener," said the visitor in his easy +arrogant way. "I'm generally so tied down; but I met the Countess Ellen +in Madison Square, and she was good enough to let me walk home with +her." + +"Ah--I hope the house will be gayer, now that Ellen's here!" cried Mrs. +Mingott with a glorious effrontery. "Sit down--sit down, Beaufort: push +up the yellow armchair; now I've got you I want a good gossip. I hear +your ball was magnificent; and I understand you invited Mrs. Lemuel +Struthers? Well--I've a curiosity to see the woman myself." + +She had forgotten her relatives, who were drifting out into the hall +under Ellen Olenska's guidance. Old Mrs. Mingott had always professed +a great admiration for Julius Beaufort, and there was a kind of +kinship in their cool domineering way and their short-cuts through the +conventions. Now she was eagerly curious to know what had decided the +Beauforts to invite (for the first time) Mrs. Lemuel Struthers, the +widow of Struthers's Shoe-polish, who had returned the previous year +from a long initiatory sojourn in Europe to lay siege to the tight +little citadel of New York. "Of course if you and Regina invite her the +thing is settled. Well, we need new blood and new money--and I hear +she's still very good-looking," the carnivorous old lady declared. + +In the hall, while Mrs. Welland and May drew on their furs, Archer saw +that the Countess Olenska was looking at him with a faintly questioning +smile. + +"Of course you know already--about May and me," he said, answering her +look with a shy laugh. "She scolded me for not giving you the news +last night at the Opera: I had her orders to tell you that we were +engaged--but I couldn't, in that crowd." + +The smile passed from Countess Olenska's eyes to her lips: she looked +younger, more like the bold brown Ellen Mingott of his boyhood. "Of +course I know; yes. And I'm so glad. But one doesn't tell such things +first in a crowd." The ladies were on the threshold and she held out +her hand. + +"Good-bye; come and see me some day," she said, still looking at Archer. + +In the carriage, on the way down Fifth Avenue, they talked pointedly of +Mrs. Mingott, of her age, her spirit, and all her wonderful attributes. +No one alluded to Ellen Olenska; but Archer knew that Mrs. Welland was +thinking: "It's a mistake for Ellen to be seen, the very day after +her arrival, parading up Fifth Avenue at the crowded hour with Julius +Beaufort--" and the young man himself mentally added: "And she ought to +know that a man who's just engaged doesn't spend his time calling on +married women. But I daresay in the set she's lived in they do--they +never do anything else." And, in spite of the cosmopolitan views on +which he prided himself, he thanked heaven that he was a New Yorker, +and about to ally himself with one of his own kind. + + + + +V. + + +The next evening old Mr. Sillerton Jackson came to dine with the +Archers. + +Mrs. Archer was a shy woman and shrank from society; but she liked to +be well-informed as to its doings. Her old friend Mr. Sillerton Jackson +applied to the investigation of his friends' affairs the patience of a +collector and the science of a naturalist; and his sister, Miss Sophy +Jackson, who lived with him, and was entertained by all the people who +could not secure her much-sought-after brother, brought home bits of +minor gossip that filled out usefully the gaps in his picture. + +Therefore, whenever anything happened that Mrs. Archer wanted to +know about, she asked Mr. Jackson to dine; and as she honoured few +people with her invitations, and as she and her daughter Janey were an +excellent audience, Mr. Jackson usually came himself instead of sending +his sister. If he could have dictated all the conditions, he would have +chosen the evenings when Newland was out; not because the young man was +uncongenial to him (the two got on capitally at their club) but because +the old anecdotist sometimes felt, on Newland's part, a tendency to +weigh his evidence that the ladies of the family never showed. + +Mr. Jackson, if perfection had been attainable on earth, would also +have asked that Mrs. Archer's food should be a little better. But then +New York, as far back as the mind of man could travel, had been divided +into the two great fundamental groups of the Mingotts and Mansons and +all their clan, who cared about eating and clothes and money, and +the Archer-Newland-van-der-Luyden tribe, who were devoted to travel, +horticulture and the best fiction, and looked down on the grosser forms +of pleasure. + +You couldn't have everything, after all. If you dined with the Lovell +Mingotts you got canvas-back and terrapin and vintage wines; at Adeline +Archer's you could talk about Alpine scenery and "The Marble Faun"; +and luckily the Archer Madeira had gone round the Cape. Therefore when +a friendly summons came from Mrs. Archer, Mr. Jackson, who was a true +eclectic, would usually say to his sister: "I've been a little gouty +since my last dinner at the Lovell Mingotts'--it will do me good to +diet at Adeline's." + +Mrs. Archer, who had long been a widow, lived with her son and daughter +in West Twenty-eighth Street. An upper floor was dedicated to Newland, +and the two women squeezed themselves into narrower quarters below. +In an unclouded harmony of tastes and interests they cultivated ferns +in Wardian cases, made _macramé_ lace and wool embroidery on linen, +collected American revolutionary glazed ware, subscribed to "Good +Words," and read Ouida's novels for the sake of the Italian atmosphere. +(They preferred those about peasant life, because of the descriptions +of scenery and the pleasanter sentiments, though in general they liked +novels about people in society, whose motives and habits were more +comprehensible, spoke severely of Dickens, who "had never drawn a +gentleman," and considered Thackeray less at home in the great world +than Bulwer--who, however, was beginning to be thought old-fashioned.) +Mrs. and Miss Archer were both great lovers of scenery. It was what +they principally sought and admired on their occasional travels +abroad; considering architecture and painting as subjects for men, +and chiefly for learned persons who read Ruskin. Mrs. Archer had been +born a Newland, and mother and daughter, who were as like as sisters, +were both, as people said, "true Newlands"; tall, pale, and slightly +round-shouldered, with long noses, sweet smiles and a kind of drooping +distinction like that in certain faded Reynolds portraits. Their +physical resemblance would have been complete if an elderly embonpoint +had not stretched Mrs. Archer's black brocade, while Miss Archer's +brown and purple poplins hung, as the years went on, more and more +slackly on her virgin frame. + +Mentally, the likeness between them, as Newland was aware, was less +complete than their identical mannerisms often made it appear. The long +habit of living together in mutually dependent intimacy had given them +the same vocabulary, and the same habit of beginning their phrases +"Mother thinks" or "Janey thinks," according as one or the other wished +to advance an opinion of her own; but in reality, while Mrs. Archer's +serene unimaginativeness rested easily in the accepted and familiar, +Janey was subject to starts and aberrations of fancy welling up from +springs of suppressed romance. + +Mother and daughter adored each other and revered their son and +brother; and Archer loved them with a tenderness made compunctious and +uncritical by the sense of their exaggerated admiration, and by his +secret satisfaction in it. After all, he thought it a good thing for a +man to have his authority respected in his own house, even if his sense +of humour sometimes made him question the force of his mandate. + +On this occasion the young man was very sure that Mr. Jackson would +rather have had him dine out; but he had his own reasons for not doing +so. + +Of course old Jackson wanted to talk about Ellen Olenska, and of course +Mrs. Archer and Janey wanted to hear what he had to tell. All three +would be slightly embarrassed by Newland's presence, now that his +prospective relation to the Mingott clan had been made known; and the +young man waited with an amused curiosity to see how they would turn +the difficulty. + +They began, obliquely, by talking about Mrs. Lemuel Struthers. + +"It's a pity the Beauforts asked her," Mrs. Archer said gently. "But +then Regina always does what he tells her; and _Beaufort_--" + +"Certain _nuances_ escape Beaufort," said Mr. Jackson, cautiously +inspecting the broiled shad, and wondering for the thousandth time why +Mrs. Archer's cook always burnt the roe to a cinder. (Newland, who +had long shared his wonder, could always detect it in the older man's +expression of melancholy disapproval.) + +"Oh, necessarily; Beaufort is a vulgar man," said Mrs. Archer. "My +grandfather Newland always used to say to my mother: 'Whatever you do, +don't let that fellow Beaufort be introduced to the girls.' But at +least he's had the advantage of associating with gentlemen; in England +too, they say. It's all very mysterious--" She glanced at Janey and +paused. She and Janey knew every fold of the Beaufort mystery, but in +public Mrs. Archer continued to assume that the subject was not one for +the unmarried. + +"But this Mrs. Struthers," Mrs. Archer continued; "what did you say +_she_ was, Sillerton?" + +"Out of a mine: or rather out of the saloon at the head of the pit. +Then with Living Wax-Works, touring New England. After the police broke +_that_ up, they say she lived--" Mr. Jackson in his turn glanced at +Janey, whose eyes began to bulge from under her prominent lids. There +were still hiatuses for her in Mrs. Struthers's past. + +"Then," Mr. Jackson continued (and Archer saw he was wondering why no +one had told the butler never to slice cucumbers with a steel knife), +"then Lemuel Struthers came along. They say his advertiser used the +girl's head for the shoe-polish posters; her hair's intensely black, +you know--the Egyptian style. Anyhow, he--eventually--married her." +There were volumes of innuendo in the way the "eventually" was spaced, +and each syllable given its due stress. + +"Oh, well--at the pass we've come to nowadays, it doesn't matter," said +Mrs. Archer indifferently. The ladies were not really interested in +Mrs. Struthers just then; the subject of Ellen Olenska was too fresh +and too absorbing to them. Indeed, Mrs. Struthers's name had been +introduced by Mrs. Archer only that she might presently be able to say: +"And Newland's new cousin--Countess Olenska? Was _she_ at the ball too?" + +There was a faint touch of sarcasm in the reference to her son, and +Archer knew it and had expected it. Even Mrs. Archer, who was seldom +unduly pleased with human events, had been altogether glad of her +son's engagement. ("Especially after that silly business with Mrs. +Rushworth," as she had remarked to Janey, alluding to what had once +seemed to Newland a tragedy of which his soul would always bear the +scar.) + +There was no better match in New York than May Welland, look at the +question from whatever point you chose. Of course such a marriage was +only what Newland was entitled to; but young men are so foolish and +incalculable--and some women so ensnaring and unscrupulous--that it was +nothing short of a miracle to see one's only son safe past the Siren +Isle and in the haven of a blameless domesticity. + +All this Mrs. Archer felt, and her son knew she felt; but he knew +also that she had been perturbed by the premature announcement of his +engagement, or rather by its cause; and it was for that reason--because +on the whole he was a tender and indulgent master--that he had stayed +at home that evening. "It's not that I don't approve of the Mingotts' +_esprit de corps_; but why Newland's engagement should be mixed up with +that Olenska woman's comings and goings I don't see," Mrs. Archer +grumbled to Janey, the only witness of her slight lapses from perfect +sweetness. + +She had behaved beautifully--and in beautiful behaviour she was +unsurpassed--during the call on Mrs. Welland; but Newland knew (and his +betrothed doubtless guessed) that all through the visit she and Janey +were nervously on the watch for Madame Olenska's possible intrusion; +and when they left the house together she had permitted herself to say +to her son: "I'm thankful that Augusta Welland received us alone." + +These indications of inward disturbance moved Archer the more that he +too felt that the Mingotts had gone a little too far. But, as it was +against all the rules of their code that the mother and son should ever +allude to what was uppermost in their thoughts, he simply replied: "Oh, +well, there's always a phase of family parties to be gone through when +one gets engaged, and the sooner it's over the better." At which his +mother merely pursed her lips under the lace veil that hung down from +her grey velvet bonnet trimmed with frosted grapes. + +Her revenge, he felt--her lawful revenge--would be to "draw" Mr. +Jackson that evening on the Countess Olenska; and, having publicly done +his duty as a future member of the Mingott clan, the young man had no +objection to hearing the lady discussed in private--except that the +subject was already beginning to bore him. + +Mr. Jackson had helped himself to a slice of the tepid filet which the +mournful butler had handed him with a look as sceptical as his own, and +had rejected the mushroom sauce after a scarcely perceptible sniff. He +looked baffled and hungry, and Archer reflected that he would probably +finish his meal on Ellen Olenska. + +Mr. Jackson leaned back in his chair, and glanced up at the candlelit +Archers, Newlands and van der Luydens hanging in dark frames on the +dark walls. + +"Ah, how your grandfather Archer loved a good dinner, my dear Newland!" +he said, his eyes on the portrait of a plump full-chested young man in +a stock and a blue coat, with a view of a white-columned country-house +behind him. "Well--well--well ... I wonder what he would have said to +all these foreign marriages!" + +Mrs. Archer ignored the allusion to the ancestral cuisine and Mr. +Jackson continued with deliberation: "No, she was _not_ at the ball." + +"Ah--" Mrs. Archer murmured, in a tone that implied: "She had that +decency." + +"Perhaps the Beauforts don't know her," Janey suggested, with her +artless malice. + +Mr. Jackson gave a faint sip, as if he had been tasting invisible +Madeira. "Mrs. Beaufort may not--but Beaufort certainly does, for she +was seen walking up Fifth Avenue this afternoon with him by the whole +of New York." + +"Mercy--" moaned Mrs. Archer, evidently perceiving the uselessness of +trying to ascribe the actions of foreigners to a sense of delicacy. + +"I wonder if she wears a round hat or a bonnet in the afternoon," Janey +speculated. "At the Opera I know she had on dark blue velvet, perfectly +plain and flat--like a night-gown." + +"Janey!" said her mother; and Miss Archer blushed and tried to look +audacious. + +"It was, at any rate, in better taste not to go to the ball," Mrs. +Archer continued. + +A spirit of perversity moved her son to rejoin: "I don't think it was a +question of taste with her. May said she meant to go, and then decided +that the dress in question wasn't smart enough." + +Mrs. Archer smiled at this confirmation of her inference. "Poor Ellen," +she simply remarked; adding compassionately: "We must always bear in +mind what an eccentric bringing-up Medora Manson gave her. What can you +expect of a girl who was allowed to wear black satin at her coming-out +ball?" + +"Ah--don't I remember her in it!" said Mr. Jackson; adding: "Poor +girl!" in the tone of one who, while enjoying the memory, had fully +understood at the time what the sight portended. + +"It's odd," Janey remarked, "that she should have kept such an ugly +name as Ellen. I should have changed it to Elaine." She glanced about +the table to see the effect of this. + +Her brother laughed. "Why Elaine?" + +"I don't know; it sounds more--more Polish," said Janey, blushing. + +"It sounds more conspicuous; and that can hardly be what she wishes," +said Mrs. Archer distantly. + +"Why not?" broke in her son, growing suddenly argumentative. "Why +shouldn't she be conspicuous if she chooses? Why should she slink +about as if it were she who had disgraced herself? She's 'poor Ellen' +certainly, because she had the bad luck to make a wretched marriage; +but I don't see that that's a reason for hiding her head as if she were +the culprit." + +"That, I suppose," said Mr. Jackson, speculatively, "is the line the +Mingotts mean to take." + +The young man reddened. "I didn't have to wait for their cue, if that's +what you mean, sir. Madame Olenska has had an unhappy life: that +doesn't make her an outcast." + +"There are rumours," began Mr. Jackson, glancing at Janey. + +"Oh, I know: the secretary," the young man took him up. "Nonsense, +mother; Janey's grown-up. They say, don't they," he went on, "that the +secretary helped her to get away from her brute of a husband, who kept +her practically a prisoner? Well, what if he did? I hope there isn't a +man among us who wouldn't have done the same in such a case." + +Mr. Jackson glanced over his shoulder to say to the sad butler: +"Perhaps ... that sauce ... just a little, after all--"; then, having +helped himself, he remarked: "I'm told she's looking for a house. She +means to live here." + +"I hear she means to get a divorce," said Janey boldly. + +"I hope she will!" Archer exclaimed. + +The word had fallen like a bombshell in the pure and tranquil +atmosphere of the Archer dining-room. Mrs. Archer raised her delicate +eye-brows in the particular curve that signified: "The butler--" and +the young man, himself mindful of the bad taste of discussing such +intimate matters in public, hastily branched off into an account of his +visit to old Mrs. Mingott. + +After dinner, according to immemorial custom, Mrs. Archer and Janey +trailed their long silk draperies up to the drawing-room, where, while +the gentlemen smoked below stairs, they sat beside a Carcel lamp with +an engraved globe, facing each other across a rosewood work-table with +a green silk bag under it, and stitched at the two ends of a tapestry +band of field-flowers destined to adorn an "occasional" chair in the +drawing-room of young Mrs. Newland Archer. + +While this rite was in progress in the drawing-room, Archer settled Mr. +Jackson in an armchair near the fire in the Gothic library and handed +him a cigar. Mr. Jackson sank into the armchair with satisfaction, lit +his cigar with perfect confidence (it was Newland who bought them), +and stretching his thin old ankles to the coals, said: "You say the +secretary merely helped her to get away, my dear fellow? Well, he was +still helping her a year later, then; for somebody met 'em living at +Lausanne together." + +Newland reddened. "Living together? Well, why not? Who had the right +to make her life over if she hadn't? I'm sick of the hypocrisy that +would bury alive a woman of her age if her husband prefers to live with +harlots." + +He stopped and turned away angrily to light his cigar. "Women ought to +be free--as free as we are," he declared, making a discovery of which +he was too irritated to measure the terrific consequences. + +Mr. Sillerton Jackson stretched his ankles nearer the coals and emitted +a sardonic whistle. + +"Well," he said after a pause, "apparently Count Olenski takes your +view; for I never heard of his having lifted a finger to get his wife +back." + + + + +VI. + + +That evening, after Mr. Jackson had taken himself away, and the ladies +had retired to their chintz-curtained bedroom, Newland Archer mounted +thoughtfully to his own study. A vigilant hand had, as usual, kept +the fire alive and the lamp trimmed; and the room, with its rows and +rows of books, its bronze and steel statuettes of "The Fencers" on +the mantelpiece and its many photographs of famous pictures, looked +singularly home-like and welcoming. + +As he dropped into his armchair near the fire his eyes rested on a +large photograph of May Welland, which the young girl had given him +in the first days of their romance, and which had now displaced all +the other portraits on the table. With a new sense of awe he looked at +the frank forehead, serious eyes and gay innocent mouth of the young +creature whose soul's custodian he was to be. That terrifying product +of the social system he belonged to and believed in, the young girl +who knew nothing and expected everything, looked back at him like a +stranger through May Welland's familiar features; and once more it was +borne in on him that marriage was not the safe anchorage he had been +taught to think, but a voyage on uncharted seas. + +The case of the Countess Olenska had stirred up old settled +convictions and set them drifting dangerously through his mind. His +own exclamation: "Women should be free--as free as we are," struck +to the root of a problem that it was agreed in his world to regard +as non-existent. "Nice" women, however wronged, would never claim +the kind of freedom he meant, and generous-minded men like himself +were therefore--in the heat of argument--the more chivalrously ready +to concede it to them. Such verbal generosities were in fact only a +humbugging disguise of the inexorable conventions that tied things +together and bound people down to the old pattern. But here he was +pledged to defend, on the part of his betrothed's cousin, conduct +that, on his own wife's part, would justify him in calling down on +her all the thunders of Church and State. Of course the dilemma was +purely hypothetical; since he wasn't a blackguard Polish nobleman, it +was absurd to speculate what his wife's rights would be if he _were_. +But Newland Archer was too imaginative not to feel that, in his case +and May's, the tie might gall for reasons far less gross and palpable. +What could he and she really know of each other, since it was his duty, +as a "decent" fellow, to conceal his past from her, and hers, as a +marriageable girl, to have no past to conceal? What if, for some one +of the subtler reasons that would tell with both of them, they should +tire of each other, misunderstand or irritate each other? He reviewed +his friends' marriages--the supposedly happy ones--and saw none that +answered, even remotely, to the passionate and tender comradeship which +he pictured as his permanent relation with May Welland. He perceived +that such a picture presupposed, on her part, the experience, the +versatility, the freedom of judgment, which she had been carefully +trained not to possess; and with a shiver of foreboding he saw his +marriage becoming what most of the other marriages about him were: a +dull association of material and social interests held together by +ignorance on the one side and hypocrisy on the other. Lawrence Lefferts +occurred to him as the husband who had most completely realised this +enviable ideal. As became the high-priest of form, he had formed a wife +so completely to his own convenience that, in the most conspicuous +moments of his frequent love-affairs with other men's wives, she +went about in smiling unconsciousness, saying that "Lawrence was so +frightfully strict"; and had been known to blush indignantly, and avert +her gaze, when some one alluded in her presence to the fact that Julius +Beaufort (as became a "foreigner" of doubtful origin) had what was +known in New York as "another establishment." + +Archer tried to console himself with the thought that he was not +quite such an ass as Larry Lefferts, nor May such a simpleton as poor +Gertrude; but the difference was after all one of intelligence and +not of standards. In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic +world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but +only represented by a set of arbitrary signs; as when Mrs. Welland, +who knew exactly why Archer had pressed her to announce her daughter's +engagement at the Beaufort ball (and had indeed expected him to do no +less), yet felt obliged to simulate reluctance, and the air of having +had her hand forced, quite as, in the books on Primitive Man that +people of advanced culture were beginning to read, the savage bride is +dragged with shrieks from her parents' tent. + +The result, of course, was that the young girl who was the centre of +this elaborate system of mystification remained the more inscrutable +for her very frankness and assurance. She was frank, poor darling, +because she had nothing to conceal, assured because she knew of nothing +to be on her guard against; and with no better preparation than this, +she was to be plunged overnight into what people evasively called "the +facts of life." + +The young man was sincerely but placidly in love. He delighted in the +radiant good looks of his betrothed, in her health, her horsemanship, +her grace and quickness at games, and the shy interest in books and +ideas that she was beginning to develop under his guidance. (She had +advanced far enough to join him in ridiculing the Idyls of the King, +but not to feel the beauty of Ulysses and the Lotus Eaters.) She was +straightforward, loyal and brave; she had a sense of humour (chiefly +proved by her laughing at _his_ jokes); and he suspected, in the depths +of her innocently-gazing soul, a glow of feeling that it would be a +joy to waken. But when he had gone the brief round of her he returned +discouraged by the thought that all this frankness and innocence were +only an artificial product. Untrained human nature was not frank and +innocent; it was full of the twists and defences of an instinctive +guile. And he felt himself oppressed by this creation of factitious +purity, so cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy of mothers and aunts +and grandmothers and long-dead ancestresses, because it was supposed +to be what he wanted, what he had a right to, in order that he might +exercise his lordly pleasure in smashing it like an image made of snow. + +There was a certain triteness in these reflections: they were those +habitual to young men on the approach of their wedding day. But they +were generally accompanied by a sense of compunction and self-abasement +of which Newland Archer felt no trace. He could not deplore (as +Thackeray's heroes so often exasperated him by doing) that he had not a +blank page to offer his bride in exchange for the unblemished one she +was to give to him. He could not get away from the fact that if he had +been brought up as she had they would have been no more fit to find +their way about than the Babes in the Wood; nor could he, for all his +anxious cogitations, see any honest reason (any, that is, unconnected +with his own momentary pleasure, and the passion of masculine vanity) +why his bride should not have been allowed the same freedom of +experience as himself. + +Such questions, at such an hour, were bound to drift through his +mind; but he was conscious that their uncomfortable persistence and +precision were due to the inopportune arrival of the Countess Olenska. +Here he was, at the very moment of his betrothal--a moment for pure +thoughts and cloudless hopes--pitchforked into a coil of scandal which +raised all the special problems he would have preferred to let lie. +"Hang Ellen Olenska!" he grumbled, as he covered his fire and began to +undress. He could not really see why her fate should have the least +bearing on his; yet he dimly felt that he had only just begun to +measure the risks of the championship which his engagement had forced +upon him. + + +A few days later the bolt fell. + +The Lovell Mingotts had sent out cards for what was known as "a formal +dinner" (that is, three extra footmen, two dishes for each course, and +a Roman punch in the middle), and had headed their invitations with the +words "To meet the Countess Olenska," in accordance with the hospitable +American fashion, which treats strangers as if they were royalties, or +at least as their ambassadors. + +The guests had been selected with a boldness and discrimination in +which the initiated recognised the firm hand of Catherine the Great. +Associated with such immemorial standbys as the Selfridge Merrys, who +were asked everywhere because they always had been, the Beauforts, +on whom there was a claim of relationship, and Mr. Sillerton Jackson +and his sister Sophy (who went wherever her brother told her to), +were some of the most fashionable and yet most irreproachable of the +dominant "young married" set; the Lawrence Leffertses, Mrs. Lefferts +Rushworth (the lovely widow), the Harry Thorleys, the Reggie Chiverses +and young Morris Dagonet and his wife (who was a van der Luyden). The +company indeed was perfectly assorted, since all the members belonged +to the little inner group of people who, during the long New York +season, disported themselves together daily and nightly with apparently +undiminished zest. + +Forty-eight hours later the unbelievable had happened; every one had +refused the Mingotts' invitation except the Beauforts and old Mr. +Jackson and his sister. The intended slight was emphasised by the fact +that even the Reggie Chiverses, who were of the Mingott clan, were +among those inflicting it; and by the uniform wording of the notes, in +all of which the writers "regretted that they were unable to accept," +without the mitigating plea of a "previous engagement" that ordinary +courtesy prescribed. + +New York society was, in those days, far too small, and too scant in +its resources, for every one in it (including livery-stable-keepers, +butlers and cooks) not to know exactly on which evenings people were +free; and it was thus possible for the recipients of Mrs. Lovell +Mingott's invitations to make cruelly clear their determination not to +meet the Countess Olenska. + +The blow was unexpected; but the Mingotts, as their way was, met it +gallantly. Mrs. Lovell Mingott confided the case to Mrs. Welland, who +confided it to Newland Archer; who, aflame at the outrage, appealed +passionately and authoritatively to his mother; who, after a painful +period of inward resistance and outward temporising, succumbed to his +instances (as she always did), and immediately embracing his cause with +an energy redoubled by her previous hesitations, put on her grey velvet +bonnet and said: "I'll go and see Louisa van der Luyden." + +The New York of Newland Archer's day was a small and slippery pyramid, +in which, as yet, hardly a fissure had been made or a foothold gained. +At its base was a firm foundation of what Mrs. Archer called "plain +people"; an honourable but obscure majority of respectable families who +(as in the case of the Spicers or the Leffertses or the Jacksons) had +been raised above their level by marriage with one of the ruling clans. +People, Mrs. Archer always said, were not as particular as they used to +be; and with old Catherine Spicer ruling one end of Fifth Avenue, and +Julius Beaufort the other, you couldn't expect the old traditions to +last much longer. + +Firmly narrowing upward from this wealthy but inconspicuous substratum +was the compact and dominant group which the Mingotts, Newlands, +Chiverses and Mansons so actively represented. Most people imagined +them to be the very apex of the pyramid; but they themselves (at least +those of Mrs. Archer's generation) were aware that, in the eyes of the +professional genealogist, only a still smaller number of families could +lay claim to that eminence. + +"Don't tell me," Mrs. Archer would say to her children, "all this +modern newspaper rubbish about a New York aristocracy. If there is one, +neither the Mingotts nor the Mansons belong to it; no, nor the Newlands +or the Chiverses either. Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers were +just respectable English or Dutch merchants, who came to the colonies +to make their fortune, and stayed here because they did so well. One +of your great-grandfathers signed the Declaration, and another was a +general on Washington's staff, and received General Burgoyne's sword +after the battle of Saratoga. These are things to be proud of, but +they have nothing to do with rank or class. New York has always been a +commercial community, and there are not more than three families in it +who can claim an aristocratic origin in the real sense of the word." + +Mrs. Archer and her son and daughter, like every one else in New York, +knew who these privileged beings were: the Dagonets of Washington +Square, who came of an old English county family allied with the Pitts +and Foxes; the Lannings, who had intermarried with the descendants of +Count de Grasse, and the van der Luydens, direct descendants of the +first Dutch governor of Manhattan, and related by pre-revolutionary +marriages to several members of the French and British aristocracy. + +The Lannings survived only in the person of two very old but lively +Miss Lannings, who lived cheerfully and reminiscently among family +portraits and Chippendale; the Dagonets were a considerable clan, +allied to the best names in Baltimore and Philadelphia; but the van +der Luydens, who stood above all of them, had faded into a kind of +super-terrestrial twilight, from which only two figures impressively +emerged; those of Mr. and Mrs. Henry van der Luyden. + +Mrs. Henry van der Luyden had been Louisa Dagonet, and her mother had +been the granddaughter of Colonel du Lac, of an old Channel Island +family, who had fought under Cornwallis and had settled in Maryland, +after the war, with his bride, Lady Angelica Trevenna, fifth daughter +of the Earl of St. Austrey. The tie between the Dagonets, the du Lacs +of Maryland, and their aristocratic Cornish kinsfolk, the Trevennas, +had always remained close and cordial. Mr. and Mrs. van der Luyden +had more than once paid long visits to the present head of the house +of Trevenna, the Duke of St. Austrey, at his country-seat in Cornwall +and at St. Austrey in Gloucestershire; and his Grace had frequently +announced his intention of some day returning their visit (without the +Duchess, who feared the Atlantic). + +Mr. and Mrs. van der Luyden divided their time between Trevenna, their +place in Maryland, and Skuytercliff, the great estate on the Hudson +which had been one of the colonial grants of the Dutch government to +the famous first Governor, and of which Mr. van der Luyden was still +"Patroon." Their large solemn house in Madison Avenue was seldom +opened, and when they came to town they received in it only their most +intimate friends. + +"I wish you would go with me, Newland," his mother said, suddenly +pausing at the door of the Brown coupe. "Louisa is fond of you; and of +course it's on account of dear May that I'm taking this step--and also +because, if we don't all stand together, there'll be no such thing as +Society left." + + + + +VII. + + +Mrs. Henry van der Luyden listened in silence to her cousin Mrs. +Archer's narrative. + +It was all very well to tell yourself in advance that Mrs. van der +Luyden was always silent, and that, though non-committal by nature +and training, she was very kind to the people she really liked. Even +personal experience of these facts was not always a protection from the +chill that descended on one in the high-ceilinged white-walled Madison +Avenue drawing-room, with the pale brocaded armchairs so obviously +uncovered for the occasion, and the gauze still veiling the ormolu +mantel ornaments and the beautiful old carved frame of Gainsborough's +"Lady Angelica du Lac." + +Mrs. van der Luyden's portrait by Huntington (in black velvet and +Venetian point) faced that of her lovely ancestress. It was generally +considered "as fine as a Cabanel," and, though twenty years had elapsed +since its execution, was still "a perfect likeness." Indeed the Mrs. +van der Luyden who sat beneath it listening to Mrs. Archer might have +been the twin-sister of the fair and still youngish woman drooping +against a gilt armchair before a green rep curtain. Mrs. van der +Luyden still wore black velvet and Venetian point when she went into +society--or rather (since she never dined out) when she threw open her +own doors to receive it. Her fair hair, which had faded without turning +grey, was still parted in flat overlapping points on her forehead, +and the straight nose that divided her pale blue eyes was only a +little more pinched about the nostrils than when the portrait had been +painted. She always, indeed, struck Newland Archer as having been +rather gruesomely preserved in the airless atmosphere of a perfectly +irreproachable existence, as bodies caught in glaciers keep for years a +rosy life-in-death. + +Like all his family, he esteemed and admired Mrs. van der Luyden; +but he found her gentle bending sweetness less approachable than the +grimness of some of his mother's old aunts, fierce spinsters who said +"No" on principle before they knew what they were going to be asked. + +Mrs. van der Luyden's attitude said neither yes nor no, but always +appeared to incline to clemency till her thin lips, wavering into the +shadow of a smile, made the almost invariable reply: "I shall first +have to talk this over with my husband." + +She and Mr. van der Luyden were so exactly alike that Archer often +wondered how, after forty years of the closest conjugality, two such +merged identities ever separated themselves enough for anything as +controversial as a talking-over. But as neither had ever reached a +decision without prefacing it by this mysterious conclave, Mrs. Archer +and her son, having set forth their case, waited resignedly for the +familiar phrase. + +Mrs. van der Luyden, however, who had seldom surprised any one, now +surprised them by reaching her long hand toward the bell-rope. + +"I think," she said, "I should like Henry to hear what you have told +me." + +A footman appeared, to whom she gravely added: "If Mr. van der Luyden +has finished reading the newspaper, please ask him to be kind enough to +come." + +She said "reading the newspaper" in the tone in which a Minister's +wife might have said: "Presiding at a Cabinet meeting"--not from any +arrogance of mind, but because the habit of a life-time, and the +attitude of her friends and relations, had led her to consider Mr. van +der Luyden's least gesture as having an almost sacerdotal importance. + +Her promptness of action showed that she considered the case as +pressing as Mrs. Archer; but, lest she should be thought to have +committed herself in advance, she added, with the sweetest look: +"Henry always enjoys seeing you, dear Adeline; and he will wish to +congratulate Newland." + +The double doors had solemnly reopened and between them appeared Mr. +Henry van der Luyden, tall, spare and frock-coated, with faded fair +hair, a straight nose like his wife's and the same look of frozen +gentleness in eyes that were merely pale grey instead of pale blue. + +Mr. van der Luyden greeted Mrs. Archer with cousinly affability, +proffered to Newland low-voiced congratulations couched in the same +language as his wife's, and seated himself in one of the brocade +armchairs with the simplicity of a reigning sovereign. + +"I had just finished reading the Times," he said, laying his long +finger-tips together. "In town my mornings are so much occupied that I +find it more convenient to read the newspapers after luncheon." + +"Ah, there's a great deal to be said for that plan--indeed I think my +uncle Egmont used to say he found it less agitating not to read the +morning papers till after dinner," said Mrs. Archer responsively. + +"Yes: my good father abhorred hurry. But now we live in a constant +rush," said Mr. van der Luyden in measured tones, looking with pleasant +deliberation about the large shrouded room which to Archer was so +complete an image of its owners. + +"But I hope you _had_ finished your reading, Henry?" his wife +interposed. + +"Quite--quite," he reassured her. + +"Then I should like Adeline to tell you--" + +"Oh, it's really Newland's story," said his mother smiling; and +proceeded to rehearse once more the monstrous tale of the affront +inflicted on Mrs. Lovell Mingott. + +"Of course," she ended, "Augusta Welland and Mary Mingott both felt +that, especially in view of Newland's engagement, you and Henry _ought +to know_." + +"Ah--" said Mr. van der Luyden, drawing a deep breath. + +There was a silence during which the tick of the monumental ormolu +clock on the white marble mantelpiece grew as loud as the boom of a +minute-gun. Archer contemplated with awe the two slender faded figures, +seated side by side in a kind of viceregal rigidity, mouthpieces of +some remote ancestral authority which fate compelled them to wield, +when they would so much rather have lived in simplicity and seclusion, +digging invisible weeds out of the perfect lawns of Skuytercliff, and +playing Patience together in the evenings. + +Mr. van der Luyden was the first to speak. + +"You really think this is due to some--some intentional interference of +Lawrence Lefferts's?" he enquired, turning to Archer. + +"I'm certain of it, sir. Larry has been going it rather harder than +usual lately--if cousin Louisa won't mind my mentioning it--having +rather a stiff affair with the postmaster's wife in their village, or +some one of that sort; and whenever poor Gertrude Lefferts begins to +suspect anything, and he's afraid of trouble, he gets up a fuss of +this kind, to show how awfully moral he is, and talks at the top of +his voice about the impertinence of inviting his wife to meet people +he doesn't wish her to know. He's simply using Madame Olenska as a +lightning-rod; I've seen him try the same thing often before." + +"The _Leffertses_!--" said Mrs. van der Luyden. + +"The _Leffertses_!--" echoed Mrs. Archer. "What would uncle Egmont have +said of Lawrence Lefferts's pronouncing on anybody's social position? +It shows what Society has come to." + +"We'll hope it has not quite come to that," said Mr. van der Luyden +firmly. + +"Ah, if only you and Louisa went out more!" sighed Mrs. Archer. + +But instantly she became aware of her mistake. The van der Luydens were +morbidly sensitive to any criticism of their secluded existence. They +were the arbiters of fashion, the Court of last Appeal, and they knew +it, and bowed to their fate. But being shy and retiring persons, with +no natural inclination for their part, they lived as much as possible +in the sylvan solitude of Skuytercliff, and when they came to town, +declined all invitations on the plea of Mrs. van der Luyden's health. + +Newland Archer came to his mother's rescue. "Everybody in New York +knows what you and cousin Louisa represent. That's why Mrs. Mingott +felt she ought not to allow this slight on Countess Olenska to pass +without consulting you." + +Mrs. van der Luyden glanced at her husband, who glanced back at her. + +"It is the principle that I dislike," said Mr. van der Luyden. "As +long as a member of a well-known family is backed up by that family it +should be considered--final." + +"It seems so to me," said his wife, as if she were producing a new +thought. + +"I had no idea," Mr. van der Luyden continued, "that things had +come to such a pass." He paused, and looked at his wife again. "It +occurs to me, my dear, that the Countess Olenska is already a sort of +relation--through Medora Manson's first husband. At any rate, she will +be when Newland marries." He turned toward the young man. "Have you +read this morning's Times, Newland?" + +"Why, yes, sir," said Archer, who usually tossed off half a dozen +papers with his morning coffee. + +Husband and wife looked at each other again. Their pale eyes clung +together in prolonged and serious consultation; then a faint smile +fluttered over Mrs. van der Luyden's face. She had evidently guessed +and approved. + +Mr. van der Luyden turned to Mrs. Archer. "If Louisa's health allowed +her to dine out--I wish you would say to Mrs. Lovell Mingott--she +and I would have been happy to--er--fill the places of the Lawrence +Leffertses at her dinner." He paused to let the irony of this sink in. +"As you know, this is impossible." Mrs. Archer sounded a sympathetic +assent. "But Newland tells me he has read this morning's Times; +therefore he has probably seen that Louisa's relative, the Duke of St. +Austrey, arrives next week on the Russia. He is coming to enter his +new sloop, the Guinevere, in next summer's International Cup Race; and +also to have a little canvasback shooting at Trevenna." Mr. van der +Luyden paused again, and continued with increasing benevolence: "Before +taking him down to Maryland we are inviting a few friends to meet him +here--only a little dinner--with a reception afterward. I am sure +Louisa will be as glad as I am if Countess Olenska will let us include +her among our guests." He got up, bent his long body with a stiff +friendliness toward his cousin, and added: "I think I have Louisa's +authority for saying that she will herself leave the invitation to +dine when she drives out presently: with our cards--of course with our +cards." + +Mrs. Archer, who knew this to be a hint that the seventeen-hand +chestnuts which were never kept waiting were at the door, rose with a +hurried murmur of thanks. Mrs. van der Luyden beamed on her with the +smile of Esther interceding with Ahasuerus; but her husband raised a +protesting hand. + +"There is nothing to thank me for, dear Adeline; nothing whatever. This +kind of thing must not happen in New York; it shall not, as long as I +can help it," he pronounced with sovereign gentleness as he steered his +cousins to the door. + +Two hours later, every one knew that the great C-spring barouche in +which Mrs. van der Luyden took the air at all seasons had been seen at +old Mrs. Mingott's door, where a large square envelope was handed in; +and that evening at the Opera Mr. Sillerton Jackson was able to state +that the envelope contained a card inviting the Countess Olenska to the +dinner which the van der Luydens were giving the following week for +their cousin, the Duke of St. Austrey. + +Some of the younger men in the club box exchanged a smile at this +announcement, and glanced sideways at Lawrence Lefferts, who sat +carelessly in the front of the box, pulling his long fair moustache, +and who remarked with authority, as the soprano paused: "No one but +Patti ought to attempt the Sonnambula." + + + + +VIII. + + +It was generally agreed in New York that the Countess Olenska had "lost +her looks." + +She had appeared there first, in Newland Archer's boyhood, as a +brilliantly pretty little girl of nine or ten, of whom people said that +she "ought to be painted." Her parents had been continental wanderers, +and after a roaming babyhood she had lost them both, and been taken in +charge by her aunt, Medora Manson, also a wanderer, who was herself +returning to New York to "settle down." + +Poor Medora, repeatedly widowed, was always coming home to settle down +(each time in a less expensive house), and bringing with her a new +husband or an adopted child; but after a few months she invariably +parted from her husband or quarrelled with her ward, and, having got +rid of her house at a loss, set out again on her wanderings. As her +mother had been a Rushworth, and her last unhappy marriage had linked +her to one of the crazy Chiverses, New York looked indulgently on her +eccentricities; but when she returned with her little orphaned niece, +whose parents had been popular in spite of their regrettable taste for +travel, people thought it a pity that the pretty child should be in +such hands. + +Every one was disposed to be kind to little Ellen Mingott, though her +dusky red cheeks and tight curls gave her an air of gaiety that seemed +unsuitable in a child who should still have been in black for her +parents. It was one of the misguided Medora's many peculiarities to +flout the unalterable rules that regulated American mourning, and when +she stepped from the steamer her family were scandalised to see that +the crape veil she wore for her own brother was seven inches shorter +than those of her sisters-in-law, while little Ellen was in crimson +merino and amber beads, like a gipsy foundling. + +But New York had so long resigned itself to Medora that only a few old +ladies shook their heads over Ellen's gaudy clothes, while her other +relations fell under the charm of her high colour and high spirits. +She was a fearless and familiar little thing, who asked disconcerting +questions, made precocious comments, and possessed outlandish arts, +such as dancing a Spanish shawl dance and singing Neapolitan love-songs +to a guitar. Under the direction of her aunt (whose real name was Mrs. +Thorley Chivers, but who, having received a Papal title, had resumed +her first husband's patronymic, and called herself the Marchioness +Manson, because in Italy she could turn it into Manzoni) the little +girl received an expensive but incoherent education, which included +"drawing from the model," a thing never dreamed of before, and playing +the piano in quintets with professional musicians. + +Of course no good could come of this; and when, a few years later, +poor Chivers finally died in a madhouse, his widow (draped in strange +weeds) again pulled up stakes and departed with Ellen, who had grown +into a tall bony girl with conspicuous eyes. For some time no more was +heard of them; then news came of Ellen's marriage to an immensely rich +Polish nobleman of legendary fame, whom she had met at a ball at the +Tuileries, and who was said to have princely establishments in Paris, +Nice and Florence, a yacht at Cowes, and many square miles of shooting +in Transylvania. She disappeared in a kind of sulphurous apotheosis, +and when a few years later Medora again came back to New York, subdued, +impoverished, mourning a third husband, and in quest of a still smaller +house, people wondered that her rich niece had not been able to do +something for her. Then came the news that Ellen's own marriage had +ended in disaster, and that she was herself returning home to seek rest +and oblivion among her kinsfolk. + +These things passed through Newland Archer's mind a week later as he +watched the Countess Olenska enter the van der Luyden drawing-room on +the evening of the momentous dinner. The occasion was a solemn one, +and he wondered a little nervously how she would carry it off. She +came rather late, one hand still ungloved, and fastening a bracelet +about her wrist; yet she entered without any appearance of haste or +embarrassment the drawing-room in which New York's most chosen company +was somewhat awfully assembled. + +In the middle of the room she paused, looking about her with a grave +mouth and smiling eyes; and in that instant Newland Archer rejected +the general verdict on her looks. It was true that her early radiance +was gone. The red cheeks had paled; she was thin, worn, a little +older-looking than her age, which must have been nearly thirty. But +there was about her the mysterious authority of beauty, a sureness in +the carriage of the head, the movement of the eyes, which, without +being in the least theatrical, struck him as highly trained and full +of a conscious power. At the same time she was simpler in manner than +most of the ladies present, and many people (as he heard afterward +from Janey) were disappointed that her appearance was not more +"stylish"--for stylishness was what New York most valued. It was, +perhaps, Archer reflected, because her early vivacity had disappeared; +because she was so quiet--quiet in her movements, her voice, and the +tones of her low-pitched voice. New York had expected something a good +deal more resonant in a young woman with such a history. + +The dinner was a somewhat formidable business. Dining with the van +der Luydens was at best no light matter, and dining there with a Duke +who was their cousin was almost a religious solemnity. It pleased +Archer to think that only an old New Yorker could perceive the shade +of difference (to New York) between being merely a Duke and being the +van der Luydens' Duke. New York took stray noblemen calmly, and even +(except in the Struthers set) with a certain distrustful hauteur; but +when they presented such credentials as these they were received with +an old-fashioned cordiality that they would have been greatly mistaken +in ascribing solely to their standing in Debrett. It was for just such +distinctions that the young man cherished his old New York even while +he smiled at it. + +The van der Luydens had done their best to emphasise the importance +of the occasion. The du Lac Sevres and the Trevenna George II plate +were out; so was the van der Luyden "Lowestoft" (East India Company) +and the Dagonet Crown Derby. Mrs. van der Luyden looked more than ever +like a Cabanel, and Mrs. Archer, in her grandmother's seed-pearls and +emeralds, reminded her son of an Isabey miniature. All the ladies had +on their handsomest jewels, but it was characteristic of the house +and the occasion that these were mostly in rather heavy old-fashioned +settings; and old Miss Lanning, who had been persuaded to come, +actually wore her mother's cameos and a Spanish blonde shawl. + +The Countess Olenska was the only young woman at the dinner; yet, as +Archer scanned the smooth plump elderly faces between their diamond +necklaces and towering ostrich feathers, they struck him as curiously +immature compared with hers. It frightened him to think what must have +gone to the making of her eyes. + +The Duke of St. Austrey, who sat at his hostess's right, was naturally +the chief figure of the evening. But if the Countess Olenska was less +conspicuous than had been hoped, the Duke was almost invisible. Being +a well-bred man he had not (like another recent ducal visitor) come to +the dinner in a shooting-jacket; but his evening clothes were so shabby +and baggy, and he wore them with such an air of their being homespun, +that (with his stooping way of sitting, and the vast beard spreading +over his shirt-front) he hardly gave the appearance of being in dinner +attire. He was short, round-shouldered, sunburnt, with a thick nose, +small eyes and a sociable smile; but he seldom spoke, and when he +did it was in such low tones that, despite the frequent silences of +expectation about the table, his remarks were lost to all but his +neighbours. + +When the men joined the ladies after dinner the Duke went straight up +to the Countess Olenska, and they sat down in a corner and plunged +into animated talk. Neither seemed aware that the Duke should first +have paid his respects to Mrs. Lovell Mingott and Mrs. Headly Chivers, +and the Countess have conversed with that amiable hypochondriac, Mr. +Urban Dagonet of Washington Square, who, in order to have the pleasure +of meeting her, had broken through his fixed rule of not dining out +between January and April. The two chatted together for nearly twenty +minutes; then the Countess rose and, walking alone across the wide +drawing-room, sat down at Newland Archer's side. + +It was not the custom in New York drawing-rooms for a lady to get +up and walk away from one gentleman in order to seek the company of +another. Etiquette required that she should wait, immovable as an idol, +while the men who wished to converse with her succeeded each other at +her side. But the Countess was apparently unaware of having broken any +rule; she sat at perfect ease in a corner of the sofa beside Archer, +and looked at him with the kindest eyes. + +"I want you to talk to me about May," she said. + +Instead of answering her he asked: "You knew the Duke before?" + +"Oh, yes--we used to see him every winter at Nice. He's very fond of +gambling--he used to come to the house a great deal." She said it in +the simplest manner, as if she had said: "He's fond of wild-flowers"; +and after a moment she added candidly: "I think he's the dullest man I +ever met." + +This pleased her companion so much that he forgot the slight shock her +previous remark had caused him. It was undeniably exciting to meet a +lady who found the van der Luydens' Duke dull, and dared to utter the +opinion. He longed to question her, to hear more about the life of +which her careless words had given him so illuminating a glimpse; but +he feared to touch on distressing memories, and before he could think +of anything to say she had strayed back to her original subject. + +"May is a darling; I've seen no young girl in New York so handsome and +so intelligent. Are you very much in love with her?" + +Newland Archer reddened and laughed. "As much as a man can be." + +She continued to consider him thoughtfully, as if not to miss any shade +of meaning in what he said, "Do you think, then, there is a limit?" + +"To being in love? If there is, I haven't found it!" + +She glowed with sympathy. "Ah--it's really and truly a romance?" + +"The most romantic of romances!" + +"How delightful! And you found it all out for yourselves--it was not in +the least arranged for you?" + +Archer looked at her incredulously. "Have you forgotten," he asked +with a smile, "that in our country we don't allow our marriages to be +arranged for us?" + +A dusky blush rose to her cheek, and he instantly regretted his words. + +"Yes," she answered, "I'd forgotten. You must forgive me if I sometimes +make these mistakes. I don't always remember that everything here is +good that was--that was bad where I've come from." She looked down at +her Viennese fan of eagle feathers, and he saw that her lips trembled. + +"I'm so sorry," he said impulsively; "but you _are_ among friends here, +you know." + +"Yes--I know. Wherever I go I have that feeling. That's why I came +home. I want to forget everything else, to become a complete American +again, like the Mingotts and Wellands, and you and your delightful +mother, and all the other good people here tonight. Ah, here's May +arriving, and you will want to hurry away to her," she added, but +without moving; and her eyes turned back from the door to rest on the +young man's face. + +The drawing-rooms were beginning to fill up with after-dinner guests, +and following Madame Olenska's glance Archer saw May Welland entering +with her mother. In her dress of white and silver, with a wreath of +silver blossoms in her hair, the tall girl looked like a Diana just +alight from the chase. + +"Oh," said Archer, "I have so many rivals; you see she's already +surrounded. There's the Duke being introduced." + +"Then stay with me a little longer," Madame Olenska said in a low tone, +just touching his knee with her plumed fan. It was the lightest touch, +but it thrilled him like a caress. + +"Yes, let me stay," he answered in the same tone, hardly knowing what +he said; but just then Mr. van der Luyden came up, followed by old +Mr. Urban Dagonet. The Countess greeted them with her grave smile, +and Archer, feeling his host's admonitory glance on him, rose and +surrendered his seat. + +Madame Olenska held out her hand as if to bid him goodbye. + +"Tomorrow, then, after five--I shall expect you," she said; and then +turned back to make room for Mr. Dagonet. + +"Tomorrow--" Archer heard himself repeating, though there had been no +engagement, and during their talk she had given him no hint that she +wished to see him again. + +As he moved away he saw Lawrence Lefferts, tall and resplendent, +leading his wife up to be introduced; and heard Gertrude Lefferts +say, as she beamed on the Countess with her large unperceiving smile: +"But I think we used to go to dancing-school together when we were +children--." Behind her, waiting their turn to name themselves to the +Countess, Archer noticed a number of the recalcitrant couples who had +declined to meet her at Mrs. Lovell Mingott's. As Mrs. Archer remarked: +when the van der Luydens chose, they knew how to give a lesson. The +wonder was that they chose so seldom. + +The young man felt a touch on his arm and saw Mrs. van der Luyden +looking down on him from the pure eminence of black velvet and the +family diamonds. "It was good of you, dear Newland, to devote yourself +so unselfishly to Madame Olenska. I told your cousin Henry he must +really come to the rescue." + +He was aware of smiling at her vaguely, and she added, as if +condescending to his natural shyness: "I've never seen May looking +lovelier. The Duke thinks her the handsomest girl in the room." + + + + +IX. + + +The Countess Olenska had said "after five"; and at half after the hour +Newland Archer rang the bell of the peeling stucco house with a giant +wisteria throttling its feeble cast-iron balcony, which she had hired, +far down West Twenty-third Street, from the vagabond Medora. + +It was certainly a strange quarter to have settled in. Small +dress-makers, bird-stuffers and "people who wrote" were her nearest +neighbours; and further down the dishevelled street Archer recognised +a dilapidated wooden house, at the end of a paved path, in which a +writer and journalist called Winsett, whom he used to come across now +and then, had mentioned that he lived. Winsett did not invite people +to his house; but he had once pointed it out to Archer in the course +of a nocturnal stroll, and the latter had asked himself, with a little +shiver, if the humanities were so meanly housed in other capitals. + +Madame Olenska's own dwelling was redeemed from the same appearance +only by a little more paint about the window-frames; and as Archer +mustered its modest front he said to himself that the Polish Count must +have robbed her of her fortune as well as of her illusions. + +The young man had spent an unsatisfactory day. He had lunched with the +Wellands, hoping afterward to carry off May for a walk in the Park. +He wanted to have her to himself, to tell her how enchanting she had +looked the night before, and how proud he was of her, and to press her +to hasten their marriage. But Mrs. Welland had firmly reminded him that +the round of family visits was not half over, and, when he hinted at +advancing the date of the wedding, had raised reproachful eye-brows and +sighed out: "Twelve dozen of everything--hand-embroidered--" + +Packed in the family landau they rolled from one tribal doorstep to +another, and Archer, when the afternoon's round was over, parted from +his betrothed with the feeling that he had been shown off like a wild +animal cunningly trapped. He supposed that his readings in anthropology +caused him to take such a coarse view of what was after all a simple +and natural demonstration of family feeling; but when he remembered +that the Wellands did not expect the wedding to take place till the +following autumn, and pictured what his life would be till then, a +dampness fell upon his spirit. + +"Tomorrow," Mrs. Welland called after him, "we'll do the Chiverses and +the Dallases"; and he perceived that she was going through their two +families alphabetically, and that they were only in the first quarter +of the alphabet. + +He had meant to tell May of the Countess Olenska's request--her +command, rather--that he should call on her that afternoon; but in the +brief moments when they were alone he had had more pressing things to +say. Besides, it struck him as a little absurd to allude to the matter. +He knew that May most particularly wanted him to be kind to her cousin; +was it not that wish which had hastened the announcement of their +engagement? It gave him an odd sensation to reflect that, but for the +Countess's arrival, he might have been, if not still a free man, at +least a man less irrevocably pledged. But May had willed it so, and he +felt himself somehow relieved of further responsibility--and therefore +at liberty, if he chose, to call on her cousin without telling her. + +As he stood on Madame Olenska's threshold curiosity was his uppermost +feeling. He was puzzled by the tone in which she had summoned him; he +concluded that she was less simple than she seemed. + +The door was opened by a swarthy foreign-looking maid, with a prominent +bosom under a gay neckerchief, whom he vaguely fancied to be Sicilian. +She welcomed him with all her white teeth, and answering his enquiries +by a head-shake of incomprehension led him through the narrow hall +into a low firelit drawing-room. The room was empty, and she left him, +for an appreciable time, to wonder whether she had gone to find her +mistress, or whether she had not understood what he was there for, and +thought it might be to wind the clock--of which he perceived that the +only visible specimen had stopped. He knew that the southern races +communicated with each other in the language of pantomime, and was +mortified to find her shrugs and smiles so unintelligible. At length +she returned with a lamp; and Archer, having meanwhile put together +a phrase out of Dante and Petrarch, evoked the answer: "La signora e +fuori; ma verra subito"; which he took to mean: "She's out--but you'll +soon see." + +What he saw, meanwhile, with the help of the lamp, was the faded +shadowy charm of a room unlike any room he had known. He knew that the +Countess Olenska had brought some of her possessions with her--bits of +wreckage, she called them--and these, he supposed, were represented +by some small slender tables of dark wood, a delicate little Greek +bronze on the chimney-piece, and a stretch of red damask nailed on the +discoloured wallpaper behind a couple of Italian-looking pictures in +old frames. + +Newland Archer prided himself on his knowledge of Italian art. His +boyhood had been saturated with Ruskin, and he had read all the latest +books: John Addington Symonds, Vernon Lee's "Euphorion," the essays of +P. G. Hamerton, and a wonderful new volume called "The Renaissance" by +Walter Pater. He talked easily of Botticelli, and spoke of Fra Angelico +with a faint condescension. But these pictures bewildered him, for they +were like nothing that he was accustomed to look at (and therefore able +to see) when he travelled in Italy; and perhaps, also, his powers of +observation were impaired by the oddness of finding himself in this +strange empty house, where apparently no one expected him. He was sorry +that he had not told May Welland of Countess Olenska's request, and a +little disturbed by the thought that his betrothed might come in to see +her cousin. What would she think if she found him sitting there with +the air of intimacy implied by waiting alone in the dusk at a lady's +fireside? + +But since he had come he meant to wait; and he sank into a chair and +stretched his feet to the logs. + +It was odd to have summoned him in that way, and then forgotten him; +but Archer felt more curious than mortified. The atmosphere of the room +was so different from any he had ever breathed that self-consciousness +vanished in the sense of adventure. He had been before in drawing-rooms +hung with red damask, with pictures "of the Italian school"; what +struck him was the way in which Medora Manson's shabby hired house, +with its blighted background of pampas grass and Rogers statuettes, +had, by a turn of the hand, and the skilful use of a few properties, +been transformed into something intimate, "foreign," subtly suggestive +of old romantic scenes and sentiments. He tried to analyse the trick, +to find a clue to it in the way the chairs and tables were grouped, +in the fact that only two Jacqueminot roses (of which nobody ever +bought less than a dozen) had been placed in the slender vase at his +elbow, and in the vague pervading perfume that was not what one put +on handkerchiefs, but rather like the scent of some far-off bazaar, a +smell made up of Turkish coffee and ambergris and dried roses. + +His mind wandered away to the question of what May's drawing-room +would look like. He knew that Mr. Welland, who was behaving "very +handsomely," already had his eye on a newly built house in East +Thirty-ninth Street. The neighbourhood was thought remote, and the +house was built in a ghastly greenish-yellow stone that the younger +architects were beginning to employ as a protest against the brownstone +of which the uniform hue coated New York like a cold chocolate sauce; +but the plumbing was perfect. Archer would have liked to travel, to +put off the housing question; but, though the Wellands approved of an +extended European honeymoon (perhaps even a winter in Egypt), they were +firm as to the need of a house for the returning couple. The young man +felt that his fate was sealed: for the rest of his life he would go up +every evening between the cast-iron railings of that greenish-yellow +doorstep, and pass through a Pompeian vestibule into a hall with a +wainscoting of varnished yellow wood. But beyond that his imagination +could not travel. He knew the drawing-room above had a bay window, but +he could not fancy how May would deal with it. She submitted cheerfully +to the purple satin and yellow tuftings of the Welland drawing-room, +to its sham Buhl tables and gilt vitrines full of modern Saxe. He saw +no reason to suppose that she would want anything different in her own +house; and his only comfort was to reflect that she would probably let +him arrange his library as he pleased--which would be, of course, with +"sincere" Eastlake furniture, and the plain new bookcases without glass +doors. + +The round-bosomed maid came in, drew the curtains, pushed back a log, +and said consolingly: "Verra--verra." When she had gone Archer stood +up and began to wander about. Should he wait any longer? His position +was becoming rather foolish. Perhaps he had misunderstood Madame +Olenska--perhaps she had not invited him after all. + +Down the cobblestones of the quiet street came the ring of a stepper's +hoofs; they stopped before the house, and he caught the opening of a +carriage door. Parting the curtains he looked out into the early dusk. +A street-lamp faced him, and in its light he saw Julius Beaufort's +compact English brougham, drawn by a big roan, and the banker +descending from it, and helping out Madame Olenska. + +Beaufort stood, hat in hand, saying something which his companion +seemed to negative; then they shook hands, and he jumped into his +carriage while she mounted the steps. + +When she entered the room she showed no surprise at seeing Archer +there; surprise seemed the emotion that she was least addicted to. + +"How do you like my funny house?" she asked. "To me it's like heaven." + +As she spoke she untied her little velvet bonnet and tossing it away +with her long cloak stood looking at him with meditative eyes. + +"You've arranged it delightfully," he rejoined, alive to the flatness +of the words, but imprisoned in the conventional by his consuming +desire to be simple and striking. + +"Oh, it's a poor little place. My relations despise it. But at any rate +it's less gloomy than the van der Luydens'." + +The words gave him an electric shock, for few were the rebellious +spirits who would have dared to call the stately home of the van der +Luydens gloomy. Those privileged to enter it shivered there, and spoke +of it as "handsome." But suddenly he was glad that she had given voice +to the general shiver. + +"It's delicious--what you've done here," he repeated. + +"I like the little house," she admitted; "but I suppose what I like is +the blessedness of its being here, in my own country and my own town; +and then, of being alone in it." She spoke so low that he hardly heard +the last phrase; but in his awkwardness he took it up. + +"You like so much to be alone?" + +"Yes; as long as my friends keep me from feeling lonely." She sat down +near the fire, said: "Nastasia will bring the tea presently," and +signed to him to return to his armchair, adding: "I see you've already +chosen your corner." + +Leaning back, she folded her arms behind her head, and looked at the +fire under drooping lids. + +"This is the hour I like best--don't you?" + +A proper sense of his dignity caused him to answer: "I was afraid you'd +forgotten the hour. Beaufort must have been very engrossing." + +She looked amused. "Why--have you waited long? Mr. Beaufort took me to +see a number of houses--since it seems I'm not to be allowed to stay in +this one." She appeared to dismiss both Beaufort and himself from her +mind, and went on: "I've never been in a city where there seems to be +such a feeling against living in _des quartiers excentriques_. What does +it matter where one lives? I'm told this street is respectable." + +"It's not fashionable." + +"Fashionable! Do you all think so much of that? Why not make one's own +fashions? But I suppose I've lived too independently; at any rate, I +want to do what you all do--I want to feel cared for and safe." + +He was touched, as he had been the evening before when she spoke of her +need of guidance. + +"That's what your friends want you to feel. New York's an awfully safe +place," he added with a flash of sarcasm. + +"Yes, isn't it? One feels that," she cried, missing the mockery. "Being +here is like--like--being taken on a holiday when one has been a good +little girl and done all one's lessons." + +The analogy was well meant, but did not altogether please him. He did +not mind being flippant about New York, but disliked to hear any one +else take the same tone. He wondered if she did not begin to see what a +powerful engine it was, and how nearly it had crushed her. The Lovell +Mingotts' dinner, patched up in extremis out of all sorts of social +odds and ends, ought to have taught her the narrowness of her escape; +but either she had been all along unaware of having skirted disaster, +or else she had lost sight of it in the triumph of the van der Luyden +evening. Archer inclined to the former theory; he fancied that her New +York was still completely undifferentiated, and the conjecture nettled +him. + +"Last night," he said, "New York laid itself out for you. The van der +Luydens do nothing by halves." + +"No: how kind they are! It was such a nice party. Every one seems to +have such an esteem for them." + +The terms were hardly adequate; she might have spoken in that way of a +tea-party at the dear old Miss Lannings'. + +"The van der Luydens," said Archer, feeling himself pompous as +he spoke, "are the most powerful influence in New York society. +Unfortunately--owing to her health--they receive very seldom." + +She unclasped her hands from behind her head, and looked at him +meditatively. + +"Isn't that perhaps the reason?" + +"The reason--?" + +"For their great influence; that they make themselves so rare." + +He coloured a little, stared at her--and suddenly felt the penetration +of the remark. At a stroke she had pricked the van der Luydens and they +collapsed. He laughed, and sacrificed them. + +Nastasia brought the tea, with handleless Japanese cups and little +covered dishes, placing the tray on a low table. + +"But you'll explain these things to me--you'll tell me all I ought to +know," Madame Olenska continued, leaning forward to hand him his cup. + +"It's you who are telling me; opening my eyes to things I'd looked at +so long that I'd ceased to see them." + +She detached a small gold cigarette-case from one of her bracelets, +held it out to him, and took a cigarette herself. On the chimney were +long spills for lighting them. + +"Ah, then we can both help each other. But I want help so much more. +You must tell me just what to do." + +It was on the tip of his tongue to reply: "Don't be seen driving about +the streets with Beaufort--" but he was being too deeply drawn into the +atmosphere of the room, which was her atmosphere, and to give advice +of that sort would have been like telling some one who was bargaining +for attar-of-roses in Samarkand that one should always be provided with +arctics for a New York winter. New York seemed much farther off than +Samarkand, and if they were indeed to help each other she was rendering +what might prove the first of their mutual services by making him look +at his native city objectively. Viewed thus, as through the wrong end +of a telescope, it looked disconcertingly small and distant; but then +from Samarkand it would. + +A flame darted from the logs and she bent over the fire, stretching her +thin hands so close to it that a faint halo shone about the oval nails. +The light touched to russet the rings of dark hair escaping from her +braids, and made her pale face paler. + +"There are plenty of people to tell you what to do," Archer rejoined, +obscurely envious of them. + +"Oh--all my aunts? And my dear old Granny?" She considered the idea +impartially. "They're all a little vexed with me for setting up for +myself--poor Granny especially. She wanted to keep me with her; but I +had to be free--" He was impressed by this light way of speaking of the +formidable Catherine, and moved by the thought of what must have given +Madame Olenska this thirst for even the loneliest kind of freedom. But +the idea of Beaufort gnawed him. + +"I think I understand how you feel," he said. "Still, your family can +advise you; explain differences; show you the way." + +She lifted her thin black eyebrows. "Is New York such a labyrinth? I +thought it so straight up and down--like Fifth Avenue. And with all the +cross streets numbered!" She seemed to guess his faint disapproval of +this, and added, with the rare smile that enchanted her whole face: "If +you knew how I like it for just _that_--the straight-up-and-downness, +and the big honest labels on everything!" + +He saw his chance. "Everything may be labelled--but everybody is not." + +"Perhaps. I may simplify too much--but you'll warn me if I do." She +turned from the fire to look at him. "There are only two people here +who make me feel as if they understood what I mean and could explain +things to me: you and Mr. Beaufort." + +Archer winced at the joining of the names, and then, with a quick +readjustment, understood, sympathised and pitied. So close to the +powers of evil she must have lived that she still breathed more freely +in their air. But since she felt that he understood her also, his +business would be to make her see Beaufort as he really was, with all +he represented--and abhor it. + +He answered gently: "I understand. But just at first don't let go of +your old friends' hands: I mean the older women, your Granny Mingott, +Mrs. Welland, Mrs. van der Luyden. They like and admire you--they want +to help you." + +She shook her head and sighed. "Oh, I know--I know! But on condition +that they don't hear anything unpleasant. Aunt Welland put it in those +very words when I tried.... Does no one want to know the truth here, +Mr. Archer? The real loneliness is living among all these kind people +who only ask one to pretend!" She lifted her hands to her face, and he +saw her thin shoulders shaken by a sob. + +"Madame Olenska!--Oh, don't, Ellen," he cried, starting up and bending +over her. He drew down one of her hands, clasping and chafing it like a +child's while he murmured reassuring words; but in a moment she freed +herself, and looked up at him with wet lashes. + +"Does no one cry here, either? I suppose there's no need to, in +heaven," she said, straightening her loosened braids with a laugh, and +bending over the tea-kettle. It was burnt into his consciousness that +he had called her "Ellen"--called her so twice; and that she had not +noticed it. Far down the inverted telescope he saw the faint white +figure of May Welland--in New York. + +Suddenly Nastasia put her head in to say something in her rich Italian. + +Madame Olenska, again with a hand at her hair, uttered an exclamation +of assent--a flashing "Gia--gia"--and the Duke of St. Austrey entered, +piloting a tremendous black-wigged and red-plumed lady in overflowing +furs. + +"My dear Countess, I've brought an old friend of mine to see you--Mrs. +Struthers. She wasn't asked to the party last night, and she wants to +know you." + +The Duke beamed on the group, and Madame Olenska advanced with a +murmur of welcome toward the queer couple. She seemed to have no idea +how oddly matched they were, nor what a liberty the Duke had taken in +bringing his companion--and to do him justice, as Archer perceived, the +Duke seemed as unaware of it himself. + +"Of course I want to know you, my dear," cried Mrs. Struthers in a +round rolling voice that matched her bold feathers and her brazen wig. +"I want to know everybody who's young and interesting and charming. +And the Duke tells me you like music--didn't you, Duke? You're a +pianist yourself, I believe? Well, do you want to hear Sarasate play +tomorrow evening at my house? You know I've something going on every +Sunday evening--it's the day when New York doesn't know what to do with +itself, and so I say to it: 'Come and be amused.' And the Duke thought +you'd be tempted by Sarasate. You'll find a number of your friends." + +Madame Olenska's face grew brilliant with pleasure. "How kind! How good +of the Duke to think of me!" She pushed a chair up to the tea-table and +Mrs. Struthers sank into it delectably. "Of course I shall be too happy +to come." + +"That's all right, my dear. And bring your young gentleman with you." +Mrs. Struthers extended a hail-fellow hand to Archer. "I can't put a +name to you--but I'm sure I've met you--I've met everybody, here, or in +Paris or London. Aren't you in diplomacy? All the diplomatists come to +me. You like music too? Duke, you must be sure to bring him." + +The Duke said "Rather" from the depths of his beard, and Archer +withdrew with a stiffly circular bow that made him feel as full of +spine as a self-conscious school-boy among careless and unnoticing +elders. + +He was not sorry for the denouement of his visit: he only wished it had +come sooner, and spared him a certain waste of emotion. As he went out +into the wintry night, New York again became vast and imminent, and May +Welland the loveliest woman in it. He turned into his florist's to send +her the daily box of lilies-of-the-valley which, to his confusion, he +found he had forgotten that morning. + +As he wrote a word on his card and waited for an envelope he glanced +about the embowered shop, and his eye lit on a cluster of yellow roses. +He had never seen any as sun-golden before, and his first impulse was +to send them to May instead of the lilies. But they did not look like +her--there was something too rich, too strong, in their fiery beauty. +In a sudden revulsion of mood, and almost without knowing what he did, +he signed to the florist to lay the roses in another long box, and +slipped his card into a second envelope, on which he wrote the name of +the Countess Olenska; then, just as he was turning away, he drew the +card out again, and left the empty envelope on the box. + +"They'll go at once?" he enquired, pointing to the roses. + +The florist assured him that they would. + + + + +X. + + +The next day he persuaded May to escape for a walk in the Park after +luncheon. As was the custom in old-fashioned Episcopalian New York, +she usually accompanied her parents to church on Sunday afternoons; +but Mrs. Welland condoned her truancy, having that very morning won +her over to the necessity of a long engagement, with time to prepare a +hand-embroidered trousseau containing the proper number of dozens. + +The day was delectable. The bare vaulting of trees along the Mall +was ceiled with lapis lazuli, and arched above snow that shone like +splintered crystals. It was the weather to call out May's radiance, and +she burned like a young maple in the frost. Archer was proud of the +glances turned on her, and the simple joy of possessorship cleared away +his underlying perplexities. + +"It's so delicious--waking every morning to smell lilies-of-the-valley +in one's room!" she said. + +"Yesterday they came late. I hadn't time in the morning--" + +"But your remembering each day to send them makes me love them so much +more than if you'd given a standing order, and they came every morning +on the minute, like one's music-teacher--as I know Gertrude Lefferts's +did, for instance, when she and Lawrence were engaged." + +"Ah--they would!" laughed Archer, amused at her keenness. He looked +sideways at her fruit-like cheek and felt rich and secure enough to +add: "When I sent your lilies yesterday afternoon I saw some rather +gorgeous yellow roses and packed them off to Madame Olenska. Was that +right?" + +"How dear of you! Anything of that kind delights her. It's odd she +didn't mention it: she lunched with us today, and spoke of Mr. +Beaufort's having sent her wonderful orchids, and cousin Henry van der +Luyden a whole hamper of carnations from Skuytercliff. She seems so +surprised to receive flowers. Don't people send them in Europe? She +thinks it such a pretty custom." + +"Oh, well, no wonder mine were overshadowed by Beaufort's," said Archer +irritably. Then he remembered that he had not put a card with the +roses, and was vexed at having spoken of them. He wanted to say: "I +called on your cousin yesterday," but hesitated. If Madame Olenska had +not spoken of his visit it might seem awkward that he should. Yet not +to do so gave the affair an air of mystery that he disliked. To shake +off the question he began to talk of their own plans, their future, and +Mrs. Welland's insistence on a long engagement. + +"If you call it long! Isabel Chivers and Reggie were engaged for two +years: Grace and Thorley for nearly a year and a half. Why aren't we +very well off as we are?" + +It was the traditional maidenly interrogation, and he felt ashamed of +himself for finding it singularly childish. No doubt she simply echoed +what was said for her; but she was nearing her twenty-second birthday, +and he wondered at what age "nice" women began to speak for themselves. + +"Never, if we won't let them, I suppose," he mused, and recalled his +mad outburst to Mr. Sillerton Jackson: "Women ought to be as free as we +are--" + +It would presently be his task to take the bandage from this young +woman's eyes, and bid her look forth on the world. But how many +generations of the women who had gone to her making had descended +bandaged to the family vault? He shivered a little, remembering some of +the new ideas in his scientific books, and the much-cited instance of +the Kentucky cave-fish, which had ceased to develop eyes because they +had no use for them. What if, when he had bidden May Welland to open +hers, they could only look out blankly at blankness? + +"We might be much better off. We might be altogether together--we might +travel." + +Her face lit up. "That would be lovely," she owned: she would love to +travel. But her mother would not understand their wanting to do things +so differently. + +"As if the mere 'differently' didn't account for it!" the wooer +insisted. + +"Newland! You're so original!" she exulted. + +His heart sank, for he saw that he was saying all the things that young +men in the same situation were expected to say, and that she was making +the answers that instinct and tradition taught her to make--even to the +point of calling him original. + +"Original! We're all as like each other as those dolls cut out of the +same folded paper. We're like patterns stencilled on a wall. Can't you +and I strike out for ourselves, May?" + +He had stopped and faced her in the excitement of their discussion, and +her eyes rested on him with a bright unclouded admiration. + +"Mercy--shall we elope?" she laughed. + +"If you would--" + +"You _do_ love me, Newland! I'm so happy." + +"But then--why not be happier?" + +"We can't behave like people in novels, though, can we?" + +"Why not--why not--why not?" + +She looked a little bored by his insistence. She knew very well that +they couldn't, but it was troublesome to have to produce a reason. +"I'm not clever enough to argue with you. But that kind of thing is +rather--vulgar, isn't it?" she suggested, relieved to have hit on a +word that would assuredly extinguish the whole subject. + +"Are you so much afraid, then, of being vulgar?" + +She was evidently staggered by this. "Of course I should hate it--so +would you," she rejoined, a trifle irritably. + +He stood silent, beating his stick nervously against his boot-top; +and feeling that she had indeed found the right way of closing the +discussion, she went on light-heartedly: "Oh, did I tell you that I +showed Ellen my ring? She thinks it the most beautiful setting she ever +saw. There's nothing like it in the rue de la Paix, she said. I do love +you, Newland, for being so artistic!" + + +The next afternoon, as Archer, before dinner, sat smoking sullenly in +his study, Janey wandered in on him. He had failed to stop at his club +on the way up from the office where he exercised the profession of the +law in the leisurely manner common to well-to-do New Yorkers of his +class. He was out of spirits and slightly out of temper, and a haunting +horror of doing the same thing every day at the same hour besieged his +brain. + +"Sameness--sameness!" he muttered, the word running through his head +like a persecuting tune as he saw the familiar tall-hatted figures +lounging behind the plate-glass; and because he usually dropped in +at the club at that hour he had gone home instead. He knew not only +what they were likely to be talking about, but the part each one would +take in the discussion. The Duke of course would be their principal +theme; though the appearance in Fifth Avenue of a golden-haired lady +in a small canary-coloured brougham with a pair of black cobs (for +which Beaufort was generally thought responsible) would also doubtless +be thoroughly gone into. Such "women" (as they were called) were few +in New York, those driving their own carriages still fewer, and the +appearance of Miss Fanny Ring in Fifth Avenue at the fashionable hour +had profoundly agitated society. Only the day before, her carriage had +passed Mrs. Lovell Mingott's, and the latter had instantly rung the +little bell at her elbow and ordered the coachman to drive her home. +"What if it had happened to Mrs. van der Luyden?" people asked each +other with a shudder. Archer could hear Lawrence Lefferts, at that very +hour, holding forth on the disintegration of society. + +He raised his head irritably when his sister Janey entered, and then +quickly bent over his book (Swinburne's "Chastelard"--just out) as +if he had not seen her. She glanced at the writing-table heaped with +books, opened a volume of the "Contes Drolatiques," made a wry face +over the archaic French, and sighed: "What learned things you read!" + +"Well--?" he asked, as she hovered Cassandra-like before him. + +"Mother's very angry." + +"Angry? With whom? About what?" + +"Miss Sophy Jackson has just been here. She brought word that her +brother would come in after dinner: she couldn't say very much, because +he forbade her to: he wishes to give all the details himself. He's with +cousin Louisa van der Luyden now." + +"For heaven's sake, my dear girl, try a fresh start. It would take an +omniscient Deity to know what you're talking about." + +"It's not a time to be profane, Newland.... Mother feels badly enough +about your not going to church ..." + +With a groan he plunged back into his book. + +"_Newland_! Do listen. Your friend Madame Olenska was at Mrs. Lemuel +Struthers's party last night: she went there with the Duke and Mr. +Beaufort." + +At the last clause of this announcement a senseless anger swelled the +young man's breast. To smother it he laughed. "Well, what of it? I knew +she meant to." + +Janey paled and her eyes began to project. "You knew she meant to--and +you didn't try to stop her? To warn her?" + +"Stop her? Warn her?" He laughed again. "I'm not engaged to be married +to the Countess Olenska!" The words had a fantastic sound in his own +ears. + +"You're marrying into her family." + +"Oh, family--family!" he jeered. + +"Newland--don't you care about Family?" + +"Not a brass farthing." + +"Nor about what cousin Louisa van der Luyden will think?" + +"Not the half of one--if she thinks such old maid's rubbish." + +"Mother is not an old maid," said his virgin sister with pinched lips. + +He felt like shouting back: "Yes, she is, and so are the van der +Luydens, and so we all are, when it comes to being so much as brushed +by the wing-tip of Reality." But he saw her long gentle face puckering +into tears, and felt ashamed of the useless pain he was inflicting. + +"Hang Countess Olenska! Don't be a goose, Janey--I'm not her keeper." + +"No; but you _did_ ask the Wellands to announce your engagement sooner +so that we might all back her up; and if it hadn't been for that cousin +Louisa would never have invited her to the dinner for the Duke." + +"Well--what harm was there in inviting her? She was the best-looking +woman in the room; she made the dinner a little less funereal than the +usual van der Luyden banquet." + +"You know cousin Henry asked her to please you: he persuaded +cousin Louisa. And now they're so upset that they're going back to +Skuytercliff tomorrow. I think, Newland, you'd better come down. You +don't seem to understand how mother feels." + +In the drawing-room Newland found his mother. She raised a troubled +brow from her needlework to ask: "Has Janey told you?" + +"Yes." He tried to keep his tone as measured as her own. "But I can't +take it very seriously." + +"Not the fact of having offended cousin Louisa and cousin Henry?" + +"The fact that they can be offended by such a trifle as Countess +Olenska's going to the house of a woman they consider common." + +"Consider--!" + +"Well, who is; but who has good music, and amuses people on Sunday +evenings, when the whole of New York is dying of inanition." + +"Good music? All I know is, there was a woman who got up on a table and +sang the things they sing at the places you go to in Paris. There was +smoking and champagne." + +"Well--that kind of thing happens in other places, and the world still +goes on." + +"I don't suppose, dear, you're really defending the French Sunday?" + +"I've heard you often enough, mother, grumble at the English Sunday +when we've been in London." + +"New York is neither Paris nor London." + +"Oh, no, it's not!" her son groaned. + +"You mean, I suppose, that society here is not as brilliant? You're +right, I daresay; but we belong here, and people should respect our +ways when they come among us. Ellen Olenska especially: she came back +to get away from the kind of life people lead in brilliant societies." + +Newland made no answer, and after a moment his mother ventured: "I was +going to put on my bonnet and ask you to take me to see cousin Louisa +for a moment before dinner." He frowned, and she continued: "I thought +you might explain to her what you've just said: that society abroad +is different ... that people are not as particular, and that Madame +Olenska may not have realised how we feel about such things. It would +be, you know, dear," she added with an innocent adroitness, "in Madame +Olenska's interest if you did." + +"Dearest mother, I really don't see how we're concerned in the matter. +The Duke took Madame Olenska to Mrs. Struthers's--in fact he brought +Mrs. Struthers to call on her. I was there when they came. If the van +der Luydens want to quarrel with anybody, the real culprit is under +their own roof." + +"Quarrel? Newland, did you ever know of cousin Henry's quarrelling? +Besides, the Duke's his guest; and a stranger too. Strangers don't +discriminate: how should they? Countess Olenska is a New Yorker, and +should have respected the feelings of New York." + +"Well, then, if they must have a victim, you have my leave to throw +Madame Olenska to them," cried her son, exasperated. "I don't see +myself--or you either--offering ourselves up to expiate her crimes." + +"Oh, of course you see only the Mingott side," his mother answered, in +the sensitive tone that was her nearest approach to anger. + +The sad butler drew back the drawing-room portières and announced: "Mr. +Henry van der Luyden." + +Mrs. Archer dropped her needle and pushed her chair back with an +agitated hand. + +"Another lamp," she cried to the retreating servant, while Janey bent +over to straighten her mother's cap. + +Mr. van der Luyden's figure loomed on the threshold, and Newland Archer +went forward to greet his cousin. + +"We were just talking about you, sir," he said. + +Mr. van der Luyden seemed overwhelmed by the announcement. He drew off +his glove to shake hands with the ladies, and smoothed his tall hat +shyly, while Janey pushed an arm-chair forward, and Archer continued: +"And the Countess Olenska." + +Mrs. Archer paled. + +"Ah--a charming woman. I have just been to see her," said Mr. van der +Luyden, complacency restored to his brow. He sank into the chair, laid +his hat and gloves on the floor beside him in the old-fashioned way, +and went on: "She has a real gift for arranging flowers. I had sent +her a few carnations from Skuytercliff, and I was astonished. Instead +of massing them in big bunches as our head-gardener does, she had +scattered them about loosely, here and there ... I can't say how. The +Duke had told me: he said: 'Go and see how cleverly she's arranged her +drawing-room.' And she has. I should really like to take Louisa to see +her, if the neighbourhood were not so--unpleasant." + +A dead silence greeted this unusual flow of words from Mr. van der +Luyden. Mrs. Archer drew her embroidery out of the basket into which +she had nervously tumbled it, and Newland, leaning against the +chimney-place and twisting a humming-bird-feather screen in his hand, +saw Janey's gaping countenance lit up by the coming of the second lamp. + +"The fact is," Mr. van der Luyden continued, stroking his long grey leg +with a bloodless hand weighed down by the Patroon's great signet-ring, +"the fact is, I dropped in to thank her for the very pretty note she +wrote me about my flowers; and also--but this is between ourselves, of +course--to give her a friendly warning about allowing the Duke to carry +her off to parties with him. I don't know if you've heard--" + +Mrs. Archer produced an indulgent smile. "Has the Duke been carrying +her off to parties?" + +"You know what these English grandees are. They're all alike. Louisa +and I are very fond of our cousin--but it's hopeless to expect people +who are accustomed to the European courts to trouble themselves about +our little republican distinctions. The Duke goes where he's amused." +Mr. van der Luyden paused, but no one spoke. "Yes--it seems he took her +with him last night to Mrs. Lemuel Struthers's. Sillerton Jackson has +just been to us with the foolish story, and Louisa was rather troubled. +So I thought the shortest way was to go straight to Countess Olenska +and explain--by the merest hint, you know--how we feel in New York +about certain things. I felt I might, without indelicacy, because the +evening she dined with us she rather suggested ... rather let me see +that she would be grateful for guidance. And she _was_." + +Mr. van der Luyden looked about the room with what would have been +self-satisfaction on features less purged of the vulgar passions. On +his face it became a mild benevolence which Mrs. Archer's countenance +dutifully reflected. + +"How kind you both are, dear Henry--always! Newland will particularly +appreciate what you have done because of dear May and his new +relations." + +She shot an admonitory glance at her son, who said: "Immensely, sir. +But I was sure you'd like Madame Olenska." + +Mr. van der Luyden looked at him with extreme gentleness. "I never ask +to my house, my dear Newland," he said, "any one whom I do not like. +And so I have just told Sillerton Jackson." With a glance at the clock +he rose and added: "But Louisa will be waiting. We are dining early, to +take the Duke to the Opera." + +After the portières had solemnly closed behind their visitor a silence +fell upon the Archer family. + +"Gracious--how romantic!" at last broke explosively from Janey. No one +knew exactly what inspired her elliptic comments, and her relations had +long since given up trying to interpret them. + +Mrs. Archer shook her head with a sigh. "Provided it all turns out for +the best," she said, in the tone of one who knows how surely it will +not. "Newland, you must stay and see Sillerton Jackson when he comes +this evening: I really shan't know what to say to him." + +"Poor mother! But he won't come--" her son laughed, stooping to kiss +away her frown. + + + + +XI. + + +Some two weeks later, Newland Archer, sitting in abstracted idleness in +his private compartment of the office of Letterblair, Lamson and Low, +attorneys at law, was summoned by the head of the firm. + +Old Mr. Letterblair, the accredited legal adviser of three generations +of New York gentility, throned behind his mahogany desk in evident +perplexity. As he stroked his close-clipped white whiskers and ran +his hand through the rumpled grey locks above his jutting brows, his +disrespectful junior partner thought how much he looked like the Family +Physician annoyed with a patient whose symptoms refuse to be classified. + +"My dear sir--" he always addressed Archer as "sir"--"I have sent +for you to go into a little matter; a matter which, for the moment, +I prefer not to mention either to Mr. Skipworth or Mr. Redwood." The +gentlemen he spoke of were the other senior partners of the firm; for, +as was always the case with legal associations of old standing in New +York, all the partners named on the office letter-head were long since +dead; and Mr. Letterblair, for example, was, professionally speaking, +his own grandson. + +He leaned back in his chair with a furrowed brow. "For family +reasons--" he continued. + +Archer looked up. + +"The Mingott family," said Mr. Letterblair with an explanatory smile +and bow. "Mrs. Manson Mingott sent for me yesterday. Her grand-daughter +the Countess Olenska wishes to sue her husband for divorce. Certain +papers have been placed in my hands." He paused and drummed on his +desk. "In view of your prospective alliance with the family I should +like to consult you--to consider the case with you--before taking any +farther steps." + +Archer felt the blood in his temples. He had seen the Countess Olenska +only once since his visit to her, and then at the Opera, in the Mingott +box. During this interval she had become a less vivid and importunate +image, receding from his foreground as May Welland resumed her rightful +place in it. He had not heard her divorce spoken of since Janey's first +random allusion to it, and had dismissed the tale as unfounded gossip. +Theoretically, the idea of divorce was almost as distasteful to him +as to his mother; and he was annoyed that Mr. Letterblair (no doubt +prompted by old Catherine Mingott) should be so evidently planning to +draw him into the affair. After all, there were plenty of Mingott men +for such jobs, and as yet he was not even a Mingott by marriage. + +He waited for the senior partner to continue. Mr. Letterblair unlocked +a drawer and drew out a packet. "If you will run your eye over these +papers--" + +Archer frowned. "I beg your pardon, sir; but just because of the +prospective relationship, I should prefer your consulting Mr. Skipworth +or Mr. Redwood." + +Mr. Letterblair looked surprised and slightly offended. It was unusual +for a junior to reject such an opening. + +He bowed. "I respect your scruple, sir; but in this case I believe +true delicacy requires you to do as I ask. Indeed, the suggestion is +not mine but Mrs. Manson Mingott's and her son's. I have seen Lovell +Mingott; and also Mr. Welland. They all named you." + +Archer felt his temper rising. He had been somewhat languidly drifting +with events for the last fortnight, and letting May's fair looks and +radiant nature obliterate the rather importunate pressure of the +Mingott claims. But this behest of old Mrs. Mingott's roused him to +a sense of what the clan thought they had the right to exact from a +prospective son-in-law; and he chafed at the role. + +"Her uncles ought to deal with this," he said. + +"They have. The matter has been gone into by the family. They are +opposed to the Countess's idea; but she is firm, and insists on a legal +opinion." + +The young man was silent: he had not opened the packet in his hand. + +"Does she want to marry again?" + +"I believe it is suggested; but she denies it." + +"Then--" + +"Will you oblige me, Mr. Archer, by first looking through these papers? +Afterward, when we have talked the case over, I will give you my +opinion." + +Archer withdrew reluctantly with the unwelcome documents. Since their +last meeting he had half-unconsciously collaborated with events in +ridding himself of the burden of Madame Olenska. His hour alone with +her by the firelight had drawn them into a momentary intimacy on which +the Duke of St. Austrey's intrusion with Mrs. Lemuel Struthers, and the +Countess's joyous greeting of them, had rather providentially broken. +Two days later Archer had assisted at the comedy of her reinstatement +in the van der Luydens' favour, and had said to himself, with a +touch of tartness, that a lady who knew how to thank all-powerful +elderly gentlemen to such good purpose for a bunch of flowers did +not need either the private consolations or the public championship +of a young man of his small compass. To look at the matter in this +light simplified his own case and surprisingly furbished up all the +dim domestic virtues. He could not picture May Welland, in whatever +conceivable emergency, hawking about her private difficulties and +lavishing her confidences on strange men; and she had never seemed +to him finer or fairer than in the week that followed. He had even +yielded to her wish for a long engagement, since she had found the one +disarming answer to his plea for haste. + +"You know, when it comes to the point, your parents have always let you +have your way ever since you were a little girl," he argued; and she +had answered, with her clearest look: "Yes; and that's what makes it so +hard to refuse the very last thing they'll ever ask of me as a little +girl." + +That was the old New York note; that was the kind of answer he would +like always to be sure of his wife's making. If one had habitually +breathed the New York air there were times when anything less +crystalline seemed stifling. + + +The papers he had retired to read did not tell him much in fact; but +they plunged him into an atmosphere in which he choked and spluttered. +They consisted mainly of an exchange of letters between Count Olenski's +solicitors and a French legal firm to whom the Countess had applied +for the settlement of her financial situation. There was also a short +letter from the Count to his wife: after reading it, Newland Archer +rose, jammed the papers back into their envelope, and reentered Mr. +Letterblair's office. + +"Here are the letters, sir. If you wish, I'll see Madame Olenska," he +said in a constrained voice. + +"Thank you--thank you, Mr. Archer. Come and dine with me tonight if +you're free, and we'll go into the matter afterward: in case you wish +to call on our client tomorrow." + +Newland Archer walked straight home again that afternoon. It was a +winter evening of transparent clearness, with an innocent young moon +above the house-tops; and he wanted to fill his soul's lungs with the +pure radiance, and not exchange a word with any one till he and Mr. +Letterblair were closeted together after dinner. It was impossible to +decide otherwise than he had done: he must see Madame Olenska himself +rather than let her secrets be bared to other eyes. A great wave of +compassion had swept away his indifference and impatience: she stood +before him as an exposed and pitiful figure, to be saved at all costs +from farther wounding herself in her mad plunges against fate. + +He remembered what she had told him of Mrs. Welland's request to be +spared whatever was "unpleasant" in her history, and winced at the +thought that it was perhaps this attitude of mind which kept the New +York air so pure. "Are we only Pharisees after all?" he wondered, +puzzled by the effort to reconcile his instinctive disgust at human +vileness with his equally instinctive pity for human frailty. + +For the first time he perceived how elementary his own principles +had always been. He passed for a young man who had not been afraid +of risks, and he knew that his secret love-affair with poor silly +Mrs. Thorley Rushworth had not been too secret to invest him with a +becoming air of adventure. But Mrs. Rushworth was "that kind of woman"; +foolish, vain, clandestine by nature, and far more attracted by the +secrecy and peril of the affair than by such charms and qualities as +he possessed. When the fact dawned on him it nearly broke his heart, +but now it seemed the redeeming feature of the case. The affair, in +short, had been of the kind that most of the young men of his age had +been through, and emerged from with calm consciences and an undisturbed +belief in the abysmal distinction between the women one loved and +respected and those one enjoyed--and pitied. In this view they were +sedulously abetted by their mothers, aunts and other elderly female +relatives, who all shared Mrs. Archer's belief that when "such things +happened" it was undoubtedly foolish of the man, but somehow always +criminal of the woman. All the elderly ladies whom Archer knew regarded +any woman who loved imprudently as necessarily unscrupulous and +designing, and mere simple-minded man as powerless in her clutches. The +only thing to do was to persuade him, as early as possible, to marry a +nice girl, and then trust to her to look after him. + +In the complicated old European communities, Archer began to guess, +love-problems might be less simple and less easily classified. Rich and +idle and ornamental societies must produce many more such situations; +and there might even be one in which a woman naturally sensitive +and aloof would yet, from the force of circumstances, from sheer +defencelessness and loneliness, be drawn into a tie inexcusable by +conventional standards. + +On reaching home he wrote a line to the Countess Olenska, asking at +what hour of the next day she could receive him, and despatched it by +a messenger-boy, who returned presently with a word to the effect that +she was going to Skuytercliff the next morning to stay over Sunday with +the van der Luydens, but that he would find her alone that evening +after dinner. The note was written on a rather untidy half-sheet, +without date or address, but her hand was firm and free. He was amused +at the idea of her week-ending in the stately solitude of Skuytercliff, +but immediately afterward felt that there, of all places, she would +most feel the chill of minds rigorously averted from the "unpleasant." + + +He was at Mr. Letterblair's punctually at seven, glad of the pretext +for excusing himself soon after dinner. He had formed his own opinion +from the papers entrusted to him, and did not especially want to go +into the matter with his senior partner. Mr. Letterblair was a widower, +and they dined alone, copiously and slowly, in a dark shabby room hung +with yellowing prints of "The Death of Chatham" and "The Coronation of +Napoleon." On the sideboard, between fluted Sheraton knife-cases, stood +a decanter of Haut Brion, and another of the old Lanning port (the gift +of a client), which the wastrel Tom Lanning had sold off a year or two +before his mysterious and discreditable death in San Francisco--an +incident less publicly humiliating to the family than the sale of the +cellar. + +After a velvety oyster soup came shad and cucumbers, then a young +broiled turkey with corn fritters, followed by a canvas-back with +currant jelly and a celery mayonnaise. Mr. Letterblair, who lunched +on a sandwich and tea, dined deliberately and deeply, and insisted +on his guest's doing the same. Finally, when the closing rites had +been accomplished, the cloth was removed, cigars were lit, and Mr. +Letterblair, leaning back in his chair and pushing the port westward, +said, spreading his back agreeably to the coal fire behind him: "The +whole family are against a divorce. And I think rightly." + +Archer instantly felt himself on the other side of the argument. "But +why, sir? If there ever was a case--" + +"Well--what's the use? _she's_ here--he's there; the Atlantic's between +them. She'll never get back a dollar more of her money than what he's +voluntarily returned to her: their damned heathen marriage settlements +take precious good care of that. As things go over there, Olenski's +acted generously: he might have turned her out without a penny." + +The young man knew this and was silent. + +"I understand, though," Mr. Letterblair continued, "that she attaches +no importance to the money. Therefore, as the family say, why not let +well enough alone?" + +Archer had gone to the house an hour earlier in full agreement with Mr. +Letterblair's view; but put into words by this selfish, well-fed and +supremely indifferent old man it suddenly became the Pharisaic voice of +a society wholly absorbed in barricading itself against the unpleasant. + +"I think that's for her to decide." + +"H'm--have you considered the consequences if she decides for divorce?" + +"You mean the threat in her husband's letter? What weight would that +carry? It's no more than the vague charge of an angry blackguard." + +"Yes; but it might make some unpleasant talk if he really defends the +suit." + +"Unpleasant--!" said Archer explosively. + +Mr. Letterblair looked at him from under enquiring eyebrows, and the +young man, aware of the uselessness of trying to explain what was in +his mind, bowed acquiescently while his senior continued: "Divorce is +always unpleasant." + +"You agree with me?" Mr. Letterblair resumed, after a waiting silence. + +"Naturally," said Archer. + +"Well, then, I may count on you; the Mingotts may count on you; to use +your influence against the idea?" + +Archer hesitated. "I can't pledge myself till I've seen the Countess +Olenska," he said at length. + +"Mr. Archer, I don't understand you. Do you want to marry into a family +with a scandalous divorce-suit hanging over it?" + +"I don't think that has anything to do with the case." + +Mr. Letterblair put down his glass of port and fixed on his young +partner a cautious and apprehensive gaze. + +Archer understood that he ran the risk of having his mandate withdrawn, +and for some obscure reason he disliked the prospect. Now that the +job had been thrust on him he did not propose to relinquish it; and, +to guard against the possibility, he saw that he must reassure the +unimaginative old man who was the legal conscience of the Mingotts. + +"You may be sure, sir, that I shan't commit myself till I've reported +to you; what I meant was that I'd rather not give an opinion till I've +heard what Madame Olenska has to say." + +Mr. Letterblair nodded approvingly at an excess of caution worthy of +the best New York tradition, and the young man, glancing at his watch, +pleaded an engagement and took leave. + + + + +XII. + + +Old-fashioned New York dined at seven, and the habit of after-dinner +calls, though derided in Archer's set, still generally prevailed. As +the young man strolled up Fifth Avenue from Waverley Place, the long +thoroughfare was deserted but for a group of carriages standing before +the Reggie Chiverses' (where there was a dinner for the Duke), and the +occasional figure of an elderly gentleman in heavy overcoat and muffler +ascending a brownstone doorstep and disappearing into a gas-lit hall. +Thus, as Archer crossed Washington Square, he remarked that old Mr. +du Lac was calling on his cousins the Dagonets, and turning down the +corner of West Tenth Street he saw Mr. Skipworth, of his own firm, +obviously bound on a visit to the Miss Lannings. A little farther up +Fifth Avenue, Beaufort appeared on his doorstep, darkly projected +against a blaze of light, descended to his private brougham, and rolled +away to a mysterious and probably unmentionable destination. It was +not an Opera night, and no one was giving a party, so that Beaufort's +outing was undoubtedly of a clandestine nature. Archer connected it +in his mind with a little house beyond Lexington Avenue in which +beribboned window curtains and flower-boxes had recently appeared, and +before whose newly painted door the canary-coloured brougham of Miss +Fanny Ring was frequently seen to wait. + +Beyond the small and slippery pyramid which composed Mrs. Archer's +world lay the almost unmapped quarter inhabited by artists, musicians +and "people who wrote." These scattered fragments of humanity had +never shown any desire to be amalgamated with the social structure. +In spite of odd ways they were said to be, for the most part, quite +respectable; but they preferred to keep to themselves. Medora Manson, +in her prosperous days, had inaugurated a "literary salon"; but it had +soon died out owing to the reluctance of the literary to frequent it. + +Others had made the same attempt, and there was a household of +Blenkers--an intense and voluble mother, and three blowsy daughters +who imitated her--where one met Edwin Booth and Patti and William +Winter, and the new Shakespearian actor George Rignold, and some of the +magazine editors and musical and literary critics. + +Mrs. Archer and her group felt a certain timidity concerning these +persons. They were odd, they were uncertain, they had things one didn't +know about in the background of their lives and minds. Literature and +art were deeply respected in the Archer set, and Mrs. Archer was always +at pains to tell her children how much more agreeable and cultivated +society had been when it included such figures as Washington Irving, +Fitz-Greene Halleck and the poet of "The Culprit Fay." The most +celebrated authors of that generation had been "gentlemen"; perhaps +the unknown persons who succeeded them had gentlemanly sentiments, but +their origin, their appearance, their hair, their intimacy with the +stage and the Opera, made any old New York criterion inapplicable to +them. + +"When I was a girl," Mrs. Archer used to say, "we knew everybody +between the Battery and Canal Street; and only the people one knew had +carriages. It was perfectly easy to place any one then; now one can't +tell, and I prefer not to try." + +Only old Catherine Mingott, with her absence of moral prejudices and +almost parvenu indifference to the subtler distinctions, might have +bridged the abyss; but she had never opened a book or looked at a +picture, and cared for music only because it reminded her of gala +nights at the Italiens, in the days of her triumph at the Tuileries. +Possibly Beaufort, who was her match in daring, would have succeeded +in bringing about a fusion; but his grand house and silk-stockinged +footmen were an obstacle to informal sociability. Moreover, he was as +illiterate as old Mrs. Mingott, and considered "fellows who wrote" as +the mere paid purveyors of rich men's pleasures; and no one rich enough +to influence his opinion had ever questioned it. + +Newland Archer had been aware of these things ever since he could +remember, and had accepted them as part of the structure of his +universe. He knew that there were societies where painters and poets +and novelists and men of science, and even great actors, were as sought +after as Dukes; he had often pictured to himself what it would have +been to live in the intimacy of drawing-rooms dominated by the talk of +Mérimée (whose "Lettres à une Inconnue" was one of his inseparables), +of Thackeray, Browning or William Morris. But such things were +inconceivable in New York, and unsettling to think of. Archer knew most +of the "fellows who wrote," the musicians and the painters: he met them +at the Century, or at the little musical and theatrical clubs that were +beginning to come into existence. He enjoyed them there, and was bored +with them at the Blenkers', where they were mingled with fervid and +dowdy women who passed them about like captured curiosities; and even +after his most exciting talks with Ned Winsett he always came away with +the feeling that if his world was small, so was theirs, and that the +only way to enlarge either was to reach a stage of manners where they +would naturally merge. + +He was reminded of this by trying to picture the society in which the +Countess Olenska had lived and suffered, and also--perhaps--tasted +mysterious joys. He remembered with what amusement she had told him +that her grandmother Mingott and the Wellands objected to her living in +a "Bohemian" quarter given over to "people who wrote." It was not the +peril but the poverty that her family disliked; but that shade escaped +her, and she supposed they considered literature compromising. + +She herself had no fears of it, and the books scattered about her +drawing-room (a part of the house in which books were usually supposed +to be "out of place"), though chiefly works of fiction, had whetted +Archer's interest with such new names as those of Paul Bourget, +Huysmans, and the Goncourt brothers. Ruminating on these things as he +approached her door, he was once more conscious of the curious way in +which she reversed his values, and of the need of thinking himself into +conditions incredibly different from any that he knew if he were to be +of use in her present difficulty. + + +Nastasia opened the door, smiling mysteriously. On the bench in the +hall lay a sable-lined overcoat, a folded opera hat of dull silk with +a gold J. B. on the lining, and a white silk muffler: there was no +mistaking the fact that these costly articles were the property of +Julius Beaufort. + +Archer was angry: so angry that he came near scribbling a word on his +card and going away; then he remembered that in writing to Madame +Olenska he had been kept by excess of discretion from saying that he +wished to see her privately. He had therefore no one but himself to +blame if she had opened her doors to other visitors; and he entered +the drawing-room with the dogged determination to make Beaufort feel +himself in the way, and to outstay him. + +The banker stood leaning against the mantelshelf, which was draped +with an old embroidery held in place by brass candelabra containing +church candles of yellowish wax. He had thrust his chest out, +supporting his shoulders against the mantel and resting his weight +on one large patent-leather foot. As Archer entered he was smiling +and looking down on his hostess, who sat on a sofa placed at right +angles to the chimney. A table banked with flowers formed a screen +behind it, and against the orchids and azaleas which the young man +recognised as tributes from the Beaufort hot-houses, Madame Olenska sat +half-reclined, her head propped on a hand and her wide sleeve leaving +the arm bare to the elbow. + +It was usual for ladies who received in the evenings to wear what were +called "simple dinner dresses": a close-fitting armour of whale-boned +silk, slightly open in the neck, with lace ruffles filling in the +crack, and tight sleeves with a flounce uncovering just enough wrist to +show an Etruscan gold bracelet or a velvet band. But Madame Olenska, +heedless of tradition, was attired in a long robe of red velvet +bordered about the chin and down the front with glossy black fur. +Archer remembered, on his last visit to Paris, seeing a portrait by the +new painter, Carolus Duran, whose pictures were the sensation of the +Salon, in which the lady wore one of these bold sheath-like robes with +her chin nestling in fur. There was something perverse and provocative +in the notion of fur worn in the evening in a heated drawing-room, and +in the combination of a muffled throat and bare arms; but the effect +was undeniably pleasing. + +"Lord love us--three whole days at Skuytercliff!" Beaufort was saying +in his loud sneering voice as Archer entered. "You'd better take all +your furs, and a hot-water-bottle." + +"Why? Is the house so cold?" she asked, holding out her left hand to +Archer in a way mysteriously suggesting that she expected him to kiss +it. + +"No; but the missus is," said Beaufort, nodding carelessly to the young +man. + +"But I thought her so kind. She came herself to invite me. Granny says +I must certainly go." + +"Granny would, of course. And I say it's a shame you're going to miss +the little oyster supper I'd planned for you at Delmonico's next +Sunday, with Campanini and Scalchi and a lot of jolly people." + +She looked doubtfully from the banker to Archer. + +"Ah--that does tempt me! Except the other evening at Mrs. Struthers's +I've not met a single artist since I've been here." + +"What kind of artists? I know one or two painters, very good fellows, +that I could bring to see you if you'd allow me," said Archer boldly. + +"Painters? Are there painters in New York?" asked Beaufort, in a tone +implying that there could be none since he did not buy their pictures; +and Madame Olenska said to Archer, with her grave smile: "That would +be charming. But I was really thinking of dramatic artists, singers, +actors, musicians. My husband's house was always full of them." + +She said the words "my husband" as if no sinister associations were +connected with them, and in a tone that seemed almost to sigh over the +lost delights of her married life. Archer looked at her perplexedly, +wondering if it were lightness or dissimulation that enabled her to +touch so easily on the past at the very moment when she was risking her +reputation in order to break with it. + +"I do think," she went on, addressing both men, "that the _imprévu_ adds +to one's enjoyment. It's perhaps a mistake to see the same people every +day." + +"It's confoundedly dull, anyhow; New York is dying of dullness," +Beaufort grumbled. "And when I try to liven it up for you, you go +back on me. Come--think better of it! Sunday is your last chance, for +Campanini leaves next week for Baltimore and Philadelphia; and I've a +private room, and a Steinway, and they'll sing all night for me." + +"How delicious! May I think it over, and write to you tomorrow morning?" + +She spoke amiably, yet with the least hint of dismissal in her voice. +Beaufort evidently felt it, and being unused to dismissals, stood +staring at her with an obstinate line between his eyes. + +"Why not now?" + +"It's too serious a question to decide at this late hour." + +"Do you call it late?" + +She returned his glance coolly. "Yes; because I have still to talk +business with Mr. Archer for a little while." + +"Ah," Beaufort snapped. There was no appeal from her tone, and with a +slight shrug he recovered his composure, took her hand, which he kissed +with a practised air, and calling out from the threshold: "I say, +Newland, if you can persuade the Countess to stop in town of course +you're included in the supper," left the room with his heavy important +step. + +For a moment Archer fancied that Mr. Letterblair must have told her of +his coming; but the irrelevance of her next remark made him change his +mind. + +"You know painters, then? You live in their milieu?" she asked, her +eyes full of interest. + +"Oh, not exactly. I don't know that the arts have a milieu here, any of +them; they're more like a very thinly settled outskirt." + +"But you care for such things?" + +"Immensely. When I'm in Paris or London I never miss an exhibition. I +try to keep up." + +She looked down at the tip of the little satin boot that peeped from +her long draperies. + +"I used to care immensely too: my life was full of such things. But now +I want to try not to." + +"You want to try not to?" + +"Yes: I want to cast off all my old life, to become just like everybody +else here." + +Archer reddened. "You'll never be like everybody else," he said. + +She raised her straight eyebrows a little. "Ah, don't say that. If you +knew how I hate to be different!" + +Her face had grown as sombre as a tragic mask. She leaned forward, +clasping her knee in her thin hands, and looking away from him into +remote dark distances. + +"I want to get away from it all," she insisted. + +He waited a moment and cleared his throat. "I know. Mr. Letterblair has +told me." + +"Ah?" + +"That's the reason I've come. He asked me to--you see I'm in the firm." + +She looked slightly surprised, and then her eyes brightened. "You mean +you can manage it for me? I can talk to you instead of Mr. Letterblair? +Oh, that will be so much easier!" + +Her tone touched him, and his confidence grew with his +self-satisfaction. He perceived that she had spoken of business to +Beaufort simply to get rid of him; and to have routed Beaufort was +something of a triumph. + +"I am here to talk about it," he repeated. + +She sat silent, her head still propped by the arm that rested on the +back of the sofa. Her face looked pale and extinguished, as if dimmed +by the rich red of her dress. She struck Archer, of a sudden, as a +pathetic and even pitiful figure. + +"Now we're coming to hard facts," he thought, conscious in himself +of the same instinctive recoil that he had so often criticised in +his mother and her contemporaries. How little practice he had had in +dealing with unusual situations! Their very vocabulary was unfamiliar +to him, and seemed to belong to fiction and the stage. In face of what +was coming he felt as awkward and embarrassed as a boy. + +After a pause Madame Olenska broke out with unexpected vehemence: "I +want to be free; I want to wipe out all the past." + +"I understand that." + +Her face warmed. "Then you'll help me?" + +"First--" he hesitated--"perhaps I ought to know a little more." + +She seemed surprised. "You know about my husband--my life with him?" + +He made a sign of assent. + +"Well--then--what more is there? In this country are such things +tolerated? I'm a Protestant--our church does not forbid divorce in such +cases." + +"Certainly not." + +They were both silent again, and Archer felt the spectre of Count +Olenski's letter grimacing hideously between them. The letter filled +only half a page, and was just what he had described it to be in +speaking of it to Mr. Letterblair: the vague charge of an angry +blackguard. But how much truth was behind it? Only Count Olenski's wife +could tell. + +"I've looked through the papers you gave to Mr. Letterblair," he said +at length. + +"Well--can there be anything more abominable?" + +"No." + +She changed her position slightly, screening her eyes with her lifted +hand. + +"Of course you know," Archer continued, "that if your husband chooses +to fight the case--as he threatens to--" + +"Yes--?" + +"He can say things--things that might be unpl--might be disagreeable to +you: say them publicly, so that they would get about, and harm you even +if--" + +"If--?" + +"I mean: no matter how unfounded they were." + +She paused for a long interval; so long that, not wishing to keep his +eyes on her shaded face, he had time to imprint on his mind the exact +shape of her other hand, the one on her knee, and every detail of the +three rings on her fourth and fifth fingers; among which, he noticed, a +wedding ring did not appear. + +"What harm could such accusations, even if he made them publicly, do me +here?" + +It was on his lips to exclaim: "My poor child--far more harm than +anywhere else!" Instead, he answered, in a voice that sounded in his +ears like Mr. Letterblair's: "New York society is a very small world +compared with the one you've lived in. And it's ruled, in spite of +appearances, by a few people with--well, rather old-fashioned ideas." + +She said nothing, and he continued: "Our ideas about marriage and +divorce are particularly old-fashioned. Our legislation favours +divorce--our social customs don't." + +"Never?" + +"Well--not if the woman, however injured, however irreproachable, has +appearances in the least degree against her, has exposed herself by any +unconventional action to--to offensive insinuations--" + +She drooped her head a little lower, and he waited again, intensely +hoping for a flash of indignation, or at least a brief cry of denial. +None came. + +A little travelling clock ticked purringly at her elbow, and a log +broke in two and sent up a shower of sparks. The whole hushed and +brooding room seemed to be waiting silently with Archer. + +"Yes," she murmured at length, "that's what my family tell me." + +He winced a little. "It's not unnatural--" + +"_Our_ family," she corrected herself; and Archer coloured. "For you'll +be my cousin soon," she continued gently. + +"I hope so." + +"And you take their view?" + +He stood up at this, wandered across the room, stared with void eyes +at one of the pictures against the old red damask, and came back +irresolutely to her side. How could he say: "Yes, if what your husband +hints is true, or if you've no way of disproving it?" + +"Sincerely--" she interjected, as he was about to speak. + +He looked down into the fire. "Sincerely, then--what should you gain +that would compensate for the possibility--the certainty--of a lot of +beastly talk?" + +"But my freedom--is that nothing?" + +It flashed across him at that instant that the charge in the letter was +true, and that she hoped to marry the partner of her guilt. How was +he to tell her that, if she really cherished such a plan, the laws of +the State were inexorably opposed to it? The mere suspicion that the +thought was in her mind made him feel harshly and impatiently toward +her. "But aren't you as free as air as it is?" he returned. "Who can +touch you? Mr. Letterblair tells me the financial question has been +settled--" + +"Oh, yes," she said indifferently. + +"Well, then: is it worth while to risk what may be infinitely +disagreeable and painful? Think of the newspapers--their vileness! It's +all stupid and narrow and unjust--but one can't make over society." + +"No," she acquiesced; and her tone was so faint and desolate that he +felt a sudden remorse for his own hard thoughts. + +"The individual, in such cases, is nearly always sacrificed to what is +supposed to be the collective interest: people cling to any convention +that keeps the family together--protects the children, if there are +any," he rambled on, pouring out all the stock phrases that rose to his +lips in his intense desire to cover over the ugly reality which her +silence seemed to have laid bare. Since she would not or could not say +the one word that would have cleared the air, his wish was not to let +her feel that he was trying to probe into her secret. Better keep on +the surface, in the prudent old New York way, than risk uncovering a +wound he could not heal. + +"It's my business, you know," he went on, "to help you to see these +things as the people who are fondest of you see them. The Mingotts, the +Wellands, the van der Luydens, all your friends and relations: if I +didn't show you honestly how they judge such questions, it wouldn't be +fair of me, would it?" He spoke insistently, almost pleading with her +in his eagerness to cover up that yawning silence. + +She said slowly: "No; it wouldn't be fair." + +The fire had crumbled down to greyness, and one of the lamps made a +gurgling appeal for attention. Madame Olenska rose, wound it up and +returned to the fire, but without resuming her seat. + +Her remaining on her feet seemed to signify that there was nothing more +for either of them to say, and Archer stood up also. + +"Very well; I will do what you wish," she said abruptly. The blood +rushed to his forehead; and, taken aback by the suddenness of her +surrender, he caught her two hands awkwardly in his. + +"I--I do want to help you," he said. + +"You do help me. Good night, my cousin." + +He bent and laid his lips on her hands, which were cold and lifeless. +She drew them away, and he turned to the door, found his coat and hat +under the faint gas-light of the hall, and plunged out into the winter +night bursting with the belated eloquence of the inarticulate. + + + + +XIII. + + +It was a crowded night at Wallack's theatre. + +The play was "The Shaughraun," with Dion Boucicault in the title role +and Harry Montague and Ada Dyas as the lovers. The popularity of the +admirable English company was at its height, and the Shaughraun always +packed the house. In the galleries the enthusiasm was unreserved; +in the stalls and boxes, people smiled a little at the hackneyed +sentiments and clap-trap situations, and enjoyed the play as much as +the galleries did. + +There was one episode, in particular, that held the house from floor +to ceiling. It was that in which Harry Montague, after a sad, almost +monosyllabic scene of parting with Miss Dyas, bade her good-bye, and +turned to go. The actress, who was standing near the mantelpiece +and looking down into the fire, wore a gray cashmere dress without +fashionable loopings or trimmings, moulded to her tall figure and +flowing in long lines about her feet. Around her neck was a narrow +black velvet ribbon with the ends falling down her back. + +When her wooer turned from her she rested her arms against the +mantel-shelf and bowed her face in her hands. On the threshold he +paused to look at her; then he stole back, lifted one of the ends of +velvet ribbon, kissed it, and left the room without her hearing him or +changing her attitude. And on this silent parting the curtain fell. + +It was always for the sake of that particular scene that Newland Archer +went to see "The Shaughraun." He thought the adieux of Montague and Ada +Dyas as fine as anything he had ever seen Croisette and Bressant do +in Paris, or Madge Robertson and Kendal in London; in its reticence, +its dumb sorrow, it moved him more than the most famous histrionic +outpourings. + +On the evening in question the little scene acquired an added poignancy +by reminding him--he could not have said why--of his leave-taking from +Madame Olenska after their confidential talk a week or ten days earlier. + +It would have been as difficult to discover any resemblance between +the two situations as between the appearance of the persons concerned. +Newland Archer could not pretend to anything approaching the young +English actor's romantic good looks, and Miss Dyas was a tall +red-haired woman of monumental build whose pale and pleasantly ugly +face was utterly unlike Ellen Olenska's vivid countenance. Nor were +Archer and Madame Olenska two lovers parting in heart-broken silence; +they were client and lawyer separating after a talk which had given the +lawyer the worst possible impression of the client's case. Wherein, +then, lay the resemblance that made the young man's heart beat with a +kind of retrospective excitement? It seemed to be in Madame Olenska's +mysterious faculty of suggesting tragic and moving possibilities +outside the daily run of experience. She had hardly ever said a word +to him to produce this impression, but it was a part of her, either a +projection of her mysterious and outlandish background or of something +inherently dramatic, passionate and unusual in herself. Archer had +always been inclined to think that chance and circumstance played a +small part in shaping people's lots compared with their innate tendency +to have things happen to them. This tendency he had felt from the first +in Madame Olenska. The quiet, almost passive young woman struck him +as exactly the kind of person to whom things were bound to happen, no +matter how much she shrank from them and went out of her way to avoid +them. The exciting fact was her having lived in an atmosphere so thick +with drama that her own tendency to provoke it had apparently passed +unperceived. It was precisely the odd absence of surprise in her that +gave him the sense of her having been plucked out of a very maelstrom: +the things she took for granted gave the measure of those she had +rebelled against. + +Archer had left her with the conviction that Count Olenski's accusation +was not unfounded. The mysterious person who figured in his wife's past +as "the secretary" had probably not been unrewarded for his share in +her escape. The conditions from which she had fled were intolerable, +past speaking of, past believing: she was young, she was frightened, +she was desperate--what more natural than that she should be grateful +to her rescuer? The pity was that her gratitude put her, in the law's +eyes and the world's, on a par with her abominable husband. Archer had +made her understand this, as he was bound to do; he had also made her +understand that simple-hearted kindly New York, on whose larger charity +she had apparently counted, was precisely the place where she could +least hope for indulgence. + +To have to make this fact plain to her--and to witness her resigned +acceptance of it--had been intolerably painful to him. He felt himself +drawn to her by obscure feelings of jealousy and pity, as if her +dumbly-confessed error had put her at his mercy, humbling yet endearing +her. He was glad it was to him she had revealed her secret, rather than +to the cold scrutiny of Mr. Letterblair, or the embarrassed gaze of her +family. He immediately took it upon himself to assure them both that +she had given up her idea of seeking a divorce, basing her decision on +the fact that she had understood the uselessness of the proceeding; +and with infinite relief they had all turned their eyes from the +"unpleasantness" she had spared them. + +"I was sure Newland would manage it," Mrs. Welland had said proudly of +her future son-in-law; and old Mrs. Mingott, who had summoned him for +a confidential interview, had congratulated him on his cleverness, and +added impatiently: "Silly goose! I told her myself what nonsense it +was. Wanting to pass herself off as Ellen Mingott and an old maid, when +she has the luck to be a married woman and a Countess!" + +These incidents had made the memory of his last talk with Madame +Olenska so vivid to the young man that as the curtain fell on the +parting of the two actors his eyes filled with tears, and he stood up +to leave the theatre. + +In doing so, he turned to the side of the house behind him, and saw +the lady of whom he was thinking seated in a box with the Beauforts, +Lawrence Lefferts and one or two other men. He had not spoken with +her alone since their evening together, and had tried to avoid being +with her in company; but now their eyes met, and as Mrs. Beaufort +recognised him at the same time, and made her languid little gesture of +invitation, it was impossible not to go into the box. + +Beaufort and Lefferts made way for him, and after a few words with Mrs. +Beaufort, who always preferred to look beautiful and not have to talk, +Archer seated himself behind Madame Olenska. There was no one else in +the box but Mr. Sillerton Jackson, who was telling Mrs. Beaufort in +a confidential undertone about Mrs. Lemuel Struthers's last Sunday +reception (where some people reported that there had been dancing). +Under cover of this circumstantial narrative, to which Mrs. Beaufort +listened with her perfect smile, and her head at just the right angle +to be seen in profile from the stalls, Madame Olenska turned and spoke +in a low voice. + +"Do you think," she asked, glancing toward the stage, "he will send her +a bunch of yellow roses tomorrow morning?" + +Archer reddened, and his heart gave a leap of surprise. He had called +only twice on Madame Olenska, and each time he had sent her a box of +yellow roses, and each time without a card. She had never before made +any allusion to the flowers, and he supposed she had never thought of +him as the sender. Now her sudden recognition of the gift, and her +associating it with the tender leave-taking on the stage, filled him +with an agitated pleasure. + +"I was thinking of that too--I was going to leave the theatre in order +to take the picture away with me," he said. + +To his surprise her colour rose, reluctantly and duskily. She looked +down at the mother-of-pearl opera-glass in her smoothly gloved hands, +and said, after a pause: "What do you do while May is away?" + +"I stick to my work," he answered, faintly annoyed by the question. + +In obedience to a long-established habit, the Wellands had left the +previous week for St. Augustine, where, out of regard for the supposed +susceptibility of Mr. Welland's bronchial tubes, they always spent +the latter part of the winter. Mr. Welland was a mild and silent man, +with no opinions but with many habits. With these habits none might +interfere; and one of them demanded that his wife and daughter should +always go with him on his annual journey to the south. To preserve an +unbroken domesticity was essential to his peace of mind; he would not +have known where his hair-brushes were, or how to provide stamps for +his letters, if Mrs. Welland had not been there to tell him. + +As all the members of the family adored each other, and as Mr. Welland +was the central object of their idolatry, it never occurred to his wife +and May to let him go to St. Augustine alone; and his sons, who were +both in the law, and could not leave New York during the winter, always +joined him for Easter and travelled back with him. + +It was impossible for Archer to discuss the necessity of May's +accompanying her father. The reputation of the Mingotts' family +physician was largely based on the attack of pneumonia which Mr. +Welland had never had; and his insistence on St. Augustine was +therefore inflexible. Originally, it had been intended that May's +engagement should not be announced till her return from Florida, and +the fact that it had been made known sooner could not be expected +to alter Mr. Welland's plans. Archer would have liked to join the +travellers and have a few weeks of sunshine and boating with his +betrothed; but he too was bound by custom and conventions. Little +arduous as his professional duties were, he would have been convicted +of frivolity by the whole Mingott clan if he had suggested asking for +a holiday in mid-winter; and he accepted May's departure with the +resignation which he perceived would have to be one of the principal +constituents of married life. + +He was conscious that Madame Olenska was looking at him under lowered +lids. "I have done what you wished--what you advised," she said +abruptly. + +"Ah--I'm glad," he returned, embarrassed by her broaching the subject +at such a moment. + +"I understand--that you were right," she went on a little breathlessly; +"but sometimes life is difficult ... perplexing..." + +"I know." + +"And I wanted to tell you that I _do_ feel you were right; and that I'm +grateful to you," she ended, lifting her opera-glass quickly to her +eyes as the door of the box opened and Beaufort's resonant voice broke +in on them. + +Archer stood up, and left the box and the theatre. + +Only the day before he had received a letter from May Welland in +which, with characteristic candour, she had asked him to "be kind to +Ellen" in their absence. "She likes you and admires you so much--and +you know, though she doesn't show it, she's still very lonely and +unhappy. I don't think Granny understands her, or uncle Lovell Mingott +either; they really think she's much worldlier and fonder of society +than she is. And I can quite see that New York must seem dull to her, +though the family won't admit it. I think she's been used to lots +of things we haven't got; wonderful music, and picture shows, and +celebrities--artists and authors and all the clever people you admire. +Granny can't understand her wanting anything but lots of dinners and +clothes--but I can see that you're almost the only person in New York +who can talk to her about what she really cares for." + +His wise May--how he had loved her for that letter! But he had not +meant to act on it; he was too busy, to begin with, and he did not +care, as an engaged man, to play too conspicuously the part of Madame +Olenska's champion. He had an idea that she knew how to take care of +herself a good deal better than the ingenuous May imagined. She had +Beaufort at her feet, Mr. van der Luyden hovering above her like a +protecting deity, and any number of candidates (Lawrence Lefferts among +them) waiting their opportunity in the middle distance. Yet he never +saw her, or exchanged a word with her, without feeling that, after all, +May's ingenuousness almost amounted to a gift of divination. Ellen +Olenska was lonely and she was unhappy. + + + + +XIV. + + +As he came out into the lobby Archer ran across his friend Ned Winsett, +the only one among what Janey called his "clever people" with whom he +cared to probe into things a little deeper than the average level of +club and chop-house banter. + +He had caught sight, across the house, of Winsett's shabby +round-shouldered back, and had once noticed his eyes turned toward the +Beaufort box. The two men shook hands, and Winsett proposed a bock at a +little German restaurant around the corner. Archer, who was not in the +mood for the kind of talk they were likely to get there, declined on +the plea that he had work to do at home; and Winsett said: "Oh, well so +have I for that matter, and I'll be the Industrious Apprentice too." + +They strolled along together, and presently Winsett said: "Look here, +what I'm really after is the name of the dark lady in that swell box +of yours--with the Beauforts, wasn't she? The one your friend Lefferts +seems so smitten by." + +Archer, he could not have said why, was slightly annoyed. What the +devil did Ned Winsett want with Ellen Olenska's name? And above all, +why did he couple it with Lefferts's? It was unlike Winsett to manifest +such curiosity; but after all, Archer remembered, he was a journalist. + +"It's not for an interview, I hope?" he laughed. + +"Well--not for the press; just for myself," Winsett rejoined. "The +fact is she's a neighbour of mine--queer quarter for such a beauty to +settle in--and she's been awfully kind to my little boy, who fell down +her area chasing his kitten, and gave himself a nasty cut. She rushed +in bareheaded, carrying him in her arms, with his knee all beautifully +bandaged, and was so sympathetic and beautiful that my wife was too +dazzled to ask her name." + +A pleasant glow dilated Archer's heart. There was nothing extraordinary +in the tale: any woman would have done as much for a neighbour's child. +But it was just like Ellen, he felt, to have rushed in bareheaded, +carrying the boy in her arms, and to have dazzled poor Mrs. Winsett +into forgetting to ask who she was. + +"That is the Countess Olenska--a granddaughter of old Mrs. Mingott's." + +"Whew--a Countess!" whistled Ned Winsett. "Well, I didn't know +Countesses were so neighbourly. Mingotts ain't." + +"They would be, if you'd let them." + +"Ah, well--" It was their old interminable argument as to the obstinate +unwillingness of the "clever people" to frequent the fashionable, and +both men knew that there was no use in prolonging it. + +"I wonder," Winsett broke off, "how a Countess happens to live in our +slum?" + +"Because she doesn't care a hang about where she lives--or about any of +our little social sign-posts," said Archer, with a secret pride in his +own picture of her. + +"H'm--been in bigger places, I suppose," the other commented. "Well, +here's my corner." + +He slouched off across Broadway, and Archer stood looking after him and +musing on his last words. + +Ned Winsett had those flashes of penetration; they were the most +interesting thing about him, and always made Archer wonder why they had +allowed him to accept failure so stolidly at an age when most men are +still struggling. + +Archer had known that Winsett had a wife and child, but he had never +seen them. The two men always met at the Century, or at some haunt of +journalists and theatrical people, such as the restaurant where Winsett +had proposed to go for a bock. He had given Archer to understand that +his wife was an invalid; which might be true of the poor lady, or +might merely mean that she was lacking in social gifts or in evening +clothes, or in both. Winsett himself had a savage abhorrence of social +observances: Archer, who dressed in the evening because he thought it +cleaner and more comfortable to do so, and who had never stopped to +consider that cleanliness and comfort are two of the costliest items +in a modest budget, regarded Winsett's attitude as part of the boring +"Bohemian" pose that always made fashionable people, who changed +their clothes without talking about it, and were not forever harping +on the number of servants one kept, seem so much simpler and less +self-conscious than the others. Nevertheless, he was always stimulated +by Winsett, and whenever he caught sight of the journalist's lean +bearded face and melancholy eyes he would rout him out of his corner +and carry him off for a long talk. + +Winsett was not a journalist by choice. He was a pure man of letters, +untimely born in a world that had no need of letters; but after +publishing one volume of brief and exquisite literary appreciations, +of which one hundred and twenty copies were sold, thirty given away, +and the balance eventually destroyed by the publishers (as per +contract) to make room for more marketable material, he had abandoned +his real calling, and taken a sub-editorial job on a women's weekly, +where fashion-plates and paper patterns alternated with New England +love-stories and advertisements of temperance drinks. + +On the subject of "Hearth-fires" (as the paper was called) he was +inexhaustibly entertaining; but beneath his fun lurked the sterile +bitterness of the still young man who has tried and given up. His +conversation always made Archer take the measure of his own life, and +feel how little it contained; but Winsett's, after all, contained +still less, and though their common fund of intellectual interests and +curiosities made their talks exhilarating, their exchange of views +usually remained within the limits of a pensive dilettantism. + +"The fact is, life isn't much a fit for either of us," Winsett had once +said. "I'm down and out; nothing to be done about it. I've got only one +ware to produce, and there's no market for it here, and won't be in +my time. But you're free and you're well-off. Why don't _you_ get into +touch? There's only one way to do it: to go into politics." + +Archer threw his head back and laughed. There one saw at a flash +the unbridgeable difference between men like Winsett and the +others--Archer's kind. Every one in polite circles knew that, in +America, "a gentleman couldn't go into politics." But, since he could +hardly put it in that way to Winsett, he answered evasively: "Look at +the career of the honest man in American politics! They don't want us." + +"Who's 'they'? Why don't you all get together and be 'they' yourselves?" + +Archer's laugh lingered on his lips in a slightly condescending smile. +It was useless to prolong the discussion: everybody knew the melancholy +fate of the few gentlemen who had risked their clean linen in municipal +or state politics in New York. The day was past when that sort of thing +was possible: the country was in possession of the bosses and the +emigrant, and decent people had to fall back on sport or culture. + +"Culture! Yes--if we had it! But there are just a few little local +patches, dying out here and there for lack of--well, hoeing and +cross-fertilising: the last remnants of the old European tradition +that your forebears brought with them. But you're in a pitiful little +minority: you've got no centre, no competition, no audience. You're +like the pictures on the walls of a deserted house: 'The Portrait of a +Gentleman.' You'll never amount to anything, any of you, till you roll +up your sleeves and get right down into the muck. That, or emigrate ... +God! If I could emigrate ..." + +Archer mentally shrugged his shoulders and turned the conversation +back to books, where Winsett, if uncertain, was always interesting. +Emigrate! As if a gentleman could abandon his own country! One could no +more do that than one could roll up one's sleeves and go down into the +muck. A gentleman simply stayed at home and abstained. But you couldn't +make a man like Winsett see that; and that was why the New York of +literary clubs and exotic restaurants, though a first shake made it +seem more of a kaleidoscope, turned out, in the end, to be a smaller +box, with a more monotonous pattern, than the assembled atoms of Fifth +Avenue. + + +The next morning Archer scoured the town in vain for more yellow +roses. In consequence of this search he arrived late at the office, +perceived that his doing so made no difference whatever to any one, +and was filled with sudden exasperation at the elaborate futility +of his life. Why should he not be, at that moment, on the sands of +St. Augustine with May Welland? No one was deceived by his pretense +of professional activity. In old-fashioned legal firms like that of +which Mr. Letterblair was the head, and which were mainly engaged in +the management of large estates and "conservative" investments, there +were always two or three young men, fairly well-off, and without +professional ambition, who, for a certain number of hours of each day, +sat at their desks accomplishing trivial tasks, or simply reading +the newspapers. Though it was supposed to be proper for them to have +an occupation, the crude fact of money-making was still regarded as +derogatory, and the law, being a profession, was accounted a more +gentlemanly pursuit than business. But none of these young men had much +hope of really advancing in his profession, or any earnest desire to +do so; and over many of them the green mould of the perfunctory was +already perceptibly spreading. + +It made Archer shiver to think that it might be spreading over him too. +He had, to be sure, other tastes and interests; he spent his vacations +in European travel, cultivated the "clever people" May spoke of, and +generally tried to "keep up," as he had somewhat wistfully put it to +Madame Olenska. But once he was married, what would become of this +narrow margin of life in which his real experiences were lived? He +had seen enough of other young men who had dreamed his dream, though +perhaps less ardently, and who had gradually sunk into the placid and +luxurious routine of their elders. + +From the office he sent a note by messenger to Madame Olenska, asking +if he might call that afternoon, and begging her to let him find a +reply at his club; but at the club he found nothing, nor did he receive +any letter the following day. This unexpected silence mortified him +beyond reason, and though the next morning he saw a glorious cluster +of yellow roses behind a florist's window-pane, he left it there. It +was only on the third morning that he received a line by post from +the Countess Olenska. To his surprise it was dated from Skuytercliff, +whither the van der Luydens had promptly retreated after putting the +Duke on board his steamer. + +"I ran away," the writer began abruptly (without the usual +preliminaries), "the day after I saw you at the play, and these kind +friends have taken me in. I wanted to be quiet, and think things over. +You were right in telling me how kind they were; I feel myself so safe +here. I wish that you were with us." She ended with a conventional +"Yours sincerely," and without any allusion to the date of her return. + +The tone of the note surprised the young man. What was Madame Olenska +running away from, and why did she feel the need to be safe? His first +thought was of some dark menace from abroad; then he reflected that he +did not know her epistolary style, and that it might run to picturesque +exaggeration. Women always exaggerated; and moreover she was not +wholly at her ease in English, which she often spoke as if she were +translating from the French. "Je me suis évadée--" put in that way, +the opening sentence immediately suggested that she might merely have +wanted to escape from a boring round of engagements; which was very +likely true, for he judged her to be capricious, and easily wearied of +the pleasure of the moment. + +It amused him to think of the van der Luydens' having carried her off +to Skuytercliff on a second visit, and this time for an indefinite +period. The doors of Skuytercliff were rarely and grudgingly opened +to visitors, and a chilly week-end was the most ever offered to the +few thus privileged. But Archer had seen, on his last visit to Paris, +the delicious play of Labiche, "Le Voyage de M. Perrichon," and he +remembered M. Perrichon's dogged and undiscouraged attachment to the +young man whom he had pulled out of the glacier. The van der Luydens +had rescued Madame Olenska from a doom almost as icy; and though there +were many other reasons for being attracted to her, Archer knew that +beneath them all lay the gentle and obstinate determination to go on +rescuing her. + +He felt a distinct disappointment on learning that she was away; and +almost immediately remembered that, only the day before, he had refused +an invitation to spend the following Sunday with the Reggie Chiverses +at their house on the Hudson, a few miles below Skuytercliff. + +He had had his fill long ago of the noisy friendly parties at Highbank, +with coasting, ice-boating, sleighing, long tramps in the snow, and a +general flavour of mild flirting and milder practical jokes. He had +just received a box of new books from his London book-seller, and had +preferred the prospect of a quiet Sunday at home with his spoils. But +he now went into the club writing-room, wrote a hurried telegram, and +told the servant to send it immediately. He knew that Mrs. Reggie +didn't object to her visitors' suddenly changing their minds, and that +there was always a room to spare in her elastic house. + + + + +XV. + + +Newland Archer arrived at the Chiverses' on Friday evening, and on +Saturday went conscientiously through all the rites appertaining to a +week-end at Highbank. + +In the morning he had a spin in the ice-boat with his hostess and a few +of the hardier guests; in the afternoon he "went over the farm" with +Reggie, and listened, in the elaborately appointed stables, to long +and impressive disquisitions on the horse; after tea he talked in a +corner of the firelit hall with a young lady who had professed herself +broken-hearted when his engagement was announced, but was now eager to +tell him of her own matrimonial hopes; and finally, about midnight, +he assisted in putting a gold-fish in one visitor's bed, dressed up a +burglar in the bath-room of a nervous aunt, and saw in the small hours +by joining in a pillow-fight that ranged from the nurseries to the +basement. But on Sunday after luncheon he borrowed a cutter, and drove +over to Skuytercliff. + +People had always been told that the house at Skuytercliff was an +Italian villa. Those who had never been to Italy believed it; so did +some who had. The house had been built by Mr. van der Luyden in his +youth, on his return from the "grand tour," and in anticipation of his +approaching marriage with Miss Louisa Dagonet. It was a large square +wooden structure, with tongued and grooved walls painted pale green and +white, a Corinthian portico, and fluted pilasters between the windows. +From the high ground on which it stood a series of terraces bordered +by balustrades and urns descended in the steel-engraving style to a +small irregular lake with an asphalt edge overhung by rare weeping +conifers. To the right and left, the famous weedless lawns studded with +"specimen" trees (each of a different variety) rolled away to long +ranges of grass crested with elaborate cast-iron ornaments; and below, +in a hollow, lay the four-roomed stone house which the first Patroon +had built on the land granted him in 1612. + +Against the uniform sheet of snow and the greyish winter sky the +Italian villa loomed up rather grimly; even in summer it kept its +distance, and the boldest coleus bed had never ventured nearer than +thirty feet from its awful front. Now, as Archer rang the bell, the +long tinkle seemed to echo through a mausoleum; and the surprise of the +butler who at length responded to the call was as great as though he +had been summoned from his final sleep. + +Happily Archer was of the family, and therefore, irregular though his +arrival was, entitled to be informed that the Countess Olenska was out, +having driven to afternoon service with Mrs. van der Luyden exactly +three quarters of an hour earlier. + +"Mr. van der Luyden," the butler continued, "is in, sir; but my +impression is that he is either finishing his nap or else reading +yesterday's Evening Post. I heard him say, sir, on his return from +church this morning, that he intended to look through the Evening Post +after luncheon; if you like, sir, I might go to the library door and +listen--" + +But Archer, thanking him, said that he would go and meet the ladies; +and the butler, obviously relieved, closed the door on him majestically. + +A groom took the cutter to the stables, and Archer struck through the +park to the high-road. The village of Skuytercliff was only a mile and +a half away, but he knew that Mrs. van der Luyden never walked, and +that he must keep to the road to meet the carriage. Presently, however, +coming down a foot-path that crossed the highway, he caught sight of a +slight figure in a red cloak, with a big dog running ahead. He hurried +forward, and Madame Olenska stopped short with a smile of welcome. + +"Ah, you've come!" she said, and drew her hand from her muff. + +The red cloak made her look gay and vivid, like the Ellen Mingott of +old days; and he laughed as he took her hand, and answered: "I came to +see what you were running away from." + +Her face clouded over, but she answered: "Ah, well--you will see, +presently." + +The answer puzzled him. "Why--do you mean that you've been overtaken?" + +She shrugged her shoulders, with a little movement like Nastasia's, and +rejoined in a lighter tone: "Shall we walk on? I'm so cold after the +sermon. And what does it matter, now you're here to protect me?" + +The blood rose to his temples and he caught a fold of her cloak. +"Ellen--what is it? You must tell me." + +"Oh, presently--let's run a race first: my feet are freezing to the +ground," she cried; and gathering up the cloak she fled away across +the snow, the dog leaping about her with challenging barks. For a +moment Archer stood watching, his gaze delighted by the flash of the +red meteor against the snow; then he started after her, and they met, +panting and laughing, at a wicket that led into the park. + +She looked up at him and smiled. "I knew you'd come!" + +"That shows you wanted me to," he returned, with a disproportionate joy +in their nonsense. The white glitter of the trees filled the air with +its own mysterious brightness, and as they walked on over the snow the +ground seemed to sing under their feet. + +"Where did you come from?" Madame Olenska asked. + +He told her, and added: "It was because I got your note." + +After a pause she said, with a just perceptible chill in her voice: +"May asked you to take care of me." + +"I didn't need any asking." + +"You mean--I'm so evidently helpless and defenceless? What a poor thing +you must all think me! But women here seem not--seem never to feel the +need: any more than the blessed in heaven." + +He lowered his voice to ask: "What sort of a need?" + +"Ah, don't ask me! I don't speak your language," she retorted +petulantly. + +The answer smote him like a blow, and he stood still in the path, +looking down at her. + +"What did I come for, if I don't speak yours?" + +"Oh, my friend--!" She laid her hand lightly on his arm, and he pleaded +earnestly: "Ellen--why won't you tell me what's happened?" + +She shrugged again. "Does anything ever happen in heaven?" + +He was silent, and they walked on a few yards without exchanging a +word. Finally she said: "I will tell you--but where, where, where? One +can't be alone for a minute in that great seminary of a house, with all +the doors wide open, and always a servant bringing tea, or a log for +the fire, or the newspaper! Is there nowhere in an American house where +one may be by one's self? You're so shy, and yet you're so public. I +always feel as if I were in the convent again--or on the stage, before +a dreadfully polite audience that never applauds." + +"Ah, you don't like us!" Archer exclaimed. + +They were walking past the house of the old Patroon, with its squat +walls and small square windows compactly grouped about a central +chimney. The shutters stood wide, and through one of the newly-washed +windows Archer caught the light of a fire. + +"Why--the house is open!" he said. + +She stood still. "No; only for today, at least. I wanted to see it, and +Mr. van der Luyden had the fire lit and the windows opened, so that we +might stop there on the way back from church this morning." She ran up +the steps and tried the door. "It's still unlocked--what luck! Come in +and we can have a quiet talk. Mrs. van der Luyden has driven over to +see her old aunts at Rhinebeck and we shan't be missed at the house for +another hour." + +He followed her into the narrow passage. His spirits, which had dropped +at her last words, rose with an irrational leap. The homely little +house stood there, its panels and brasses shining in the firelight, as +if magically created to receive them. A big bed of embers still gleamed +in the kitchen chimney, under an iron pot hung from an ancient crane. +Rush-bottomed arm-chairs faced each other across the tiled hearth, and +rows of Delft plates stood on shelves against the walls. Archer stooped +over and threw a log upon the embers. + +Madame Olenska, dropping her cloak, sat down in one of the chairs. +Archer leaned against the chimney and looked at her. + +"You're laughing now; but when you wrote me you were unhappy," he said. + +"Yes." She paused. "But I can't feel unhappy when you're here." + +"I sha'n't be here long," he rejoined, his lips stiffening with the +effort to say just so much and no more. + +"No; I know. But I'm improvident: I live in the moment when I'm happy." + +The words stole through him like a temptation, and to close his senses +to it he moved away from the hearth and stood gazing out at the black +tree-boles against the snow. But it was as if she too had shifted her +place, and he still saw her, between himself and the trees, drooping +over the fire with her indolent smile. Archer's heart was beating +insubordinately. What if it were from him that she had been running +away, and if she had waited to tell him so till they were here alone +together in this secret room? + +"Ellen, if I'm really a help to you--if you really wanted me to +come--tell me what's wrong, tell me what it is you're running away +from," he insisted. + +He spoke without shifting his position, without even turning to look at +her: if the thing was to happen, it was to happen in this way, with the +whole width of the room between them, and his eyes still fixed on the +outer snow. + +For a long moment she was silent; and in that moment Archer imagined +her, almost heard her, stealing up behind him to throw her light +arms about his neck. While he waited, soul and body throbbing with +the miracle to come, his eyes mechanically received the image of a +heavily-coated man with his fur collar turned up who was advancing +along the path to the house. The man was Julius Beaufort. + +"Ah--!" Archer cried, bursting into a laugh. + +Madame Olenska had sprung up and moved to his side, slipping her hand +into his; but after a glance through the window her face paled and she +shrank back. + +"So that was it?" Archer said derisively. + +"I didn't know he was here," Madame Olenska murmured. Her hand still +clung to Archer's; but he drew away from her, and walking out into the +passage threw open the door of the house. + +"Hallo, Beaufort--this way! Madame Olenska was expecting you," he said. + + +During his journey back to New York the next morning, Archer relived +with a fatiguing vividness his last moments at Skuytercliff. + +Beaufort, though clearly annoyed at finding him with Madame Olenska, +had, as usual, carried off the situation high-handedly. His way of +ignoring people whose presence inconvenienced him actually gave +them, if they were sensitive to it, a feeling of invisibility, of +nonexistence. Archer, as the three strolled back through the park, was +aware of this odd sense of disembodiment; and humbling as it was to his +vanity it gave him the ghostly advantage of observing unobserved. + +Beaufort had entered the little house with his usual easy assurance; +but he could not smile away the vertical line between his eyes. It was +fairly clear that Madame Olenska had not known that he was coming, +though her words to Archer had hinted at the possibility; at any rate, +she had evidently not told him where she was going when she left New +York, and her unexplained departure had exasperated him. The ostensible +reason of his appearance was the discovery, the very night before, of +a "perfect little house," not in the market, which was really just the +thing for her, but would be snapped up instantly if she didn't take it; +and he was loud in mock-reproaches for the dance she had led him in +running away just as he had found it. + +"If only this new dodge for talking along a wire had been a little +bit nearer perfection I might have told you all this from town, and +been toasting my toes before the club fire at this minute, instead of +tramping after you through the snow," he grumbled, disguising a real +irritation under the pretence of it; and at this opening Madame Olenska +twisted the talk away to the fantastic possibility that they might +one day actually converse with each other from street to street, or +even--incredible dream!--from one town to another. This struck from +all three allusions to Edgar Poe and Jules Verne, and such platitudes +as naturally rise to the lips of the most intelligent when they are +talking against time, and dealing with a new invention in which it +would seem ingenuous to believe too soon; and the question of the +telephone carried them safely back to the big house. + +Mrs. van der Luyden had not yet returned; and Archer took his leave and +walked off to fetch the cutter, while Beaufort followed the Countess +Olenska indoors. It was probable that, little as the van der Luydens +encouraged unannounced visits, he could count on being asked to dine, +and sent back to the station to catch the nine o'clock train; but more +than that he would certainly not get, for it would be inconceivable to +his hosts that a gentleman travelling without luggage should wish to +spend the night, and distasteful to them to propose it to a person with +whom they were on terms of such limited cordiality as Beaufort. + +Beaufort knew all this, and must have foreseen it; and his taking the +long journey for so small a reward gave the measure of his impatience. +He was undeniably in pursuit of the Countess Olenska; and Beaufort had +only one object in view in his pursuit of pretty women. His dull and +childless home had long since palled on him; and in addition to more +permanent consolations he was always in quest of amorous adventures in +his own set. This was the man from whom Madame Olenska was avowedly +flying: the question was whether she had fled because his importunities +displeased her, or because she did not wholly trust herself to resist +them; unless, indeed, all her talk of flight had been a blind, and her +departure no more than a manœuvre. + +Archer did not really believe this. Little as he had actually seen of +Madame Olenska, he was beginning to think that he could read her face, +and if not her face, her voice; and both had betrayed annoyance, and +even dismay, at Beaufort's sudden appearance. But, after all, if this +were the case, was it not worse than if she had left New York for the +express purpose of meeting him? If she had done that, she ceased to +be an object of interest, she threw in her lot with the vulgarest of +dissemblers: a woman engaged in a love affair with Beaufort "classed" +herself irretrievably. + +No, it was worse a thousand times if, judging Beaufort, and probably +despising him, she was yet drawn to him by all that gave him an +advantage over the other men about her: his habit of two continents +and two societies, his familiar association with artists and actors +and people generally in the world's eye, and his careless contempt +for local prejudices. Beaufort was vulgar, he was uneducated, he was +purse-proud; but the circumstances of his life, and a certain native +shrewdness, made him better worth talking to than many men, morally and +socially his betters, whose horizon was bounded by the Battery and the +Central Park. How should any one coming from a wider world not feel the +difference and be attracted by it? + +Madame Olenska, in a burst of irritation, had said to Archer that he +and she did not talk the same language; and the young man knew that +in some respects this was true. But Beaufort understood every turn of +her dialect, and spoke it fluently: his view of life, his tone, his +attitude, were merely a coarser reflection of those revealed in Count +Olenski's letter. This might seem to be to his disadvantage with Count +Olenski's wife; but Archer was too intelligent to think that a young +woman like Ellen Olenska would necessarily recoil from everything that +reminded her of her past. She might believe herself wholly in revolt +against it; but what had charmed her in it would still charm her, even +though it were against her will. + +Thus, with a painful impartiality, did the young man make out the case +for Beaufort, and for Beaufort's victim. A longing to enlighten her was +strong in him; and there were moments when he imagined that all she +asked was to be enlightened. + +That evening he unpacked his books from London. The box was full of +things he had been waiting for impatiently; a new volume of Herbert +Spencer, another collection of the prolific Alphonse Daudet's brilliant +tales, and a novel called "Middlemarch," as to which there had lately +been interesting things said in the reviews. He had declined three +dinner invitations in favour of this feast; but though he turned the +pages with the sensuous joy of the book-lover, he did not know what +he was reading, and one book after another dropped from his hand. +Suddenly, among them, he lit on a small volume of verse which he had +ordered because the name had attracted him: "The House of Life." He +took it up, and found himself plunged in an atmosphere unlike any he +had ever breathed in books; so warm, so rich, and yet so ineffably +tender, that it gave a new and haunting beauty to the most elementary +of human passions. All through the night he pursued through those +enchanted pages the vision of a woman who had the face of Ellen +Olenska; but when he woke the next morning, and looked out at the +brownstone houses across the street, and thought of his desk in Mr. +Letterblair's office, and the family pew in Grace Church, his hour in +the park of Skuytercliff became as far outside the pale of probability +as the visions of the night. + +"Mercy, how pale you look, Newland!" Janey commented over the +coffee-cups at breakfast; and his mother added: "Newland, dear, I've +noticed lately that you've been coughing; I do hope you're not letting +yourself be overworked?" For it was the conviction of both ladies that, +under the iron despotism of his senior partners, the young man's life +was spent in the most exhausting professional labours--and he had never +thought it necessary to undeceive them. + +The next two or three days dragged by heavily. The taste of the usual +was like cinders in his mouth, and there were moments when he felt as +if he were being buried alive under his future. He heard nothing of +the Countess Olenska, or of the perfect little house, and though he +met Beaufort at the club they merely nodded at each other across the +whist-tables. It was not till the fourth evening that he found a note +awaiting him on his return home. "Come late tomorrow: I must explain to +you. Ellen." These were the only words it contained. + +The young man, who was dining out, thrust the note into his pocket, +smiling a little at the Frenchness of the "to you." After dinner he +went to a play; and it was not until his return home, after midnight, +that he drew Madame Olenska's missive out again and re-read it slowly a +number of times. There were several ways of answering it, and he gave +considerable thought to each one during the watches of an agitated +night. That on which, when morning came, he finally decided was to +pitch some clothes into a portmanteau and jump on board a boat that was +leaving that very afternoon for St. Augustine. + + + + +XVI. + + +When Archer walked down the sandy main street of St. Augustine to the +house which had been pointed out to him as Mr. Welland's, and saw May +Welland standing under a magnolia with the sun in her hair, he wondered +why he had waited so long to come. + +Here was the truth, here was reality, here was the life that belonged +to him; and he, who fancied himself so scornful of arbitrary +restraints, had been afraid to break away from his desk because of what +people might think of his stealing a holiday! + +Her first exclamation was: "Newland--has anything happened?" and it +occurred to him that it would have been more "feminine" if she had +instantly read in his eyes why he had come. But when he answered: +"Yes--I found I had to see you," her happy blushes took the chill from +her surprise, and he saw how easily he would be forgiven, and how soon +even Mr. Letterblair's mild disapproval would be smiled away by a +tolerant family. + +Early as it was, the main street was no place for any but formal +greetings, and Archer longed to be alone with May, and to pour out +all his tenderness and his impatience. It still lacked an hour to the +late Welland breakfast-time, and instead of asking him to come in she +proposed that they should walk out to an old orange-garden beyond the +town. She had just been for a row on the river, and the sun that netted +the little waves with gold seemed to have caught her in its meshes. +Across the warm brown of her cheek her blown hair glittered like silver +wire; and her eyes too looked lighter, almost pale in their youthful +limpidity. As she walked beside Archer with her long swinging gait her +face wore the vacant serenity of a young marble athlete. + +To Archer's strained nerves the vision was as soothing as the sight of +the blue sky and the lazy river. They sat down on a bench under the +orange-trees and he put his arm about her and kissed her. It was like +drinking at a cold spring with the sun on it; but his pressure may have +been more vehement than he had intended, for the blood rose to her face +and she drew back as if he had startled her. + +"What is it?" he asked, smiling; and she looked at him with surprise, +and answered: "Nothing." + +A slight embarrassment fell on them, and her hand slipped out of his. +It was the only time that he had kissed her on the lips except for +their fugitive embrace in the Beaufort conservatory, and he saw that +she was disturbed, and shaken out of her cool boyish composure. + +"Tell me what you do all day," he said, crossing his arms under his +tilted-back head, and pushing his hat forward to screen the sun-dazzle. +To let her talk about familiar and simple things was the easiest way of +carrying on his own independent train of thought; and he sat listening +to her simple chronicle of swimming, sailing and riding, varied by an +occasional dance at the primitive inn when a man-of-war came in. A few +pleasant people from Philadelphia and Baltimore were picknicking at the +inn, and the Selfridge Merrys had come down for three weeks because +Kate Merry had had bronchitis. They were planning to lay out a lawn +tennis court on the sands; but no one but Kate and May had racquets, +and most of the people had not even heard of the game. + +All this kept her very busy, and she had not had time to do more than +look at the little vellum book that Archer had sent her the week before +(the "Sonnets from the Portuguese"); but she was learning by heart +"How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix," because it was one +of the first things he had ever read to her; and it amused her to be +able to tell him that Kate Merry had never even heard of a poet called +Robert Browning. + +Presently she started up, exclaiming that they would be late for +breakfast; and they hurried back to the tumble-down house with its +pointless porch and unpruned hedge of plumbago and pink geraniums where +the Wellands were installed for the winter. Mr. Welland's sensitive +domesticity shrank from the discomforts of the slovenly southern +hotel, and at immense expense, and in face of almost insuperable +difficulties, Mrs. Welland was obliged, year after year, to improvise +an establishment partly made up of discontented New York servants and +partly drawn from the local African supply. + +"The doctors want my husband to feel that he is in his own home; +otherwise he would be so wretched that the climate would not do him +any good," she explained, winter after winter, to the sympathising +Philadelphians and Baltimoreans; and Mr. Welland, beaming across a +breakfast table miraculously supplied with the most varied delicacies, +was presently saying to Archer: "You see, my dear fellow, we camp--we +literally camp. I tell my wife and May that I want to teach them how to +rough it." + +Mr. and Mrs. Welland had been as much surprised as their daughter by +the young man's sudden arrival; but it had occurred to him to explain +that he had felt himself on the verge of a nasty cold, and this seemed +to Mr. Welland an all-sufficient reason for abandoning any duty. + +"You can't be too careful, especially toward spring," he said, heaping +his plate with straw-coloured griddle-cakes and drowning them in golden +syrup. "If I'd only been as prudent at your age May would have been +dancing at the Assemblies now, instead of spending her winters in a +wilderness with an old invalid." + +"Oh, but I love it here, Papa; you know I do. If only Newland could +stay I should like it a thousand times better than New York." + +"Newland must stay till he has quite thrown off his cold," said Mrs. +Welland indulgently; and the young man laughed, and said he supposed +there was such a thing as one's profession. + +He managed, however, after an exchange of telegrams with the firm, +to make his cold last a week; and it shed an ironic light on the +situation to know that Mr. Letterblair's indulgence was partly due to +the satisfactory way in which his brilliant young junior partner had +settled the troublesome matter of the Olenski divorce. Mr. Letterblair +had let Mrs. Welland know that Mr. Archer had "rendered an invaluable +service" to the whole family, and that old Mrs. Manson Mingott had been +particularly pleased; and one day when May had gone for a drive with +her father in the only vehicle the place produced Mrs. Welland took +occasion to touch on a topic which she always avoided in her daughter's +presence. + +"I'm afraid Ellen's ideas are not at all like ours. She was barely +eighteen when Medora Manson took her back to Europe--you remember the +excitement when she appeared in black at her coming-out ball? Another +of Medora's fads--really this time it was almost prophetic! That must +have been at least twelve years ago; and since then Ellen has never +been to America. No wonder she is completely Europeanised." + +"But European society is not given to divorce: Countess Olenska thought +she would be conforming to American ideas in asking for her freedom." +It was the first time that the young man had pronounced her name since +he had left Skuytercliff, and he felt the colour rise to his cheek. + +Mrs. Welland smiled compassionately. "That is just like the +extraordinary things that foreigners invent about us. They think we +dine at two o'clock and countenance divorce! That is why it seems to me +so foolish to entertain them when they come to New York. They accept +our hospitality, and then they go home and repeat the same stupid +stories." + +Archer made no comment on this, and Mrs. Welland continued: "But we do +most thoroughly appreciate your persuading Ellen to give up the idea. +Her grandmother and her uncle Lovell could do nothing with her; both of +them have written that her changing her mind was entirely due to your +influence--in fact she said so to her grandmother. She has an unbounded +admiration for you. Poor Ellen--she was always a wayward child. I +wonder what her fate will be?" + +"What we've all contrived to make it," he felt like answering. "If +you'd all of you rather she should be Beaufort's mistress than some +decent fellow's wife you've certainly gone the right way about it." + +He wondered what Mrs. Welland would have said if he had uttered the +words instead of merely thinking them. He could picture the sudden +decomposure of her firm placid features, to which a lifelong mastery +over trifles had given an air of factitious authority. Traces still +lingered on them of a fresh beauty like her daughter's; and he asked +himself if May's face was doomed to thicken into the same middle-aged +image of invincible innocence. + +Ah, no, he did not want May to have that kind of innocence, the +innocence that seals the mind against imagination and the heart against +experience! + +"I verily believe," Mrs. Welland continued, "that if the horrible +business had come out in the newspapers it would have been my husband's +death-blow. I don't know any of the details; I only ask not to, as +I told poor Ellen when she tried to talk to me about it. Having an +invalid to care for, I have to keep my mind bright and happy. But Mr. +Welland was terribly upset; he had a slight temperature every morning +while we were waiting to hear what had been decided. It was the horror +of his girl's learning that such things were possible--but of course, +dear Newland, you felt that too. We all knew that you were thinking of +May." + +"I'm always thinking of May," the young man rejoined, rising to cut +short the conversation. + +He had meant to seize the opportunity of his private talk with Mrs. +Welland to urge her to advance the date of his marriage. But he could +think of no arguments that would move her, and with a sense of relief +he saw Mr. Welland and May driving up to the door. + +His only hope was to plead again with May, and on the day before his +departure he walked with her to the ruinous garden of the Spanish +Mission. The background lent itself to allusions to European scenes; +and May, who was looking her loveliest under a wide-brimmed hat +that cast a shadow of mystery over her too-clear eyes, kindled into +eagerness as he spoke of Granada and the Alhambra. + +"We might be seeing it all this spring--even the Easter ceremonies at +Seville," he urged, exaggerating his demands in the hope of a larger +concession. + +"Easter in Seville? And it will be Lent next week!" she laughed. + +"Why shouldn't we be married in Lent?" he rejoined; but she looked so +shocked that he saw his mistake. + +"Of course I didn't mean that, dearest; but soon after Easter--so that +we could sail at the end of April. I know I could arrange it at the +office." + +She smiled dreamily upon the possibility; but he perceived that to +dream of it sufficed her. It was like hearing him read aloud out of his +poetry books the beautiful things that could not possibly happen in +real life. + +"Oh, do go on, Newland; I do love your descriptions." + +"But why should they be only descriptions? Why shouldn't we make them +real?" + +"We shall, dearest, of course; next year." Her voice lingered over it. + +"Don't you want them to be real sooner? Can't I persuade you to break +away now?" + +She bowed her head, vanishing from him under her conniving hat-brim. + +"Why should we dream away another year? Look at me, dear! Don't you +understand how I want you for my wife?" + +For a moment she remained motionless; then she raised on him eyes of +such despairing clearness that he half-released her waist from his hold. +But suddenly her look changed and deepened inscrutably. "I'm not sure +if I _do_ understand," she said. "Is it--is it because you're not certain +of continuing to care for me?" + +Archer sprang up from his seat. "My God--perhaps--I don't know," he +broke out angrily. + +May Welland rose also; as they faced each other she seemed to grow +in womanly stature and dignity. Both were silent for a moment, as if +dismayed by the unforeseen trend of their words: then she said in a low +voice: "If that is it--is there some one else?" + +"Some one else--between you and me?" He echoed her words slowly, as +though they were only half-intelligible and he wanted time to repeat +the question to himself. She seemed to catch the uncertainty of his +voice, for she went on in a deepening tone: "Let us talk frankly, +Newland. Sometimes I've felt a difference in you; especially since our +engagement has been announced." + +"Dear--what madness!" he recovered himself to exclaim. + +She met his protest with a faint smile. "If it is, it won't hurt us to +talk about it." She paused, and added, lifting her head with one of her +noble movements: "Or even if it's true: why shouldn't we speak of it? +You might so easily have made a mistake." + +He lowered his head, staring at the black leaf-pattern on the sunny +path at their feet. "Mistakes are always easy to make; but if I had +made one of the kind you suggest, is it likely that I should be +imploring you to hasten our marriage?" + +She looked downward too, disturbing the pattern with the point of her +sunshade while she struggled for expression. "Yes," she said at length. +"You might want--once for all--to settle the question: it's one way." + +Her quiet lucidity startled him, but did not mislead him into thinking +her insensible. Under her hat-brim he saw the pallor of her profile, +and a slight tremor of the nostril above her resolutely steadied lips. + +"Well--?" he questioned, sitting down on the bench, and looking up at +her with a frown that he tried to make playful. + +She dropped back into her seat and went on: "You mustn't think that +a girl knows as little as her parents imagine. One hears and one +notices--one has one's feelings and ideas. And of course, long before +you told me that you cared for me, I'd known that there was some one +else you were interested in; every one was talking about it two years +ago at Newport. And once I saw you sitting together on the verandah at +a dance--and when she came back into the house her face was sad, and I +felt sorry for her; I remembered it afterward, when we were engaged." + +Her voice had sunk almost to a whisper, and she sat clasping and +unclasping her hands about the handle of her sunshade. The young man +laid his upon them with a gentle pressure; his heart dilated with an +inexpressible relief. + +"My dear child--was _that_ it? If you only knew the truth!" + +She raised her head quickly. "Then there is a truth I don't know?" + +He kept his hand over hers. "I meant, the truth about the old story you +speak of." + +"But that's what I want to know, Newland--what I ought to know. I +couldn't have my happiness made out of a wrong--an unfairness--to +somebody else. And I want to believe that it would be the same with +you. What sort of a life could we build on such foundations?" + +Her face had taken on a look of such tragic courage that he felt like +bowing himself down at her feet. "I've wanted to say this for a long +time," she went on. "I've wanted to tell you that, when two people +really love each other, I understand that there may be situations which +make it right that they should--should go against public opinion. And +if you feel yourself in any way pledged ... pledged to the person +we've spoken of ... and if there is any way ... any way in which you +can fulfill your pledge ... even by her getting a divorce ... Newland, +don't give her up because of me!" + +His surprise at discovering that her fears had fastened upon an episode +so remote and so completely of the past as his love-affair with Mrs. +Thorley Rushworth gave way to wonder at the generosity of her view. +There was something superhuman in an attitude so recklessly unorthodox, +and if other problems had not pressed on him he would have been lost +in wonder at the prodigy of the Wellands' daughter urging him to marry +his former mistress. But he was still dizzy with the glimpse of the +precipice they had skirted, and full of a new awe at the mystery of +young-girlhood. + +For a moment he could not speak; then he said: "There is no pledge--no +obligation whatever--of the kind you think. Such cases don't +always--present themselves quite as simply as ... But that's no matter +... I love your generosity, because I feel as you do about those things +... I feel that each case must be judged individually, on its own +merits ... irrespective of stupid conventionalities ... I mean, each +woman's right to her liberty--" He pulled himself up, startled by the +turn his thoughts had taken, and went on, looking at her with a smile: +"Since you understand so many things, dearest, can't you go a little +farther, and understand the uselessness of our submitting to another +form of the same foolish conventionalities? If there's no one and +nothing between us, isn't that an argument for marrying quickly, rather +than for more delay?" + +She flushed with joy and lifted her face to his; as he bent to it he +saw that her eyes were full of happy tears. But in another moment she +seemed to have descended from her womanly eminence to helpless and +timorous girlhood; and he understood that her courage and initiative +were all for others, and that she had none for herself. It was evident +that the effort of speaking had been much greater than her studied +composure betrayed, and that at his first word of reassurance she had +dropped back into the usual, as a too-adventurous child takes refuge in +its mother's arms. + +Archer had no heart to go on pleading with her; he was too much +disappointed at the vanishing of the new being who had cast that one +deep look at him from her transparent eyes. May seemed to be aware of +his disappointment, but without knowing how to alleviate it; and they +stood up and walked silently home. + + + + +XVII. + + +"Your cousin the Countess called on mother while you were away," Janey +Archer announced to her brother on the evening of his return. + +The young man, who was dining alone with his mother and sister, glanced +up in surprise and saw Mrs. Archer's gaze demurely bent on her plate. +Mrs. Archer did not regard her seclusion from the world as a reason +for being forgotten by it; and Newland guessed that she was slightly +annoyed that he should be surprised by Madame Olenska's visit. + +"She had on a black velvet polonaise with jet buttons, and a tiny green +monkey muff; I never saw her so stylishly dressed," Janey continued. +"She came alone, early on Sunday afternoon; luckily the fire was lit +in the drawing-room. She had one of those new card-cases. She said she +wanted to know us because you'd been so good to her." + +Newland laughed. "Madame Olenska always takes that tone about her +friends. She's very happy at being among her own people again." + +"Yes, so she told us," said Mrs. Archer. "I must say she seems thankful +to be here." + +"I hope you liked her, mother." + +Mrs. Archer drew her lips together. "She certainly lays herself out to +please, even when she is calling on an old lady." + +"Mother doesn't think her simple," Janey interjected, her eyes screwed +upon her brother's face. + +"It's just my old-fashioned feeling; dear May is my ideal," said Mrs. +Archer. + +"Ah," said her son, "they're not alike." + + +Archer had left St. Augustine charged with many messages for old Mrs. +Mingott; and a day or two after his return to town he called on her. + +The old lady received him with unusual warmth; she was grateful to him +for persuading the Countess Olenska to give up the idea of a divorce; +and when he told her that he had deserted the office without leave, and +rushed down to St. Augustine simply because he wanted to see May, she +gave an adipose chuckle and patted his knee with her puff-ball hand. + +"Ah, ah--so you kicked over the traces, did you? And I suppose Augusta +and Welland pulled long faces, and behaved as if the end of the world +had come? But little May--she knew better, I'll be bound?" + +"I hoped she did; but after all she wouldn't agree to what I'd gone +down to ask for." + +"Wouldn't she indeed? And what was that?" + +"I wanted to get her to promise that we should be married in April. +What's the use of our wasting another year?" + +Mrs. Manson Mingott screwed up her little mouth into a grimace of mimic +prudery and twinkled at him through malicious lids. "'Ask Mamma,' I +suppose--the usual story. Ah, these Mingotts--all alike! Born in a +rut, and you can't root 'em out of it. When I built this house you'd +have thought I was moving to California! Nobody ever _had_ built above +Fortieth Street--no, says I, nor above the Battery either, before +Christopher Columbus discovered America. No, no; not one of them wants +to be different; they're as scared of it as the small-pox. Ah, my dear +Mr. Archer, I thank my stars I'm nothing but a vulgar Spicer; but +there's not one of my own children that takes after me but my little +Ellen." She broke off, still twinkling at him, and asked, with the +casual irrelevance of old age: "Now, why in the world didn't you marry +my little Ellen?" + +Archer laughed. "For one thing, she wasn't there to be married." + +"No--to be sure; more's the pity. And now it's too late; her life is +finished." She spoke with the cold-blooded complacency of the aged +throwing earth into the grave of young hopes. The young man's heart +grew chill, and he said hurriedly: "Can't I persuade you to use your +influence with the Wellands, Mrs. Mingott? I wasn't made for long +engagements." + +Old Catherine beamed on him approvingly. "No; I can see that. You've +got a quick eye. When you were a little boy I've no doubt you liked +to be helped first." She threw back her head with a laugh that made +her chins ripple like little waves. "Ah, here's my Ellen now!" she +exclaimed, as the portières parted behind her. + +Madame Olenska came forward with a smile. Her face looked vivid and +happy, and she held out her hand gaily to Archer while she stooped to +her grandmother's kiss. + +"I was just saying to him, my dear: 'Now, why didn't you marry my +little Ellen?'" + +Madame Olenska looked at Archer, still smiling. "And what did he +answer?" + +"Oh, my darling, I leave you to find that out! He's been down to +Florida to see his sweetheart." + +"Yes, I know." She still looked at him. "I went to see your mother, to +ask where you'd gone. I sent a note that you never answered, and I was +afraid you were ill." + +He muttered something about leaving unexpectedly, in a great hurry, and +having intended to write to her from St. Augustine. + +"And of course once you were there you never thought of me again!" She +continued to beam on him with a gaiety that might have been a studied +assumption of indifference. + +"If she still needs me, she's determined not to let me see it," he +thought, stung by her manner. He wanted to thank her for having been +to see his mother, but under the ancestress's malicious eye he felt +himself tongue-tied and constrained. + +"Look at him--in such hot haste to get married that he took French +leave and rushed down to implore the silly girl on his knees! That's +something like a lover--that's the way handsome Bob Spicer carried off +my poor mother; and then got tired of her before I was weaned--though +they only had to wait eight months for me! But there--you're not a +Spicer, young man; luckily for you and for May. It's only my poor Ellen +that has kept any of their wicked blood; the rest of them are all model +Mingotts," cried the old lady scornfully. + +Archer was aware that Madame Olenska, who had seated herself at her +grandmother's side, was still thoughtfully scrutinising him. The gaiety +had faded from her eyes, and she said with great gentleness: "Surely, +Granny, we can persuade them between us to do as he wishes." + +Archer rose to go, and as his hand met Madame Olenska's he felt that +she was waiting for him to make some allusion to her unanswered letter. + +"When can I see you?" he asked, as she walked with him to the door of +the room. + +"Whenever you like; but it must be soon if you want to see the little +house again. I am moving next week." + +A pang shot through him at the memory of his lamplit hours in the +low-studded drawing-room. Few as they had been, they were thick with +memories. + +"Tomorrow evening?" + +She nodded. "Tomorrow; yes; but early. I'm going out." + +The next day was a Sunday, and if she were "going out" on a Sunday +evening it could, of course, be only to Mrs. Lemuel Struthers's. He +felt a slight movement of annoyance, not so much at her going there +(for he rather liked her going where she pleased in spite of the van +der Luydens), but because it was the kind of house at which she was +sure to meet Beaufort, where she must have known beforehand that she +would meet him--and where she was probably going for that purpose. + +"Very well; tomorrow evening," he repeated, inwardly resolved that +he would not go early, and that by reaching her door late he would +either prevent her from going to Mrs. Struthers's, or else arrive after +she had started--which, all things considered, would no doubt be the +simplest solution. + + +It was only half-past eight, after all, when he rang the bell under +the wisteria; not as late as he had intended by half an hour--but +a singular restlessness had driven him to her door. He reflected, +however, that Mrs. Struthers's Sunday evenings were not like a ball, +and that her guests, as if to minimise their delinquency, usually went +early. + +The one thing he had not counted on, in entering Madame Olenska's hall, +was to find hats and overcoats there. Why had she bidden him to come +early if she was having people to dine? On a closer inspection of the +garments besides which Nastasia was laying his own, his resentment +gave way to curiosity. The overcoats were in fact the very strangest +he had ever seen under a polite roof; and it took but a glance to +assure himself that neither of them belonged to Julius Beaufort. One +was a shaggy yellow ulster of "reach-me-down" cut, the other a very +old and rusty cloak with a cape--something like what the French called +a "Macfarlane." This garment, which appeared to be made for a person +of prodigious size, had evidently seen long and hard wear, and its +greenish-black folds gave out a moist sawdusty smell suggestive of +prolonged sessions against bar-room walls. On it lay a ragged grey +scarf and an odd felt hat of semiclerical shape. + +Archer raised his eyebrows enquiringly at Nastasia, who raised hers in +return with a fatalistic "Gia!" as she threw open the drawing-room door. + +The young man saw at once that his hostess was not in the room; then, +with surprise, he discovered another lady standing by the fire. This +lady, who was long, lean and loosely put together, was clad in raiment +intricately looped and fringed, with plaids and stripes and bands of +plain colour disposed in a design to which the clue seemed missing. Her +hair, which had tried to turn white and only succeeded in fading, was +surmounted by a Spanish comb and black lace scarf, and silk mittens, +visibly darned, covered her rheumatic hands. + +Beside her, in a cloud of cigar-smoke, stood the owners of the two +overcoats, both in morning clothes that they had evidently not taken +off since morning. In one of the two, Archer, to his surprise, +recognised Ned Winsett; the other and older, who was unknown to +him, and whose gigantic frame declared him to be the wearer of the +"Macfarlane," had a feebly leonine head with crumpled grey hair, +and moved his arms with large pawing gestures, as though he were +distributing lay blessings to a kneeling multitude. + +These three persons stood together on the hearth-rug, their eyes fixed +on an extraordinarily large bouquet of crimson roses, with a knot of +purple pansies at their base, that lay on the sofa where Madame Olenska +usually sat. + +"What they must have cost at this season--though of course it's the +sentiment one cares about!" the lady was saying in a sighing staccato +as Archer came in. + +The three turned with surprise at his appearance, and the lady, +advancing, held out her hand. + +"Dear Mr. Archer--almost my cousin Newland!" she said. "I am the +Marchioness Manson." + +Archer bowed, and she continued: "My Ellen has taken me in for a few +days. I came from Cuba, where I have been spending the winter with +Spanish friends--such delightful distinguished people: the highest +nobility of old Castile--how I wish you could know them! But I was +called away by our dear great friend here, Dr. Carver. You don't know +Dr. Agathon Carver, founder of the Valley of Love Community?" + +Dr. Carver inclined his leonine head, and the Marchioness continued: +"Ah, New York--New York--how little the life of the spirit has reached +it! But I see you do know Mr. Winsett." + +"Oh, yes--I reached him some time ago; but not by that route," Winsett +said with his dry smile. + +The Marchioness shook her head reprovingly. "How do you know, Mr. +Winsett? The spirit bloweth where it listeth." + +"List--oh, list!" interjected Dr. Carver in a stentorian murmur. + +"But do sit down, Mr. Archer. We four have been having a delightful +little dinner together, and my child has gone up to dress. She expects +you; she will be down in a moment. We were just admiring these +marvellous flowers, which will surprise her when she reappears." + +Winsett remained on his feet. "I'm afraid I must be off. Please tell +Madame Olenska that we shall all feel lost when she abandons our +street. This house has been an oasis." + +"Ah, but she won't abandon _you_. Poetry and art are the breath of life +to her. It _is_ poetry you write, Mr. Winsett?" + +"Well, no; but I sometimes read it," said Winsett, including the group +in a general nod and slipping out of the room. + +"A caustic spirit--_un peu sauvage_. But so witty; Dr. Carver, you _do_ +think him witty?" + +"I never think of wit," said Dr. Carver severely. + +"Ah--ah--you never think of wit! How merciless he is to us weak +mortals, Mr. Archer! But he lives only in the life of the spirit; and +tonight he is mentally preparing the lecture he is to deliver presently +at Mrs. Blenker's. Dr. Carver, would there be time, before you start +for the Blenkers' to explain to Mr. Archer your illuminating discovery +of the Direct Contact? But no; I see it is nearly nine o'clock, and we +have no right to detain you while so many are waiting for your message." + +Dr. Carver looked slightly disappointed at this conclusion, but, having +compared his ponderous gold time-piece with Madame Olenska's little +travelling-clock, he reluctantly gathered up his mighty limbs for +departure. + +"I shall see you later, dear friend?" he suggested to the Marchioness, +who replied with a smile: "As soon as Ellen's carriage comes I will +join you; I do hope the lecture won't have begun." + +Dr. Carver looked thoughtfully at Archer. "Perhaps, if this young +gentleman is interested in my experiences, Mrs. Blenker might allow you +to bring him with you?" + +"Oh, dear friend, if it were possible--I am sure she would be too +happy. But I fear my Ellen counts on Mr. Archer herself." + +"That," said Dr. Carver, "is unfortunate--but here is my card." He +handed it to Archer, who read on it, in Gothic characters: + +/c ++-----------------------+ +| Agathon Carver | +| The Valley of Love | +| Kittasquattamy, N. Y. | ++-----------------------+ +c/ + +Dr. Carver bowed himself out, and Mrs. Manson, with a sigh that might +have been either of regret or relief, again waved Archer to a seat. + +"Ellen will be down in a moment; and before she comes, I am so glad of +this quiet moment with you." + +Archer murmured his pleasure at their meeting, and the Marchioness +continued, in her low sighing accents: "I know everything, dear Mr. +Archer--my child has told me all you have done for her. Your wise +advice: your courageous firmness--thank heaven it was not too late!" + +The young man listened with considerable embarrassment. Was there +any one, he wondered, to whom Madame Olenska had not proclaimed his +intervention in her private affairs? + +"Madame Olenska exaggerates; I simply gave her a legal opinion, as she +asked me to." + +"Ah, but in doing it--in doing it you were the unconscious instrument +of--of--what word have we moderns for Providence, Mr. Archer?" +cried the lady, tilting her head on one side and drooping her lids +mysteriously. "Little did you know that at that very moment I was being +appealed to: being approached, in fact--from the other side of the +Atlantic!" + +She glanced over her shoulder, as though fearful of being overheard, +and then, drawing her chair nearer, and raising a tiny ivory fan to her +lips, breathed behind it: "By the Count himself--my poor, mad, foolish +Olenski; who asks only to take her back on her own terms." + +"Good God!" Archer exclaimed, springing up. + +"You are horrified? Yes, of course; I understand. I don't defend poor +Stanislas, though he has always called me his best friend. He does not +defend himself--he casts himself at her feet: in my person." She tapped +her emaciated bosom. "I have his letter here." + +"A letter?--Has Madame Olenska seen it?" Archer stammered, his brain +whirling with the shock of the announcement. + +The Marchioness Manson shook her head softly. "Time--time; I must have +time. I know my Ellen--haughty, intractable; shall I say, just a shade +unforgiving?" + +"But, good heavens, to forgive is one thing; to go back into that +hell--" + +"Ah, yes," the Marchioness acquiesced. "So she describes it--my +sensitive child! But on the material side, Mr. Archer, if one may stoop +to consider such things; do you know what she is giving up? Those roses +there on the sofa--acres like them, under glass and in the open, in +his matchless terraced gardens at Nice! Jewels--historic pearls: the +Sobieski emeralds--sables,--but she cares nothing for all these! Art +and beauty, those she does care for, she lives for, as I always have; +and those also surrounded her. Pictures, priceless furniture, music, +brilliant conversation--ah, that, my dear young man, if you'll excuse +me, is what you've no conception of here! And she had it all; and the +homage of the greatest. She tells me she is not thought handsome in +New York--good heavens! Her portrait has been painted nine times; the +greatest artists in Europe have begged for the privilege. Are these +things nothing? And the remorse of an adoring husband?" + +As the Marchioness Manson rose to her climax her face assumed an +expression of ecstatic retrospection which would have moved Archer's +mirth had he not been numb with amazement. + +He would have laughed if any one had foretold to him that his first +sight of poor Medora Manson would have been in the guise of a messenger +of Satan; but he was in no mood for laughing now, and she seemed to +him to come straight out of the hell from which Ellen Olenska had just +escaped. + +"She knows nothing yet--of all this?" he asked abruptly. + +Mrs. Manson laid a purple finger on her lips. "Nothing directly--but +does she suspect? Who can tell? The truth is, Mr. Archer, I have been +waiting to see you. From the moment I heard of the firm stand you had +taken, and of your influence over her, I hoped it might be possible to +count on your support--to convince you ..." + +"That she ought to go back? I would rather see her dead!" cried the +young man violently. + +"Ah," the Marchioness murmured, without visible resentment. For a while +she sat in her arm-chair, opening and shutting the absurd ivory fan +between her mittened fingers; but suddenly she lifted her head and +listened. + +"Here she comes," she said in a rapid whisper; and then, pointing to +the bouquet on the sofa: "Am I to understand that you prefer _that_, Mr. +Archer? After all, marriage is marriage ... and my niece is still a +wife..." + + + + +XVIII. + + +"What are you two plotting together, aunt Medora?" Madame Olenska cried +as she came into the room. + +She was dressed as if for a ball. Everything about her shimmered and +glimmered softly, as if her dress had been woven out of candle-beams; +and she carried her head high, like a pretty woman challenging a +roomful of rivals. + +"We were saying, my dear, that here was something beautiful to surprise +you with," Mrs. Manson rejoined, rising to her feet and pointing archly +to the flowers. + +Madame Olenska stopped short and looked at the bouquet. Her colour did +not change, but a sort of white radiance of anger ran over her like +summer lightning. "Ah," she exclaimed, in a shrill voice that the young +man had never heard, "who is ridiculous enough to send me a bouquet? +Why a bouquet? And why tonight of all nights? I am not going to a ball; +I am not a girl engaged to be married. But some people are always +ridiculous." + +She turned back to the door, opened it, and called out: "Nastasia!" + +The ubiquitous handmaiden promptly appeared, and Archer heard +Madame Olenska say, in an Italian that she seemed to pronounce +with intentional deliberateness in order that he might follow it: +"Here--throw this into the dustbin!" and then, as Nastasia stared +protestingly: "But no--it's not the fault of the poor flowers. Tell +the boy to carry them to the house three doors away, the house of Mr. +Winsett, the dark gentleman who dined here. His wife is ill--they may +give her pleasure ... The boy is out, you say? Then, my dear one, run +yourself; here, put my cloak over you and fly. I want the thing out of +the house immediately! And, as you live, don't say they come from me!" + +She flung her velvet opera cloak over the maid's shoulders and turned +back into the drawing-room, shutting the door sharply. Her bosom was +rising high under its lace, and for a moment Archer thought she was +about to cry; but she burst into a laugh instead, and looking from the +Marchioness to Archer, asked abruptly: "And you two--have you made +friends!" + +"It's for Mr. Archer to say, darling; he has waited patiently while you +were dressing." + +"Yes--I gave you time enough: my hair wouldn't go," Madame Olenska +said, raising her hand to the heaped-up curls of her chignon. "But +that reminds me: I see Dr. Carver is gone, and you'll be late at the +Blenkers'. Mr. Archer, will you put my aunt in the carriage?" + +She followed the Marchioness into the hall, saw her fitted into a +miscellaneous heap of overshoes, shawls and tippets, and called from +the doorstep: "Mind, the carriage is to be back for me at ten!" Then +she returned to the drawing-room, where Archer, on re-entering it, +found her standing by the mantelpiece, examining herself in the mirror. +It was not usual, in New York society, for a lady to address her +parlour-maid as "my dear one," and send her out on an errand wrapped +in her own opera-cloak; and Archer, through all his deeper feelings, +tasted the pleasurable excitement of being in a world where action +followed on emotion with such Olympian speed. + +Madame Olenska did not move when he came up behind her, and for a +second their eyes met in the mirror; then she turned, threw herself +into her sofa-corner, and sighed out: "There's time for a cigarette." + +He handed her the box and lit a spill for her; and as the flame flashed +up into her face she glanced at him with laughing eyes and said: "What +do you think of me in a temper?" + +Archer paused a moment; then he answered with sudden resolution: "It +makes me understand what your aunt has been saying about you." + +"I knew she'd been talking about me. Well?" + +"She said you were used to all kinds of things--splendours and +amusements and excitements--that we could never hope to give you here." + +Madame Olenska smiled faintly into the circle of smoke about her lips. + +"Medora is incorrigibly romantic. It has made up to her for so many +things!" + +Archer hesitated again, and again took his risk. "Is your aunt's +romanticism always consistent with accuracy?" + +"You mean: does she speak the truth?" Her niece considered. "Well, I'll +tell you: in almost everything she says, there's something true and +something untrue. But why do you ask? What has she been telling you?" + +He looked away into the fire, and then back at her shining presence. +His heart tightened with the thought that this was their last evening +by that fireside, and that in a moment the carriage would come to carry +her away. + +"She says--she pretends that Count Olenski has asked her to persuade +you to go back to him." + +Madame Olenska made no answer. She sat motionless, holding her +cigarette in her half-lifted hand. The expression of her face had not +changed; and Archer remembered that he had before noticed her apparent +incapacity for surprise. + +"You knew, then?" he broke out. + +She was silent for so long that the ash dropped from her cigarette. She +brushed it to the floor. "She has hinted about a letter: poor darling! +Medora's hints--" + +"Is it at your husband's request that she has arrived here suddenly?" + +Madame Olenska seemed to consider this question also. "There again: one +can't tell. She told me she had had a 'spiritual summons,' whatever +that is, from Dr. Carver. I'm afraid she's going to marry Dr. Carver +... poor Medora, there's always some one she wants to marry. But +perhaps the people in Cuba just got tired of her! I think she was with +them as a sort of paid companion. Really, I don't know why she came." + +"But you do believe she has a letter from your husband?" + +Again Madame Olenska brooded silently; then she said: "After all, it +was to be expected." + +The young man rose and went to lean against the fireplace. A sudden +restlessness possessed him, and he was tongue-tied by the sense that +their minutes were numbered, and that at any moment he might hear the +wheels of the returning carriage. + +"You know that your aunt believes you will go back?" + +Madame Olenska raised her head quickly. A deep blush rose to her +face and spread over her neck and shoulders. She blushed seldom and +painfully, as if it hurt her like a burn. + +"Many cruel things have been believed of me," she said. + +"Oh, Ellen--forgive me; I'm a fool and a brute!" + +She smiled a little. "You are horribly nervous; you have your own +troubles. I know you think the Wellands are unreasonable about your +marriage, and of course I agree with you. In Europe people don't +understand our long American engagements; I suppose they are not as +calm as we are." She pronounced the "we" with a faint emphasis that +gave it an ironic sound. + +Archer felt the irony but did not dare to take it up. After all, she +had perhaps purposely deflected the conversation from her own affairs, +and after the pain his last words had evidently caused her he felt that +all he could do was to follow her lead. But the sense of the waning +hour made him desperate: he could not bear the thought that a barrier +of words should drop between them again. + +"Yes," he said abruptly; "I went south to ask May to marry me after +Easter. There's no reason why we shouldn't be married then." + +"And May adores you--and yet you couldn't convince her? I thought her +too intelligent to be the slave of such absurd superstitions." + +"She _is_ too intelligent--she's not their slave." + +Madame Olenska looked at him. "Well, then--I don't understand." + +Archer reddened, and hurried on with a rush. "We had a frank +talk--almost the first. She thinks my impatience a bad sign." + +"Merciful heavens--a bad sign?" + +"She thinks it means that I can't trust myself to go on caring for her. +She thinks, in short, I want to marry her at once to get away from some +one that I--care for more." + +Madame Olenska examined this curiously. "But if she thinks that--why +isn't she in a hurry too?" + +"Because she's not like that: she's so much nobler. She insists all the +more on the long engagement, to give me time--" + +"Time to give her up for the other woman?" + +"If I want to." + +Madame Olenska leaned toward the fire and gazed into it with fixed +eyes. Down the quiet street Archer heard the approaching trot of her +horses. + +"That _is_ noble," she said, with a slight break in her voice. + +"Yes. But it's ridiculous." + +"Ridiculous? Because you don't care for any one else?" + +"Because I don't mean to marry any one else." + +"Ah." There was another long interval. At length she looked up at him +and asked: "This other woman--does she love you?" + +"Oh, there's no other woman; I mean, the person that May was thinking +of is--was never--" + +"Then, why, after all, are you in such haste?" + +"There's your carriage," said Archer. + +She half-rose and looked about her with absent eyes. Her fan and gloves +lay on the sofa beside her and she picked them up mechanically. + +"Yes; I suppose I must be going." + +"You're going to Mrs. Struthers's?" + +"Yes." She smiled and added: "I must go where I am invited, or I should +be too lonely. Why not come with me?" + +Archer felt that at any cost he must keep her beside him, must make her +give him the rest of her evening. Ignoring her question, he continued +to lean against the chimney-piece, his eyes fixed on the hand in which +she held her gloves and fan, as if watching to see if he had the power +to make her drop them. + +"May guessed the truth," he said. "There is another woman--but not the +one she thinks." + +Ellen Olenska made no answer, and did not move. After a moment he sat +down beside her, and, taking her hand, softly unclasped it, so that the +gloves and fan fell on the sofa between them. + +She started up, and freeing herself from him moved away to the other +side of the hearth. "Ah, don't make love to me! Too many people have +done that," she said, frowning. + +Archer, changing colour, stood up also: it was the bitterest rebuke she +could have given him. "I have never made love to you," he said, "and I +never shall. But you are the woman I would have married if it had been +possible for either of us." + +"Possible for either of us?" She looked at him with unfeigned +astonishment. "And you say that--when it's you who've made it +impossible?" + +He stared at her, groping in a blackness through which a single arrow +of light tore its blinding way. + +"_I've_ made it impossible--?" + +"You, you, _you_!" she cried, her lip trembling like a child's on the +verge of tears. "Isn't it you who made me give up divorcing--give it +up because you showed me how selfish and wicked it was, how one must +sacrifice one's self to preserve the dignity of marriage ... and to +spare one's family the publicity, the scandal? And because my family +was going to be your family--for May's sake and for yours--I did what +you told me, what you proved to me that I ought to do. Ah," she broke +out with a sudden laugh, "I've made no secret of having done it for +you!" + +She sank down on the sofa again, crouching among the festive ripples of +her dress like a stricken masquerader; and the young man stood by the +fireplace and continued to gaze at her without moving. + +"Good God," he groaned. "When I thought--" + +"You thought?" + +"Ah, don't ask me what I thought!" + +Still looking at her, he saw the same burning flush creep up her neck +to her face. She sat upright, facing him with a rigid dignity. + +"I do ask you." + +"Well, then: there were things in that letter you asked me to read--" + +"My husband's letter?" + +"Yes." + +"I had nothing to fear from that letter: absolutely nothing! All I +feared was to bring notoriety, scandal, on the family--on you and May." + +"Good God," he groaned again, bowing his face in his hands. + +The silence that followed lay on them with the weight of things final +and irrevocable. It seemed to Archer to be crushing him down like his +own grave-stone; in all the wide future he saw nothing that would ever +lift that load from his heart. He did not move from his place, or raise +his head from his hands; his hidden eyeballs went on staring into utter +darkness. + +"At least I loved you--" he brought out. + +On the other side of the hearth, from the sofa-corner where he supposed +that she still crouched, he heard a faint stifled crying like a +child's. He started up and came to her side. + +"Ellen! What madness! Why are you crying? Nothing's done that can't +be undone. I'm still free, and you're going to be." He had her in +his arms, her face like a wet flower at his lips, and all their vain +terrors shrivelling up like ghosts at sunrise. The one thing that +astonished him now was that he should have stood for five minutes +arguing with her across the width of the room, when just touching her +made everything so simple. + +She gave him back all his kiss, but after a moment he felt her +stiffening in his arms, and she put him aside and stood up. + +"Ah, my poor Newland--I suppose this had to be. But it doesn't in the +least alter things," she said, looking down at him in her turn from the +hearth. + +"It alters the whole of life for me." + +"No, no--it mustn't, it can't. You're engaged to May Welland; and I'm +married." + +He stood up too, flushed and resolute. "Nonsense! It's too late for +that sort of thing. We've no right to lie to other people or to +ourselves. We won't talk of your marriage; but do you see me marrying +May after this?" + +She stood silent, resting her thin elbows on the mantelpiece, her +profile reflected in the glass behind her. One of the locks of her +chignon had become loosened and hung on her neck; she looked haggard +and almost old. + +"I don't see you," she said at length, "putting that question to May. +Do you?" + +He gave a reckless shrug. "It's too late to do anything else." + +"You say that because it's the easiest thing to say at this moment--not +because it's true. In reality it's too late to do anything but what +we'd both decided on." + +"Ah, I don't understand you!" + +She forced a pitiful smile that pinched her face instead of smoothing +it. "You don't understand because you haven't yet guessed how you've +changed things for me: oh, from the first--long before I knew all you'd +done." + +"All I'd done?" + +"Yes. I was perfectly unconscious at first that people here were shy of +me--that they thought I was a dreadful sort of person. It seems they +had even refused to meet me at dinner. I found that out afterward; and +how you'd made your mother go with you to the van der Luydens'; and how +you'd insisted on announcing your engagement at the Beaufort ball, so +that I might have two families to stand by me instead of one--" + +At that he broke into a laugh. + +"Just imagine," she said, "how stupid and unobservant I was! I knew +nothing of all this till Granny blurted it out one day. New York simply +meant peace and freedom to me: it was coming home. And I was so happy +at being among my own people that every one I met seemed kind and good, +and glad to see me. But from the very beginning," she continued, "I +felt there was no one as kind as you; no one who gave me reasons that +I understood for doing what at first seemed so hard and--unnecessary. +The very good people didn't convince me; I felt they'd never been +tempted. But you knew; you understood; you had felt the world outside +tugging at one with all its golden hands--and yet you hated the things +it asks of one; you hated happiness bought by disloyalty and cruelty +and indifference. That was what I'd never known before--and it's better +than anything I've known." + +She spoke in a low even voice, without tears or visible agitation; and +each word, as it dropped from her, fell into his breast like burning +lead. He sat bowed over, his head between his hands, staring at the +hearth rug, and at the tip of the satin shoe that showed under her +dress. Suddenly he knelt down and kissed the shoe. + +She bent over him, laying her hands on his shoulders, and looking at +him with eyes so deep that he remained motionless under her gaze. + +"Ah, don't let us undo what you've done!" she cried. "I can't go back +now to that other way of thinking. I can't love you unless I give you +up." + +His arms were yearning up to her; but she drew away, and they remained +facing each other, divided by the distance that her words had created. +Then, abruptly, his anger overflowed. + +"And Beaufort? Is he to replace me?" + +As the words sprang out he was prepared for an answering flare of +anger; and he would have welcomed it as fuel for his own. But Madame +Olenska only grew a shade paler, and stood with her arms hanging +down before her, and her head slightly bent, as her way was when she +pondered a question. + +"He's waiting for you now at Mrs. Struthers's; why don't you go to +him?" Archer sneered. + +She turned to ring the bell. "I shall not go out this evening; tell the +carriage to go and fetch the Signora Marchesa," she said when the maid +came. + +After the door had closed again Archer continued to look at her with +bitter eyes. "Why this sacrifice? Since you tell me that you're lonely +I've no right to keep you from your friends." + +She smiled a little under her wet lashes. "I shan't be lonely now. I +_was_ lonely; I _was_ afraid. But the emptiness and the darkness are gone; +when I turn back into myself now I'm like a child going at night into a +room where there's always a light." + +Her tone and her look still enveloped her in a soft inaccessibility, +and Archer groaned out again: "I don't understand you!" + +"Yet you understand May!" + +He reddened under the retort, but kept his eyes on her. "May is ready +to give me up." + +"What! Three days after you've entreated her on your knees to hasten +your marriage?" + +"She's refused; that gives me the right--" + +"Ah, you've taught me what an ugly word that is," she said. + +He turned away with a sense of utter weariness. He felt as though he +had been struggling for hours up the face of a steep precipice, and +now, just as he had fought his way to the top, his hold had given way +and he was pitching down headlong into darkness. + +If he could have got her in his arms again he might have swept away +her arguments; but she still held him at a distance by something +inscrutably aloof in her look and attitude, and by his own awed sense +of her sincerity. At length he began to plead again. + +"If we do this now it will be worse afterward--worse for every one--" + +"No--no--no!" she almost screamed, as if he frightened her. + +At that moment the bell sent a long tinkle through the house. They had +heard no carriage stopping at the door, and they stood motionless, +looking at each other with startled eyes. + +Outside, Nastasia's step crossed the hall, the outer door opened, and +a moment later she came in carrying a telegram which she handed to the +Countess Olenska. + +"The lady was very happy at the flowers," Nastasia said, smoothing her +apron. "She thought it was her signor marito who had sent them, and she +cried a little and said it was a folly." + +Her mistress smiled and took the yellow envelope. She tore it open +and carried it to the lamp; then, when the door had closed again, she +handed the telegram to Archer. + +It was dated from St. Augustine, and addressed to the Countess Olenska. +In it he read: "Granny's telegram successful. Papa and Mamma agree +marriage after Easter. Am telegraphing Newland. Am too happy for words +and love you dearly. Your grateful May." + + +Half an hour later, when Archer unlocked his own front-door, he found +a similar envelope on the hall-table on top of his pile of notes and +letters. The message inside the envelope was also from May Welland, and +ran as follows: "Parents consent wedding Tuesday after Easter at twelve +Grace Church eight bridesmaids please see Rector so happy love May." + +Archer crumpled up the yellow sheet as if the gesture could annihilate +the news it contained. Then he pulled out a small pocket-diary and +turned over the pages with trembling fingers; but he did not find what +he wanted, and cramming the telegram into his pocket he mounted the +stairs. + +A light was shining through the door of the little hall-room which +served Janey as a dressing-room and boudoir, and her brother rapped +impatiently on the panel. The door opened, and his sister stood before +him in her immemorial purple flannel dressing-gown, with her hair "on +pins." Her face looked pale and apprehensive. + +"Newland! I hope there's no bad news in that telegram? I waited on +purpose, in case--" (No item of his correspondence was safe from Janey.) + +He took no notice of her question. "Look here--what day is Easter this +year?" + +She looked shocked at such unchristian ignorance. "Easter? Newland! +Why, of course, the first week in April. Why?" + +"The first week?" He turned again to the pages of his diary, +calculating rapidly under his breath. "The first week, did you say?" He +threw back his head with a long laugh. + +"For mercy's sake what's the matter?" + +"Nothing's the matter, except that I'm going to be married in a month." + +Janey fell upon his neck and pressed him to her purple flannel breast. +"Oh Newland, how wonderful! I'm so glad! But, dearest, why do you keep +on laughing? Do hush, or you'll wake Mamma." + + + + +Book II + + + + +XIX. + + +The day was fresh, with a lively spring wind full of dust. All the old +ladies in both families had got out their faded sables and yellowing +ermines, and the smell of camphor from the front pews almost smothered +the faint spring scent of the lilies banking the altar. + +Newland Archer, at a signal from the sexton, had come out of the vestry +and placed himself with his best man on the chancel step of Grace +Church. + +The signal meant that the brougham bearing the bride and her father +was in sight; but there was sure to be a considerable interval of +adjustment and consultation in the lobby, where the bridesmaids were +already hovering like a cluster of Easter blossoms. During this +unavoidable lapse of time the bridegroom, in proof of his eagerness, +was expected to expose himself alone to the gaze of the assembled +company; and Archer had gone through this formality as resignedly as +through all the others which made of a nineteenth century New York +wedding a rite that seemed to belong to the dawn of history. Everything +was equally easy--or equally painful, as one chose to put it--in +the path he was committed to tread, and he had obeyed the flurried +injunctions of his best man as piously as other bridegrooms had obeyed +his own, in the days when he had guided them through the same labyrinth. + +So far he was reasonably sure of having fulfilled all his obligations. +The bridesmaids' eight bouquets of white lilac and lilies-of-the-valley +had been sent in due time, as well as the gold and sapphire +sleeve-links of the eight ushers and the best man's cat's-eye +scarf-pin; Archer had sat up half the night trying to vary the wording +of his thanks for the last batch of presents from men friends and +ex-lady-loves; the fees for the Bishop and the Rector were safely in +the pocket of his best man; his own luggage was already at Mrs. Manson +Mingott's, where the wedding-breakfast was to take place, and so were +the travelling clothes into which he was to change; and a private +compartment had been engaged in the train that was to carry the young +couple to their unknown destination--concealment of the spot in which +the bridal night was to be spent being one of the most sacred taboos of +the prehistoric ritual. + +"Got the ring all right?" whispered young van der Luyden Newland, who +was inexperienced in the duties of a best man, and awed by the weight +of his responsibility. + +Archer made the gesture which he had seen so many bridegrooms make: +with his ungloved right hand he felt in the pocket of his dark grey +waistcoat, and assured himself that the little gold circlet (engraved +inside: _Newland to May, April ——, 187—_) was in its place; then, +resuming his former attitude, his tall hat and pearl-grey gloves with +black stitchings grasped in his left hand, he stood looking at the door +of the church. + +Overhead, Handel's March swelled pompously through the imitation stone +vaulting, carrying on its waves the faded drift of the many weddings +at which, with cheerful indifference, he had stood on the same chancel +step watching other brides float up the nave toward other bridegrooms. + +"How like a first night at the Opera!" he thought, recognising all +the same faces in the same boxes (no, pews), and wondering if, when +the Last Trump sounded, Mrs. Selfridge Merry would be there with the +same towering ostrich feathers in her bonnet, and Mrs. Beaufort with +the same diamond earrings and the same smile--and whether suitable +proscenium seats were already prepared for them in another world. + +After that there was still time to review, one by one, the familiar +countenances in the first rows; the women's sharp with curiosity +and excitement, the men's sulky with the obligation of having to +put on their frock-coats before luncheon, and fight for food at the +wedding-breakfast. + +"Too bad the breakfast is at old Catherine's," the bridegroom could +fancy Reggie Chivers saying. "But I'm told that Lovell Mingott insisted +on its being cooked by his own chef, so it ought to be good if one can +only get at it." And he could imagine Sillerton Jackson adding with +authority: "My dear fellow, haven't you heard? It's to be served at +small tables, in the new English fashion." + +Archer's eyes lingered a moment on the left-hand pew, where his mother, +who had entered the church on Mr. Henry van der Luyden's arm, sat +weeping softly under her Chantilly veil, her hands in her grandmother's +ermine muff. + +"Poor Janey!" he thought, looking at his sister, "even by screwing her +head around she can see only the people in the few front pews; and +they're mostly dowdy Newlands and Dagonets." + +On the hither side of the white ribbon dividing off the seats reserved +for the families he saw Beaufort, tall and redfaced, scrutinising the +women with his arrogant stare. Beside him sat his wife, all silvery +chinchilla and violets; and on the far side of the ribbon, Lawrence +Lefferts's sleekly brushed head seemed to mount guard over the +invisible deity of "Good Form" who presided at the ceremony. + +Archer wondered how many flaws Lefferts's keen eyes would discover +in the ritual of his divinity; then he suddenly recalled that he +too had once thought such questions important. The things that had +filled his days seemed now like a nursery parody of life, or like the +wrangles of mediaeval schoolmen over metaphysical terms that nobody +had ever understood. A stormy discussion as to whether the wedding +presents should be "shown" had darkened the last hours before the +wedding; and it seemed inconceivable to Archer that grown-up people +should work themselves into a state of agitation over such trifles, +and that the matter should have been decided (in the negative) by Mrs. +Welland's saying, with indignant tears: "I should as soon turn the +reporters loose in my house." Yet there was a time when Archer had had +definite and rather aggressive opinions on all such problems, and when +everything concerning the manners and customs of his little tribe had +seemed to him fraught with world-wide significance. + +"And all the while, I suppose," he thought, "real people were living +somewhere, and real things happening to them ..." + +"_There they come!_" breathed the best man excitedly; but the bridegroom +knew better. + +The cautious opening of the door of the church meant only that Mr. +Brown the livery-stable keeper (gowned in black in his intermittent +character of sexton) was taking a preliminary survey of the scene +before marshalling his forces. The door was softly shut again; then +after another interval it swung majestically open, and a murmur ran +through the church: "The family!" + +Mrs. Welland came first, on the arm of her eldest son. Her large pink +face was appropriately solemn, and her plum-coloured satin with pale +blue side-panels, and blue ostrich plumes in a small satin bonnet, +met with general approval; but before she had settled herself with a +stately rustle in the pew opposite Mrs. Archer's the spectators were +craning their necks to see who was coming after her. Wild rumours had +been abroad the day before to the effect that Mrs. Manson Mingott, in +spite of her physical disabilities, had resolved on being present at +the ceremony; and the idea was so much in keeping with her sporting +character that bets ran high at the clubs as to her being able to walk +up the nave and squeeze into a seat. It was known that she had insisted +on sending her own carpenter to look into the possibility of taking +down the end panel of the front pew, and to measure the space between +the seat and the front; but the result had been discouraging, and for +one anxious day her family had watched her dallying with the plan +of being wheeled up the nave in her enormous Bath chair and sitting +enthroned in it at the foot of the chancel. + +The idea of this monstrous exposure of her person was so painful to her +relations that they could have covered with gold the ingenious person +who suddenly discovered that the chair was too wide to pass between +the iron uprights of the awning which extended from the church door to +the curbstone. The idea of doing away with this awning, and revealing +the bride to the mob of dressmakers and newspaper reporters who stood +outside fighting to get near the joints of the canvas, exceeded even +old Catherine's courage, though for a moment she had weighed the +possibility. "Why, they might take a photograph of my child and _put it +in the papers_!" Mrs. Welland exclaimed when her mother's last plan was +hinted to her; and from this unthinkable indecency the clan recoiled +with a collective shudder. The ancestress had had to give in; but her +concession was bought only by the promise that the wedding-breakfast +should take place under her roof, though (as the Washington Square +connection said) with the Wellands' house in easy reach it was hard to +have to make a special price with Brown to drive one to the other end +of nowhere. + +Though all these transactions had been widely reported by the Jacksons +a sporting minority still clung to the belief that old Catherine would +appear in church, and there was a distinct lowering of the temperature +when she was found to have been replaced by her daughter-in-law. +Mrs. Lovell Mingott had the high colour and glassy stare induced +in ladies of her age and habit by the effort of getting into a new +dress; but once the disappointment occasioned by her mother-in-law's +non-appearance had subsided, it was agreed that her black Chantilly +over lilac satin, with a bonnet of Parma violets, formed the happiest +contrast to Mrs. Welland's blue and plum-colour. Far different was +the impression produced by the gaunt and mincing lady who followed on +Mr. Mingott's arm, in a wild dishevelment of stripes and fringes and +floating scarves; and as this last apparition glided into view Archer's +heart contracted and stopped beating. + +He had taken it for granted that the Marchioness Manson was still in +Washington, where she had gone some four weeks previously with her +niece, Madame Olenska. It was generally understood that their abrupt +departure was due to Madame Olenska's desire to remove her aunt from +the baleful eloquence of Dr. Agathon Carver, who had nearly succeeded +in enlisting her as a recruit for the Valley of Love; and in the +circumstances no one had expected either of the ladies to return for +the wedding. For a moment Archer stood with his eyes fixed on Medora's +fantastic figure, straining to see who came behind her; but the little +procession was at an end, for all the lesser members of the family had +taken their seats, and the eight tall ushers, gathering themselves +together like birds or insects preparing for some migratory manœuvre, +were already slipping through the side doors into the lobby. + +"Newland--I say: _she's here!_" the best man whispered. + +Archer roused himself with a start. + +A long time had apparently passed since his heart had stopped beating, +for the white and rosy procession was in fact half way up the nave, the +Bishop, the Rector and two white-winged assistants were hovering about +the flower-banked altar, and the first chords of the Spohr symphony +were strewing their flower-like notes before the bride. + +Archer opened his eyes (but could they really have been shut, as he +imagined?), and felt his heart beginning to resume its usual task. The +music, the scent of the lilies on the altar, the vision of the cloud of +tulle and orange-blossoms floating nearer and nearer, the sight of Mrs. +Archer's face suddenly convulsed with happy sobs, the low benedictory +murmur of the Rector's voice, the ordered evolutions of the eight +pink bridesmaids and the eight black ushers: all these sights, sounds +and sensations, so familiar in themselves, so unutterably strange and +meaningless in his new relation to them, were confusedly mingled in his +brain. + +"My God," he thought, "_have_ I got the ring?"--and once more he went +through the bridegroom's convulsive gesture. + +Then, in a moment, May was beside him, such radiance streaming from her +that it sent a faint warmth through his numbness, and he straightened +himself and smiled into her eyes. + +"Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here," the Rector began ... + +The ring was on her hand, the Bishop's benediction had been given, +the bridesmaids were a-poise to resume their place in the procession, +and the organ was showing preliminary symptoms of breaking out into +the Mendelssohn March, without which no newly-wedded couple had ever +emerged upon New York. + +"Your arm--_I say, give her your arm!_" young Newland nervously hissed; +and once more Archer became aware of having been adrift far off in the +unknown. What was it that had sent him there, he wondered? Perhaps the +glimpse, among the anonymous spectators in the transept, of a dark coil +of hair under a hat which, a moment later, revealed itself as belonging +to an unknown lady with a long nose, so laughably unlike the person +whose image she had evoked that he asked himself if he were becoming +subject to hallucinations. + +And now he and his wife were pacing slowly down the nave, carried +forward on the light Mendelssohn ripples, the spring day beckoning to +them through widely opened doors, and Mrs. Welland's chestnuts, with +big white favours on their frontlets, curvetting and showing off at the +far end of the canvas tunnel. + +The footman, who had a still bigger white favour on his lapel, wrapped +May's white cloak about her, and Archer jumped into the brougham at her +side. She turned to him with a triumphant smile and their hands clasped +under her veil. + +"Darling!" Archer said--and suddenly the same black abyss yawned before +him and he felt himself sinking into it, deeper and deeper, while his +voice rambled on smoothly and cheerfully: "Yes, of course I thought +I'd lost the ring; no wedding would be complete if the poor devil of +a bridegroom didn't go through that. But you _did_ keep me waiting, you +know! I had time to think of every horror that might possibly happen." + +She surprised him by turning, in full Fifth Avenue, and flinging her +arms about his neck. "But none ever can__ happen now, can it, Newland, as +long as we two are together?" + + +Every detail of the day had been so carefully thought out that the +young couple, after the wedding-breakfast, had ample time to put on +their travelling-clothes, descend the wide Mingott stairs between +laughing bridesmaids and weeping parents, and get into the brougham +under the traditional shower of rice and satin slippers; and there was +still half an hour left in which to drive to the station, buy the last +weeklies at the bookstall with the air of seasoned travellers, and +settle themselves in the reserved compartment in which May's maid had +already placed her dove-coloured travelling cloak and glaringly new +dressing-bag from London. + +The old du Lac aunts at Rhinebeck had put their house at the disposal +of the bridal couple, with a readiness inspired by the prospect of +spending a week in New York with Mrs. Archer; and Archer, glad to +escape the usual "bridal suite" in a Philadelphia or Baltimore hotel, +had accepted with an equal alacrity. + +May was enchanted at the idea of going to the country, and childishly +amused at the vain efforts of the eight bridesmaids to discover where +their mysterious retreat was situated. It was thought "very English" +to have a country-house lent to one, and the fact gave a last touch of +distinction to what was generally conceded to be the most brilliant +wedding of the year; but where the house was no one was permitted to +know, except the parents of bride and groom, who, when taxed with the +knowledge, pursed their lips and said mysteriously: "Ah, they didn't +tell us--" which was manifestly true, since there was no need to. + +Once they were settled in their compartment, and the train, shaking +off the endless wooden suburbs, had pushed out into the pale landscape +of spring, talk became easier than Archer had expected. May was still, +in look and tone, the simple girl of yesterday, eager to compare notes +with him as to the incidents of the wedding, and discussing them as +impartially as a bridesmaid talking it all over with an usher. At first +Archer had fancied that this detachment was the disguise of an inward +tremor; but her clear eyes revealed only the most tranquil unawareness. +She was alone for the first time with her husband; but her husband was +only the charming comrade of yesterday. There was no one whom she liked +as much, no one whom she trusted as completely, and the culminating +"lark" of the whole delightful adventure of engagement and marriage was +to be off with him alone on a journey, like a grownup person, like a +"married woman," in fact. + +It was wonderful that--as he had learned in the Mission garden at St. +Augustine--such depths of feeling could coexist with such absence of +imagination. But he remembered how, even then, she had surprised him by +dropping back to inexpressive girlishness as soon as her conscience had +been eased of its burden; and he saw that she would probably go through +life dealing to the best of her ability with each experience as it +came, but never anticipating any by so much as a stolen glance. + +Perhaps that faculty of unawareness was what gave her eyes their +transparency, and her face the look of representing a type rather than +a person; as if she might have been chosen to pose for a Civic Virtue +or a Greek goddess. The blood that ran so close to her fair skin might +have been a preserving fluid rather than a ravaging element; yet her +look of indestructible youthfulness made her seem neither hard nor +dull, but only primitive and pure. In the thick of this meditation +Archer suddenly felt himself looking at her with the startled gaze of a +stranger, and plunged into a reminiscence of the wedding-breakfast and +of Granny Mingott's immense and triumphant pervasion of it. + +May settled down to frank enjoyment of the subject. "I was surprised, +though--weren't you?--that aunt Medora came after all. Ellen wrote that +they were neither of them well enough to take the journey; I do wish it +had been she who had recovered! Did you see the exquisite old lace she +sent me?" + +He had known that the moment must come sooner or later, but he had +somewhat imagined that by force of willing he might hold it at bay. + +"Yes--I--no: yes, it was beautiful," he said, looking at her blindly, +and wondering if, whenever he heard those two syllables, all his +carefully built-up world would tumble about him like a house of cards. + +"Aren't you tired? It will be good to have some tea when we arrive--I'm +sure the aunts have got everything beautifully ready," he rattled +on, taking her hand in his; and her mind rushed away instantly to +the magnificent tea and coffee service of Baltimore silver which the +Beauforts had sent, and which "went" so perfectly with uncle Lovell +Mingott's trays and side-dishes. + +In the spring twilight the train stopped at the Rhinebeck station, and +they walked along the platform to the waiting carriage. + +"Ah, how awfully kind of the van der Luydens--they've sent their man +over from Skuytercliff to meet us," Archer exclaimed, as a sedate +person out of livery approached them and relieved the maid of her bags. + +"I'm extremely sorry, sir," said this emissary, "that a little +accident has occurred at the Miss du Lacs': a leak in the water-tank. +It happened yesterday, and Mr. van der Luyden, who heard of it this +morning, sent a housemaid up by the early train to get the Patroon's +house ready. It will be quite comfortable, I think you'll find, sir; +and the Miss du Lacs have sent their cook over, so that it will be +exactly the same as if you'd been at Rhinebeck." + +Archer stared at the speaker so blankly that he repeated in still more +apologetic accents: "It'll be exactly the same, sir, I do assure you--" +and May's eager voice broke out, covering the embarrassed silence: +"The same as Rhinebeck? The Patroon's house? But it will be a hundred +thousand times better--won't it, Newland? It's too dear and kind of Mr. +van der Luyden to have thought of it." + +And as they drove off, with the maid beside the coachman, and their +shining bridal bags on the seat before them, she went on excitedly: +"Only fancy, I've never been inside it--have you? The van der Luydens +show it to so few people. But they opened it for Ellen, it seems, and +she told me what a darling little place it was: she says it's the only +house she's seen in America that she could imagine being perfectly +happy in." + +"Well--that's what we're going to be, isn't it?" cried her husband +gaily; and she answered with her boyish smile: "Ah, it's just our luck +beginning--the wonderful luck we're always going to have together!" + + + + +XX. + + +"Of course we must dine with Mrs. Carfry, dearest," Archer said; and +his wife looked at him with an anxious frown across the monumental +Britannia ware of their lodging house breakfast-table. + +In all the rainy desert of autumnal London there were only two people +whom the Newland Archers knew; and these two they had sedulously +avoided, in conformity with the old New York tradition that it was not +"dignified" to force one's self on the notice of one's acquaintances in +foreign countries. + +Mrs. Archer and Janey, in the course of their visits to Europe, had so +unflinchingly lived up to this principle, and met the friendly advances +of their fellow-travellers with an air of such impenetrable reserve, +that they had almost achieved the record of never having exchanged +a word with a "foreigner" other than those employed in hotels and +railway-stations. Their own compatriots--save those previously known or +properly accredited--they treated with an even more pronounced disdain; +so that, unless they ran across a Chivers, a Dagonet or a Mingott, +their months abroad were spent in an unbroken _tête-à-tête_. But the +utmost precautions are sometimes unavailing; and one night at Botzen +one of the two English ladies in the room across the passage (whose +names, dress and social situation were already intimately known to +Janey) had knocked on the door and asked if Mrs. Archer had a bottle of +liniment. The other lady--the intruder's sister, Mrs. Carfry--had been +seized with a sudden attack of bronchitis; and Mrs. Archer, who never +travelled without a complete family pharmacy, was fortunately able to +produce the required remedy. + +Mrs. Carfry was very ill, and as she and her sister Miss Harle were +travelling alone they were profoundly grateful to the Archer ladies, +who supplied them with ingenious comforts and whose efficient maid +helped to nurse the invalid back to health. + +When the Archers left Botzen they had no idea of ever seeing Mrs. +Carfry and Miss Harle again. Nothing, to Mrs. Archer's mind, would have +been more "undignified" than to force one's self on the notice of a +"foreigner" to whom one had happened to render an accidental service. +But Mrs. Carfry and her sister, to whom this point of view was unknown, +and who would have found it utterly incomprehensible, felt themselves +linked by an eternal gratitude to the "delightful Americans" who had +been so kind at Botzen. With touching fidelity they seized every chance +of meeting Mrs. Archer and Janey in the course of their continental +travels, and displayed a supernatural acuteness in finding out when +they were to pass through London on their way to or from the States. +The intimacy became indissoluble, and Mrs. Archer and Janey, whenever +they alighted at Brown's Hotel, found themselves awaited by two +affectionate friends who, like themselves, cultivated ferns in Wardian +cases, made macramé lace, read the memoirs of the Baroness Bunsen and +had views about the occupants of the leading London pulpits. As Mrs. +Archer said, it made "another thing of London" to know Mrs. Carfry and +Miss Harle; and by the time that Newland became engaged the tie between +the families was so firmly established that it was thought "only right" +to send a wedding invitation to the two English ladies, who sent, in +return, a pretty bouquet of pressed Alpine flowers under glass. And on +the dock, when Newland and his wife sailed for England, Mrs. Archer's +last word had been: "You must take May to see Mrs. Carfry." + +Newland and his wife had had no idea of obeying this injunction; but +Mrs. Carfry, with her usual acuteness, had run them down and sent them +an invitation to dine; and it was over this invitation that May Archer +was wrinkling her brows across the tea and muffins. + +"It's all very well for you, Newland; you _know_ them. But I shall feel +so shy among a lot of people I've never met. And what shall I wear?" + +Newland leaned back in his chair and smiled at her. She looked +handsomer and more Diana-like than ever. The moist English air seemed +to have deepened the bloom of her cheeks and softened the slight +hardness of her virginal features; or else it was simply the inner glow +of happiness, shining through like a light under ice. + +"Wear, dearest? I thought a trunkful of things had come from Paris last +week." + +"Yes, of course. I meant to say that I shan't know _which_ to wear." She +pouted a little. "I've never dined out in London; and I don't want to +be ridiculous." + +He tried to enter into her perplexity. "But don't Englishwomen dress +just like everybody else in the evening?" + +"Newland! How can you ask such funny questions? When they go to the +theatre in old ball-dresses and bare heads." + +"Well, perhaps they wear new ball-dresses at home; but at any rate Mrs. +Carfry and Miss Harle won't. They'll wear caps like my mother's--and +shawls; very soft shawls." + +"Yes; but how will the other women be dressed?" + +"Not as well as you, dear," he rejoined, wondering what had suddenly +developed in her Janey's morbid interest in clothes. + +She pushed back her chair with a sigh. "That's dear of you, Newland; +but it doesn't help me much." + +He had an inspiration. "Why not wear your wedding-dress? That can't be +wrong, can it?" + +"Oh, dearest! If I only had it here! But it's gone to Paris to be made +over for next winter, and Worth hasn't sent it back." + +"Oh, well--" said Archer, getting up. "Look here--the fog's lifting. +If we made a dash for the National Gallery we might manage to catch a +glimpse of the pictures." + + +The Newland Archers were on their way home, after a three months' +wedding-tour which May, in writing to her girl friends, vaguely +summarised as "blissful." + +They had not gone to the Italian Lakes: on reflection, Archer had +not been able to picture his wife in that particular setting. Her +own inclination (after a month with the Paris dressmakers) was +for mountaineering in July and swimming in August. This plan they +punctually fulfilled, spending July at Interlaken and Grindelwald, and +August at a little place called Etretat, on the Normandy coast, which +some one had recommended as quaint and quiet. Once or twice, in the +mountains, Archer had pointed southward and said: "There's Italy"; and +May, her feet in a gentian-bed, had smiled cheerfully, and replied: "It +would be lovely to go there next winter, if only you didn't have to be +in New York." + +But in reality travelling interested her even less than he had +expected. She regarded it (once her clothes were ordered) as merely an +enlarged opportunity for walking, riding, swimming, and trying her hand +at the fascinating new game of lawn tennis; and when they finally got +back to London (where they were to spend a fortnight while he ordered +_his_ clothes) she no longer concealed the eagerness with which she +looked forward to sailing. + +In London nothing interested her but the theatres and the shops; and +she found the theatres less exciting than the Paris _cafés chantants_ +where, under the blossoming horse-chestnuts of the Champs Élysées, +she had had the novel experience of looking down from the restaurant +terrace on an audience of "cocottes," and having her husband interpret +to her as much of the songs as he thought suitable for bridal ears. + +Archer had reverted to all his old inherited ideas about marriage. It +was less trouble to conform with the tradition and treat May exactly as +all his friends treated their wives than to try to put into practice +the theories with which his untrammelled bachelorhood had dallied. +There was no use in trying to emancipate a wife who had not the dimmest +notion that she was not free; and he had long since discovered that +May's only use of the liberty she supposed herself to possess would +be to lay it on the altar of her wifely adoration. Her innate dignity +would always keep her from making the gift abjectly; and a day might +even come (as it once had) when she would find strength to take it +altogether back if she thought she were doing it for his own good. +But with a conception of marriage so uncomplicated and incurious as +hers such a crisis could be brought about only by something visibly +outrageous in his own conduct; and the fineness of her feeling for him +made that unthinkable. Whatever happened, he knew, she would always be +loyal, gallant and unresentful; and that pledged him to the practice of +the same virtues. + +All this tended to draw him back into his old habits of mind. If her +simplicity had been the simplicity of pettiness he would have chafed +and rebelled; but since the lines of her character, though so few, were +on the same fine mould as her face, she became the tutelary divinity of +all his old traditions and reverences. + +Such qualities were scarcely of the kind to enliven foreign travel, +though they made her so easy and pleasant a companion; but he saw at +once how they would fall into place in their proper setting. He had no +fear of being oppressed by them, for his artistic and intellectual life +would go on, as it always had, outside the domestic circle; and within +it there would be nothing small and stifling--coming back to his wife +would never be like entering a stuffy room after a tramp in the open. +And when they had children the vacant corners in both their lives would +be filled. + +All these things went through his mind during their long slow drive +from Mayfair to South Kensington, where Mrs. Carfry and her sister +lived. Archer too would have preferred to escape their friends' +hospitality: in conformity with the family tradition he had always +travelled as a sight-seer and looker-on, affecting a haughty +unconsciousness of the presence of his fellow-beings. Once only, just +after Harvard, he had spent a few gay weeks at Florence with a band of +queer Europeanised Americans, dancing all night with titled ladies in +palaces, and gambling half the day with the rakes and dandies of the +fashionable club; but it had all seemed to him, though the greatest fun +in the world, as unreal as a carnival. These queer cosmopolitan women, +deep in complicated love-affairs which they appeared to feel the need +of retailing to every one they met, and the magnificent young officers +and elderly dyed wits who were the subjects or the recipients of their +confidences, were too different from the people Archer had grown up +among, too much like expensive and rather malodorous hot-house exotics, +to detain his imagination long. To introduce his wife into such a +society was out of the question; and in the course of his travels no +other had shown any marked eagerness for his company. + +Not long after their arrival in London he had run across the Duke of +St. Austrey, and the Duke, instantly and cordially recognising him, +had said: "Look me up, won't you?"--but no proper-spirited American +would have considered that a suggestion to be acted on, and the meeting +was without a sequel. They had even managed to avoid May's English +aunt, the banker's wife, who was still in Yorkshire; in fact, they had +purposely postponed going to London till the autumn in order that their +arrival during the season might not appear pushing and snobbish to +these unknown relatives. + +"Probably there'll be nobody at Mrs. Carfry's--London's a desert at +this season, and you've made yourself much too beautiful," Archer said +to May, who sat at his side in the hansom so spotlessly splendid in her +sky-blue cloak edged with swansdown that it seemed wicked to expose her +to the London grime. + +"I don't want them to think that we dress like savages," she replied, +with a scorn that Pocahontas might have resented; and he was struck +again by the religious reverence of even the most unworldly American +women for the social advantages of dress. + +"It's their armour," he thought, "their defence against the unknown, +and their defiance of it." And he understood for the first time the +earnestness with which May, who was incapable of tying a ribbon in her +hair to charm him, had gone through the solemn rite of selecting and +ordering her extensive wardrobe. + +He had been right in expecting the party at Mrs. Carfry's to be a small +one. Besides their hostess and her sister, they found, in the long +chilly drawing-room, only another shawled lady, a genial Vicar who was +her husband, a silent lad whom Mrs. Carfry named as her nephew, and a +small dark gentleman with lively eyes whom she introduced as his tutor, +pronouncing a French name as she did so. + +Into this dimly-lit and dim-featured group May Archer floated like +a swan with the sunset on her: she seemed larger, fairer, more +voluminously rustling than her husband had ever seen her; and he +perceived that the rosiness and rustlingness were the tokens of an +extreme and infantile shyness. + +"What on earth will they expect me to talk about?" her helpless eyes +implored him, at the very moment that her dazzling apparition was +calling forth the same anxiety in their own bosoms. But beauty, even +when distrustful of itself, awakens confidence in the manly heart; and +the Vicar and the French-named tutor were soon manifesting to May their +desire to put her at her ease. + +In spite of their best efforts, however, the dinner was a languishing +affair. Archer noticed that his wife's way of showing herself at her +ease with foreigners was to become more uncompromisingly local in her +references, so that, though her loveliness was an encouragement to +admiration, her conversation was a chill to repartee. The Vicar soon +abandoned the struggle; but the tutor, who spoke the most fluent and +accomplished English, gallantly continued to pour it out to her until +the ladies, to the manifest relief of all concerned, went up to the +drawing-room. + +The Vicar, after a glass of port, was obliged to hurry away to a +meeting, and the shy nephew, who appeared to be an invalid, was packed +off to bed. But Archer and the tutor continued to sit over their wine, +and suddenly Archer found himself talking as he had not done since his +last symposium with Ned Winsett. The Carfry nephew, it turned out, +had been threatened with consumption, and had had to leave Harrow for +Switzerland, where he had spent two years in the milder air of Lake +Leman. Being a bookish youth, he had been entrusted to M. Rivière, +who had brought him back to England, and was to remain with him till +he went up to Oxford the following spring; and M. Rivière added with +simplicity that he should then have to look out for another job. + +It seemed impossible, Archer thought, that he should be long without +one, so varied were his interests and so many his gifts. He was a +man of about thirty, with a thin ugly face (May would certainly have +called him common-looking) to which the play of his ideas gave an +intense expressiveness; but there was nothing frivolous or cheap in his +animation. + +His father, who had died young, had filled a small diplomatic post, +and it had been intended that the son should follow the same career; +but an insatiable taste for letters had thrown the young man into +journalism, then into authorship (apparently unsuccessful), and at +length--after other experiments and vicissitudes which he spared his +listener--into tutoring English youths in Switzerland. Before that, +however, he had lived much in Paris, frequented the Goncourt _grenier_, +been advised by Maupassant not to attempt to write (even that seemed +to Archer a dazzling honour!), and had often talked with Mérimée in +his mother's house. He had obviously always been desperately poor and +anxious (having a mother and an unmarried sister to provide for), and +it was apparent that his literary ambitions had failed. His situation, +in fact, seemed, materially speaking, no more brilliant than Ned +Winsett's; but he had lived in a world in which, as he said, no one +who loved ideas need hunger mentally. As it was precisely of that love +that poor Winsett was starving to death, Archer looked with a sort of +vicarious envy at this eager impecunious young man who had fared so +richly in his poverty. + +"You see, Monsieur, it's worth everything, isn't it, to keep one's +intellectual liberty, not to enslave one's powers of appreciation, +one's critical independence? It was because of that that I abandoned +journalism, and took to so much duller work: tutoring and private +secretaryship. There is a good deal of drudgery, of course; but one +preserves one's moral freedom, what we call in French one's _quant +à soi_. And when one hears good talk one can join in it without +compromising any opinions but one's own; or one can listen, and answer +it inwardly. Ah, good conversation--there's nothing like it, is there? +The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing. And so I have never +regretted giving up either diplomacy or journalism--two different forms +of the same self-abdication." He fixed his vivid eyes on Archer as he +lit another cigarette. "_Voyez-vous_, Monsieur, to be able to look life +in the face: that's worth living in a garret for, isn't it? But, after +all, one must earn enough to pay for the garret; and I confess that +to grow old as a private tutor--or a 'private' anything--is almost as +chilling to the imagination as a second secretaryship at Bucharest. +Sometimes I feel I must make a plunge: an immense plunge. Do you +suppose, for instance, there would be any opening for me in America--in +New York?" + +Archer looked at him with startled eyes. New York, for a young man who +had frequented the Goncourts and Flaubert, and who thought the life of +ideas the only one worth living! He continued to stare at M. Rivière +perplexedly, wondering how to tell him that his very superiorities and +advantages would be the surest hindrance to success. + +"New York--New York--but must it be especially New York?" he stammered, +utterly unable to imagine what lucrative opening his native city could +offer to a young man to whom good conversation appeared to be the only +necessity. + +A sudden flush rose under M. Rivière's sallow skin. "I--I thought it +your metropolis: is not the intellectual life more active there?" he +rejoined; then, as if fearing to give his hearer the impression of +having asked a favour, he went on hastily: "One throws out random +suggestions--more to one's self than to others. In reality, I see no +immediate prospect--" and rising from his seat he added, without a +trace of constraint: "But Mrs. Carfry will think that I ought to be +taking you upstairs." + +During the homeward drive Archer pondered deeply on this episode. +His hour with M. Rivière had put new air into his lungs, and his +first impulse had been to invite him to dine the next day; but he was +beginning to understand why married men did not always immediately +yield to their first impulses. + +"That young tutor is an interesting fellow: we had some awfully good +talk after dinner about books and things," he threw out tentatively in +the hansom. + +May roused herself from one of the dreamy silences into which he had +read so many meanings before six months of marriage had given him the +key to them. + +"The little Frenchman? Wasn't he dreadfully common?" she questioned +coldly; and he guessed that she nursed a secret disappointment at +having been invited out in London to meet a clergyman and a French +tutor. The disappointment was not occasioned by the sentiment +ordinarily defined as snobbishness, but by old New York's sense of +what was due to it when it risked its dignity in foreign lands. If +May's parents had entertained the Carfrys in Fifth Avenue they would +have offered them something more substantial than a parson and a +schoolmaster. + +But Archer was on edge, and took her up. + +"Common--common _where_?" he queried; and she returned with unusual +readiness: "Why, I should say anywhere but in his school-room. Those +people are always awkward in society. But then," she added disarmingly, +"I suppose I shouldn't have known if he was clever." + +Archer disliked her use of the word "clever" almost as much as her use +of the word "common"; but he was beginning to fear his tendency to +dwell on the things he disliked in her. After all, her point of view +had always been the same. It was that of all the people he had grown up +among, and he had always regarded it as necessary but negligible. Until +a few months ago he had never known a "nice" woman who looked at life +differently; and if a man married it must necessarily be among the nice. + +"Ah--then I won't ask him to dine!" he concluded with a laugh; and May +echoed, bewildered: "Goodness--ask the Carfrys' tutor?" + +"Well, not on the same day with the Carfrys, if you prefer I shouldn't. +But I did rather want another talk with him. He's looking for a job in +New York." + +Her surprise increased with her indifference: he almost fancied that +she suspected him of being tainted with "foreignness." + +"A job in New York? What sort of a job? People don't have French +tutors: what does he want to do?" + +"Chiefly to enjoy good conversation, I understand," her husband +retorted perversely; and she broke into an appreciative laugh. "Oh, +Newland, how funny! Isn't that _French_?" + +On the whole, he was glad to have the matter settled for him by her +refusing to take seriously his wish to invite M. Rivière. Another +after-dinner talk would have made it difficult to avoid the question of +New York; and the more Archer considered it the less he was able to fit +M. Rivière into any conceivable picture of New York as he knew it. + +He perceived with a flash of chilling insight that in future many +problems would be thus negatively solved for him; but as he paid the +hansom and followed his wife's long train into the house he took refuge +in the comforting platitude that the first six months were always the +most difficult in marriage. "After that I suppose we shall have pretty +nearly finished rubbing off each other's angles," he reflected; but the +worst of it was that May's pressure was already bearing on the very +angles whose sharpness he most wanted to keep. + + + + +XXI. + + +The small bright lawn stretched away smoothly to the big bright sea. + +The turf was hemmed with an edge of scarlet geranium and coleus, and +cast-iron vases painted in chocolate colour, standing at intervals +along the winding path that led to the sea, looped their garlands of +petunia and ivy geranium above the neatly raked gravel. + +Half way between the edge of the cliff and the square wooden house +(which was also chocolate-coloured, but with the tin roof of the +verandah striped in yellow and brown to represent an awning) two large +targets had been placed against a background of shrubbery. On the other +side of the lawn, facing the targets, was pitched a real tent, with +benches and garden-seats about it. A number of ladies in summer dresses +and gentlemen in grey frock-coats and tall hats stood on the lawn or +sat upon the benches; and every now and then a slender girl in starched +muslin would step from the tent, bow in hand, and speed her shaft at +one of the targets, while the spectators interrupted their talk to +watch the result. + +Newland Archer, standing on the verandah of the house, looked curiously +down upon this scene. On each side of the shiny painted steps was a +large blue china flower-pot on a bright yellow china stand. A spiky +green plant filled each pot, and below the verandah ran a wide border +of blue hydrangeas edged with more red geraniums. Behind him, the +French windows of the drawing-rooms through which he had passed gave +glimpses, between swaying lace curtains, of glassy parquet floors +islanded with chintz poufs, dwarf armchairs, and velvet tables covered +with trifles in silver. + +The Newport Archery Club always held its August meeting at the +Beauforts'. The sport, which had hitherto known no rival but croquet, +was beginning to be discarded in favour of lawn-tennis; but the latter +game was still considered too rough and inelegant for social occasions, +and as an opportunity to show off pretty dresses and graceful attitudes +the bow and arrow held their own. + +Archer looked down with wonder at the familiar spectacle. It surprised +him that life should be going on in the old way when his own reactions +to it had so completely changed. It was Newport that had first brought +home to him the extent of the change. In New York, during the previous +winter, after he and May had settled down in the new greenish-yellow +house with the bow-window and the Pompeian vestibule, he had dropped +back with relief into the old routine of the office, and the renewal +of this daily activity had served as a link with his former self. Then +there had been the pleasurable excitement of choosing a showy grey +stepper for May's brougham (the Wellands had given the carriage), and +the abiding occupation and interest of arranging his new library, +which, in spite of family doubts and disapprovals, had been carried out +as he had dreamed, with a dark embossed paper, Eastlake book-cases and +"sincere" arm-chairs and tables. At the Century he had found Winsett +again, and at the Knickerbocker the fashionable young men of his own +set; and what with the hours dedicated to the law and those given to +dining out or entertaining friends at home, with an occasional evening +at the Opera or the play, the life he was living had still seemed a +fairly real and inevitable sort of business. + +But Newport represented the escape from duty into an atmosphere of +unmitigated holiday-making. Archer had tried to persuade May to +spend the summer on a remote island off the coast of Maine (called, +appropriately enough, Mount Desert), where a few hardy Bostonians and +Philadelphians were camping in "native" cottages, and whence came +reports of enchanting scenery and a wild, almost trapper-like existence +amid woods and waters. + +But the Wellands always went to Newport, where they owned one of the +square boxes on the cliffs, and their son-in-law could adduce no good +reason why he and May should not join them there. As Mrs. Welland +rather tartly pointed out, it was hardly worth while for May to have +worn herself out trying on summer clothes in Paris if she was not to be +allowed to wear them; and this argument was of a kind to which Archer +had as yet found no answer. + +May herself could not understand his obscure reluctance to fall in with +so reasonable and pleasant a way of spending the summer. She reminded +him that he had always liked Newport in his bachelor days, and as this +was indisputable he could only profess that he was sure he was going +to like it better than ever now that they were to be there together. +But as he stood on the Beaufort verandah and looked out on the brightly +peopled lawn it came home to him with a shiver that he was not going to +like it at all. + +It was not May's fault, poor dear. If, now and then, during their +travels, they had fallen slightly out of step, harmony had been +restored by their return to the conditions she was used to. He had +always foreseen that she would not disappoint him; and he had been +right. He had married (as most young men did) because he had met a +perfectly charming girl at the moment when a series of rather aimless +sentimental adventures were ending in premature disgust; and she had +represented peace, stability, comradeship, and the steadying sense of +an unescapable duty. + +He could not say that he had been mistaken in his choice, for she had +fulfilled all that he had expected. It was undoubtedly gratifying +to be the husband of one of the handsomest and most popular young +married women in New York, especially when she was also one of the +sweetest-tempered and most reasonable of wives; and Archer had never +been insensible to such advantages. As for the momentary madness which +had fallen upon him on the eve of his marriage, he had trained himself +to regard it as the last of his discarded experiments. The idea that +he could ever, in his senses, have dreamed of marrying the Countess +Olenska had become almost unthinkable, and she remained in his memory +simply as the most plaintive and poignant of a line of ghosts. + +But all these abstractions and eliminations made of his mind a rather +empty and echoing place, and he supposed that was one of the reasons +why the busy animated people on the Beaufort lawn shocked him as if +they had been children playing in a grave-yard. + +He heard a murmur of skirts beside him, and the Marchioness Manson +fluttered out of the drawing-room window. As usual, she was +extraordinarily festooned and bedizened, with a limp Leghorn hat +anchored to her head by many windings of faded gauze, and a little +black velvet parasol on a carved ivory handle absurdly balanced over +her much larger hatbrim. + +"My dear Newland, I had no idea that you and May had +arrived! You yourself came only yesterday, you say? Ah, +business--business--professional duties ... I understand. Many +husbands, I know, find it impossible to join their wives here except +for the week-end." She cocked her head on one side and languished at +him through screwed-up eyes. "But marriage is one long sacrifice, as I +used often to remind my Ellen--" + +Archer's heart stopped with the queer jerk which it had given once +before, and which seemed suddenly to slam a door between himself and +the outer world; but this break of continuity must have been of the +briefest, for he presently heard Medora answering a question he had +apparently found voice to put. + +"No, I am not staying here, but with the Blenkers, in their delicious +solitude at Portsmouth. Beaufort was kind enough to send his famous +trotters for me this morning, so that I might have at least a glimpse +of one of Regina's garden-parties; but this evening I go back to rural +life. The Blenkers, dear original beings, have hired a primitive old +farm-house at Portsmouth where they gather about them representative +people ..." She drooped slightly beneath her protecting brim, and added +with a faint blush: "This week Dr. Agathon Carver is holding a series +of Inner Thought meetings there. A contrast indeed to this gay scene +of worldly pleasure--but then I have always lived on contrasts! To me +the only death is monotony. I always say to Ellen: Beware of monotony; +it's the mother of all the deadly sins. But my poor child is going +through a phase of exaltation, of abhorrence of the world. You know, +I suppose, that she has declined all invitations to stay at Newport, +even with her grandmother Mingott? I could hardly persuade her to come +with me to the Blenkers', if you will believe it! The life she leads is +morbid, unnatural. Ah, if she had only listened to me when it was still +possible ... When the door was still open ... But shall we go down and +watch this absorbing match? I hear your May is one of the competitors." + +Strolling toward them from the tent Beaufort advanced over the lawn, +tall, heavy, too tightly buttoned into a London frock-coat, with one of +his own orchids in its buttonhole. Archer, who had not seen him for two +or three months, was struck by the change in his appearance. In the hot +summer light his floridness seemed heavy and bloated, and but for his +erect square-shouldered walk he would have looked like an over-fed and +over-dressed old man. + +There were all sorts of rumours afloat about Beaufort. In the spring +he had gone off on a long cruise to the West Indies in his new +steam-yacht, and it was reported that, at various points where he +had touched, a lady resembling Miss Fanny Ring had been seen in his +company. The steam-yacht, built in the Clyde, and fitted with tiled +bath-rooms and other unheard-of luxuries, was said to have cost him +half a million; and the pearl necklace which he had presented to his +wife on his return was as magnificent as such expiatory offerings +are apt to be. Beaufort's fortune was substantial enough to stand +the strain; and yet the disquieting rumours persisted, not only in +Fifth Avenue but in Wall Street. Some people said he had speculated +unfortunately in railways, others that he was being bled by one of +the most insatiable members of her profession; and to every report of +threatened insolvency Beaufort replied by a fresh extravagance: the +building of a new row of orchid-houses, the purchase of a new string +of race-horses, or the addition of a new Meissonnier or Cabanel to his +picture-gallery. + +He advanced toward the Marchioness and Newland with his usual +half-sneering smile. "Hullo, Medora! Did the trotters do their +business? Forty minutes, eh? ... Well, that's not so bad, considering +your nerves had to be spared." He shook hands with Archer, and then, +turning back with them, placed himself on Mrs. Manson's other side, and +said, in a low voice, a few words which their companion did not catch. + +The Marchioness replied by one of her queer foreign jerks, and a "_Que +voulez-vous?_" which deepened Beaufort's frown; but he produced a good +semblance of a congratulatory smile as he glanced at Archer to say: +"You know May's going to carry off the first prize." + +"Ah, then it remains in the family," Medora rippled; and at that moment +they reached the tent and Mrs. Beaufort met them in a girlish cloud of +mauve muslin and floating veils. + +May Welland was just coming out of the tent. In her white dress, with a +pale green ribbon about the waist and a wreath of ivy on her hat, she +had the same Diana-like aloofness as when she had entered the Beaufort +ball-room on the night of her engagement. In the interval not a thought +seemed to have passed behind her eyes or a feeling through her heart; +and though her husband knew that she had the capacity for both he +marvelled afresh at the way in which experience dropped away from her. + +She had her bow and arrow in her hand, and placing herself on the +chalk-mark traced on the turf she lifted the bow to her shoulder and +took aim. The attitude was so full of a classic grace that a murmur +of appreciation followed her appearance, and Archer felt the glow of +proprietorship that so often cheated him into momentary well-being. Her +rivals--Mrs. Reggie Chivers, the Merry girls, and divers rosy Thorleys, +Dagonets and Mingotts, stood behind her in a lovely anxious group, +brown heads and golden bent above the scores, and pale muslins and +flower-wreathed hats mingled in a tender rainbow. All were young and +pretty, and bathed in summer bloom; but not one had the nymph-like ease +of his wife, when, with tense muscles and happy frown, she bent her +soul upon some feat of strength. + +"Gad," Archer heard Lawrence Lefferts say, "not one of the lot holds +the bow as she does"; and Beaufort retorted: "Yes; but that's the only +kind of target she'll ever hit." + +Archer felt irrationally angry. His host's contemptuous tribute to +May's "niceness" was just what a husband should have wished to hear +said of his wife. The fact that a coarse-minded man found her lacking +in attraction was simply another proof of her quality; yet the words +sent a faint shiver through his heart. What if "niceness" carried to +that supreme degree were only a negation, the curtain dropped before +an emptiness? As he looked at May, returning flushed and calm from her +final bull's-eye, he had the feeling that he had never yet lifted that +curtain. + +She took the congratulations of her rivals and of the rest of the +company with the simplicity that was her crowning grace. No one could +ever be jealous of her triumphs because she managed to give the feeling +that she would have been just as serene if she had missed them. But +when her eyes met her husband's her face glowed with the pleasure she +saw in his. + +Mrs. Welland's basket-work pony-carriage was waiting for them, and they +drove off among the dispersing carriages, May handling the reins and +Archer sitting at her side. + +The afternoon sunlight still lingered upon the bright lawns and +shrubberies, and up and down Bellevue Avenue rolled a double line of +victorias, dog-carts, landaus and "vis-à-vis," carrying well-dressed +ladies and gentlemen away from the Beaufort garden-party, or homeward +from their daily afternoon turn along the Ocean Drive. + +"Shall we go to see Granny?" May suddenly proposed. "I should like to +tell her myself that I've won the prize. There's lots of time before +dinner." + +Archer acquiesced, and she turned the ponies down Narragansett Avenue, +crossed Spring Street and drove out toward the rocky moorland beyond. +In this unfashionable region Catherine the Great, always indifferent +to precedent and thrifty of purse, had built herself in her youth +a many-peaked and cross-beamed _cottage-orné_ on a bit of cheap land +overlooking the bay. Here, in a thicket of stunted oaks, her verandahs +spread themselves above the island-dotted waters. A winding drive +led up between iron stags and blue glass balls embedded in mounds of +geraniums to a front door of highly-varnished walnut under a striped +verandah-roof; and behind it ran a narrow hall with a black and yellow +star-patterned parquet floor, upon which opened four small square +rooms with heavy flock-papers under ceilings on which an Italian +house-painter had lavished all the divinities of Olympus. One of these +rooms had been turned into a bedroom by Mrs. Mingott when the burden of +flesh descended on her, and in the adjoining one she spent her days, +enthroned in a large armchair between the open door and window, and +perpetually waving a palm-leaf fan which the prodigious projection +of her bosom kept so far from the rest of her person that the air it +set in motion stirred only the fringe of the anti-macassars on the +chair-arms. + +Since she had been the means of hastening his marriage old Catherine +had shown to Archer the cordiality which a service rendered excites +toward the person served. She was persuaded that irrepressible +passion was the cause of his impatience; and being an ardent admirer +of impulsiveness (when it did not lead to the spending of money) she +always received him with a genial twinkle of complicity and a play of +allusion to which May seemed fortunately impervious. + +She examined and appraised with much interest the diamond-tipped +arrow which had been pinned on May's bosom at the conclusion of the +match, remarking that in her day a filigree brooch would have been +thought enough, but that there was no denying that Beaufort did things +handsomely. + +"Quite an heirloom, in fact, my dear," the old lady chuckled. "You +must leave it in fee to your eldest girl." She pinched May's white +arm and watched the colour flood her face. "Well, well, what have I +said to make you shake out the red flag? Ain't there going to be any +daughters--only boys, eh? Good gracious, look at her blushing again +all over her blushes! What--can't I say that either? Mercy me--when +my children beg me to have all those gods and goddesses painted out +overhead I always say I'm too thankful to have somebody about me that +_nothing_ can shock!" + +Archer burst into a laugh, and May echoed it, crimson to the eyes. + +"Well, now tell me all about the party, please, my dears, for I shall +never get a straight word about it out of that silly Medora," the +ancestress continued; and, as May exclaimed: "Cousin Medora? But I +thought she was going back to Portsmouth?" she answered placidly: "So +she is--but she's got to come here first to pick up Ellen. Ah--you +didn't know Ellen had come to spend the day with me? Such fol-de-rol, +her not coming for the summer; but I gave up arguing with young people +about fifty years ago. Ellen--_Ellen_!" she cried in her shrill old +voice, trying to bend forward far enough to catch a glimpse of the lawn +beyond the verandah. + +There was no answer, and Mrs. Mingott rapped impatiently with her stick +on the shiny floor. A mulatto maid-servant in a bright turban, replying +to the summons, informed her mistress that she had seen "Miss Ellen" +going down the path to the shore; and Mrs. Mingott turned to Archer. + +"Run down and fetch her, like a good grandson; this pretty lady will +describe the party to me," she said; and Archer stood up as if in a +dream. + +He had heard the Countess Olenska's name pronounced often enough during +the year and a half since they had last met, and was even familiar +with the main incidents of her life in the interval. He knew that +she had spent the previous summer at Newport, where she appeared to +have gone a great deal into society, but that in the autumn she had +suddenly sub-let the "perfect house" which Beaufort had been at such +pains to find for her, and decided to establish herself in Washington. +There, during the winter, he had heard of her (as one always heard of +pretty women in Washington) as shining in the "brilliant diplomatic +society" that was supposed to make up for the social short-comings of +the Administration. He had listened to these accounts, and to various +contradictory reports on her appearance, her conversation, her point +of view and her choice of friends, with the detachment with which one +listens to reminiscences of some one long since dead; not till Medora +suddenly spoke her name at the archery match had Ellen Olenska become a +living presence to him again. The Marchioness's foolish lisp had called +up a vision of the little fire-lit drawing-room and the sound of the +carriage-wheels returning down the deserted street. He thought of a +story he had read, of some peasant children in Tuscany lighting a bunch +of straw in a wayside cavern, and revealing old silent images in their +painted tomb ... + +The way to the shore descended from the bank on which the house was +perched to a walk above the water planted with weeping willows. +Through their veil Archer caught the glint of the Lime Rock, with its +white-washed turret and the tiny house in which the heroic light-house +keeper, Ida Lewis, was living her last venerable years. Beyond it lay +the flat reaches and ugly government chimneys of Goat Island, the bay +spreading northward in a shimmer of gold to Prudence Island with its +low growth of oaks, and the shores of Conanicut faint in the sunset +haze. + +From the willow walk projected a slight wooden pier ending in a sort +of pagoda-like summer-house; and in the pagoda a lady stood, leaning +against the rail, her back to the shore. Archer stopped at the sight as +if he had waked from sleep. That vision of the past was a dream, and +the reality was what awaited him in the house on the bank overhead: +was Mrs. Welland's pony-carriage circling around and around the oval +at the door, was May sitting under the shameless Olympians and glowing +with secret hopes, was the Welland villa at the far end of Bellevue +Avenue, and Mr. Welland, already dressed for dinner, and pacing the +drawing-room floor, watch in hand, with dyspeptic impatience--for +it was one of the houses in which one always knew exactly what is +happening at a given hour. + +"What am I? A son-in-law--" Archer thought. + +The figure at the end of the pier had not moved. For a long moment the +young man stood half way down the bank, gazing at the bay furrowed +with the coming and going of sailboats, yacht-launches, fishing-craft +and the trailing black coal-barges hauled by noisy tugs. The lady in +the summer-house seemed to be held by the same sight. Beyond the grey +bastions of Fort Adams a long-drawn sunset was splintering up into +a thousand fires, and the radiance caught the sail of a catboat as +it beat out through the channel between the Lime Rock and the shore. +Archer, as he watched, remembered the scene in the Shaughraun, and +Montague lifting Ada Dyas's ribbon to his lips without her knowing that +he was in the room. + +"She doesn't know--she hasn't guessed. Shouldn't I know if she came up +behind me, I wonder?" he mused; and suddenly he said to himself: "If +she doesn't turn before that sail crosses the Lime Rock light I'll go +back." + +The boat was gliding out on the receding tide. It slid before the Lime +Rock, blotted out Ida Lewis's little house, and passed across the +turret in which the light was hung. Archer waited till a wide space of +water sparkled between the last reef of the island and the stern of the +boat; but still the figure in the summer-house did not move. + +He turned and walked up the hill. + + +"I'm sorry you didn't find Ellen--I should have liked to see her +again," May said as they drove home through the dusk. "But perhaps she +wouldn't have cared--she seems so changed." + +"Changed?" echoed her husband in a colourless voice, his eyes fixed on +the ponies' twitching ears. + +"So indifferent to her friends, I mean; giving up New York and her +house, and spending her time with such queer people. Fancy how +hideously uncomfortable she must be at the Blenkers'! She says she +does it to keep cousin Medora out of mischief: to prevent her marrying +dreadful people. But I sometimes think we've always bored her." + +Archer made no answer, and she continued, with a tinge of hardness that +he had never before noticed in her frank fresh voice: "After all, I +wonder if she wouldn't be happier with her husband." + +He burst into a laugh. "_Sancta simplicitas!_" he exclaimed; and as she +turned a puzzled frown on him he added: "I don't think I ever heard you +say a cruel thing before." + +"Cruel?" + +"Well--watching the contortions of the damned is supposed to be a +favourite sport of the angels; but I believe even they don't think +people happier in hell." + +"It's a pity she ever married abroad then," said May, in the placid +tone with which her mother met Mr. Welland's vagaries; and Archer felt +himself gently relegated to the category of unreasonable husbands. + +They drove down Bellevue Avenue and turned in between the chamfered +wooden gate-posts surmounted by cast-iron lamps which marked the +approach to the Welland villa. Lights were already shining through its +windows, and Archer, as the carriage stopped, caught a glimpse of his +father-in-law, exactly as he had pictured him, pacing the drawing-room, +watch in hand and wearing the pained expression that he had long since +found to be much more efficacious than anger. + +The young man, as he followed his wife into the hall, was conscious +of a curious reversal of mood. There was something about the luxury +of the Welland house and the density of the Welland atmosphere, so +charged with minute observances and exactions, that always stole into +his system like a narcotic. The heavy carpets, the watchful servants, +the perpetually reminding tick of disciplined clocks, the perpetually +renewed stack of cards and invitations on the hall table, the whole +chain of tyrannical trifles binding one hour to the next, and each +member of the household to all the others, made any less systematised +and affluent existence seem unreal and precarious. But now it was the +Welland house, and the life he was expected to lead in it, that had +become unreal and irrelevant, and the brief scene on the shore, when he +had stood irresolute, halfway down the bank, was as close to him as the +blood in his veins. + +All night he lay awake in the big chintz bedroom at May's side, +watching the moonlight slant along the carpet, and thinking of Ellen +Olenska driving home across the gleaming beaches behind Beaufort's +trotters. + + + + +XXII. + + +"A party for the Blenkers--the Blenkers?" + +Mr. Welland laid down his knife and fork and looked anxiously and +incredulously across the luncheon-table at his wife, who, adjusting her +gold eye-glasses, read aloud, in the tone of high comedy: + +"Professor and Mrs. Emerson Sillerton request the pleasure of Mr. and +Mrs. Welland's company at the meeting of the Wednesday Afternoon Club +on August 25th at 3 o'clock punctually. To meet Mrs. and the Misses +Blenker. + +"Red Gables, Catherine Street. R. S. V. P." + + +"Good gracious--" Mr. Welland gasped, as if a second reading had been +necessary to bring the monstrous absurdity of the thing home to him. + +"Poor Amy Sillerton--you never can tell what her husband will do next," +Mrs. Welland sighed. "I suppose he's just discovered the Blenkers." + +Professor Emerson Sillerton was a thorn in the side of Newport +society; and a thorn that could not be plucked out, for it grew on a +venerable and venerated family tree. He was, as people said, a man +who had had "every advantage." His father was Sillerton Jackson's +uncle, his mother a Pennilow of Boston; on each side there was wealth +and position, and mutual suitability. Nothing--as Mrs. Welland had +often remarked--nothing on earth obliged Emerson Sillerton to be an +archæologist, or indeed a Professor of any sort, or to live in Newport +in winter, or do any of the other revolutionary things that he did. But +at least, if he was going to break with tradition and flout society in +the face, he need not have married poor Amy Dagonet, who had a right to +expect "something different," and money enough to keep her own carriage. + +No one in the Mingott set could understand why Amy Sillerton had +submitted so tamely to the eccentricities of a husband who filled +the house with long-haired men and short-haired women, and, when he +travelled, took her to explore tombs in Yucatan instead of going to +Paris or Italy. But there they were, set in their ways, and apparently +unaware that they were different from other people; and when they gave +one of their dreary annual garden-parties every family on the Cliffs, +because of the Sillerton-Pennilow-Dagonet connection, had to draw lots +and send an unwilling representative. + +"It's a wonder," Mrs. Welland remarked, "that they didn't choose the +Cup Race day! Do you remember, two years ago, their giving a party for +a black man on the day of Julia Mingott's _thé dansant_? Luckily this +time there's nothing else going on that I know of--for of course some +of us will have to go." + +Mr. Welland sighed nervously. "'Some of us,' my dear--more than one? +Three o'clock is such a very awkward hour. I have to be here at +half-past three to take my drops: it's really no use trying to follow +Bencomb's new treatment if I don't do it systematically; and if I join +you later, of course I shall miss my drive." At the thought he laid +down his knife and fork again, and a flush of anxiety rose to his +finely-wrinkled cheek. + +"There's no reason why you should go at all, my dear," his wife +answered with a cheerfulness that had become automatic. "I have some +cards to leave at the other end of Bellevue Avenue, and I'll drop in at +about half-past three and stay long enough to make poor Amy feel that +she hasn't been slighted." She glanced hesitatingly at her daughter. +"And if Newland's afternoon is provided for perhaps May can drive you +out with the ponies, and try their new russet harness." + +It was a principle in the Welland family that people's days and hours +should be what Mrs. Welland called "provided for." The melancholy +possibility of having to "kill time" (especially for those who did +not care for whist or solitaire) was a vision that haunted her as the +spectre of the unemployed haunts the philanthropist. Another of her +principles was that parents should never (at least visibly) interfere +with the plans of their married children; and the difficulty of +adjusting this respect for May's independence with the exigency of Mr. +Welland's claims could be overcome only by the exercise of an ingenuity +which left not a second of Mrs. Welland's own time unprovided for. + +"Of course I'll drive with Papa--I'm sure Newland will find something +to do," May said, in a tone that gently reminded her husband of his +lack of response. It was a cause of constant distress to Mrs. Welland +that her son-in-law showed so little foresight in planning his days. +Often already, during the fortnight that he had passed under her +roof, when she enquired how he meant to spend his afternoon, he had +answered paradoxically: "Oh, I think for a change I'll just save it +instead of spending it--" and once, when she and May had had to go on +a long-postponed round of afternoon calls, he had confessed to having +lain all the afternoon under a rock on the beach below the house. + +"Newland never seems to look ahead," Mrs. Welland once ventured to +complain to her daughter; and May answered serenely: "No; but you see +it doesn't matter, because when there's nothing particular to do he +reads a book." + +"Ah, yes--like his father!" Mrs. Welland agreed, as if allowing for an +inherited oddity; and after that the question of Newland's unemployment +was tacitly dropped. + +Nevertheless, as the day for the Sillerton reception approached, May +began to show a natural solicitude for his welfare, and to suggest a +tennis match at the Chiverses', or a sail on Julius Beaufort's cutter, +as a means of atoning for her temporary desertion. "I shall be back by +six, you know, dear: Papa never drives later than that--" and she was +not reassured till Archer said that he thought of hiring a run-about +and driving up the island to a stud-farm to look at a second horse for +her brougham. They had been looking for this horse for some time, and +the suggestion was so acceptable that May glanced at her mother as if +to say: "You see he knows how to plan out his time as well as any of +us." + +The idea of the stud-farm and the brougham horse had germinated in +Archer's mind on the very day when the Emerson Sillerton invitation +had first been mentioned; but he had kept it to himself as if there +were something clandestine in the plan, and discovery might prevent its +execution. He had, however, taken the precaution to engage in advance +a run-about with a pair of old livery-stable trotters that could still +do their eighteen miles on level roads; and at two o'clock, hastily +deserting the luncheon-table, he sprang into the light carriage and +drove off. + +The day was perfect. A breeze from the north drove little puffs of +white cloud across an ultramarine sky, with a bright sea running under +it. Bellevue Avenue was empty at that hour, and after dropping the +stable-lad at the corner of Mill Street Archer turned down the Old +Beach Road and drove across Eastman's Beach. + +He had the feeling of unexplained excitement with which, on +half-holidays at school, he used to start off into the unknown. Taking +his pair at an easy gait, he counted on reaching the stud-farm, which +was not far beyond Paradise Rocks, before three o'clock; so that, after +looking over the horse (and trying him if he seemed promising) he would +still have four golden hours to dispose of. + +As soon as he heard of the Sillerton's party he had said to himself +that the Marchioness Manson would certainly come to Newport with the +Blenkers, and that Madame Olenska might again take the opportunity +of spending the day with her grandmother. At any rate, the Blenker +habitation would probably be deserted, and he would be able, without +indiscretion, to satisfy a vague curiosity concerning it. He was +not sure that he wanted to see the Countess Olenska again; but ever +since he had looked at her from the path above the bay he had wanted, +irrationally and indescribably, to see the place she was living in, and +to follow the movements of her imagined figure as he had watched the +real one in the summer-house. The longing was with him day and night, +an incessant undefinable craving, like the sudden whim of a sick man +for food or drink once tasted and long since forgotten. He could not +see beyond the craving, or picture what it might lead to, for he was +not conscious of any wish to speak to Madame Olenska or to hear her +voice. He simply felt that if he could carry away the vision of the +spot of earth she walked on, and the way the sky and sea enclosed it, +the rest of the world might seem less empty. + +When he reached the stud-farm a glance showed him that the horse was +not what he wanted; nevertheless he took a turn behind it in order to +prove to himself that he was not in a hurry. But at three o'clock he +shook out the reins over the trotters and turned into the by-roads +leading to Portsmouth. The wind had dropped and a faint haze on the +horizon showed that a fog was waiting to steal up the Saconnet on the +turn of the tide; but all about him fields and woods were steeped in +golden light. + +He drove past grey-shingled farm-houses in orchards, past hay-fields +and groves of oak, past villages with white steeples rising sharply +into the fading sky; and at last, after stopping to ask the way of +some men at work in a field, he turned down a lane between high banks +of goldenrod and brambles. At the end of the lane was the blue glimmer +of the river; to the left, standing in front of a clump of oaks and +maples, he saw a long tumble-down house with white paint peeling from +its clapboards. + +On the road-side facing the gateway stood one of the open sheds in +which the New Englander shelters his farming implements and visitors +"hitch" their "teams." Archer, jumping down, led his pair into the +shed, and after tying them to a post turned toward the house. The +patch of lawn before it had relapsed into a hay-field; but to the +left an overgrown box-garden full of dahlias and rusty rose-bushes +encircled a ghostly summer-house of trellis-work that had once been +white, surmounted by a wooden Cupid who had lost his bow and arrow but +continued to take ineffectual aim. + +Archer leaned for a while against the gate. No one was in sight, +and not a sound came from the open windows of the house: a grizzled +Newfoundland dozing before the door seemed as ineffectual a guardian as +the arrowless Cupid. It was strange to think that this place of silence +and decay was the home of the turbulent Blenkers; yet Archer was sure +that he was not mistaken. + +For a long time he stood there, content to take in the scene, and +gradually falling under its drowsy spell; but at length he roused +himself to the sense of the passing time. Should he look his fill and +then drive away? He stood irresolute, wishing suddenly to see the +inside of the house, so that he might picture the room that Madame +Olenska sat in. There was nothing to prevent his walking up to the door +and ringing the bell; if, as he supposed, she was away with the rest of +the party, he could easily give his name, and ask permission to go into +the sitting-room to write a message. + +But instead, he crossed the lawn and turned toward the box-garden. +As he entered it he caught sight of something bright-coloured in the +summer-house, and presently made it out to be a pink parasol. The +parasol drew him like a magnet: he was sure it was hers. He went into +the summer-house, and sitting down on the rickety seat picked up the +silken thing and looked at its carved handle, which was made of some +rare wood that gave out an aromatic scent. Archer lifted the handle to +his lips. + +He heard a rustle of skirts against the box, and sat motionless, +leaning on the parasol handle with clasped hands, and letting the +rustle come nearer without lifting his eyes. He had always known that +this must happen ... + +"Oh, Mr. Archer!" exclaimed a loud young voice; and looking up he saw +before him the youngest and largest of the Blenker girls, blonde and +blowsy, in bedraggled muslin. A red blotch on one of her cheeks seemed +to show that it had recently been pressed against a pillow, and her +half-awakened eyes stared at him hospitably but confusedly. + +"Gracious--where did you drop from? I must have been sound asleep in +the hammock. Everybody else has gone to Newport. Did you ring?" she +incoherently enquired. + +Archer's confusion was greater than hers. "I--no--that is, I was just +going to. I had to come up the island to see about a horse, and I drove +over on a chance of finding Mrs. Blenker and your visitors. But the +house seemed empty--so I sat down to wait." + +Miss Blenker, shaking off the fumes of sleep, looked at him with +increasing interest. "The house _is_ empty. Mother's not here, or the +Marchioness--or anybody but me." Her glance became faintly reproachful. +"Didn't you know that Professor and Mrs. Sillerton are giving a +garden-party for mother and all of us this afternoon? It was too +unlucky that I couldn't go; but I've had a sore throat, and mother was +afraid of the drive home this evening. Did you ever know anything so +disappointing? Of course," she added gaily, "I shouldn't have minded +half as much if I'd known you were coming." + +Symptoms of a lumbering coquetry became visible in her, and Archer +found the strength to break in: "But Madame Olenska--has she gone to +Newport too?" + +Miss Blenker looked at him with surprise. "Madame Olenska--didn't you +know she'd been called away?" + +"Called away?--" + +"Oh, my best parasol! I lent it to that goose of a Katie, because it +matched her ribbons, and the careless thing must have dropped it here. +We Blenkers are all like that ... real Bohemians!" Recovering the +sunshade with a powerful hand she unfurled it and suspended its rosy +dome above her head. "Yes, Ellen was called away yesterday: she lets +us call her Ellen, you know. A telegram came from Boston: she said she +might be gone for two days. I do _love_ the way she does her hair, don't +you?" Miss Blenker rambled on. + +Archer continued to stare through her as though she had been +transparent. All he saw was the trumpery parasol that arched its +pinkness above her giggling head. + +After a moment he ventured: "You don't happen to know why Madame +Olenska went to Boston? I hope it was not on account of bad news?" + +Miss Blenker took this with a cheerful incredulity. "Oh, I don't +believe so. She didn't tell us what was in the telegram. I think she +didn't want the Marchioness to know. She's so romantic-looking, isn't +she? Doesn't she remind you of Mrs. Scott-Siddons when she reads 'Lady +Geraldine's Courtship'? Did you never hear her?" + +Archer was dealing hurriedly with crowding thoughts. His whole future +seemed suddenly to be unrolled before him; and passing down its endless +emptiness he saw the dwindling figure of a man to whom nothing was ever +to happen. He glanced about him at the unpruned garden, the tumble-down +house, and the oak-grove under which the dusk was gathering. It had +seemed so exactly the place in which he ought to have found Madame +Olenska; and she was far away, and even the pink sunshade was not hers +... + +He frowned and hesitated. "You don't know, I suppose--I shall be in +Boston tomorrow. If I could manage to see her--" + +He felt that Miss Blenker was losing interest in him, though her smile +persisted. "Oh, of course; how lovely of you! She's staying at the +Parker House; it must be horrible there in this weather." + +After that Archer was but intermittently aware of the remarks they +exchanged. He could only remember stoutly resisting her entreaty that +he should await the returning family and have high tea with them before +he drove home. At length, with his hostess still at his side, he passed +out of range of the wooden Cupid, unfastened his horses and drove off. +At the turn of the lane he saw Miss Blenker standing at the gate and +waving the pink parasol. + + + + +XXIII. + + +The next morning, when Archer got out of the Fall River train, he +emerged upon a steaming midsummer Boston. The streets near the station +were full of the smell of beer and coffee and decaying fruit and a +shirt-sleeved populace moved through them with the intimate abandon of +boarders going down the passage to the bathroom. + +Archer found a cab and drove to the Somerset Club for breakfast. Even +the fashionable quarters had the air of untidy domesticity to which +no excess of heat ever degrades the European cities. Care-takers in +calico lounged on the door-steps of the wealthy, and the Common looked +like a pleasure-ground on the morrow of a Masonic picnic. If Archer had +tried to imagine Ellen Olenska in improbable scenes he could not have +called up any into which it was more difficult to fit her than this +heat-prostrated and deserted Boston. + +He breakfasted with appetite and method, beginning with a slice of +melon, and studying a morning paper while he waited for his toast +and scrambled eggs. A new sense of energy and activity had possessed +him ever since he had announced to May the night before that he had +business in Boston, and should take the Fall River boat that night and +go on to New York the following evening. It had always been understood +that he would return to town early in the week, and when he got back +from his expedition to Portsmouth a letter from the office, which fate +had conspicuously placed on a corner of the hall table, sufficed to +justify his sudden change of plan. He was even ashamed of the ease +with which the whole thing had been done: it reminded him, for an +uncomfortable moment, of Lawrence Lefferts's masterly contrivances for +securing his freedom. But this did not long trouble him, for he was not +in an analytic mood. + +After breakfast he smoked a cigarette and glanced over the Commercial +Advertiser. While he was thus engaged two or three men he knew came in, +and the usual greetings were exchanged: it was the same world after +all, though he had such a queer sense of having slipped through the +meshes of time and space. + +He looked at his watch, and finding that it was half-past nine got up +and went into the writing-room. There he wrote a few lines, and ordered +a messenger to take a cab to the Parker House and wait for the answer. +He then sat down behind another newspaper and tried to calculate how +long it would take a cab to get to the Parker House. + +"The lady was out, sir," he suddenly heard a waiter's voice at his +elbow; and he stammered: "Out?--" as if it were a word in a strange +language. + +He got up and went into the hall. It must be a mistake: she could not +be out at that hour. He flushed with anger at his own stupidity: why +had he not sent the note as soon as he arrived? + +He found his hat and stick and went forth into the street. The city had +suddenly become as strange and vast and empty as if he were a traveller +from distant lands. For a moment he stood on the door-step hesitating; +then he decided to go to the Parker House. What if the messenger had +been misinformed, and she were still there? + +He started to walk across the Common; and on the first bench, under +a tree, he saw her sitting. She had a grey silk sunshade over her +head--how could he ever have imagined her with a pink one? As he +approached he was struck by her listless attitude: she sat there as +if she had nothing else to do. He saw her drooping profile, and the +knot of hair fastened low in the neck under her dark hat, and the long +wrinkled glove on the hand that held the sunshade. He came a step or +two nearer, and she turned and looked at him. + +"Oh"--she said; and for the first time he noticed a startled look on +her face; but in another moment it gave way to a slow smile of wonder +and contentment. + +"Oh"--she murmured again, on a different note, as he stood looking down +at her; and without rising she made a place for him on the bench. + +"I'm here on business--just got here," Archer explained; and, without +knowing why, he suddenly began to feign astonishment at seeing her. +"But what on earth are you doing in this wilderness?" He had really no +idea what he was saying: he felt as if he were shouting at her across +endless distances, and she might vanish again before he could overtake +her. + +"I? Oh, I'm here on business too," she answered, turning her head +toward him so that they were face to face. The words hardly reached +him: he was aware only of her voice, and of the startling fact that not +an echo of it had remained in his memory. He had not even remembered +that it was low-pitched, with a faint roughness on the consonants. + +"You do your hair differently," he said, his heart beating as if he had +uttered something irrevocable. + +"Differently? No--it's only that I do it as best I can when I'm without +Nastasia." + +"Nastasia; but isn't she with you?" + +"No; I'm alone. For two days it was not worth while to bring her." + +"You're alone--at the Parker House?" + +She looked at him with a flash of her old malice. "Does it strike you +as dangerous?" + +"No; not dangerous--" + +"But unconventional? I see; I suppose it is." She considered a moment. +"I hadn't thought of it, because I've just done something so much more +unconventional." The faint tinge of irony lingered in her eyes. "I've +just refused to take back a sum of money--that belonged to me." + +Archer sprang up and moved a step or two away. She had furled her +parasol and sat absently drawing patterns on the gravel. Presently he +came back and stood before her. + +"Some one--has come here to meet you?" + +"Yes." + +"With this offer?" + +She nodded. + +"And you refused--because of the conditions?" + +"I refused," she said after a moment. + +He sat down by her again. "What were the conditions?" + +"Oh, they were not onerous: just to sit at the head of his table now +and then." + +There was another interval of silence. Archer's heart had slammed +itself shut in the queer way it had, and he sat vainly groping for a +word. + +"He wants you back--at any price?" + +"Well--a considerable price. At least the sum is considerable for me." + +He paused again, beating about the question he felt he must put. + +"It was to meet him here that you came?" + +She stared, and then burst into a laugh. "Meet him--my husband? _Here_? +At this season he's always at Cowes or Baden." + +"He sent some one?" + +"Yes." + +"With a letter?" + +She shook her head. "No; just a message. He never writes. I don't think +I've had more than one letter from him." The allusion brought the +colour to her cheek, and it reflected itself in Archer's vivid blush. + +"Why does he never write?" + +"Why should he? What does one have secretaries for?" + +The young man's blush deepened. She had pronounced the word as if it +had no more significance than any other in her vocabulary. For a moment +it was on the tip of his tongue to ask: "Did he send his secretary, +then?" But the remembrance of Count Olenski's only letter to his wife +was too present to him. He paused again, and then took another plunge. + +"And the person?"-- + +"The emissary? The emissary," Madame Olenska rejoined, still smiling, +"might, for all I care, have left already; but he has insisted on +waiting till this evening ... in case ... on the chance ..." + +"And you came out here to think the chance over?" + +"I came out to get a breath of air. The hotel's too stifling. I'm +taking the afternoon train back to Portsmouth." + +They sat silent, not looking at each other, but straight ahead at the +people passing along the path. Finally she turned her eyes again to his +face and said: "You're not changed." + +He felt like answering: "I was, till I saw you again;" but instead he +stood up abruptly and glanced about him at the untidy sweltering park. + +"This is horrible. Why shouldn't we go out a little on the bay? There's +a breeze, and it will be cooler. We might take the steamboat down to +Point Arley." She glanced up at him hesitatingly and he went on: "On +a Monday morning there won't be anybody on the boat. My train doesn't +leave till evening: I'm going back to New York. Why shouldn't we?" he +insisted, looking down at her; and suddenly he broke out: "Haven't we +done all we could?" + +"Oh"--she murmured again. She stood up and reopened her sunshade, +glancing about her as if to take counsel of the scene, and assure +herself of the impossibility of remaining in it. Then her eyes returned +to his face. "You mustn't say things like that to me," she said. + +"I'll say anything you like; or nothing. I won't open my mouth unless +you tell me to. What harm can it do to anybody? All I want is to listen +to you," he stammered. + +She drew out a little gold-faced watch on an enamelled chain. "Oh, +don't calculate," he broke out; "give me the day! I want to get you +away from that man. At what time was he coming?" + +Her colour rose again. "At eleven." + +"Then you must come at once." + +"You needn't be afraid--if I don't come." + +"Nor you either--if you do. I swear I only want to hear about you, to +know what you've been doing. It's a hundred years since we've met--it +may be another hundred before we meet again." + +She still wavered, her anxious eyes on his face. "Why didn't you come +down to the beach to fetch me, the day I was at Granny's?" she asked. + +"Because you didn't look round--because you didn't know I was there. +I swore I wouldn't unless you looked round." He laughed as the +childishness of the confession struck him. + +"But I didn't look round on purpose." + +"On purpose?" + +"I knew you were there; when you drove in I recognised the ponies. So I +went down to the beach." + +"To get away from me as far as you could?" + +She repeated in a low voice: "To get away from you as far as I could." + +He laughed out again, this time in boyish satisfaction. "Well, you see +it's no use. I may as well tell you," he added, "that the business I +came here for was just to find you. But, look here, we must start or we +shall miss our boat." + +"Our boat?" She frowned perplexedly, and then smiled. "Oh, but I must +go back to the hotel first: I must leave a note--" + +"As many notes as you please. You can write here." He drew out a +note-case and one of the new stylographic pens. "I've even got an +envelope--you see how everything's predestined! There--steady the thing +on your knee, and I'll get the pen going in a second. They have to be +humoured; wait--" He banged the hand that held the pen against the back +of the bench. "It's like jerking down the mercury in a thermometer: +just a trick. Now try--" + +She laughed, and bending over the sheet of paper which he had laid on +his note-case, began to write. Archer walked away a few steps, staring +with radiant unseeing eyes at the passersby, who, in their turn, paused +to stare at the unwonted sight of a fashionably-dressed lady writing a +note on her knee on a bench in the Common. + +Madame Olenska slipped the sheet into the envelope, wrote a name on it, +and put it into her pocket. Then she too stood up. + +They walked back toward Beacon Street, and near the club Archer caught +sight of the plush-lined "herdic" which had carried his note to the +Parker House, and whose driver was reposing from this effort by bathing +his brow at the corner hydrant. + +"I told you everything was predestined! Here's a cab for us. You +see!" They laughed, astonished at the miracle of picking up a public +conveyance at that hour, and in that unlikely spot, in a city where +cab-stands were still a "foreign" novelty. + +Archer, looking at his watch, saw that there was time to drive to +the Parker House before going to the steamboat landing. They rattled +through the hot streets and drew up at the door of the hotel. + +Archer held out his hand for the letter. "Shall I take it in?" he +asked; but Madame Olenska, shaking her head, sprang out and disappeared +through the glazed doors. It was barely half-past ten; but what if the +emissary, impatient for her reply, and not knowing how else to employ +his time, were already seated among the travellers with cooling drinks +at their elbows of whom Archer had caught a glimpse as she went in? + +He waited, pacing up and down before the herdic. A Sicilian youth with +eyes like Nastasia's offered to shine his boots, and an Irish matron +to sell him peaches; and every few moments the doors opened to let out +hot men with straw hats tilted far back, who glanced at him as they +went by. He marvelled that the door should open so often, and that all +the people it let out should look so like each other, and so like all +the other hot men who, at that hour, through the length and breadth of +the land, were passing continuously in and out of the swinging doors of +hotels. + +And then, suddenly, came a face that he could not relate to the other +faces. He caught but a flash of it, for his pacings had carried him +to the farthest point of his beat, and it was in turning back to the +hotel that he saw, in a group of typical countenances--the lank and +weary, the round and surprised, the lantern-jawed and mild--this other +face that was so many more things at once, and things so different. It +was that of a young man, pale too, and half-extinguished by the heat, +or worry, or both, but somehow, quicker, vivider, more conscious; or +perhaps seeming so because he was so different. Archer hung a moment +on a thin thread of memory, but it snapped and floated off with the +disappearing face--apparently that of some foreign business man, +looking doubly foreign in such a setting. He vanished in the stream of +passersby, and Archer resumed his patrol. + +He did not care to be seen watch in hand within view of the hotel, and +his unaided reckoning of the lapse of time led him to conclude that, if +Madame Olenska was so long in reappearing, it could only be because she +had met the emissary and been waylaid by him. At the thought Archer's +apprehension rose to anguish. + +"If she doesn't come soon I'll go in and find her," he said. + +The doors swung open again and she was at his side. They got into the +herdic, and as it drove off he took out his watch and saw that she had +been absent just three minutes. In the clatter of loose windows that +made talk impossible they bumped over the disjointed cobblestones to +the wharf. + + +Seated side by side on a bench of the half-empty boat they found that +they had hardly anything to say to each other, or rather that what they +had to say communicated itself best in the blessed silence of their +release and their isolation. + +As the paddle-wheels began to turn, and wharves and shipping to recede +through the veil of heat, it seemed to Archer that everything in the +old familiar world of habit was receding also. He longed to ask Madame +Olenska if she did not have the same feeling: the feeling that they +were starting on some long voyage from which they might never return. +But he was afraid to say it, or anything else that might disturb the +delicate balance of her trust in him. In reality he had no wish to +betray that trust. There had been days and nights when the memory of +their kiss had burned and burned on his lips; the day before even, on +the drive to Portsmouth, the thought of her had run through him like +fire; but now that she was beside him, and they were drifting forth +into this unknown world, they seemed to have reached the kind of deeper +nearness that a touch may sunder. + +As the boat left the harbour and turned seaward a breeze stirred about +them and the bay broke up into long oily undulations, then into ripples +tipped with spray. The fog of sultriness still hung over the city, but +ahead lay a fresh world of ruffled waters, and distant promontories +with light-houses in the sun. Madame Olenska, leaning back against the +boat-rail, drank in the coolness between parted lips. She had wound a +long veil about her hat, but it left her face uncovered, and Archer +was struck by the tranquil gaiety of her expression. She seemed to +take their adventure as a matter of course, and to be neither in fear +of unexpected encounters, nor (what was worse) unduly elated by their +possibility. + +In the bare dining-room of the inn, which he had hoped they would +have to themselves, they found a strident party of innocent-looking +young men and women--school-teachers on a holiday, the landlord told +them--and Archer's heart sank at the idea of having to talk through +their noise. + +"This is hopeless--I'll ask for a private room," he said; and Madame +Olenska, without offering any objection, waited while he went in +search of it. The room opened on a long wooden verandah, with the sea +coming in at the windows. It was bare and cool, with a table covered +with a coarse checkered cloth and adorned by a bottle of pickles +and a blueberry pie under a cage. No more guileless-looking _cabinet +particulier_ ever offered its shelter to a clandestine couple: Archer +fancied he saw the sense of its reassurance in the faintly amused smile +with which Madame Olenska sat down opposite to him. A woman who had run +away from her husband--and reputedly with another man--was likely to +have mastered the art of taking things for granted; but something in +the quality of her composure took the edge from his irony. By being so +quiet, so unsurprised and so simple she had managed to brush away the +conventions and make him feel that to seek to be alone was the natural +thing for two old friends who had so much to say to each other.... + + + + +XXIV. + + +They lunched slowly and meditatively, with mute intervals between +rushes of talk; for, the spell once broken, they had much to say, +and yet moments when saying became the mere accompaniment to long +duologues of silence. Archer kept the talk from his own affairs, not +with conscious intention but because he did not want to miss a word of +her history; and leaning on the table, her chin resting on her clasped +hands, she talked to him of the year and a half since they had met. + +She had grown tired of what people called "society"; New York was kind, +it was almost oppressively hospitable; she should never forget the way +in which it had welcomed her back; but after the first flush of novelty +she had found herself, as she phrased it, too "different" to care for +the things it cared about--and so she had decided to try Washington, +where one was supposed to meet more varieties of people and of opinion. +And on the whole she should probably settle down in Washington, and +make a home there for poor Medora, who had worn out the patience of all +her other relations just at the time when she most needed looking after +and protecting from matrimonial perils. + +"But Dr. Carver--aren't you afraid of Dr. Carver? I hear he's been +staying with you at the Blenkers'." + +She smiled. "Oh, the Carver danger is over. Dr. Carver is a very clever +man. He wants a rich wife to finance his plans, and Medora is simply a +good advertisement as a convert." + +"A convert to what?" + +"To all sorts of new and crazy social schemes. But, do you know, they +interest me more than the blind conformity to tradition--somebody +else's tradition--that I see among our own friends. It seems stupid +to have discovered America only to make it into a copy of another +country." She smiled across the table. "Do you suppose Christopher +Columbus would have taken all that trouble just to go to the Opera with +the Selfridge Merrys?" + +Archer changed colour. "And Beaufort--do you say these things to +Beaufort?" he asked abruptly. + +"I haven't seen him for a long time. But I used to; and he understands." + +"Ah, it's what I've always told you; you don't like us. And you like +Beaufort because he's so unlike us." He looked about the bare room and +out at the bare beach and the row of stark white village houses strung +along the shore. "We're damnably dull. We've no character, no colour, +no variety.--I wonder," he broke out, "why you don't go back?" + +Her eyes darkened, and he expected an indignant rejoinder. But she sat +silent, as if thinking over what he had said, and he grew frightened +lest she should answer that she wondered too. + +At length she said: "I believe it's because of you." + +It was impossible to make the confession more dispassionately, or in +a tone less encouraging to the vanity of the person addressed. Archer +reddened to the temples, but dared not move or speak: it was as if her +words had been some rare butterfly that the least motion might drive +off on startled wings, but that might gather a flock about it if it +were left undisturbed. + +"At least," she continued, "it was you who made me understand that +under the dullness there are things so fine and sensitive and delicate +that even those I most cared for in my other life look cheap in +comparison. I don't know how to explain myself"--she drew together her +troubled brows--"but it seems as if I'd never before understood with +how much that is hard and shabby and base the most exquisite pleasures +may be paid." + +"Exquisite pleasures--it's something to have had them!" he felt like +retorting; but the appeal in her eyes kept him silent. + +"I want," she went on, "to be perfectly honest with you--and with +myself. For a long time I've hoped this chance would come: that I might +tell you how you've helped me, what you've made of me--" + +Archer sat staring beneath frowning brows. He interrupted her with a +laugh. "And what do you make out that you've made of me?" + +She paled a little. "Of you?" + +"Yes: for I'm of your making much more than you ever were of mine. I'm +the man who married one woman because another one told him to." + +Her paleness turned to a fugitive flush. "I thought--you promised--you +were not to say such things today." + +"Ah--how like a woman! None of you will ever see a bad business +through!" + +She lowered her voice. "_is_ it a bad business--for May?" + +He stood in the window, drumming against the raised sash, and feeling +in every fibre the wistful tenderness with which she had spoken her +cousin's name. + +"For that's the thing we've always got to think of--haven't we--by your +own showing?" she insisted. + +"My own showing?" he echoed, his blank eyes still on the sea. + +"Or if not," she continued, pursuing her own thought with a painful +application, "if it's not worth while to have given up, to have +missed things, so that others may be saved from disillusionment and +misery--then everything I came home for, everything that made my other +life seem by contrast so bare and so poor because no one there took +account of them--all these things are a sham or a dream--" + +He turned around without moving from his place. "And in that case +there's no reason on earth why you shouldn't go back?" he concluded for +her. + +Her eyes were clinging to him desperately. "Oh, _is_ there no reason?" + +"Not if you staked your all on the success of my marriage. My +marriage," he said savagely, "isn't going to be a sight to keep you +here." She made no answer, and he went on: "What's the use? You gave me +my first glimpse of a real life, and at the same moment you asked me to +go on with a sham one. It's beyond human enduring--that's all." + +"Oh, don't say that; when I'm enduring it!" she burst out, her eyes +filling. + +Her arms had dropped along the table, and she sat with her face +abandoned to his gaze as if in the recklessness of a desperate peril. +The face exposed her as much as if it had been her whole person, with +the soul behind it: Archer stood dumb, overwhelmed by what it suddenly +told him. + +"You too--oh, all this time, you too?" + +For answer, she let the tears on her lids overflow and run slowly +downward. + +Half the width of the room was still between them, and neither made any +show of moving. Archer was conscious of a curious indifference to her +bodily presence: he would hardly have been aware of it if one of the +hands she had flung out on the table had not drawn his gaze as on the +occasion when, in the little Twenty-third Street house, he had kept +his eye on it in order not to look at her face. Now his imagination +spun about the hand as about the edge of a vortex; but still he made no +effort to draw nearer. He had known the love that is fed on caresses +and feeds them; but this passion that was closer than his bones was not +to be superficially satisfied. His one terror was to do anything which +might efface the sound and impression of her words; his one thought, +that he should never again feel quite alone. + +But after a moment the sense of waste and ruin overcame him. There they +were, close together and safe and shut in; yet so chained to their +separate destinies that they might as well have been half the world +apart. + +"What's the use--when you will go back?" he broke out, a great hopeless +_How on earth can I keep you?_ crying out to her beneath his words. + +She sat motionless, with lowered lids. "Oh--I shan't go yet!" + +"Not yet? Some time, then? Some time that you already foresee?" + +At that she raised her clearest eyes. "I promise you: not as long as +you hold out. Not as long as we can look straight at each other like +this." + +He dropped into his chair. What her answer really said was: "If you +lift a finger you'll drive me back: back to all the abominations +you know of, and all the temptations you half guess." He understood +it as clearly as if she had uttered the words, and the thought kept +him anchored to his side of the table in a kind of moved and sacred +submission. + +"What a life for you!--" he groaned. + +"Oh--as long as it's a part of yours." + +"And mine a part of yours?" + +She nodded. + +"And that's to be all--for either of us?" + +"Well; it _is_ all, isn't it?" + +At that he sprang up, forgetting everything but the sweetness of her +face. She rose too, not as if to meet him or to flee from him, but +quietly, as though the worst of the task were done and she had only +to wait; so quietly that, as he came close, her outstretched hands +acted not as a check but as a guide to him. They fell into his, while +her arms, extended but not rigid, kept him far enough off to let her +surrendered face say the rest. + +They may have stood in that way for a long time, or only for a few +moments; but it was long enough for her silence to communicate all she +had to say, and for him to feel that only one thing mattered. He must +do nothing to make this meeting their last; he must leave their future +in her care, asking only that she should keep fast hold of it. + +"Don't--don't be unhappy," she said, with a break in her voice, as she +drew her hands away; and he answered: "You won't go back--you won't go +back?" as if it were the one possibility he could not bear. + +"I won't go back," she said; and turning away she opened the door and +led the way into the public dining-room. + +The strident school-teachers were gathering up their possessions +preparatory to a straggling flight to the wharf; across the beach lay +the white steam-boat at the pier; and over the sunlit waters Boston +loomed in a line of haze. + + + + +XXV. + + +Once more on the boat, and in the presence of others, Archer felt a +tranquillity of spirit that surprised as much as it sustained him. + +The day, according to any current valuation, had been a rather +ridiculous failure; he had not so much as touched Madame Olenska's hand +with his lips, or extracted one word from her that gave promise of +farther opportunities. Nevertheless, for a man sick with unsatisfied +love, and parting for an indefinite period from the object of his +passion, he felt himself almost humiliatingly calm and comforted. +It was the perfect balance she had held between their loyalty to +others and their honesty to themselves that had so stirred and yet +tranquillized him; a balance not artfully calculated, as her tears +and her falterings showed, but resulting naturally from her unabashed +sincerity. It filled him with a tender awe, now the danger was over, +and made him thank the fates that no personal vanity, no sense of +playing a part before sophisticated witnesses, had tempted him to tempt +her. Even after they had clasped hands for good-bye at the Fall River +station, and he had turned away alone, the conviction remained with him +of having saved out of their meeting much more than he had sacrificed. + +He wandered back to the club, and went and sat alone in the deserted +library, turning and turning over in his thoughts every separate second +of their hours together. It was clear to him, and it grew more clear +under closer scrutiny, that if she should finally decide on returning +to Europe--returning to her husband--it would not be because her old +life tempted her, even on the new terms offered. No: she would go only +if she felt herself becoming a temptation to Archer, a temptation to +fall away from the standard they had both set up. Her choice would be +to stay near him as long as he did not ask her to come nearer; and it +depended on himself to keep her just there, safe but secluded. + +In the train these thoughts were still with him. They enclosed him +in a kind of golden haze, through which the faces about him looked +remote and indistinct: he had a feeling that if he spoke to his +fellow-travellers they would not understand what he was saying. In this +state of abstraction he found himself, the following morning, waking to +the reality of a stifling September day in New York. The heat-withered +faces in the long train streamed past him, and he continued to stare +at them through the same golden blur; but suddenly, as he left the +station, one of the faces detached itself, came closer and forced +itself upon his consciousness. It was, as he instantly recalled, the +face of the young man he had seen, the day before, passing out of the +Parker House, and had noted as not conforming to type, as not having an +American hotel face. + +The same thing struck him now; and again he became aware of a dim stir +of former associations. The young man stood looking about him with the +dazed air of the foreigner flung upon the harsh mercies of American +travel; then he advanced toward Archer, lifted his hat, and said in +English: "Surely, Monsieur, we met in London?" + +"Ah, to be sure: in London!" Archer grasped his hand with curiosity +and sympathy. "So you _did_ get here, after all?" he exclaimed, casting +a wondering eye on the astute and haggard little countenance of young +Carfry's French tutor. + +"Oh, I got here--yes," M. Rivière smiled with drawn lips. "But not for +long; I return the day after tomorrow." He stood grasping his light +valise in one neatly gloved hand, and gazing anxiously, perplexedly, +almost appealingly, into Archer's face. + +"I wonder, Monsieur, since I've had the good luck to run across you, if +I might--" + +"I was just going to suggest it: come to luncheon, won't you? Down +town, I mean: if you'll look me up in my office I'll take you to a very +decent restaurant in that quarter." + +M. Rivière was visibly touched and surprised. "You're too kind. But I +was only going to ask if you would tell me how to reach some sort of +conveyance. There are no porters, and no one here seems to listen--" + +"I know: our American stations must surprise you. When you ask for +a porter they give you chewing-gum. But if you'll come along I'll +extricate you; and you must really lunch with me, you know." + +The young man, after a just perceptible hesitation, replied, with +profuse thanks, and in a tone that did not carry complete conviction, +that he was already engaged; but when they had reached the comparative +reassurance of the street he asked if he might call that afternoon. + +Archer, at ease in the midsummer leisure of the office, fixed an hour +and scribbled his address, which the Frenchman pocketed with reiterated +thanks and a wide flourish of his hat. A horse-car received him, and +Archer walked away. + +Punctually at the hour M. Rivière appeared, shaved, smoothed-out, but +still unmistakably drawn and serious. Archer was alone in his office, +and the young man, before accepting the seat he proffered, began +abruptly: "I believe I saw you, sir, yesterday in Boston." + +The statement was insignificant enough, and Archer was about to frame +an assent when his words were checked by something mysterious yet +illuminating in his visitor's insistent gaze. + +"It is extraordinary, very extraordinary," M. Rivière continued, "that +we should have met in the circumstances in which I find myself." + +"What circumstances?" Archer asked, wondering a little crudely if he +needed money. + +M. Rivière continued to study him with tentative eyes. "I have come, +not to look for employment, as I spoke of doing when we last met, but +on a special mission--" + +"Ah--!" Archer exclaimed. In a flash the two meetings had connected +themselves in his mind. He paused to take in the situation thus +suddenly lighted up for him, and M. Rivière also remained silent, as if +aware that what he had said was enough. + +"A special mission," Archer at length repeated. + +The young Frenchman, opening his palms, raised them slightly, and the +two men continued to look at each other across the office-desk till +Archer roused himself to say: "Do sit down"; whereupon M. Rivière +bowed, took a distant chair, and again waited. + +"It was about this mission that you wanted to consult me?" Archer +finally asked. + +M. Rivière bent his head. "Not in my own behalf: on that score I--I +have fully dealt with myself. I should like--if I may--to speak to you +about the Countess Olenska." + +Archer had known for the last few minutes that the words were coming; +but when they came they sent the blood rushing to his temples as if he +had been caught by a bent-back branch in a thicket. + +"And on whose behalf," he said, "do you wish to do this?" + +M. Rivière met the question sturdily. "Well--I might say _hers_, if +it did not sound like a liberty. Shall I say instead: on behalf of +abstract justice?" + +Archer considered him ironically. "In other words: you are Count +Olenski's messenger?" + +He saw his blush more darkly reflected in M. Rivière's sallow +countenance. "Not to _you_, Monsieur. If I come to you, it is on quite +other grounds." + +"What right have you, in the circumstances, to _be_ on any other ground?" +Archer retorted. "If you're an emissary you're an emissary." + +The young man considered. "My mission is over: as far as the Countess +Olenska goes, it has failed." + +"I can't help that," Archer rejoined on the same note of irony. + +"No: but you can help--" M. Rivière paused, turned his hat about in +his still carefully gloved hands, looked into its lining and then back +at Archer's face. "You can help, Monsieur, I am convinced, to make it +equally a failure with her family." + +Archer pushed back his chair and stood up. "Well--and by God I will!" +he exclaimed. He stood with his hands in his pockets, staring down +wrathfully at the little Frenchman, whose face, though he too had +risen, was still an inch or two below the line of Archer's eyes. + +M. Rivière paled to his normal hue: paler than that his complexion +could hardly turn. + +"Why the devil," Archer explosively continued, "should you have +thought--since I suppose you're appealing to me on the ground of my +relationship to Madame Olenska--that I should take a view contrary to +the rest of her family?" + +The change of expression in M. Rivière's face was for a time his only +answer. His look passed from timidity to absolute distress: for a young +man of his usually resourceful mien it would have been difficult to +appear more disarmed and defenceless. "Oh, Monsieur--" + +"I can't imagine," Archer continued, "why you should have come to me +when there are others so much nearer to the Countess; still less why +you thought I should be more accessible to the arguments I suppose you +were sent over with." + +M. Rivière took this onslaught with a disconcerting humility. "The +arguments I want to present to you, Monsieur, are my own and not those +I was sent over with." + +"Then I see still less reason for listening to them." + +M. Rivière again looked into his hat, as if considering whether these +last words were not a sufficiently broad hint to put it on and be gone. +Then he spoke with sudden decision. "Monsieur--will you tell me one +thing? Is it my right to be here that you question? Or do you perhaps +believe the whole matter to be already closed?" + +His quiet insistence made Archer feel the clumsiness of his own +bluster. M. Rivière had succeeded in imposing himself: Archer, +reddening slightly, dropped into his chair again, and signed to the +young man to be seated. + +"I beg your pardon: but why isn't the matter closed?" + +M. Rivière gazed back at him with anguish. "You do, then, agree with +the rest of the family that, in face of the new proposals I have +brought, it is hardly possible for Madame Olenska not to return to her +husband?" + +"Good God!" Archer exclaimed; and his visitor gave out a low murmur of +confirmation. + +"Before seeing her, I saw--at Count Olenski's request--Mr. Lovell +Mingott, with whom I had several talks before going to Boston. I +understand that he represents his mother's view; and that Mrs. Manson +Mingott's influence is great throughout her family." + +Archer sat silent, with the sense of clinging to the edge of a sliding +precipice. The discovery that he had been excluded from a share in +these negotiations, and even from the knowledge that they were on foot, +caused him a surprise hardly dulled by the acuter wonder of what he was +learning. He saw in a flash that if the family had ceased to consult +him it was because some deep tribal instinct warned them that he was no +longer on their side; and he recalled, with a start of comprehension, +a remark of May's during their drive home from Mrs. Manson Mingott's +on the day of the Archery Meeting: "Perhaps, after all, Ellen would be +happier with her husband." + +Even in the tumult of new discoveries Archer remembered his indignant +exclamation, and the fact that since then his wife had never named +Madame Olenska to him. Her careless allusion had no doubt been the +straw held up to see which way the wind blew; the result had been +reported to the family, and thereafter Archer had been tacitly omitted +from their counsels. He admired the tribal discipline which made +May bow to this decision. She would not have done so, he knew, had +her conscience protested; but she probably shared the family view +that Madame Olenska would be better off as an unhappy wife than as a +separated one, and that there was no use in discussing the case with +Newland, who had an awkward way of suddenly not seeming to take the +most fundamental things for granted. + +Archer looked up and met his visitor's anxious gaze. "Don't you know, +Monsieur--is it possible you don't know--that the family begin to doubt +if they have the right to advise the Countess to refuse her husband's +last proposals?" + +"The proposals you brought?" + +"The proposals I brought." + +It was on Archer's lips to exclaim that whatever he knew or did not +know was no concern of M. Rivière's; but something in the humble and +yet courageous tenacity of M. Rivière's gaze made him reject this +conclusion, and he met the young man's question with another. "What is +your object in speaking to me of this?" + +He had not to wait a moment for the answer. "To beg you, Monsieur--to +beg you with all the force I'm capable of--not to let her go back.--Oh, +don't let her!" M. Rivière exclaimed. + +Archer looked at him with increasing astonishment. There was no +mistaking the sincerity of his distress or the strength of his +determination: he had evidently resolved to let everything go by the +board but the supreme need of thus putting himself on record. Archer +considered. + +"May I ask," he said at length, "if this is the line you took with the +Countess Olenska?" + +M. Rivière reddened, but his eyes did not falter. "No, Monsieur: I +accepted my mission in good faith. I really believed--for reasons I +need not trouble you with--that it would be better for Madame Olenska +to recover her situation, her fortune, the social consideration that +her husband's standing gives her." + +"So I supposed: you could hardly have accepted such a mission +otherwise." + +"I should not have accepted it." + +"Well, then--?" Archer paused again, and their eyes met in another +protracted scrutiny. + +"Ah, Monsieur, after I had seen her, after I had listened to her, I +knew she was better off here." + +"You knew--?" + +"Monsieur, I discharged my mission faithfully: I put the Count's +arguments, I stated his offers, without adding any comment of my own. +The Countess was good enough to listen patiently; she carried her +goodness so far as to see me twice; she considered impartially all I +had come to say. And it was in the course of these two talks that I +changed my mind, that I came to see things differently." + +"May I ask what led to this change?" + +"Simply seeing the change in _her_," M. Rivière replied. + +"The change in her? Then you knew her before?" + +The young man's colour again rose. "I used to see her in her husband's +house. I have known Count Olenski for many years. You can imagine that +he would not have sent a stranger on such a mission." + +Archer's gaze, wandering away to the blank walls of the office, +rested on a hanging calendar surmounted by the rugged features of the +President of the United States. That such a conversation should be +going on anywhere within the millions of square miles subject to his +rule seemed as strange as anything that the imagination could invent. + +"The change--what sort of a change?" + +"Ah, Monsieur, if I could tell you!" M. Rivière paused. "_Tenez_--the +discovery, I suppose, of what I'd never thought of before: that she's +an American. And that if you're an American of _her_ kind--of your +kind--things that are accepted in certain other societies, or at least +put up with as part of a general convenient give-and-take--become +unthinkable, simply unthinkable. If Madame Olenska's relations +understood what these things were, their opposition to her returning +would no doubt be as unconditional as her own; but they seem to regard +her husband's wish to have her back as proof of an irresistible longing +for domestic life." M. Rivière paused, and then added: "Whereas it's +far from being as simple as that." + +Archer looked back to the President of the United States, and then +down at his desk and at the papers scattered on it. For a second or +two he could not trust himself to speak. During this interval he heard +M. Rivière's chair pushed back, and was aware that the young man had +risen. When he glanced up again he saw that his visitor was as moved as +himself. + +"Thank you," Archer said simply. + +"There's nothing to thank me for, Monsieur: it is I, rather--" M. +Rivière broke off, as if speech for him too were difficult. "I should +like, though," he continued in a firmer voice, "to add one thing. You +asked me if I was in Count Olenski's employ. I am at this moment: I +returned to him, a few months ago, for reasons of private necessity +such as may happen to any one who has persons, ill and older persons, +dependent on him. But from the moment that I have taken the step of +coming here to say these things to you I consider myself discharged, +and I shall tell him so on my return, and give him the reasons. That's +all, Monsieur." + +M. Rivière bowed and drew back a step. + +"Thank you," Archer said again, as their hands met. + + + + +XXVI. + + +Every year on the fifteenth of October Fifth Avenue opened its +shutters, unrolled its carpets and hung up its triple layer of +window-curtains. + +By the first of November this household ritual was over, and society +had begun to look about and take stock of itself. By the fifteenth +the season was in full blast, Opera and theatres were putting forth +their new attractions, dinner-engagements were accumulating, and dates +for dances being fixed. And punctually at about this time Mrs. Archer +always said that New York was very much changed. + +Observing it from the lofty stand-point of a non-participant, she was +able, with the help of Mr. Sillerton Jackson and Miss Sophy, to trace +each new crack in its surface, and all the strange weeds pushing up +between the ordered rows of social vegetables. It had been one of the +amusements of Archer's youth to wait for this annual pronouncement +of his mother's, and to hear her enumerate the minute signs of +disintegration that his careless gaze had overlooked. For New York, to +Mrs. Archer's mind, never changed without changing for the worse; and +in this view Miss Sophy Jackson heartily concurred. + +Mr. Sillerton Jackson, as became a man of the world, suspended his +judgment and listened with an amused impartiality to the lamentations +of the ladies. But even he never denied that New York had changed; and +Newland Archer, in the winter of the second year of his marriage, was +himself obliged to admit that if it had not actually changed it was +certainly changing. + +These points had been raised, as usual, at Mrs. Archer's Thanksgiving +dinner. At the date when she was officially enjoined to give thanks for +the blessings of the year it was her habit to take a mournful though +not embittered stock of her world, and wonder what there was to be +thankful for. At any rate, not the state of society; society, if it +could be said to exist, was rather a spectacle on which to call down +Biblical imprecations--and in fact, every one knew what the Reverend +Dr. Ashmore meant when he chose a text from Jeremiah (chap. ii., +verse 25) for his Thanksgiving sermon. Dr. Ashmore, the new Rector of +St. Matthew's, had been chosen because he was very "advanced": his +sermons were considered bold in thought and novel in language. When he +fulminated against fashionable society he always spoke of its "trend"; +and to Mrs. Archer it was terrifying and yet fascinating to feel +herself part of a community that was trending. + +"There's no doubt that Dr. Ashmore is right: there _is_ a marked trend," +she said, as if it were something visible and measurable, like a crack +in a house. + +"It was odd, though, to preach about it on Thanksgiving," Miss Jackson +opined; and her hostess drily rejoined: "Oh, he means us to give thanks +for what's left." + +Archer had been wont to smile at these annual vaticinations of his +mother's; but this year even he was obliged to acknowledge, as he +listened to an enumeration of the changes, that the "trend" was visible. + +"The extravagance in dress--" Miss Jackson began. "Sillerton took me to +the first night of the Opera, and I can only tell you that Jane Merry's +dress was the only one I recognised from last year; and even that had +had the front panel changed. Yet I know she got it out from Worth only +two years ago, because my seamstress always goes in to make over her +Paris dresses before she wears them." + +"Ah, Jane Merry is one of _us_," said Mrs. Archer sighing, as if it were +not such an enviable thing to be in an age when ladies were beginning +to flaunt abroad their Paris dresses as soon as they were out of the +Custom House, instead of letting them mellow under lock and key, in the +manner of Mrs. Archer's contemporaries. + +"Yes; she's one of the few. In my youth," Miss Jackson rejoined, +"it was considered vulgar to dress in the newest fashions; and Amy +Sillerton has always told me that in Boston the rule was to put away +one's Paris dresses for two years. Old Mrs. Baxter Pennilow, who did +everything handsomely, used to import twelve a year, two velvet, two +satin, two silk, and the other six of poplin and the finest cashmere. +It was a standing order, and as she was ill for two years before she +died they found forty-eight Worth dresses that had never been taken out +of tissue paper; and when the girls left off their mourning they were +able to wear the first lot at the Symphony concerts without looking in +advance of the fashion." + +"Ah, well, Boston is more conservative than New York; but I always +think it's a safe rule for a lady to lay aside her French dresses for +one season," Mrs. Archer conceded. + +"It was Beaufort who started the new fashion by making his wife clap +her new clothes on her back as soon as they arrived: I must say at +times it takes all Regina's distinction not to look like ... like ..." +Miss Jackson glanced around the table, caught Janey's bulging gaze, and +took refuge in an unintelligible murmur. + +"Like her rivals," said Mr. Sillerton Jackson, with the air of +producing an epigram. + +"Oh,--" the ladies murmured; and Mrs. Archer added, partly to distract +her daughter's attention from forbidden topics: "Poor Regina! Her +Thanksgiving hasn't been a very cheerful one, I'm afraid. Have you +heard the rumours about Beaufort's speculations, Sillerton?" + +Mr. Jackson nodded carelessly. Every one had heard the rumours in +question, and he scorned to confirm a tale that was already common +property. + +A gloomy silence fell upon the party. No one really liked Beaufort, +and it was not wholly unpleasant to think the worst of his private +life; but the idea of his having brought financial dishonour on his +wife's family was too shocking to be enjoyed even by his enemies. +Archer's New York tolerated hypocrisy in private relations; but in +business matters it exacted a limpid and impeccable honesty. It was a +long time since any well-known banker had failed discreditably; but +every one remembered the social extinction visited on the heads of the +firm when the last event of the kind had happened. It would be the +same with the Beauforts, in spite of his power and her popularity; +not all the leagued strength of the Dallas connection would save poor +Regina if there were any truth in the reports of her husband's unlawful +speculations. + +The talk took refuge in less ominous topics; but everything they +touched on seemed to confirm Mrs. Archer's sense of an accelerated +trend. + +"Of course, Newland, I know you let dear May go to Mrs. Struthers's +Sunday evenings--" she began; and May interposed gaily: "Oh, you know, +everybody goes to Mrs. Struthers's now; and she was invited to Granny's +last reception." + +It was thus, Archer reflected, that New York managed its transitions: +conspiring to ignore them till they were well over, and then, in all +good faith, imagining that they had taken place in a preceding age. +There was always a traitor in the citadel; and after he (or generally +she) had surrendered the keys, what was the use of pretending that it +was impregnable? Once people had tasted of Mrs. Struthers's easy Sunday +hospitality they were not likely to sit at home remembering that her +champagne was transmuted Shoe-Polish. + +"I know, dear, I know," Mrs. Archer sighed. "Such things have to be, I +suppose, as long as _amusement_ is what people go out for; but I've never +quite forgiven your cousin Madame Olenska for being the first person to +countenance Mrs. Struthers." + +A sudden blush rose to young Mrs. Archer's face; it surprised her +husband as much as the other guests about the table. "Oh, _Ellen_--" she +murmured, much in the same accusing and yet deprecating tone in which +her parents might have said: "Oh, _the Blenkers_--." + +It was the note which the family had taken to sounding on the +mention of the Countess Olenska's name, since she had surprised and +inconvenienced them by remaining obdurate to her husband's advances; +but on May's lips it gave food for thought, and Archer looked at her +with the sense of strangeness that sometimes came over him when she was +most in the tone of her environment. + +His mother, with less than her usual sensitiveness to atmosphere, still +insisted: "I've always thought that people like the Countess Olenska, +who have lived in aristocratic societies, ought to help us to keep up +our social distinctions, instead of ignoring them." + +May's blush remained permanently vivid: it seemed to have a +significance beyond that implied by the recognition of Madame Olenska's +social bad faith. + +"I've no doubt we all seem alike to foreigners," said Miss Jackson +tartly. + +"I don't think Ellen cares for society; but nobody knows exactly what +she does care for," May continued, as if she had been groping for +something noncommittal. + +"Ah, well--" Mrs. Archer sighed again. + +Everybody knew that the Countess Olenska was no longer in the good +graces of her family. Even her devoted champion, old Mrs. Manson +Mingott, had been unable to defend her refusal to return to her +husband. The Mingotts had not proclaimed their disapproval aloud: their +sense of solidarity was too strong. They had simply, as Mrs. Welland +said, "let poor Ellen find her own level"--and that, mortifyingly +and incomprehensibly, was in the dim depths where the Blenkers +prevailed, and "people who wrote" celebrated their untidy rites. It +was incredible, but it was a fact, that Ellen, in spite of all her +opportunities and her privileges, had become simply "Bohemian." The +fact enforced the contention that she had made a fatal mistake in not +returning to Count Olenski. After all, a young woman's place was under +her husband's roof, especially when she had left it in circumstances +that ... well ... if one had cared to look into them ... + +"Madame Olenska is a great favourite with the gentlemen," said Miss +Sophy, with her air of wishing to put forth something conciliatory when +she knew that she was planting a dart. + +"Ah, that's the danger that a young woman like Madame Olenska is always +exposed to," Mrs. Archer mournfully agreed; and the ladies, on this +conclusion, gathered up their trains to seek the carcel globes of the +drawing-room, while Archer and Mr. Sillerton Jackson withdrew to the +Gothic library. + +Once established before the grate, and consoling himself for the +inadequacy of the dinner by the perfection of his cigar, Mr. Jackson +became portentous and communicable. + +"If the Beaufort smash comes," he announced, "there are going to be +disclosures." + +Archer raised his head quickly: he could never hear the name without +the sharp vision of Beaufort's heavy figure, opulently furred and shod, +advancing through the snow at Skuytercliff. + +"There's bound to be," Mr. Jackson continued, "the nastiest kind of a +cleaning up. He hasn't spent all his money on Regina." + +"Oh, well--that's discounted, isn't it? My belief is he'll pull out +yet," said the young man, wanting to change the subject. + +"Perhaps--perhaps. I know he was to see some of the influential people +today. Of course," Mr. Jackson reluctantly conceded, "it's to be hoped +they can tide him over--this time anyhow. I shouldn't like to think +of poor Regina's spending the rest of her life in some shabby foreign +watering-place for bankrupts." + +Archer said nothing. It seemed to him so natural--however tragic--that +money ill-gotten should be cruelly expiated, that his mind, hardly +lingering over Mrs. Beaufort's doom, wandered back to closer questions. +What was the meaning of May's blush when the Countess Olenska had been +mentioned? + +Four months had passed since the midsummer day that he and Madame +Olenska had spent together; and since then he had not seen her. He knew +that she had returned to Washington, to the little house which she and +Medora Manson had taken there: he had written to her once--a few words, +asking when they were to meet again--and she had even more briefly +replied: "Not yet." + +Since then there had been no farther communication between them, and he +had built up within himself a kind of sanctuary in which she throned +among his secret thoughts and longings. Little by little it became the +scene of his real life, of his only rational activities; thither he +brought the books he read, the ideas and feelings which nourished him, +his judgments and his visions. Outside it, in the scene of his actual +life, he moved with a growing sense of unreality and insufficiency, +blundering against familiar prejudices and traditional points of view +as an absent-minded man goes on bumping into the furniture of his own +room. Absent--that was what he was: so absent from everything most +densely real and near to those about him that it sometimes startled him +to find they still imagined he was there. + +He became aware that Mr. Jackson was clearing his throat preparatory to +farther revelations. + +"I don't know, of course, how far your wife's family are aware of what +people say about--well, about Madame Olenska's refusal to accept her +husband's latest offer." + +Archer was silent, and Mr. Jackson obliquely continued: "It's a +pity--it's certainly a pity--that she refused it." + +"A pity? In God's name, why?" + +Mr. Jackson looked down his leg to the unwrinkled sock that joined it +to a glossy pump. + +"Well--to put it on the lowest ground--what's she going to live on now?" + +"Now--?" + +"If Beaufort--" + +Archer sprang up, his fist banging down on the black walnut-edge of the +writing-table. The wells of the brass double-inkstand danced in their +sockets. + +"What the devil do you mean, sir?" + +Mr. Jackson, shifting himself slightly in his chair, turned a tranquil +gaze on the young man's burning face. + +"Well--I have it on pretty good authority--in fact, on old Catherine's +herself--that the family reduced Countess Olenska's allowance +considerably when she definitely refused to go back to her husband; +and as, by this refusal, she also forfeits the money settled on her +when she married--which Olenski was ready to make over to her if she +returned--why, what the devil do _you_ mean, my dear boy, by asking me +what _I_ mean?" Mr. Jackson good-humouredly retorted. + +Archer moved toward the mantelpiece and bent over to knock his ashes +into the grate. + +"I don't know anything of Madame Olenska's private affairs; but I don't +need to, to be certain that what you insinuate--" + +"Oh, I don't: it's Lefferts, for one," Mr. Jackson interposed. + +"Lefferts--who made love to her and got snubbed for it!" Archer broke +out contemptuously. + +"Ah--_did_ he?" snapped the other, as if this were exactly the fact he +had been laying a trap for. He still sat sideways from the fire, so +that his hard old gaze held Archer's face as if in a spring of steel. + +"Well, well: it's a pity she didn't go back before Beaufort's cropper," +he repeated. "If she goes _now_, and if he fails, it will only confirm +the general impression: which isn't by any means peculiar to Lefferts, +by the way." + +"Oh, she won't go back now: less than ever!" Archer had no sooner said +it than he had once more the feeling that it was exactly what Mr. +Jackson had been waiting for. + +The old gentleman considered him attentively. "That's your opinion, +eh? Well, no doubt you know. But everybody will tell you that the few +pennies Medora Manson has left are all in Beaufort's hands; and how +the two women are to keep their heads above water unless he does, +I can't imagine. Of course, Madame Olenska may still soften old +Catherine, who's been the most inexorably opposed to her staying; and +old Catherine could make her any allowance she chooses. But we all know +that she hates parting with good money; and the rest of the family have +no particular interest in keeping Madame Olenska here." + +Archer was burning with unavailing wrath: he was exactly in the state +when a man is sure to do something stupid, knowing all the while that +he is doing it. + +He saw that Mr. Jackson had been instantly struck by the fact that +Madame Olenska's differences with her grandmother and her other +relations were not known to him, and that the old gentleman had drawn +his own conclusions as to the reasons for Archer's exclusion from +the family councils. This fact warned Archer to go warily; but the +insinuations about Beaufort made him reckless. He was mindful, however, +if not of his own danger, at least of the fact that Mr. Jackson was +under his mother's roof, and consequently his guest. Old New York +scrupulously observed the etiquette of hospitality, and no discussion +with a guest was ever allowed to degenerate into a disagreement. + +"Shall we go up and join my mother?" he suggested curtly, as Mr. +Jackson's last cone of ashes dropped into the brass ashtray at his +elbow. + +On the drive homeward May remained oddly silent; through the darkness, +he still felt her enveloped in her menacing blush. What its menace +meant he could not guess: but he was sufficiently warned by the fact +that Madame Olenska's name had evoked it. + +They went upstairs, and he turned into the library. She usually +followed him; but he heard her passing down the passage to her bedroom. + +"May!" he called out impatiently; and she came back, with a slight +glance of surprise at his tone. + +"This lamp is smoking again; I should think the servants might see that +it's kept properly trimmed," he grumbled nervously. + +"I'm so sorry: it shan't happen again," she answered, in the firm +bright tone she had learned from her mother; and it exasperated Archer +to feel that she was already beginning to humour him like a younger Mr. +Welland. She bent over to lower the wick, and as the light struck up on +her white shoulders and the clear curves of her face he thought: "How +young she is! For what endless years this life will have to go on!" + +He felt, with a kind of horror, his own strong youth and the bounding +blood in his veins. "Look here," he said suddenly, "I may have to go to +Washington for a few days--soon; next week perhaps." + +Her hand remained on the key of the lamp as she turned to him slowly. +The heat from its flame had brought back a glow to her face, but it +paled as she looked up. + +"On business?" she asked, in a tone which implied that there could +be no other conceivable reason, and that she had put the question +automatically, as if merely to finish his own sentence. + +"On business, naturally. There's a patent case coming up before +the Supreme Court--" He gave the name of the inventor, and went on +furnishing details with all Lawrence Lefferts's practised glibness, +while she listened attentively, saying at intervals: "Yes, I see." + +"The change will do you good," she said simply, when he had finished; +"and you must be sure to go and see Ellen," she added, looking him +straight in the eyes with her cloudless smile, and speaking in the +tone she might have employed in urging him not to neglect some irksome +family duty. + +It was the only word that passed between them on the subject; but in +the code in which they had both been trained it meant: "Of course you +understand that I know all that people have been saying about Ellen, +and heartily sympathise with my family in their effort to get her to +return to her husband. I also know that, for some reason you have not +chosen to tell me, you have advised her against this course, which +all the older men of the family, as well as our grandmother, agree +in approving; and that it is owing to your encouragement that Ellen +defies us all, and exposes herself to the kind of criticism of which +Mr. Sillerton Jackson probably gave you, this evening, the hint that +has made you so irritable.... Hints have indeed not been wanting; but +since you appear unwilling to take them from others, I offer you this +one myself, in the only form in which well-bred people of our kind can +communicate unpleasant things to each other: by letting you understand +that I know you mean to see Ellen when you are in Washington, and are +perhaps going there expressly for that purpose; and that, since you +are sure to see her, I wish you to do so with my full and explicit +approval--and to take the opportunity of letting her know what the +course of conduct you have encouraged her in is likely to lead to." + +Her hand was still on the key of the lamp when the last word of this +mute message reached him. She turned the wick down, lifted off the +globe, and breathed on the sulky flame. + +"They smell less if one blows them out," she explained, with her bright +housekeeping air. On the threshold she turned and paused for his kiss. + + + + +XXVII. + + +Wall Street, the next day, had more reassuring reports of Beaufort's +situation. They were not definite, but they were hopeful. It was +generally understood that he could call on powerful influences in case +of emergency, and that he had done so with success; and that evening, +when Mrs. Beaufort appeared at the Opera wearing her old smile and a +new emerald necklace, society drew a breath of relief. + +New York was inexorable in its condemnation of business irregularities. +So far there had been no exception to its tacit rule that those who +broke the law of probity must pay; and every one was aware that even +Beaufort and Beaufort's wife would be offered up unflinchingly to +this principle. But to be obliged to offer them up would be not only +painful but inconvenient. The disappearance of the Beauforts would +leave a considerable void in their compact little circle; and those who +were too ignorant or too careless to shudder at the moral catastrophe +bewailed in advance the loss of the best ball-room in New York. + +Archer had definitely made up his mind to go to Washington. He was +waiting only for the opening of the law-suit of which he had spoken +to May, so that its date might coincide with that of his visit; but +on the following Tuesday he learned from Mr. Letterblair that the +case might be postponed for several weeks. Nevertheless, he went home +that afternoon determined in any event to leave the next evening. +The chances were that May, who knew nothing of his professional +life, and had never shown any interest in it, would not learn of the +postponement, should it take place, nor remember the names of the +litigants if they were mentioned before her; and at any rate he could +no longer put off seeing Madame Olenska. There were too many things +that he must say to her. + +On the Wednesday morning, when he reached his office, Mr. Letterblair +met him with a troubled face. Beaufort, after all, had not managed to +"tide over"; but by setting afloat the rumour that he had done so he +had reassured his depositors, and heavy payments had poured into the +bank till the previous evening, when disturbing reports again began to +predominate. In consequence, a run on the bank had begun, and its doors +were likely to close before the day was over. The ugliest things were +being said of Beaufort's dastardly manœuvre, and his failure promised +to be one of the most discreditable in the history of Wall Street. + +The extent of the calamity left Mr. Letterblair white and +incapacitated. "I've seen bad things in my time; but nothing as bad +as this. Everybody we know will be hit, one way or another. And what +will be done about Mrs. Beaufort? What _can_ be done about her? I pity +Mrs. Manson Mingott as much as anybody: coming at her age, there's no +knowing what effect this affair may have on her. She always believed +in Beaufort--she made a friend of him! And there's the whole Dallas +connection: poor Mrs. Beaufort is related to every one of you. Her only +chance would be to leave her husband--yet how can any one tell her so? +Her duty is at his side; and luckily she seems always to have been +blind to his private weaknesses." + +There was a knock, and Mr. Letterblair turned his head sharply. "What +is it? I can't be disturbed." + +A clerk brought in a letter for Archer and withdrew. Recognising his +wife's hand, the young man opened the envelope and read: "Won't you +please come up town as early as you can? Granny had a slight stroke +last night. In some mysterious way she found out before any one else +this awful news about the bank. Uncle Lovell is away shooting, and +the idea of the disgrace has made poor Papa so nervous that he has a +temperature and can't leave his room. Mamma needs you dreadfully, and I +do hope you can get away at once and go straight to Granny's." + +Archer handed the note to his senior partner, and a few minutes later +was crawling northward in a crowded horse-car, which he exchanged at +Fourteenth Street for one of the high staggering omnibuses of the Fifth +Avenue line. It was after twelve o'clock when this laborious vehicle +dropped him at old Catherine's. The sitting-room window on the ground +floor, where she usually throned, was tenanted by the inadequate figure +of her daughter, Mrs. Welland, who signed a haggard welcome as she +caught sight of Archer; and at the door he was met by May. The hall +wore the unnatural appearance peculiar to well-kept houses suddenly +invaded by illness: wraps and furs lay in heaps on the chairs, a +doctor's bag and overcoat were on the table, and beside them letters +and cards had already piled up unheeded. + +May looked pale but smiling: Dr. Bencomb, who had just come for the +second time, took a more hopeful view, and Mrs. Mingott's dauntless +determination to live and get well was already having an effect on +her family. May led Archer into the old lady's sitting-room, where +the sliding doors opening into the bedroom had been drawn shut, and +the heavy yellow damask portières dropped over them; and here Mrs. +Welland communicated to him in horrified undertones the details of the +catastrophe. It appeared that the evening before something dreadful +and mysterious had happened. At about eight o'clock, just after Mrs. +Mingott had finished the game of solitaire that she always played after +dinner, the door-bell had rung, and a lady so thickly veiled that the +servants did not immediately recognise her had asked to be received. + +The butler, hearing a familiar voice, had thrown open the sitting-room +door, announcing: "Mrs. Julius Beaufort"--and had then closed it again +on the two ladies. They must have been together, he thought, about an +hour. When Mrs. Mingott's bell rang Mrs. Beaufort had already slipped +away unseen, and the old lady, white and vast and terrible, sat alone +in her great chair, and signed to the butler to help her into her room. +She seemed, at that time, though obviously distressed, in complete +control of her body and brain. The mulatto maid put her to bed, brought +her a cup of tea as usual, laid everything straight in the room, and +went away; but at three in the morning the bell rang again, and the +two servants, hastening in at this unwonted summons (for old Catherine +usually slept like a baby), had found their mistress sitting up against +her pillows with a crooked smile on her face and one little hand +hanging limp from its huge arm. + +The stroke had clearly been a slight one, for she was able to +articulate and to make her wishes known; and soon after the doctor's +first visit she had begun to regain control of her facial muscles. But +the alarm had been great; and proportionately great was the indignation +when it was gathered from Mrs. Mingott's fragmentary phrases that +Regina Beaufort had come to ask her--incredible effrontery!--to back +up her husband, see them through--not to "desert" them, as she called +it--in fact to induce the whole family to cover and condone their +monstrous dishonour. + +"I said to her: 'Honour's always been honour, and honesty honesty, in +Manson Mingott's house, and will be till I'm carried out of it feet +first,'" the old woman had stammered into her daughter's ear, in the +thick voice of the partly paralysed. "And when she said: 'But my name, +Auntie--my name's Regina Dallas,' I said: 'It was Beaufort when he +covered you with jewels, and it's got to stay Beaufort now that he's +covered you with shame.'" + +So much, with tears and gasps of horror, Mrs. Welland imparted, +blanched and demolished by the unwonted obligation of having at last to +fix her eyes on the unpleasant and the discreditable. "If only I could +keep it from your father-in-law: he always says: 'Augusta, for pity's +sake, don't destroy my last illusions'--and how am I to prevent his +knowing these horrors?" the poor lady wailed. + +"After all, Mamma, he won't have _seen_ them," her daughter suggested; +and Mrs. Welland sighed: "Ah, no; thank heaven he's safe in bed. And +Dr. Bencomb has promised to keep him there till poor Mamma is better, +and Regina has been got away somewhere." + +Archer had seated himself near the window and was gazing out blankly +at the deserted thoroughfare. It was evident that he had been summoned +rather for the moral support of the stricken ladies than because of +any specific aid that he could render. Mr. Lovell Mingott had been +telegraphed for, and messages were being despatched by hand to the +members of the family living in New York; and meanwhile there was +nothing to do but to discuss in hushed tones the consequences of +Beaufort's dishonour and of his wife's unjustifiable action. + +Mrs. Lovell Mingott, who had been in another room writing notes, +presently reappeared, and added her voice to the discussion. In _their_ +day, the elder ladies agreed, the wife of a man who had done anything +disgraceful in business had only one idea: to efface herself, to +disappear with him. "There was the case of poor Grandmamma Spicer; your +great-grandmother, May. Of course," Mrs. Welland hastened to add, "your +great-grandfather's money difficulties were private--losses at cards, +or signing a note for somebody--I never quite knew, because Mamma would +never speak of it. But she was brought up in the country because her +mother had to leave New York after the disgrace, whatever it was: they +lived up the Hudson alone, winter and summer, till Mamma was sixteen. +It would never have occurred to Grandmamma Spicer to ask the family to +'countenance' her, as I understand Regina calls it; though a private +disgrace is nothing compared to the scandal of ruining hundreds of +innocent people." + +"Yes, it would be more becoming in Regina to hide her own countenance +than to talk about other people's," Mrs. Lovell Mingott agreed. "I +understand that the emerald necklace she wore at the Opera last Friday +had been sent on approval from Ball and Black's in the afternoon. I +wonder if they'll ever get it back?" + +Archer listened unmoved to the relentless chorus. The idea of absolute +financial probity as the first law of a gentleman's code was too +deeply ingrained in him for sentimental considerations to weaken +it. An adventurer like Lemuel Struthers might build up the millions +of his Shoe Polish on any number of shady dealings; but unblemished +honesty was the _noblesse oblige_ of old financial New York. Nor did Mrs. +Beaufort's fate greatly move Archer. He felt, no doubt, more sorry for +her than her indignant relatives; but it seemed to him that the tie +between husband and wife, even if breakable in prosperity, should be +indissoluble in misfortune. As Mr. Letterblair had said, a wife's place +was at her husband's side when he was in trouble; but society's place +was not at his side, and Mrs. Beaufort's cool assumption that it was +seemed almost to make her his accomplice. The mere idea of a woman's +appealing to her family to screen her husband's business dishonour +was inadmissible, since it was the one thing that the Family, as an +institution, could not do. + +The mulatto maid called Mrs. Lovell Mingott into the hall, and the +latter came back in a moment with a frowning brow. + +"She wants me to telegraph for Ellen Olenska. I had written to Ellen, +of course, and to Medora; but now it seems that's not enough. I'm to +telegraph to her immediately, and to tell her that she's to come alone." + +The announcement was received in silence. Mrs. Welland sighed +resignedly, and May rose from her seat and went to gather up some +newspapers that had been scattered on the floor. + +"I suppose it must be done," Mrs. Lovell Mingott continued, as if +hoping to be contradicted; and May turned back toward the middle of the +room. + +"Of course it must be done," she said. "Granny knows what she wants, +and we must carry out all her wishes. Shall I write the telegram for +you, Auntie? If it goes at once Ellen can probably catch tomorrow +morning's train." She pronounced the syllables of the name with a +peculiar clearness, as if she had tapped on two silver bells. + +"Well, it can't go at once. Jasper and the pantry-boy are both out with +notes and telegrams." + +May turned to her husband with a smile. "But here's Newland, ready to +do anything. Will you take the telegram, Newland? There'll be just time +before luncheon." + +Archer rose with a murmur of readiness, and she seated herself at old +Catherine's rosewood "Bonheur du Jour," and wrote out the message in +her large immature hand. When it was written she blotted it neatly and +handed it to Archer. + +"What a pity," she said, "that you and Ellen will cross each other on +the way!--Newland," she added, turning to her mother and aunt, "is +obliged to go to Washington about a patent law-suit that is coming +up before the Supreme Court. I suppose Uncle Lovell will be back by +tomorrow night, and with Granny improving so much it doesn't seem right +to ask Newland to give up an important engagement for the firm--does +it?" + +She paused, as if for an answer, and Mrs. Welland hastily declared: +"Oh, of course not, darling. Your Granny would be the last person to +wish it." As Archer left the room with the telegram, he heard his +mother-in-law add, presumably to Mrs. Lovell Mingott: "But why on earth +she should make you telegraph for Ellen Olenska--" and May's clear +voice rejoin: "Perhaps it's to urge on her again that after all her +duty is with her husband." + +The outer door closed on Archer and he walked hastily away toward the +telegraph office. + + + + +XXVIII. + + +"Ol--ol--howjer spell it, anyhow?" asked the tart young lady to whom +Archer had pushed his wife's telegram across the brass ledge of the +Western Union office. + +"Olenska--O-len-ska," he repeated, drawing back the message in order to +print out the foreign syllables above May's rambling script. + +"It's an unlikely name for a New York telegraph office; at least in +this quarter," an unexpected voice observed; and turning around Archer +saw Lawrence Lefferts at his elbow, pulling an imperturbable moustache +and affecting not to glance at the message. + +"Hallo, Newland: thought I'd catch you here. I've just heard of old +Mrs. Mingott's stroke; and as I was on my way to the house I saw you +turning down this street and nipped after you. I suppose you've come +from there?" + +Archer nodded, and pushed his telegram under the lattice. + +"Very bad, eh?" Lefferts continued. "Wiring to the family, I suppose. I +gather it _is_ bad, if you're including Countess Olenska." + +Archer's lips stiffened; he felt a savage impulse to dash his fist into +the long vain handsome face at his side. + +"Why?" he questioned. + +Lefferts, who was known to shrink from discussion, raised his eye-brows +with an ironic grimace that warned the other of the watching damsel +behind the lattice. Nothing could be worse "form" the look reminded +Archer, than any display of temper in a public place. + +Archer had never been more indifferent to the requirements of form; +but his impulse to do Lawrence Lefferts a physical injury was only +momentary. The idea of bandying Ellen Olenska's name with him at such +a time, and on whatsoever provocation, was unthinkable. He paid for +his telegram, and the two young men went out together into the street. +There Archer, having regained his self-control, went on: "Mrs. Mingott +is much better: the doctor feels no anxiety whatever"; and Lefferts, +with profuse expressions of relief, asked him if he had heard that +there were beastly bad rumours again about Beaufort.... + +That afternoon the announcement of the Beaufort failure was in all the +papers. It overshadowed the report of Mrs. Manson Mingott's stroke, and +only the few who had heard of the mysterious connection between the two +events thought of ascribing old Catherine's illness to anything but the +accumulation of flesh and years. + +The whole of New York was darkened by the tale of Beaufort's dishonour. +There had never, as Mr. Letterblair said, been a worse case in his +memory, nor, for that matter, in the memory of the far-off Letterblair +who had given his name to the firm. The bank had continued to take +in money for a whole day after its failure was inevitable; and as +many of its clients belonged to one or another of the ruling clans, +Beaufort's duplicity seemed doubly cynical. If Mrs. Beaufort had not +taken the tone that such misfortunes (the word was her own) were +"the test of friendship," compassion for her might have tempered the +general indignation against her husband. As it was--and especially +after the object of her nocturnal visit to Mrs. Manson Mingott had +become known--her cynicism was held to exceed his; and she had not the +excuse--nor her detractors the satisfaction--of pleading that she was +"a foreigner." It was some comfort (to those whose securities were not +in jeopardy) to be able to remind themselves that Beaufort _was_; but, +after all, if a Dallas of South Carolina took his view of the case, +and glibly talked of his soon being "on his feet again," the argument +lost its edge, and there was nothing to do but to accept this awful +evidence of the indissolubility of marriage. Society must manage to get +on without the Beauforts, and there was an end of it--except indeed for +such hapless victims of the disaster as Medora Manson, the poor old +Miss Lannings, and certain other misguided ladies of good family who, +if only they had listened to Mr. Henry van der Luyden ... + +"The best thing the Beauforts can do," said Mrs. Archer, summing it +up as if she were pronouncing a diagnosis and prescribing a course +of treatment, "is to go and live at Regina's little place in North +Carolina. Beaufort has always kept a racing stable, and he had +better breed trotting horses. I should say he had all the qualities +of a successful horsedealer." Every one agreed with her, but no one +condescended to enquire what the Beauforts really meant to do. + +The next day Mrs. Manson Mingott was much better: she recovered her +voice sufficiently to give orders that no one should mention the +Beauforts to her again, and asked--when Dr. Bencomb appeared--what in +the world her family meant by making such a fuss about her health. + +"If people of my age _will_ eat chicken-salad in the evening what are +they to expect?" she enquired; and, the doctor having opportunely +modified her dietary, the stroke was transformed into an attack of +indigestion. But in spite of her firm tone old Catherine did not wholly +recover her former attitude toward life. The growing remoteness of old +age, though it had not diminished her curiosity about her neighbours, +had blunted her never very lively compassion for their troubles; and +she seemed to have no difficulty in putting the Beaufort disaster out +of her mind. But for the first time she became absorbed in her own +symptoms, and began to take a sentimental interest in certain members +of her family to whom she had hitherto been contemptuously indifferent. + +Mr. Welland, in particular, had the privilege of attracting her notice. +Of her sons-in-law he was the one she had most consistently ignored; +and all his wife's efforts to represent him as a man of forceful +character and marked intellectual ability (if he had only "chosen") had +been met with a derisive chuckle. But his eminence as a valetudinarian +now made him an object of engrossing interest, and Mrs. Mingott issued +an imperial summons to him to come and compare diets as soon as his +temperature permitted; for old Catherine was now the first to recognise +that one could not be too careful about temperatures. + +Twenty-four hours after Madame Olenska's summons a telegram announced +that she would arrive from Washington on the evening of the following +day. At the Wellands', where the Newland Archers chanced to be +lunching, the question as to who should meet her at Jersey City was +immediately raised; and the material difficulties amid which the +Welland household struggled as if it had been a frontier outpost, lent +animation to the debate. It was agreed that Mrs. Welland could not +possibly go to Jersey City because she was to accompany her husband to +old Catherine's that afternoon, and the brougham could not be spared, +since, if Mr. Welland were "upset" by seeing his mother-in-law for +the first time after her attack, he might have to be taken home at a +moment's notice. The Welland sons would of course be "down town," Mr. +Lovell Mingott would be just hurrying back from his shooting, and the +Mingott carriage engaged in meeting him; and one could not ask May, +at the close of a winter afternoon, to go alone across the ferry to +Jersey City, even in her own carriage. Nevertheless, it might appear +inhospitable--and contrary to old Catherine's express wishes--if Madame +Olenska were allowed to arrive without any of the family being at the +station to receive her. It was just like Ellen, Mrs. Welland's tired +voice implied, to place the family in such a dilemma. "It's always one +thing after another," the poor lady grieved, in one of her rare revolts +against fate; "the only thing that makes me think Mamma must be less +well than Dr. Bencomb will admit is this morbid desire to have Ellen +come at once, however inconvenient it is to meet her." + +The words had been thoughtless, as the utterances of impatience often +are; and Mr. Welland was upon them with a pounce. + +"Augusta," he said, turning pale and laying down his fork, "have you +any other reason for thinking that Bencomb is less to be relied on than +he was? Have you noticed that he has been less conscientious than usual +in following up my case or your mother's?" + +It was Mrs. Welland's turn to grow pale as the endless consequences +of her blunder unrolled themselves before her; but she managed to +laugh, and take a second helping of scalloped oysters, before she +said, struggling back into her old armour of cheerfulness: "My dear, +how could you imagine such a thing? I only meant that, after the +decided stand Mamma took about its being Ellen's duty to go back to her +husband, it seems strange that she should be seized with this sudden +whim to see her, when there are half a dozen other grandchildren that +she might have asked for. But we must never forget that Mamma, in spite +of her wonderful vitality, is a very old woman." + +Mr. Welland's brow remained clouded, and it was evident that his +perturbed imagination had fastened at once on this last remark. "Yes: +your mother's a very old woman; and for all we know Bencomb may not be +as successful with very old people. As you say, my dear, it's always +one thing after another; and in another ten or fifteen years I suppose +I shall have the pleasing duty of looking about for a new doctor. It's +always better to make such a change before it's absolutely necessary." +And having arrived at this Spartan decision Mr. Welland firmly took up +his fork. + +"But all the while," Mrs. Welland began again, as she rose from the +luncheon-table, and led the way into the wilderness of purple satin and +malachite known as the back drawing-room, "I don't see how Ellen's to +be got here tomorrow evening; and I do like to have things settled for +at least twenty-four hours ahead." + +Archer turned from the fascinated contemplation of a small painting +representing two Cardinals carousing, in an octagonal ebony frame set +with medallions of onyx. + +"Shall I fetch her?" he proposed. "I can easily get away from the +office in time to meet the brougham at the ferry, if May will send it +there." His heart was beating excitedly as he spoke. + +Mrs. Welland heaved a sigh of gratitude, and May, who had moved away +to the window, turned to shed on him a beam of approval. "So you see, +Mamma, everything _will_ be settled twenty-four hours in advance," she +said, stooping over to kiss her mother's troubled forehead. + +May's brougham awaited her at the door, and she was to drive Archer to +Union Square, where he could pick up a Broadway car to carry him to +the office. As she settled herself in her corner she said: "I didn't +want to worry Mamma by raising fresh obstacles; but how can you meet +Ellen tomorrow, and bring her back to New York, when you're going to +Washington?" + +"Oh, I'm not going," Archer answered. + +"Not going? Why, what's happened?" Her voice was as clear as a bell, +and full of wifely solicitude. + +"The case is off--postponed." + +"Postponed? How odd! I saw a note this morning from Mr. Letterblair +to Mamma saying that he was going to Washington tomorrow for the big +patent case that he was to argue before the Supreme Court. You said it +was a patent case, didn't you?" + +"Well--that's it: the whole office can't go. Letterblair decided to go +this morning." + +"Then it's _not_ postponed?" she continued, with an insistence so unlike +her that he felt the blood rising to his face, as if he were blushing +for her unwonted lapse from all the traditional delicacies. + +"No: but my going is," he answered, cursing the unnecessary +explanations that he had given when he had announced his intention of +going to Washington, and wondering where he had read that clever liars +give details, but that the cleverest do not. It did not hurt him half +as much to tell May an untruth as to see her trying to pretend that she +had not detected him. + +"I'm not going till later on: luckily for the convenience of your +family," he continued, taking base refuge in sarcasm. As he spoke +he felt that she was looking at him, and he turned his eyes to hers +in order not to appear to be avoiding them. Their glances met for a +second, and perhaps let them into each other's meanings more deeply +than either cared to go. + +"Yes; it _is_ awfully convenient," May brightly agreed, "that you should +be able to meet Ellen after all; you saw how much Mamma appreciated +your offering to do it." + +"Oh, I'm delighted to do it." The carriage stopped, and as he jumped +out she leaned to him and laid her hand on his. "Good-bye, dearest," +she said, her eyes so blue that he wondered afterward if they had shone +on him through tears. + +He turned away and hurried across Union Square, repeating to himself, +in a sort of inward chant: "It's all of two hours from Jersey City to +old Catherine's. It's all of two hours--and it may be more." + + + + +XXIX. + + +His wife's dark blue brougham (with the wedding varnish still on +it) met Archer at the ferry, and conveyed him luxuriously to the +Pennsylvania terminus in Jersey City. + +It was a sombre snowy afternoon, and the gas-lamps were lit in the +big reverberating station. As he paced the platform, waiting for the +Washington express, he remembered that there were people who thought +there would one day be a tunnel under the Hudson through which the +trains of the Pennsylvania railway would run straight into New York. +They were of the brotherhood of visionaries who likewise predicted +the building of ships that would cross the Atlantic in five days, the +invention of a flying machine, lighting by electricity, telephonic +communication without wires, and other Arabian Night marvels. + +"I don't care which of their visions comes true," Archer mused, "as +long as the tunnel isn't built yet." In his senseless school-boy +happiness he pictured Madame Olenska's descent from the train, his +discovery of her a long way off, among the throngs of meaningless +faces, her clinging to his arm as he guided her to the carriage, +their slow approach to the wharf among slipping horses, laden carts, +vociferating teamsters, and then the startling quiet of the ferry-boat, +where they would sit side by side under the snow, in the motionless +carriage, while the earth seemed to glide away under them, rolling to +the other side of the sun. It was incredible, the number of things +he had to say to her, and in what eloquent order they were forming +themselves on his lips ... + +The clanging and groaning of the train came nearer, and it staggered +slowly into the station like a prey-laden monster into its lair. Archer +pushed forward, elbowing through the crowd, and staring blindly into +window after window of the high-hung carriages. And then, suddenly, he +saw Madame Olenska's pale and surprised face close at hand, and had +again the mortified sensation of having forgotten what she looked like. + +They reached each other, their hands met, and he drew her arm through +his. "This way--I have the carriage," he said. + +After that it all happened as he had dreamed. He helped her into the +brougham with her bags, and had afterward the vague recollection of +having properly reassured her about her grandmother and given her a +summary of the Beaufort situation (he was struck by the softness of +her: "Poor Regina!"). Meanwhile the carriage had worked its way out of +the coil about the station, and they were crawling down the slippery +incline to the wharf, menaced by swaying coal-carts, bewildered horses, +dishevelled express-wagons, and an empty hearse--ah, that hearse! She +shut her eyes as it passed, and clutched at Archer's hand. + +"If only it doesn't mean--poor Granny!" + +"Oh, no, no--she's much better--she's all right, really. There--we've +passed it!" he exclaimed, as if that made all the difference. Her hand +remained in his, and as the carriage lurched across the gang-plank onto +the ferry he bent over, unbuttoned her tight brown glove, and kissed +her palm as if he had kissed a relic. She disengaged herself with a +faint smile, and he said: "You didn't expect me today?" + +"Oh, no." + +"I meant to go to Washington to see you. I'd made all my +arrangements--I very nearly crossed you in the train." + +"Oh--" she exclaimed, as if terrified by the narrowness of their escape. + +"Do you know--I hardly remembered you?" + +"Hardly remembered me?" + +"I mean: how shall I explain? I--it's always so. _Each time you happen +to me all over again._" + +"Oh, yes: I know! I know!" + +"Does it--do I too: to you?" he insisted. + +She nodded, looking out of the window. + +"Ellen--Ellen--Ellen!" + +She made no answer, and he sat in silence, watching her profile grow +indistinct against the snow-streaked dusk beyond the window. What had +she been doing in all those four long months, he wondered? How little +they knew of each other, after all! The precious moments were slipping +away, but he had forgotten everything that he had meant to say to her +and could only helplessly brood on the mystery of their remoteness +and their proximity, which seemed to be symbolised by the fact of +their sitting so close to each other, and yet being unable to see each +other's faces. + +"What a pretty carriage! Is it May's?" she asked, suddenly turning her +face from the window. + +"Yes." + +"It was May who sent you to fetch me, then? How kind of her!" + +He made no answer for a moment; then he said explosively: "Your +husband's secretary came to see me the day after we met in Boston." + +In his brief letter to her he had made no allusion to M. Rivière's +visit, and his intention had been to bury the incident in his bosom. +But her reminder that they were in his wife's carriage provoked him +to an impulse of retaliation. He would see if she liked his reference +to Rivière any better than he liked hers to May! As on certain other +occasions when he had expected to shake her out of her usual composure, +she betrayed no sign of surprise: and at once he concluded: "He writes +to her, then." + +"M. Rivière went to see you?" + +"Yes: didn't you know?" + +"No," she answered simply. + +"And you're not surprised?" + +She hesitated. "Why should I be? He told me in Boston that he knew you; +that he'd met you in England I think." + +"Ellen--I must ask you one thing." + +"Yes." + +"I wanted to ask it after I saw him, but I couldn't put it in a letter. +It was Rivière who helped you to get away--when you left your husband?" + +His heart was beating suffocatingly. Would she meet this question with +the same composure? + +"Yes: I owe him a great debt," she answered, without the least tremor +in her quiet voice. + +Her tone was so natural, so almost indifferent, that Archer's turmoil +subsided. Once more she had managed, by her sheer simplicity, to make +him feel stupidly conventional just when he thought he was flinging +convention to the winds. + +"I think you're the most honest woman I ever met!" he exclaimed. + +"Oh, no--but probably one of the least fussy," she answered, a smile in +her voice. + +"Call it what you like: you look at things as they are." + +"Ah--I've had to. I've had to look at the Gorgon." + +"Well--it hasn't blinded you! You've seen that she's just an old bogey +like all the others." + +"She doesn't blind one; but she dries up one's tears." + +The answer checked the pleading on Archer's lips: it seemed to come +from depths of experience beyond his reach. The slow advance of the +ferry-boat had ceased, and her bows bumped against the piles of the +slip with a violence that made the brougham stagger, and flung Archer +and Madame Olenska against each other. The young man, trembling, felt +the pressure of her shoulder, and passed his arm about her. + +"If you're not blind, then, you must see that this can't last." + +"What can't?" + +"Our being together--and not together." + +"No. You ought not to have come today," she said in an altered voice; +and suddenly she turned, flung her arms about him and pressed her lips +to his. At the same moment the carriage began to move, and a gas-lamp +at the head of the slip flashed its light into the window. She drew +away, and they sat silent and motionless while the brougham struggled +through the congestion of carriages about the ferry-landing. As they +gained the street Archer began to speak hurriedly. + +"Don't be afraid of me: you needn't squeeze yourself back into your +corner like that. A stolen kiss isn't what I want. Look: I'm not even +trying to touch the sleeve of your jacket. Don't suppose that I don't +understand your reasons for not wanting to let this feeling between us +dwindle into an ordinary hole-and-corner love-affair. I couldn't have +spoken like this yesterday, because when we've been apart, and I'm +looking forward to seeing you, every thought is burnt up in a great +flame. But then you come; and you're so much more than I remembered, +and what I want of you is so much more than an hour or two every now +and then, with wastes of thirsty waiting between, that I can sit +perfectly still beside you, like this, with that other vision in my +mind, just quietly trusting to it to come true." + +For a moment she made no reply; then she asked, hardly above a whisper: +"What do you mean by trusting to it to come true?" + +"Why--you know it will, don't you?" + +"Your vision of you and me together?" She burst into a sudden hard +laugh. "You choose your place well to put it to me!" + +"Do you mean because we're in my wife's brougham? Shall we get out and +walk, then? I don't suppose you mind a little snow?" + +She laughed again, more gently. "No; I shan't get out and walk, because +my business is to get to Granny's as quickly as I can. And you'll sit +beside me, and we'll look, not at visions, but at realities." + +"I don't know what you mean by realities. The only reality to me is +this." + +She met the words with a long silence, during which the carriage +rolled down an obscure side-street and then turned into the searching +illumination of Fifth Avenue. + +"Is it your idea, then, that I should live with you as your +mistress--since I can't be your wife?" she asked. + +The crudeness of the question startled him: the word was one that women +of his class fought shy of, even when their talk flitted closest about +the topic. He noticed that Madame Olenska pronounced it as if it had a +recognised place in her vocabulary, and he wondered if it had been used +familiarly in her presence in the horrible life she had fled from. Her +question pulled him up with a jerk, and he floundered. + +"I want--I want somehow to get away with you into a world where words +like that--categories like that--won't exist. Where we shall be simply +two human beings who love each other, who are the whole of life to each +other; and nothing else on earth will matter." + +She drew a deep sigh that ended in another laugh. "Oh, my dear--where +is that country? Have you ever been there?" she asked; and as he +remained sullenly dumb she went on: "I know so many who've tried to +find it; and, believe me, they all got out by mistake at wayside +stations: at places like Boulogne, or Pisa, or Monte Carlo--and it +wasn't at all different from the old world they'd left, but only rather +smaller and dingier and more promiscuous." + +He had never heard her speak in such a tone, and he remembered the +phrase she had used a little while before. + +"Yes, the Gorgon _has_ dried your tears," he said. + +"Well, she opened my eyes too; it's a delusion to say that she blinds +people. What she does is just the contrary--she fastens their eyelids +open, so that they're never again in the blessed darkness. Isn't there +a Chinese torture like that? There ought to be. Ah, believe me, it's a +miserable little country!" + +The carriage had crossed Forty-second Street: May's sturdy +brougham-horse was carrying them northward as if he had been a Kentucky +trotter. Archer choked with the sense of wasted minutes and vain words. + +"Then what, exactly, is your plan for us?" he asked. + +"For _us_? But there's no _us_ in that sense! We're near each other only if +we stay far from each other. Then we can be ourselves. Otherwise we're +only Newland Archer, the husband of Ellen Olenska's cousin, and Ellen +Olenska, the cousin of Newland Archer's wife, trying to be happy behind +the backs of the people who trust them." + +"Ah, I'm beyond that," he groaned. + +"No, you're not! You've never been beyond. And I have," she said, in a +strange voice, "and I know what it looks like there." + +He sat silent, dazed with inarticulate pain. Then he groped in the +darkness of the carriage for the little bell that signalled orders +to the coachman. He remembered that May rang twice when she wished +to stop. He pressed the bell, and the carriage drew up beside the +curbstone. + +"Why are we stopping? This is not Granny's," Madame Olenska exclaimed. + +"No: I shall get out here," he stammered, opening the door and jumping +to the pavement. By the light of a street-lamp he saw her startled +face, and the instinctive motion she made to detain him. He closed the +door, and leaned for a moment in the window. + +"You're right: I ought not to have come today," he said, lowering his +voice so that the coachman should not hear. She bent forward, and +seemed about to speak; but he had already called out the order to drive +on, and the carriage rolled away while he stood on the corner. The snow +was over, and a tingling wind had sprung up, that lashed his face as he +stood gazing. Suddenly he felt something stiff and cold on his lashes, +and perceived that he had been crying, and that the wind had frozen his +tears. + +He thrust his hands in his pockets, and walked at a sharp pace down +Fifth Avenue to his own house. + + + + +XXX. + + +That evening when Archer came down before dinner he found the +drawing-room empty. + +He and May were dining alone, all the family engagements having been +postponed since Mrs. Manson Mingott's illness; and as May was the more +punctual of the two he was surprised that she had not preceded him. He +knew that she was at home, for while he dressed he had heard her moving +about in her room; and he wondered what had delayed her. + +He had fallen into the way of dwelling on such conjectures as a means +of tying his thoughts fast to reality. Sometimes he felt as if he had +found the clue to his father-in-law's absorption in trifles; perhaps +even Mr. Welland, long ago, had had escapes and visions, and had +conjured up all the hosts of domesticity to defend himself against them. + +When May appeared he thought she looked tired. She had put on the +low-necked and tightly-laced dinner-dress which the Mingott ceremonial +exacted on the most informal occasions, and had built her fair hair +into its usual accumulated coils; and her face, in contrast, was wan +and almost faded. But she shone on him with her usual tenderness, and +her eyes had kept the blue dazzle of the day before. + +"What became of you, dear?" she asked. "I was waiting at Granny's, and +Ellen came alone, and said she had dropped you on the way because you +had to rush off on business. There's nothing wrong?" + +"Only some letters I'd forgotten, and wanted to get off before dinner." + +"Ah--" she said; and a moment afterward: "I'm sorry you didn't come to +Granny's--unless the letters were urgent." + +"They were," he rejoined, surprised at her insistence. "Besides, I +don't see why I should have gone to your grandmother's. I didn't know +you were there." + +She turned and moved to the looking-glass above the mantel-piece. +As she stood there, lifting her long arm to fasten a puff that had +slipped from its place in her intricate hair, Archer was struck by +something languid and inelastic in her attitude, and wondered if the +deadly monotony of their lives had laid its weight on her also. Then he +remembered that, as he had left the house that morning, she had called +over the stairs that she would meet him at her grandmother's so that +they might drive home together. He had called back a cheery "Yes!" and +then, absorbed in other visions, had forgotten his promise. Now he was +smitten with compunction, yet irritated that so trifling an omission +should be stored up against him after nearly two years of marriage. +He was weary of living in a perpetual tepid honeymoon, without the +temperature of passion yet with all its exactions. If May had spoken +out her grievances (he suspected her of many) he might have laughed +them away; but she was trained to conceal imaginary wounds under a +Spartan smile. + +To disguise his own annoyance he asked how her grandmother was, and she +answered that Mrs. Mingott was still improving, but had been rather +disturbed by the last news about the Beauforts. + +"What news?" + +"It seems they're going to stay in New York. I believe he's going into +an insurance business, or something. They're looking about for a small +house." + +The preposterousness of the case was beyond discussion, and they went +in to dinner. During dinner their talk moved in its usual limited +circle; but Archer noticed that his wife made no allusion to Madame +Olenska, nor to old Catherine's reception of her. He was thankful for +the fact, yet felt it to be vaguely ominous. + +They went up to the library for coffee, and Archer lit a cigar and took +down a volume of Michelet. He had taken to history in the evenings +since May had shown a tendency to ask him to read aloud whenever she +saw him with a volume of poetry: not that he disliked the sound of +his own voice, but because he could always foresee her comments on +what he read. In the days of their engagement she had simply (as he +now perceived) echoed what he told her; but since he had ceased to +provide her with opinions she had begun to hazard her own, with results +destructive to his enjoyment of the works commented on. + +Seeing that he had chosen history she fetched her workbasket, drew up +an arm-chair to the green-shaded student lamp, and uncovered a cushion +she was embroidering for his sofa. She was not a clever needle-woman; +her large capable hands were made for riding, rowing and open-air +activities; but since other wives embroidered cushions for their +husbands she did not wish to omit this last link in her devotion. + +She was so placed that Archer, by merely raising his eyes, could see +her bent above her work-frame, her ruffled elbow-sleeves slipping back +from her firm round arms, the betrothal sapphire shining on her left +hand above her broad gold wedding-ring, and the right hand slowly and +laboriously stabbing the canvas. As she sat thus, the lamplight full +on her clear brow, he said to himself with a secret dismay that he +would always know the thoughts behind it, that never, in all the years +to come, would she surprise him by an unexpected mood, by a new idea, +a weakness, a cruelty or an emotion. She had spent her poetry and +romance on their short courting: the function was exhausted because the +need was past. Now she was simply ripening into a copy of her mother, +and mysteriously, by the very process, trying to turn him into a Mr. +Welland. He laid down his book and stood up impatiently; and at once +she raised her head. + +"What's the matter?" + +"The room is stifling: I want a little air." + +He had insisted that the library curtains should draw backward and +forward on a rod, so that they might be closed in the evening, instead +of remaining nailed to a gilt cornice, and immovably looped up over +layers of lace, as in the drawing-room; and he pulled them back and +pushed up the sash, leaning out into the icy night. The mere fact of +not looking at May, seated beside his table, under his lamp, the fact +of seeing other houses, roofs, chimneys, of getting the sense of other +lives outside his own, other cities beyond New York, and a whole world +beyond his world, cleared his brain and made it easier to breathe. + +After he had leaned out into the darkness for a few minutes he heard +her say: "Newland! Do shut the window. You'll catch your death." + +He pulled the sash down and turned back. "Catch my death!" he echoed; +and he felt like adding: "But I've caught it already. I _am_ dead--I've +been dead for months and months." + +And suddenly the play of the word flashed up a wild suggestion. What if +it were _she_ who was dead! If she were going to die--to die soon--and +leave him free! The sensation of standing there, in that warm familiar +room, and looking at her, and wishing her dead, was so strange, so +fascinating and overmastering, that its enormity did not immediately +strike him. He simply felt that chance had given him a new possibility +to which his sick soul might cling. Yes, May might die--people did: +young people, healthy people like herself: she might die, and set him +suddenly free. + +She glanced up, and he saw by her widening eyes that there must be +something strange in his own. + +"Newland! Are you ill?" + +He shook his head and turned toward his arm-chair. She bent over her +work-frame, and as he passed he laid his hand on her hair. "Poor May!" +he said. + +"Poor? Why poor?" she echoed with a strained laugh. + +"Because I shall never be able to open a window without worrying you," +he rejoined, laughing also. + +For a moment she was silent; then she said very low, her head bowed +over her work: "I shall never worry if you're happy." + +"Ah, my dear; and I shall never be happy unless I can open the windows!" + +"In _this_ weather?" she remonstrated; and with a sigh he buried his head +in his book. + +Six or seven days passed. Archer heard nothing from Madame Olenska, +and became aware that her name would not be mentioned in his presence +by any member of the family. He did not try to see her; to do so while +she was at old Catherine's guarded bedside would have been almost +impossible. In the uncertainty of the situation he let himself drift, +conscious, somewhere below the surface of his thoughts, of a resolve +which had come to him when he had leaned out from his library window +into the icy night. The strength of that resolve made it easy to wait +and make no sign. + +Then one day May told him that Mrs. Manson Mingott had asked to see +him. There was nothing surprising in the request, for the old lady +was steadily recovering, and she had always openly declared that +she preferred Archer to any of her other grandsons-in-law. May gave +the message with evident pleasure: she was proud of old Catherine's +appreciation of her husband. + +There was a moment's pause, and then Archer felt it incumbent on him to +say: "All right. Shall we go together this afternoon?" + +His wife's face brightened, but she instantly answered: "Oh, you'd much +better go alone. It bores Granny to see the same people too often." + +Archer's heart was beating violently when he rang old Mrs. Mingott's +bell. He had wanted above all things to go alone, for he felt sure the +visit would give him the chance of saying a word in private to the +Countess Olenska. He had determined to wait till the chance presented +itself naturally; and here it was, and here he was on the doorstep. +Behind the door, behind the curtains of the yellow damask room next to +the hall, she was surely awaiting him; in another moment he should see +her, and be able to speak to her before she led him to the sick-room. + +He wanted only to put one question: after that his course would be +clear. What he wished to ask was simply the date of her return to +Washington; and that question she could hardly refuse to answer. + +But in the yellow sitting-room it was the mulatto maid who waited. Her +white teeth shining like a keyboard, she pushed back the sliding doors +and ushered him into old Catherine's presence. + +The old woman sat in a vast throne-like arm-chair near her bed. Beside +her was a mahogany stand bearing a cast bronze lamp with an engraved +globe, over which a green paper shade had been balanced. There was +not a book or a newspaper in reach, nor any evidence of feminine +employment: conversation had always been Mrs. Mingott's sole pursuit, +and she would have scorned to feign an interest in fancywork. + +Archer saw no trace of the slight distortion left by her stroke. She +merely looked paler, with darker shadows in the folds and recesses of +her obesity; and, in the fluted mob-cap tied by a starched bow between +her first two chins, and the muslin kerchief crossed over her billowing +purple dressing-gown, she seemed like some shrewd and kindly ancestress +of her own who might have yielded too freely to the pleasures of the +table. + +She held out one of the little hands that nestled in a hollow of her +huge lap like pet animals, and called to the maid: "Don't let in any +one else. If my daughters call, say I'm asleep." + +The maid disappeared, and the old lady turned to her grandson. + +"My dear, am I perfectly hideous?" she asked gaily, launching out one +hand in search of the folds of muslin on her inaccessible bosom. "My +daughters tell me it doesn't matter at my age--as if hideousness didn't +matter all the more the harder it gets to conceal!" + +"My dear, you're handsomer than ever!" Archer rejoined in the same +tone; and she threw back her head and laughed. + +"Ah, but not as handsome as Ellen!" she jerked out, twinkling at him +maliciously; and before he could answer she added: "Was she so awfully +handsome the day you drove her up from the ferry?" + +He laughed, and she continued: "Was it because you told her so that +she had to put you out on the way? In my youth young men didn't desert +pretty women unless they were made to!" She gave another chuckle, and +interrupted it to say almost querulously: "It's a pity she didn't marry +you; I always told her so. It would have spared me all this worry. But +who ever thought of sparing their grandmother worry?" + +Archer wondered if her illness had blurred her faculties; but suddenly +she broke out: "Well, it's settled, anyhow: she's going to stay with +me, whatever the rest of the family say! She hadn't been here five +minutes before I'd have gone down on my knees to keep her--if only, for +the last twenty years, I'd been able to see where the floor was!" + +Archer listened in silence, and she went on: "They'd talked me over, as +no doubt you know: persuaded me, Lovell, and Letterblair, and Augusta +Welland, and all the rest of them, that I must hold out and cut off her +allowance, till she was made to see that it was her duty to go back +to Olenski. They thought they'd convinced me when the secretary, or +whatever he was, came out with the last proposals: handsome proposals +I confess they were. After all, marriage is marriage, and money's +money--both useful things in their way ... and I didn't know what to +answer--" She broke off and drew a long breath, as if speaking had +become an effort. "But the minute I laid eyes on her, I said: 'You +sweet bird, you! Shut you up in that cage again? Never!' And now it's +settled that she's to stay here and nurse her Granny as long as there's +a Granny to nurse. It's not a gay prospect, but she doesn't mind; and +of course I've told Letterblair that she's to be given her proper +allowance." + +The young man heard her with veins aglow; but in his confusion of +mind he hardly knew whether her news brought joy or pain. He had so +definitely decided on the course he meant to pursue that for the moment +he could not readjust his thoughts. But gradually there stole over +him the delicious sense of difficulties deferred and opportunities +miraculously provided. If Ellen had consented to come and live with +her grandmother it must surely be because she had recognised the +impossibility of giving him up. This was her answer to his final +appeal of the other day: if she would not take the extreme step he had +urged, she had at last yielded to half-measures. He sank back into the +thought with the involuntary relief of a man who has been ready to risk +everything, and suddenly tastes the dangerous sweetness of security. + +"She couldn't have gone back--it was impossible!" he exclaimed. + +"Ah, my dear, I always knew you were on her side; and that's why I sent +for you today, and why I said to your pretty wife, when she proposed +to come with you: 'No, my dear, I'm pining to see Newland, and I don't +want anybody to share our transports.' For you see, my dear--" she drew +her head back as far as its tethering chins permitted, and looked him +full in the eyes--"you see, we shall have a fight yet. The family don't +want her here, and they'll say it's because I've been ill, because I'm +a weak old woman, that she's persuaded me. I'm not well enough yet to +fight them one by one, and you've got to do it for me." + +"I?" he stammered. + +"You. Why not?" she jerked back at him, her round eyes suddenly as +sharp as pen-knives. Her hand fluttered from its chair-arm and lit on +his with a clutch of little pale nails like bird-claws. "Why not?" she +searchingly repeated. + +Archer, under the exposure of her gaze, had recovered his +self-possession. + +"Oh, I don't count--I'm too insignificant." + +"Well, you're Letterblair's partner, ain't you? You've got to get at +them through Letterblair. Unless you've got a reason," she insisted. + +"Oh, my dear, I back you to hold your own against them all without my +help; but you shall have it if you need it," he reassured her. + +"Then we're safe!" she sighed; and smiling on him with all her ancient +cunning she added, as she settled her head among the cushions: "I +always knew you'd back us up, because they never quote you when they +talk about its being her duty to go home." + +He winced a little at her terrifying perspicacity, and longed to ask: +"And May--do they quote her?" But he judged it safer to turn the +question. + +"And Madame Olenska? When am I to see her?" he said. + +The old lady chuckled, crumpled her lids, and went through the +pantomime of archness. "Not today. One at a time, please. Madame +Olenska's gone out." + +He flushed with disappointment, and she went on: "She's gone out, my +child: gone in my carriage to see Regina Beaufort." + +She paused for this announcement to produce its effect. "That's what +she's reduced me to already. The day after she got here she put on her +best bonnet, and told me, as cool as a cucumber, that she was going to +call on Regina Beaufort. 'I don't know her; who is she?' says I. 'She's +your grand-niece, and a most unhappy woman,' she says. 'She's the wife +of a scoundrel,' I answered. 'Well,' she says, 'and so am I, and yet +all my family want me to go back to him.' Well, that floored me, and I +let her go; and finally one day she said it was raining too hard to go +out on foot, and she wanted me to lend her my carriage. 'What for?' I +asked her; and she said: 'To go and see cousin Regina'--_cousin_! Now, +my dear, I looked out of the window, and saw it wasn't raining a drop; +but I understood her, and I let her have the carriage.... After all, +Regina's a brave woman, and so is she; and I've always liked courage +above everything." + +Archer bent down and pressed his lips on the little hand that still lay +on his. + +"Eh--eh--eh! Whose hand did you think you were kissing, young man--your +wife's, I hope?" the old lady snapped out with her mocking cackle; and +as he rose to go she called out after him: "Give her her Granny's love; +but you'd better not say anything about our talk." + + + + +XXXI. + + +Archer had been stunned by old Catherine's news. It was only natural +that Madame Olenska should have hastened from Washington in response to +her grandmother's summons; but that she should have decided to remain +under her roof--especially now that Mrs. Mingott had almost regained +her health--was less easy to explain. + +Archer was sure that Madame Olenska's decision had not been influenced +by the change in her financial situation. He knew the exact figure of +the small income which her husband had allowed her at their separation. +Without the addition of her grandmother's allowance it was hardly +enough to live on, in any sense known to the Mingott vocabulary; and +now that Medora Manson, who shared her life, had been ruined, such a +pittance would barely keep the two women clothed and fed. Yet Archer +was convinced that Madame Olenska had not accepted her grandmother's +offer from interested motives. + +She had the heedless generosity and the spasmodic extravagance of +persons used to large fortunes, and indifferent to money; but she could +go without many things which her relations considered indispensable, +and Mrs. Lovell Mingott and Mrs. Welland had often been heard to +deplore that any one who had enjoyed the cosmopolitan luxuries of Count +Olenski's establishments should care so little about "how things were +done." Moreover, as Archer knew, several months had passed since her +allowance had been cut off; yet in the interval she had made no effort +to regain her grandmother's favour. Therefore if she had changed her +course it must be for a different reason. + +He did not have far to seek for that reason. On the way from the ferry +she had told him that he and she must remain apart; but she had said +it with her head on his breast. He knew that there was no calculated +coquetry in her words; she was fighting her fate as he had fought his, +and clinging desperately to her resolve that they should not break +faith with the people who trusted them. But during the ten days which +had elapsed since her return to New York she had perhaps guessed from +his silence, and from the fact of his making no attempt to see her, +that he was meditating a decisive step, a step from which there was no +turning back. At the thought, a sudden fear of her own weakness might +have seized her, and she might have felt that, after all, it was better +to accept the compromise usual in such cases, and follow the line of +least resistance. + +An hour earlier, when he had rung Mrs. Mingott's bell, Archer had +fancied that his path was clear before him. He had meant to have a +word alone with Madame Olenska, and failing that, to learn from her +grandmother on what day, and by which train, she was returning to +Washington. In that train he intended to join her, and travel with her +to Washington, or as much farther as she was willing to go. His own +fancy inclined to Japan. At any rate she would understand at once that, +wherever she went, he was going. He meant to leave a note for May that +should cut off any other alternative. + +He had fancied himself not only nerved for this plunge but eager to +take it; yet his first feeling on hearing that the course of events +was changed had been one of relief. Now, however, as he walked home +from Mrs. Mingott's, he was conscious of a growing distaste for what +lay before him. There was nothing unknown or unfamiliar in the path he +was presumably to tread; but when he had trodden it before it was as +a free man, who was accountable to no one for his actions, and could +lend himself with an amused detachment to the game of precautions and +prevarications, concealments and compliances, that the part required. +This procedure was called "protecting a woman's honour"; and the best +fiction, combined with the after-dinner talk of his elders, had long +since initiated him into every detail of its code. + +Now he saw the matter in a new light, and his part in it seemed +singularly diminished. It was, in fact, that which, with a secret +fatuity, he had watched Mrs. Thorley Rushworth play toward a fond and +unperceiving husband: a smiling, bantering, humouring, watchful and +incessant lie. A lie by day, a lie by night, a lie in every touch and +every look; a lie in every caress and every quarrel; a lie in every +word and in every silence. + +It was easier, and less dastardly on the whole, for a wife to play +such a part toward her husband. A woman's standard of truthfulness was +tacitly held to be lower: she was the subject creature, and versed in +the arts of the enslaved. Then she could always plead moods and nerves, +and the right not to be held too strictly to account; and even in the +most strait-laced societies the laugh was always against the husband. + +But in Archer's little world no one laughed at a wife deceived, and a +certain measure of contempt was attached to men who continued their +philandering after marriage. In the rotation of crops there was a +recognised season for wild oats; but they were not to be sown more than +once. + +Archer had always shared this view: in his heart he thought Lefferts +despicable. But to love Ellen Olenska was not to become a man like +Lefferts: for the first time Archer found himself face to face with the +dread argument of the individual case. Ellen Olenska was like no other +woman, he was like no other man: their situation, therefore, resembled +no one else's, and they were answerable to no tribunal but that of +their own judgment. + +Yes, but in ten minutes more he would be mounting his own doorstep; and +there were May, and habit, and honour, and all the old decencies that +he and his people had always believed in ... + +At his corner he hesitated, and then walked on down Fifth Avenue. + +Ahead of him, in the winter night, loomed a big unlit house. As he +drew near he thought how often he had seen it blazing with lights, its +steps awninged and carpeted, and carriages waiting in double line to +draw up at the curbstone. It was in the conservatory that stretched its +dead-black bulk down the side street that he had taken his first kiss +from May; it was under the myriad candles of the ball-room that he had +seen her appear, tall and silver-shining as a young Diana. + +Now the house was as dark as the grave, except for a faint flare of gas +in the basement, and a light in one upstairs room where the blind had +not been lowered. As Archer reached the corner he saw that the carriage +standing at the door was Mrs. Manson Mingott's. What an opportunity +for Sillerton Jackson, if he should chance to pass! Archer had been +greatly moved by old Catherine's account of Madame Olenska's attitude +toward Mrs. Beaufort; it made the righteous reprobation of New York +seem like a passing by on the other side. But he knew well enough what +construction the clubs and drawing-rooms would put on Ellen Olenska's +visits to her cousin. + +He paused and looked up at the lighted window. No doubt the two women +were sitting together in that room: Beaufort had probably sought +consolation elsewhere. There were even rumours that he had left New +York with Fanny Ring; but Mrs. Beaufort's attitude made the report seem +improbable. + +Archer had the nocturnal perspective of Fifth Avenue almost to himself. +At that hour most people were indoors, dressing for dinner; and he was +secretly glad that Ellen's exit was likely to be unobserved. As the +thought passed through his mind the door opened, and she came out. +Behind her was a faint light, such as might have been carried down the +stairs to show her the way. She turned to say a word to some one; then +the door closed, and she came down the steps. + +"Ellen," he said in a low voice, as she reached the pavement. + +She stopped with a slight start, and just then he saw two young men +of fashionable cut approaching. There was a familiar air about their +overcoats and the way their smart silk mufflers were folded over their +white ties; and he wondered how youths of their quality happened to +be dining out so early. Then he remembered that the Reggie Chiverses, +whose house was a few doors above, were taking a large party that +evening to see Adelaide Neilson in Romeo and Juliet, and guessed that +the two were of the number. They passed under a lamp, and he recognised +Lawrence Lefferts and a young Chivers. + +A mean desire not to have Madame Olenska seen at the Beauforts' door +vanished as he felt the penetrating warmth of her hand. + +"I shall see you now--we shall be together," he broke out, hardly +knowing what he said. + +"Ah," she answered, "Granny has told you?" + +While he watched her he was aware that Lefferts and Chivers, on +reaching the farther side of the street corner, had discreetly struck +away across Fifth Avenue. It was the kind of masculine solidarity that +he himself often practised; now he sickened at their connivance. Did +she really imagine that he and she could live like this? And if not, +what else did she imagine? + +"Tomorrow I must see you--somewhere where we can be alone," he said, in +a voice that sounded almost angry to his own ears. + +She wavered, and moved toward the carriage. + +"But I shall be at Granny's--for the present that is," she added, as if +conscious that her change of plans required some explanation. + +"Somewhere where we can be alone," he insisted. + +She gave a faint laugh that grated on him. + +"In New York? But there are no churches ... no monuments." + +"There's the Art Museum--in the Park," he explained, as she looked +puzzled. "At half-past two. I shall be at the door ..." + +She turned away without answering and got quickly into the carriage. +As it drove off she leaned forward, and he thought she waved her hand +in the obscurity. He stared after her in a turmoil of contradictory +feelings. It seemed to him that he had been speaking not to the woman +he loved but to another, a woman he was indebted to for pleasures +already wearied of: it was hateful to find himself the prisoner of this +hackneyed vocabulary. + +"She'll come!" he said to himself, almost contemptuously. + +Avoiding the popular "Wolfe collection," whose anecdotic canvases +filled one of the main galleries of the queer wilderness of cast-iron +and encaustic tiles known as the Metropolitan Museum, they had wandered +down a passage to the room where the "Cesnola antiquities" mouldered in +unvisited loneliness. + +They had this melancholy retreat to themselves, and seated on the divan +enclosing the central steam-radiator, they were staring silently at the +glass cabinets mounted in ebonised wood which contained the recovered +fragments of Ilium. + +"It's odd," Madame Olenska said, "I never came here before." + +"Ah, well--. Some day, I suppose, it will be a great Museum." + +"Yes," she assented absently. + +She stood up and wandered across the room. Archer, remaining seated, +watched the light movements of her figure, so girlish even under its +heavy furs, the cleverly planted heron wing in her fur cap, and the way +a dark curl lay like a flattened vine spiral on each cheek above the +ear. His mind, as always when they first met, was wholly absorbed in +the delicious details that made her herself and no other. Presently he +rose and approached the case before which she stood. Its glass shelves +were crowded with small broken objects--hardly recognisable domestic +utensils, ornaments and personal trifles--made of glass, of clay, of +discoloured bronze and other time-blurred substances. + +"It seems cruel," she said, "that after a while nothing matters ... any +more than these little things, that used to be necessary and important +to forgotten people, and now have to be guessed at under a magnifying +glass and labelled: 'Use unknown.'" + +"Yes; but meanwhile--" + +"Ah, meanwhile--" + +As she stood there, in her long sealskin coat, her hands thrust in a +small round muff, her veil drawn down like a transparent mask to the +tip of her nose, and the bunch of violets he had brought her stirring +with her quickly-taken breath, it seemed incredible that this pure +harmony of line and colour should ever suffer the stupid law of change. + +"Meanwhile everything matters--that concerns you," he said. + +She looked at him thoughtfully, and turned back to the divan. He sat +down beside her and waited; but suddenly he heard a step echoing far +off down the empty rooms, and felt the pressure of the minutes. + +"What is it you wanted to tell me?" she asked, as if she had received +the same warning. + +"What I wanted to tell you?" he rejoined. "Why, that I believe you came +to New York because you were afraid." + +"Afraid?" + +"Of my coming to Washington." + +She looked down at her muff, and he saw her hands stir in it uneasily. + +"Well--?" + +"Well--yes," she said. + +"You _were_ afraid? You knew--?" + +"Yes: I knew ..." + +"Well, then?" he insisted. + +"Well, then: this is better, isn't it?" she returned with a long +questioning sigh. + +"Better--?" + +"We shall hurt others less. Isn't it, after all, what you always +wanted?" + +"To have you here, you mean--in reach and yet out of reach? To meet you +in this way, on the sly? It's the very reverse of what I want. I told +you the other day what I wanted." + +She hesitated. "And you still think this--worse?" + +"A thousand times!" He paused. "It would be easy to lie to you; but the +truth is I think it detestable." + +"Oh, so do I!" she cried with a deep breath of relief. + +He sprang up impatiently. "Well, then--it's my turn to ask: what is it, +in God's name, that you think better?" + +She hung her head and continued to clasp and unclasp her hands in her +muff. The step drew nearer, and a guardian in a braided cap walked +listlessly through the room like a ghost stalking through a necropolis. +They fixed their eyes simultaneously on the case opposite them, and +when the official figure had vanished down a vista of mummies and +sarcophagi Archer spoke again. + +"What do you think better?" + +Instead of answering she murmured: "I promised Granny to stay with her +because it seemed to me that here I should be safer." + +"From me?" + +She bent her head slightly, without looking at him. + +"Safer from loving me?" + +Her profile did not stir, but he saw a tear overflow on her lashes and +hang in a mesh of her veil. + +"Safer from doing irreparable harm. Don't let us be like all the +others!" she protested. + +"What others? I don't profess to be different from my kind. I'm +consumed by the same wants and the same longings." + +She glanced at him with a kind of terror, and he saw a faint colour +steal into her cheeks. + +"Shall I--once come to you; and then go home?" she suddenly hazarded in +a low clear voice. + +The blood rushed to the young man's forehead. "Dearest!" he said, +without moving. It seemed as if he held his heart in his hands, like a +full cup that the least motion might overbrim. + +Then her last phrase struck his ear and his face clouded. "Go home? +What do you mean by going home?" + +"Home to my husband." + +"And you expect me to say yes to that?" + +She raised her troubled eyes to his. "What else is there? I can't stay +here and lie to the people who've been good to me." + +"But that's the very reason why I ask you to come away!" + +"And destroy their lives, when they've helped me to remake mine?" + +Archer sprang to his feet and stood looking down on her in inarticulate +despair. It would have been easy to say: "Yes, come; come once." He +knew the power she would put in his hands if she consented; there would +be no difficulty then in persuading her not to go back to her husband. + +But something silenced the word on his lips. A sort of passionate +honesty in her made it inconceivable that he should try to draw her +into that familiar trap. "If I were to let her come," he said to +himself, "I should have to let her go again." And that was not to be +imagined. + +But he saw the shadow of the lashes on her wet cheek, and wavered. + +"After all," he began again, "we have lives of our own.... There's +no use attempting the impossible. You're so unprejudiced about some +things, so used, as you say, to looking at the Gorgon, that I don't +know why you're afraid to face our case, and see it as it really +is--unless you think the sacrifice is not worth making." + +She stood up also, her lips tightening under a rapid frown. + +"Call it that, then--I must go," she said, drawing her little watch +from her bosom. + +She turned away, and he followed and caught her by the wrist. "Well, +then: come to me once," he said, his head turning suddenly at the +thought of losing her; and for a second or two they looked at each +other almost like enemies. + +"When?" he insisted. "Tomorrow?" + +She hesitated. "The day after." + +"Dearest--!" he said again. + +She had disengaged her wrist; but for a moment they continued to hold +each other's eyes, and he saw that her face, which had grown very pale, +was flooded with a deep inner radiance. His heart beat with awe: he +felt that he had never before beheld love visible. + +"Oh, I shall be late--good-bye. No, don't come any farther than this," +she cried, walking hurriedly away down the long room, as if the +reflected radiance in his eyes had frightened her. When she reached the +door she turned for a moment to wave a quick farewell. + +Archer walked home alone. Darkness was falling when he let himself into +his house, and he looked about at the familiar objects in the hall as +if he viewed them from the other side of the grave. + +The parlour-maid, hearing his step, ran up the stairs to light the gas +on the upper landing. + +"Is Mrs. Archer in?" + +"No, sir; Mrs. Archer went out in the carriage after luncheon, and +hasn't come back." + +With a sense of relief he entered the library and flung himself down in +his armchair. The parlour-maid followed, bringing the student lamp and +shaking some coals onto the dying fire. When she left he continued to +sit motionless, his elbows on his knees, his chin on his clasped hands, +his eyes fixed on the red grate. + +He sat there without conscious thoughts, without sense of the lapse of +time, in a deep and grave amazement that seemed to suspend life rather +than quicken it. "This was what had to be, then ... this was what had +to be," he kept repeating to himself, as if he hung in the clutch of +doom. What he had dreamed of had been so different that there was a +mortal chill in his rapture. + +The door opened and May came in. + +"I'm dreadfully late--you weren't worried, were you?" she asked, laying +her hand on his shoulder with one of her rare caresses. + +He looked up astonished. "Is it late?" + +"After seven. I believe you've been asleep!" She laughed, and drawing +out her hat pins tossed her velvet hat on the sofa. She looked paler +than usual, but sparkling with an unwonted animation. + +"I went to see Granny, and just as I was going away Ellen came in from +a walk; so I stayed and had a long talk with her. It was ages since +we'd had a real talk...." She had dropped into her usual armchair, +facing his, and was running her fingers through her rumpled hair. He +fancied she expected him to speak. + +"A really good talk," she went on, smiling with what seemed to Archer +an unnatural vividness. "She was so dear--just like the old Ellen. I'm +afraid I haven't been fair to her lately. I've sometimes thought--" + +Archer stood up and leaned against the mantelpiece, out of the radius +of the lamp. + +"Yes, you've thought--?" he echoed as she paused. + +"Well, perhaps I haven't judged her fairly. She's so different--at +least on the surface. She takes up such odd people--she seems to like +to make herself conspicuous. I suppose it's the life she's led in that +fast European society; no doubt we seem dreadfully dull to her. But I +don't want to judge her unfairly." + +She paused again, a little breathless with the unwonted length of her +speech, and sat with her lips slightly parted and a deep blush on her +cheeks. + +Archer, as he looked at her, was reminded of the glow which had +suffused her face in the Mission Garden at St. Augustine. He became +aware of the same obscure effort in her, the same reaching out toward +something beyond the usual range of her vision. + +"She hates Ellen," he thought, "and she's trying to overcome the +feeling, and to get me to help her to overcome it." + +The thought moved him, and for a moment he was on the point of breaking +the silence between them, and throwing himself on her mercy. + +"You understand, don't you," she went on, "why the family have +sometimes been annoyed? We all did what we could for her at first; but +she never seemed to understand. And now this idea of going to see Mrs. +Beaufort, of going there in Granny's carriage! I'm afraid she's quite +alienated the van der Luydens ..." + +"Ah," said Archer with an impatient laugh. The open door had closed +between them again. + +"It's time to dress; we're dining out, aren't we?" he asked, moving +from the fire. + +She rose also, but lingered near the hearth. As he walked past her she +moved forward impulsively, as though to detain him: their eyes met, and +he saw that hers were of the same swimming blue as when he had left her +to drive to Jersey City. + +She flung her arms about his neck and pressed her cheek to his. + +"You haven't kissed me today," she said in a whisper; and he felt her +tremble in his arms. + + + + +XXXII. + + +"At the court of the Tuileries," said Mr. Sillerton Jackson with his +reminiscent smile, "such things were pretty openly tolerated." + +The scene was the van der Luydens' black walnut dining-room in Madison +Avenue, and the time the evening after Newland Archer's visit to the +Museum of Art. Mr. and Mrs. van der Luyden had come to town for a few +days from Skuytercliff, whither they had precipitately fled at the +announcement of Beaufort's failure. It had been represented to them +that the disarray into which society had been thrown by this deplorable +affair made their presence in town more necessary than ever. It was one +of the occasions when, as Mrs. Archer put it, they "owed it to society" +to show themselves at the Opera, and even to open their own doors. + +"It will never do, my dear Louisa, to let people like Mrs. Lemuel +Struthers think they can step into Regina's shoes. It is just at such +times that new people push in and get a footing. It was owing to the +epidemic of chicken-pox in New York the winter Mrs. Struthers first +appeared that the married men slipped away to her house while their +wives were in the nursery. You and dear Henry, Louisa, must stand in +the breach as you always have." + +Mr. and Mrs. van der Luyden could not remain deaf to such a call, and +reluctantly but heroically they had come to town, unmuffled the house, +and sent out invitations for two dinners and an evening reception. + +On this particular evening they had invited Sillerton Jackson, Mrs. +Archer and Newland and his wife to go with them to the Opera, where +Faust was being sung for the first time that winter. Nothing was done +without ceremony under the van der Luyden roof, and though there were +but four guests the repast had begun at seven punctually, so that the +proper sequence of courses might be served without haste before the +gentlemen settled down to their cigars. + +Archer had not seen his wife since the evening before. He had left +early for the office, where he had plunged into an accumulation of +unimportant business. In the afternoon one of the senior partners had +made an unexpected call on his time; and he had reached home so late +that May had preceded him to the van der Luydens', and sent back the +carriage. + +Now, across the Skuytercliff carnations and the massive plate, she +struck him as pale and languid; but her eyes shone, and she talked with +exaggerated animation. + +The subject which had called forth Mr. Sillerton Jackson's favourite +allusion had been brought up (Archer fancied not without intention) by +their hostess. The Beaufort failure, or rather the Beaufort attitude +since the failure, was still a fruitful theme for the drawing-room +moralist; and after it had been thoroughly examined and condemned Mrs. +van der Luyden had turned her scrupulous eyes on May Archer. + +"Is it possible, dear, that what I hear is true? I was told your +grandmother Mingott's carriage was seen standing at Mrs. Beaufort's +door." It was noticeable that she no longer called the offending lady +by her Christian name. + +May's colour rose, and Mrs. Archer put in hastily: "If it was, I'm +convinced it was there without Mrs. Mingott's knowledge." + +"Ah, you think--?" Mrs. van der Luyden paused, sighed, and glanced at +her husband. + +"I'm afraid," Mr. van der Luyden said, "that Madame Olenska's kind +heart may have led her into the imprudence of calling on Mrs. Beaufort." + +"Or her taste for peculiar people," put in Mrs. Archer in a dry tone, +while her eyes dwelt innocently on her son's. + +"I'm sorry to think it of Madame Olenska," said Mrs. van der Luyden; +and Mrs. Archer murmured: "Ah, my dear--and after you'd had her twice +at Skuytercliff!" + +It was at this point that Mr. Jackson seized the chance to place his +favourite allusion. + +"At the Tuileries," he repeated, seeing the eyes of the company +expectantly turned on him, "the standard was excessively lax in some +respects; and if you'd asked where Morny's money came from--! Or who +paid the debts of some of the Court beauties ..." + +"I hope, dear Sillerton," said Mrs. Archer, "you are not suggesting +that we should adopt such standards?" + +"I never suggest," returned Mr. Jackson imperturbably. "But Madame +Olenska's foreign bringing-up may make her less particular--" + +"Ah," the two elder ladies sighed. + +"Still, to have kept her grandmother's carriage at a defaulter's +door!" Mr. van der Luyden protested; and Archer guessed that he was +remembering, and resenting, the hampers of carnations he had sent to +the little house in Twenty-third Street. + +"Of course I've always said that she looks at things quite +differently," Mrs. Archer summed up. + +A flush rose to May's forehead. She looked across the table at her +husband, and said precipitately: "I'm sure Ellen meant it kindly." + +"Imprudent people are often kind," said Mrs. Archer, as if the fact +were scarcely an extenuation; and Mrs. van der Luyden murmured: "If +only she had consulted some one--" + +"Ah, that she never did!" Mrs. Archer rejoined. + +At this point Mr. van der Luyden glanced at his wife, who bent her head +slightly in the direction of Mrs. Archer; and the glimmering trains +of the three ladies swept out of the door while the gentlemen settled +down to their cigars. Mr. van der Luyden supplied short ones on Opera +nights; but they were so good that they made his guests deplore his +inexorable punctuality. + +Archer, after the first act, had detached himself from the party and +made his way to the back of the club box. From there he watched, over +various Chivers, Mingott and Rushworth shoulders, the same scene that +he had looked at, two years previously, on the night of his first +meeting with Ellen Olenska. He had half-expected her to appear again in +old Mrs. Mingott's box, but it remained empty; and he sat motionless, +his eyes fastened on it, till suddenly Madame Nilsson's pure soprano +broke out into "_M'ama, non m'ama ..._" + +Archer turned to the stage, where, in the familiar setting of giant +roses and pen-wiper pansies, the same large blonde victim was +succumbing to the same small brown seducer. + +From the stage his eyes wandered to the point of the horseshoe where +May sat between two older ladies, just as, on that former evening, she +had sat between Mrs. Lovell Mingott and her newly-arrived "foreign" +cousin. As on that evening, she was all in white; and Archer, who had +not noticed what she wore, recognised the blue-white satin and old lace +of her wedding dress. + +It was the custom, in old New York, for brides to appear in this costly +garment during the first year or two of marriage: his mother, he knew, +kept hers in tissue paper in the hope that Janey might some day wear +it, though poor Janey was reaching the age when pearl grey poplin and +no bridesmaids would be thought more "appropriate." + +It struck Archer that May, since their return from Europe, had seldom +worn her bridal satin, and the surprise of seeing her in it made him +compare her appearance with that of the young girl he had watched with +such blissful anticipations two years earlier. + +Though May's outline was slightly heavier, as her goddesslike build +had foretold, her athletic erectness of carriage, and the girlish +transparency of her expression, remained unchanged: but for the +slight languor that Archer had lately noticed in her she would +have been the exact image of the girl playing with the bouquet of +lilies-of-the-valley on her betrothal evening. The fact seemed an +additional appeal to his pity: such innocence was as moving as +the trustful clasp of a child. Then he remembered the passionate +generosity latent under that incurious calm. He recalled her glance +of understanding when he had urged that their engagement should be +announced at the Beaufort ball; he heard the voice in which she had +said, in the Mission garden: "I couldn't have my happiness made out +of a wrong--a wrong to some one else;" and an uncontrollable longing +seized him to tell her the truth, to throw himself on her generosity, +and ask for the freedom he had once refused. + +Newland Archer was a quiet and self-controlled young man. Conformity +to the discipline of a small society had become almost his second +nature. It was deeply distasteful to him to do anything melodramatic +and conspicuous, anything Mr. van der Luyden would have deprecated +and the club box condemned as bad form. But he had become suddenly +unconscious of the club box, of Mr. van der Luyden, of all that had so +long enclosed him in the warm shelter of habit. He walked along the +semi-circular passage at the back of the house, and opened the door of +Mrs. van der Luyden's box as if it had been a gate into the unknown. + +"_M'ama_!" thrilled out the triumphant Marguerite; and the occupants +of the box looked up in surprise at Archer's entrance. He had already +broken one of the rules of his world, which forbade the entering of a +box during a solo. + +Slipping between Mr. van der Luyden and Sillerton Jackson, he leaned +over his wife. + +"I've got a beastly headache; don't tell any one, but come home, won't +you?" he whispered. + +May gave him a glance of comprehension, and he saw her whisper to his +mother, who nodded sympathetically; then she murmured an excuse to Mrs. +van der Luyden, and rose from her seat just as Marguerite fell into +Faust's arms. Archer, while he helped her on with her Opera cloak, +noticed the exchange of a significant smile between the older ladies. + +As they drove away May laid her hand shyly on his. "I'm so sorry you +don't feel well. I'm afraid they've been overworking you again at the +office." + +"No--it's not that: do you mind if I open the window?" he returned +confusedly, letting down the pane on his side. He sat staring out +into the street, feeling his wife beside him as a silent watchful +interrogation, and keeping his eyes steadily fixed on the passing +houses. At their door she caught her skirt in the step of the carriage, +and fell against him. + +"Did you hurt yourself?" he asked, steadying her with his arm. + +"No; but my poor dress--see how I've torn it!" she exclaimed. She bent +to gather up a mud-stained breadth, and followed him up the steps into +the hall. The servants had not expected them so early, and there was +only a glimmer of gas on the upper landing. + +Archer mounted the stairs, turned up the light, and put a match to the +brackets on each side of the library mantelpiece. The curtains were +drawn, and the warm friendly aspect of the room smote him like that of +a familiar face met during an unavowable errand. + +He noticed that his wife was very pale, and asked if he should get her +some brandy. + +"Oh, no," she exclaimed with a momentary flush, as she took off her +cloak. "But hadn't you better go to bed at once?" she added, as he +opened a silver box on the table and took out a cigarette. + +Archer threw down the cigarette and walked to his usual place by the +fire. + +"No; my head is not as bad as that." He paused. "And there's something +I want to say; something important--that I must tell you at once." + +She had dropped into an armchair, and raised her head as he spoke. +"Yes, dear?" she rejoined, so gently that he wondered at the lack of +wonder with which she received this preamble. + +"May--" he began, standing a few feet from her chair, and looking over +at her as if the slight distance between them were an unbridgeable +abyss. The sound of his voice echoed uncannily through the homelike +hush, and he repeated: "There is something I've got to tell you ... +about myself ..." + +She sat silent, without a movement or a tremor of her lashes. She +was still extremely pale, but her face had a curious tranquillity of +expression that seemed drawn from some secret inner source. + +Archer checked the conventional phrases of self-accusal that were +crowding to his lips. He was determined to put the case baldly, without +vain recrimination or excuse. + +"Madame Olenska--" he said; but at the name his wife raised her hand as +if to silence him. As she did so the gaslight struck on the gold of her +wedding-ring. + +"Oh, why should we talk about Ellen tonight?" she asked, with a slight +pout of impatience. + +"Because I ought to have spoken before." + +Her face remained calm. "Is it really worth while, dear? I know I've +been unfair to her at times--perhaps we all have. You've understood +her, no doubt, better than we did: you've always been kind to her. But +what does it matter, now it's all over?" + +Archer looked at her blankly. Could it be possible that the sense of +unreality in which he felt himself imprisoned had communicated itself +to his wife? + +"All over--what do you mean?" he asked in an indistinct stammer. + +May still looked at him with transparent eyes. "Why--since she's going +back to Europe so soon; since Granny approves and understands, and has +arranged to make her independent of her husband--" + +She broke off, and Archer, grasping the corner of the mantelpiece in +one convulsed hand, and steadying himself against it, made a vain +effort to extend the same control to his reeling thoughts. + +"I supposed," he heard his wife's even voice go on, "that you had been +kept at the office this evening about the business arrangements. It +was settled this morning, I believe." She lowered her eyes under his +unseeing stare, and another fugitive flush passed over her face. + +He understood that his own eyes must be unbearable, and turning away, +rested his elbows on the mantel-shelf and covered his face. Something +drummed and clanged furiously in his ears; he could not tell if it were +the blood in his veins, or the tick of the clock on the mantel. + +May sat without moving or speaking while the clock slowly measured out +five minutes. A lump of coal fell forward in the grate, and hearing her +rise to push it back, Archer at length turned and faced her. + +"It's impossible," he exclaimed. + +"Impossible--?" + +"How do you know--what you've just told me?" + +"I saw Ellen yesterday--I told you I'd seen her at Granny's." + +"It wasn't then that she told you?" + +"No; I had a note from her this afternoon.--Do you want to see it?" + +He could not find his voice, and she went out of the room, and came +back almost immediately. + +"I thought you knew," she said simply. + +She laid a sheet of paper on the table, and Archer put out his hand and +took it up. The letter contained only a few lines. + +"May dear, I have at last made Granny understand that my visit to her +could be no more than a visit; and she has been as kind and generous as +ever. She sees now that if I return to Europe I must live by myself, or +rather with poor Aunt Medora, who is coming with me. I am hurrying back +to Washington to pack up, and we sail next week. You must be very good +to Granny when I'm gone--as good as you've always been to me. Ellen. + +"If any of my friends wish to urge me to change my mind, please tell +them it would be utterly useless." + +Archer read the letter over two or three times; then he flung it down +and burst out laughing. + +The sound of his laugh startled him. It recalled Janey's midnight +fright when she had caught him rocking with incomprehensible mirth over +May's telegram announcing that the date of their marriage had been +advanced. + +"Why did she write this?" he asked, checking his laugh with a supreme +effort. + +May met the question with her unshaken candour. "I suppose because we +talked things over yesterday--" + +"What things?" + +"I told her I was afraid I hadn't been fair to her--hadn't always +understood how hard it must have been for her here, alone among so many +people who were relations and yet strangers; who felt the right to +criticise, and yet didn't always know the circumstances." She paused. +"I knew you'd been the one friend she could always count on; and I +wanted her to know that you and I were the same--in all our feelings." + +She hesitated, as if waiting for him to speak, and then added slowly: +"She understood my wishing to tell her this. I think she understands +everything." + +She went up to Archer, and taking one of his cold hands pressed it +quickly against her cheek. + +"My head aches too; good-night, dear," she said, and turned to the +door, her torn and muddy wedding-dress dragging after her across the +room. + + + + +XXXIII. + + +It was, as Mrs. Archer smilingly said to Mrs. Welland, a great event +for a young couple to give their first big dinner. + +The Newland Archers, since they had set up their household, had +received a good deal of company in an informal way. Archer was fond +of having three or four friends to dine, and May welcomed them with +the beaming readiness of which her mother had set her the example +in conjugal affairs. Her husband questioned whether, if left to +herself, she would ever have asked any one to the house; but he had +long given up trying to disengage her real self from the shape into +which tradition and training had moulded her. It was expected that +well-off young couples in New York should do a good deal of informal +entertaining, and a Welland married to an Archer was doubly pledged to +the tradition. + +But a big dinner, with a hired chef and two borrowed footmen, with +Roman punch, roses from Henderson's, and menus on gilt-edged cards, was +a different affair, and not to be lightly undertaken. As Mrs. Archer +remarked, the Roman punch made all the difference; not in itself but +by its manifold implications--since it signified either canvas-backs +or terrapin, two soups, a hot and a cold sweet, full decolletage with +short sleeves, and guests of a proportionate importance. + +It was always an interesting occasion when a young pair launched their +first invitations in the third person, and their summons was seldom +refused even by the seasoned and sought-after. Still, it was admittedly +a triumph that the van der Luydens, at May's request, should have +stayed over in order to be present at her farewell dinner for the +Countess Olenska. + +The two mothers-in-law sat in May's drawing-room on the afternoon of +the great day, Mrs. Archer writing out the menus on Tiffany's thickest +gilt-edged bristol, while Mrs. Welland superintended the placing of the +palms and standard lamps. + +Archer, arriving late from his office, found them still there. Mrs. +Archer had turned her attention to the name-cards for the table, and +Mrs. Welland was considering the effect of bringing forward the large +gilt sofa, so that another "corner" might be created between the piano +and the window. + +May, they told him, was in the dining-room inspecting the mound of +Jacqueminot roses and maidenhair in the centre of the long table, and +the placing of the Maillard bonbons in openwork silver baskets between +the candelabra. On the piano stood a large basket of orchids which +Mr. van der Luyden had had sent from Skuytercliff. Everything was, in +short, as it should be on the approach of so considerable an event. + +Mrs. Archer ran thoughtfully over the list, checking off each name with +her sharp gold pen. + +"Henry van der Luyden--Louisa--the Lovell Mingotts--the Reggie +Chiverses--Lawrence Lefferts and Gertrude--(yes, I suppose May was +right to have them)--the Selfridge Merrys, Sillerton Jackson, Van +Newland and his wife. (How time passes! It seems only yesterday that he +was your best man, Newland)--and Countess Olenska--yes, I think that's +all...." + +Mrs. Welland surveyed her son-in-law affectionately. "No one can say, +Newland, that you and May are not giving Ellen a handsome send-off." + +"Ah, well," said Mrs. Archer, "I understand May's wanting her cousin to +tell people abroad that we're not quite barbarians." + +"I'm sure Ellen will appreciate it. She was to arrive this morning, +I believe. It will make a most charming last impression. The evening +before sailing is usually so dreary," Mrs. Welland cheerfully continued. + +Archer turned toward the door, and his mother-in-law called to him: +"Do go in and have a peep at the table. And don't let May tire herself +too much." But he affected not to hear, and sprang up the stairs to +his library. The room looked at him like an alien countenance composed +into a polite grimace; and he perceived that it had been ruthlessly +"tidied," and prepared, by a judicious distribution of ash-trays and +cedar-wood boxes, for the gentlemen to smoke in. + +"Ah, well," he thought, "it's not for long--" and he went on to his +dressing-room. + +Ten days had passed since Madame Olenska's departure from New York. +During those ten days Archer had had no sign from her but that conveyed +by the return of a key wrapped in tissue paper, and sent to his office +in a sealed envelope addressed in her hand. This retort to his last +appeal might have been interpreted as a classic move in a familiar +game; but the young man chose to give it a different meaning. She was +still fighting against her fate; but she was going to Europe, and she +was not returning to her husband. Nothing, therefore, was to prevent +his following her; and once he had taken the irrevocable step, and had +proved to her that it was irrevocable, he believed she would not send +him away. + +This confidence in the future had steadied him to play his part in the +present. It had kept him from writing to her, or betraying, by any sign +or act, his misery and mortification. It seemed to him that in the +deadly silent game between them the trumps were still in his hands; and +he waited. + +There had been, nevertheless, moments sufficiently difficult to pass; +as when Mr. Letterblair, the day after Madame Olenska's departure, had +sent for him to go over the details of the trust which Mrs. Manson +Mingott wished to create for her granddaughter. For a couple of hours +Archer had examined the terms of the deed with his senior, all the +while obscurely feeling that if he had been consulted it was for some +reason other than the obvious one of his cousinship; and that the close +of the conference would reveal it. + +"Well, the lady can't deny that it's a handsome arrangement," Mr. +Letterblair had summed up, after mumbling over a summary of the +settlement. "In fact I'm bound to say she's been treated pretty +handsomely all round." + +"All round?" Archer echoed with a touch of derision. "Do you refer to +her husband's proposal to give her back her own money?" + +Mr. Letterblair's bushy eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch. "My +dear sir, the law's the law; and your wife's cousin was married under +the French law. It's to be presumed she knew what that meant." + +"Even if she did, what happened subsequently--." But Archer paused. Mr. +Letterblair had laid his pen-handle against his big corrugated nose, +and was looking down it with the expression assumed by virtuous elderly +gentlemen when they wish their youngers to understand that virtue is +not synonymous with ignorance. + +"My dear sir, I've no wish to extenuate the Count's transgressions; +but--but on the other side ... I wouldn't put my hand in the fire +... well, that there hadn't been tit for tat ... with the young +champion...." Mr. Letterblair unlocked a drawer and pushed a folded +paper toward Archer. "This report, the result of discreet enquiries +..." And then, as Archer made no effort to glance at the paper or to +repudiate the suggestion, the lawyer somewhat flatly continued: "I +don't say it's conclusive, you observe; far from it. But straws show +... and on the whole it's eminently satisfactory for all parties that +this dignified solution has been reached." + +"Oh, eminently," Archer assented, pushing back the paper. + +A day or two later, on responding to a summons from Mrs. Manson +Mingott, his soul had been more deeply tried. + +He had found the old lady depressed and querulous. + +"You know she's deserted me?" she began at once; and without waiting +for his reply: "Oh, don't ask me why! She gave so many reasons that +I've forgotten them all. My private belief is that she couldn't face +the boredom. At any rate that's what Augusta and my daughters-in-law +think. And I don't know that I altogether blame her. Olenski's a +finished scoundrel; but life with him must have been a good deal gayer +than it is in Fifth Avenue. Not that the family would admit that: they +think Fifth Avenue is Heaven with the rue de la Paix thrown in. And +poor Ellen, of course, has no idea of going back to her husband. She +held out as firmly as ever against that. So she's to settle down in +Paris with that fool Medora.... Well, Paris is Paris; and you can keep +a carriage there on next to nothing. But she was as gay as a bird, and +I shall miss her." Two tears, the parched tears of the old, rolled down +her puffy cheeks and vanished in the abysses of her bosom. + +"All I ask is," she concluded, "that they shouldn't bother me any more. +I must really be allowed to digest my gruel...." And she twinkled a +little wistfully at Archer. + +It was that evening, on his return home, that May announced her +intention of giving a farewell dinner to her cousin. Madame Olenska's +name had not been pronounced between them since the night of her flight +to Washington; and Archer looked at his wife with surprise. + +"A dinner--why?" he interrogated. + +Her colour rose. "But you like Ellen--I thought you'd be pleased." + +"It's awfully nice--your putting it in that way. But I really don't +see--" + +"I mean to do it, Newland," she said, quietly rising and going to her +desk. "Here are the invitations all written. Mother helped me--she +agrees that we ought to." She paused, embarrassed and yet smiling, and +Archer suddenly saw before him the embodied image of the Family. + +"Oh, all right," he said, staring with unseeing eyes at the list of +guests that she had put in his hand. + +When he entered the drawing-room before dinner May was stooping over +the fire and trying to coax the logs to burn in their unaccustomed +setting of immaculate tiles. + +The tall lamps were all lit, and Mr. van der Luyden's orchids had been +conspicuously disposed in various receptacles of modern porcelain and +knobby silver. Mrs. Newland Archer's drawing-room was generally thought +a great success. A gilt bamboo _jardinière_, in which the primulas and +cinerarias were punctually renewed, blocked the access to the bay +window (where the old-fashioned would have preferred a bronze reduction +of the Venus of Milo); the sofas and arm-chairs of pale brocade were +cleverly grouped about little plush tables densely covered with silver +toys, porcelain animals and efflorescent photograph frames; and tall +rosy-shaded lamps shot up like tropical flowers among the palms. + +"I don't think Ellen has ever seen this room lighted up," said May, +rising flushed from her struggle, and sending about her a glance of +pardonable pride. The brass tongs which she had propped against the +side of the chimney fell with a crash that drowned her husband's +answer; and before he could restore them Mr. and Mrs. van der Luyden +were announced. + +The other guests quickly followed, for it was known that the van der +Luydens liked to dine punctually. The room was nearly full, and Archer +was engaged in showing to Mrs. Selfridge Merry a small highly-varnished +Verbeckhoven "Study of Sheep," which Mr. Welland had given May for +Christmas, when he found Madame Olenska at his side. + +She was excessively pale, and her pallor made her dark hair seem denser +and heavier than ever. Perhaps that, or the fact that she had wound +several rows of amber beads about her neck, reminded him suddenly of +the little Ellen Mingott he had danced with at children's parties, when +Medora Manson had first brought her to New York. + +The amber beads were trying to her complexion, or her dress was +perhaps unbecoming: her face looked lustreless and almost ugly, and +he had never loved it as he did at that minute. Their hands met, and +he thought he heard her say: "Yes, we're sailing tomorrow in the +Russia--"; then there was an unmeaning noise of opening doors, and +after an interval May's voice: "Newland! Dinner's been announced. Won't +you please take Ellen in?" + +Madame Olenska put her hand on his arm, and he noticed that the hand +was ungloved, and remembered how he had kept his eyes fixed on it the +evening that he had sat with her in the little Twenty-third Street +drawing-room. All the beauty that had forsaken her face seemed to have +taken refuge in the long pale fingers and faintly dimpled knuckles on +his sleeve, and he said to himself: "If it were only to see her hand +again I should have to follow her--." + +It was only at an entertainment ostensibly offered to a "foreign +visitor" that Mrs. van der Luyden could suffer the diminution of being +placed on her host's left. The fact of Madame Olenska's "foreignness" +could hardly have been more adroitly emphasised than by this farewell +tribute; and Mrs. van der Luyden accepted her displacement with an +affability which left no doubt as to her approval. There were certain +things that had to be done, and if done at all, done handsomely and +thoroughly; and one of these, in the old New York code, was the tribal +rally around a kinswoman about to be eliminated from the tribe. There +was nothing on earth that the Wellands and Mingotts would not have done +to proclaim their unalterable affection for the Countess Olenska now +that her passage for Europe was engaged; and Archer, at the head of his +table, sat marvelling at the silent untiring activity with which her +popularity had been retrieved, grievances against her silenced, her +past countenanced, and her present irradiated by the family approval. +Mrs. van der Luyden shone on her with the dim benevolence which was her +nearest approach to cordiality, and Mr. van der Luyden, from his seat +at May's right, cast down the table glances plainly intended to justify +all the carnations he had sent from Skuytercliff. + +Archer, who seemed to be assisting at the scene in a state of odd +imponderability, as if he floated somewhere between chandelier +and ceiling, wondered at nothing so much as his own share in the +proceedings. As his glance travelled from one placid well-fed face +to another he saw all the harmless-looking people engaged upon May's +canvas-backs as a band of dumb conspirators, and himself and the pale +woman on his right as the centre of their conspiracy. And then it +came over him, in a vast flash made up of many broken gleams, that to +all of them he and Madame Olenska were lovers, lovers in the extreme +sense peculiar to "foreign" vocabularies. He guessed himself to have +been, for months, the centre of countless silently observing eyes and +patiently listening ears; he understood that, by means as yet unknown +to him, the separation between himself and the partner of his guilt had +been achieved, and that now the whole tribe had rallied about his wife +on the tacit assumption that nobody knew anything, or had ever imagined +anything, and that the occasion of the entertainment was simply May +Archer's natural desire to take an affectionate leave of her friend and +cousin. + +It was the old New York way of taking life "without effusion of +blood": the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who +placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more +ill-bred than "scenes," except the behaviour of those who gave rise to +them. + +As these thoughts succeeded each other in his mind Archer felt like a +prisoner in the centre of an armed camp. He looked about the table, and +guessed at the inexorableness of his captors from the tone in which, +over the asparagus from Florida, they were dealing with Beaufort and +his wife. "It's to show me," he thought, "what would happen to _me_--" +and a deathly sense of the superiority of implication and analogy over +direct action, and of silence over rash words, closed in on him like +the doors of the family vault. + +He laughed, and met Mrs. van der Luyden's startled eyes. + +"You think it laughable?" she said with a pinched smile. "Of course +poor Regina's idea of remaining in New York has its ridiculous side, I +suppose;" and Archer muttered: "Of course." + +At this point, he became conscious that Madame Olenska's other +neighbour had been engaged for some time with the lady on his right. At +the same moment he saw that May, serenely enthroned between Mr. van der +Luyden and Mr. Selfridge Merry, had cast a quick glance down the table. +It was evident that the host and the lady on his right could not sit +through the whole meal in silence. He turned to Madame Olenska, and her +pale smile met him. "Oh, do let's see it through," it seemed to say. + +"Did you find the journey tiring?" he asked in a voice that surprised +him by its naturalness; and she answered that, on the contrary, she had +seldom travelled with fewer discomforts. + +"Except, you know, the dreadful heat in the train," she added; and he +remarked that she would not suffer from that particular hardship in the +country she was going to. + +"I never," he declared with intensity, "was more nearly frozen than +once, in April, in the train between Calais and Paris." + +She said she did not wonder, but remarked that, after all, one could +always carry an extra rug, and that every form of travel had its +hardships; to which he abruptly returned that he thought them all of +no account compared with the blessedness of getting away. She changed +colour, and he added, his voice suddenly rising in pitch: "I mean to +do a lot of travelling myself before long." A tremor crossed her face, +and leaning over to Reggie Chivers, he cried out: "I say, Reggie, what +do you say to a trip round the world: now, next month, I mean? I'm +game if you are--" at which Mrs. Reggie piped up that she could not +think of letting Reggie go till after the Martha Washington Ball she +was getting up for the Blind Asylum in Easter week; and her husband +placidly observed that by that time he would have to be practising for +the International Polo match. + +But Mr. Selfridge Merry had caught the phrase "round the world," +and having once circled the globe in his steam-yacht, he seized the +opportunity to send down the table several striking items concerning +the shallowness of the Mediterranean ports. Though, after all, he +added, it didn't matter; for when you'd seen Athens and Smyrna and +Constantinople, what else was there? And Mrs. Merry said she could +never be too grateful to Dr. Bencomb for having made them promise not +to go to Naples on account of the fever. + +"But you must have three weeks to do India properly," her husband +conceded, anxious to have it understood that he was no frivolous +globe-trotter. + +And at this point the ladies went up to the drawing-room. + +In the library, in spite of weightier presences, Lawrence Lefferts +predominated. + +The talk, as usual, had veered around to the Beauforts, and even Mr. +van der Luyden and Mr. Selfridge Merry, installed in the honorary +arm-chairs tacitly reserved for them, paused to listen to the younger +man's philippic. + +Never had Lefferts so abounded in the sentiments that adorn Christian +manhood and exalt the sanctity of the home. Indignation lent him a +scathing eloquence, and it was clear that if others had followed his +example, and acted as he talked, society would never have been weak +enough to receive a foreign upstart like Beaufort--no, sir, not even +if he'd married a van der Luyden or a Lanning instead of a Dallas. And +what chance would there have been, Lefferts wrathfully questioned, +of his marrying into such a family as the Dallases, if he had not +already wormed his way into certain houses, as people like Mrs. Lemuel +Struthers had managed to worm theirs in his wake? If society chose to +open its doors to vulgar women the harm was not great, though the gain +was doubtful; but once it got in the way of tolerating men of obscure +origin and tainted wealth the end was total disintegration--and at no +distant date. + +"If things go on at this pace," Lefferts thundered, looking like a +young prophet dressed by Poole, and who had not yet been stoned, "we +shall see our children fighting for invitations to swindlers' houses, +and marrying Beaufort's bastards." + +"Oh, I say--draw it mild!" Reggie Chivers and young Newland protested, +while Mr. Selfridge Merry looked genuinely alarmed, and an expression +of pain and disgust settled on Mr. van der Luyden's sensitive face. + +"Has he got any?" cried Mr. Sillerton Jackson, pricking up his ears; +and while Lefferts tried to turn the question with a laugh, the old +gentleman twittered into Archer's ear: "Queer, those fellows who are +always wanting to set things right. The people who have the worst +cooks are always telling you they're poisoned when they dine out. +But I hear there are pressing reasons for our friend Lawrence's +diatribe:--typewriter this time, I understand...." + +The talk swept past Archer like some senseless river running and +running because it did not know enough to stop. He saw, on the faces +about him, expressions of interest, amusement and even mirth. He +listened to the younger men's laughter, and to the praise of the Archer +Madeira, which Mr. van der Luyden and Mr. Merry were thoughtfully +celebrating. Through it all he was dimly aware of a general attitude of +friendliness toward himself, as if the guard of the prisoner he felt +himself to be were trying to soften his captivity; and the perception +increased his passionate determination to be free. + +In the drawing-room, where they presently joined the ladies, he met +May's triumphant eyes, and read in them the conviction that everything +had "gone off" beautifully. She rose from Madame Olenska's side, and +immediately Mrs. van der Luyden beckoned the latter to a seat on the +gilt sofa where she throned. Mrs. Selfridge Merry bore across the +room to join them, and it became clear to Archer that here also a +conspiracy of rehabilitation and obliteration was going on. The silent +organisation which held his little world together was determined to put +itself on record as never for a moment having questioned the propriety +of Madame Olenska's conduct, or the completeness of Archer's domestic +felicity. All these amiable and inexorable persons were resolutely +engaged in pretending to each other that they had never heard of, +suspected, or even conceived possible, the least hint to the contrary; +and from this tissue of elaborate mutual dissimulation Archer once more +disengaged the fact that New York believed him to be Madame Olenska's +lover. He caught the glitter of victory in his wife's eyes, and for the +first time understood that she shared the belief. The discovery roused +a laughter of inner devils that reverberated through all his efforts to +discuss the Martha Washington ball with Mrs. Reggie Chivers and little +Mrs. Newland; and so the evening swept on, running and running like a +senseless river that did not know how to stop. + +At length he saw that Madame Olenska had risen and was saying good-bye. +He understood that in a moment she would be gone, and tried to remember +what he had said to her at dinner; but he could not recall a single +word they had exchanged. + +She went up to May, the rest of the company making a circle about her +as she advanced. The two young women clasped hands; then May bent +forward and kissed her cousin. + +"Certainly our hostess is much the handsomer of the two," Archer heard +Reggie Chivers say in an undertone to young Mrs. Newland; and he +remembered Beaufort's coarse sneer at May's ineffectual beauty. + +A moment later he was in the hall, putting Madame Olenska's cloak about +her shoulders. + +Through all his confusion of mind he had held fast to the resolve to +say nothing that might startle or disturb her. Convinced that no power +could now turn him from his purpose he had found strength to let events +shape themselves as they would. But as he followed Madame Olenska into +the hall he thought with a sudden hunger of being for a moment alone +with her at the door of her carriage. + +"Is your carriage here?" he asked; and at that moment Mrs. van der +Luyden, who was being majestically inserted into her sables, said +gently: "We are driving dear Ellen home." + +Archer's heart gave a jerk, and Madame Olenska, clasping her cloak and +fan with one hand, held out the other to him. "Good-bye," she said. + +"Good-bye--but I shall see you soon in Paris," he answered aloud--it +seemed to him that he had shouted it. + +"Oh," she murmured, "if you and May could come--!" + +Mr. van der Luyden advanced to give her his arm, and Archer turned +to Mrs. van der Luyden. For a moment, in the billowy darkness inside +the big landau, he caught the dim oval of a face, eyes shining +steadily--and she was gone. + +As he went up the steps he crossed Lawrence Lefferts coming down with +his wife. Lefferts caught his host by the sleeve, drawing back to let +Gertrude pass. + +"I say, old chap: do you mind just letting it be understood that I'm +dining with you at the club tomorrow night? Thanks so much, you old +brick! Good-night." + +"It _did_ go off beautifully, didn't it?" May questioned from the +threshold of the library. + +Archer roused himself with a start. As soon as the last carriage had +driven away, he had come up to the library and shut himself in, with +the hope that his wife, who still lingered below, would go straight +to her room. But there she stood, pale and drawn, yet radiating the +factitious energy of one who has passed beyond fatigue. + +"May I come and talk it over?" she asked. + +"Of course, if you like. But you must be awfully sleepy--" + +"No, I'm not sleepy. I should like to sit with you a little." + +"Very well," he said, pushing her chair near the fire. + +She sat down and he resumed his seat; but neither spoke for a long +time. At length Archer began abruptly: "Since you're not tired, and +want to talk, there's something I must tell you. I tried to the other +night--." + +She looked at him quickly. "Yes, dear. Something about yourself?" + +"About myself. You say you're not tired: well, I am. Horribly tired ..." + +In an instant she was all tender anxiety. "Oh, I've seen it coming on, +Newland! You've been so wickedly overworked--" + +"Perhaps it's that. Anyhow, I want to make a break--" + +"A break? To give up the law?" + +"To go away, at any rate--at once. On a long trip, ever so far +off--away from everything--" + +He paused, conscious that he had failed in his attempt to speak with +the indifference of a man who longs for a change, and is yet too weary +to welcome it. Do what he would, the chord of eagerness vibrated. "Away +from everything--" he repeated. + +"Ever so far? Where, for instance?" she asked. + +"Oh, I don't know. India--or Japan." + +She stood up, and as he sat with bent head, his chin propped on his +hands, he felt her warmly and fragrantly hovering over him. + +"As far as that? But I'm afraid you can't, dear ..." she said in an +unsteady voice. "Not unless you'll take me with you." And then, as he +was silent, she went on, in tones so clear and evenly-pitched that each +separate syllable tapped like a little hammer on his brain: "That is, +if the doctors will let me go ... but I'm afraid they won't. For you +see, Newland, I've been sure since this morning of something I've been +so longing and hoping for--" + +He looked up at her with a sick stare, and she sank down, all dew and +roses, and hid her face against his knee. + +"Oh, my dear," he said, holding her to him while his cold hand stroked +her hair. + +There was a long pause, which the inner devils filled with strident +laughter; then May freed herself from his arms and stood up. + +"You didn't guess--?" + +"Yes--I; no. That is, of course I hoped--" + +They looked at each other for an instant and again fell silent; then, +turning his eyes from hers, he asked abruptly: "Have you told any one +else?" + +"Only Mamma and your mother." She paused, and then added hurriedly, the +blood flushing up to her forehead: "That is--and Ellen. You know I told +you we'd had a long talk one afternoon--and how dear she was to me." + +"Ah--" said Archer, his heart stopping. + +He felt that his wife was watching him intently. "Did you _mind_ my +telling her first, Newland?" + +"Mind? Why should I?" He made a last effort to collect himself. "But +that was a fortnight ago, wasn't it? I thought you said you weren't +sure till today." + +Her colour burned deeper, but she held his gaze. "No; I wasn't sure +then--but I told her I was. And you see I was right!" she exclaimed, +her blue eyes wet with victory. + + + + +XXXIV. + + +Newland Archer sat at the writing-table in his library in East +Thirty-ninth Street. + +He had just got back from a big official reception for the inauguration +of the new galleries at the Metropolitan Museum, and the spectacle +of those great spaces crowded with the spoils of the ages, where +the throng of fashion circulated through a series of scientifically +catalogued treasures, had suddenly pressed on a rusted spring of memory. + +"Why, this used to be one of the old Cesnola rooms," he heard some one +say; and instantly everything about him vanished, and he was sitting +alone on a hard leather divan against a radiator, while a slight figure +in a long sealskin cloak moved away down the meagrely-fitted vista of +the old Museum. + +The vision had roused a host of other associations, and he sat looking +with new eyes at the library which, for over thirty years, had been the +scene of his solitary musings and of all the family confabulations. + +It was the room in which most of the real things of his life had +happened. There his wife, nearly twenty-six years ago, had broken to +him, with a blushing circumlocution that would have caused the young +women of the new generation to smile, the news that she was to have a +child; and there their eldest boy, Dallas, too delicate to be taken +to church in midwinter, had been christened by their old friend the +Bishop of New York, the ample magnificent irreplaceable Bishop, so +long the pride and ornament of his diocese. There Dallas had first +staggered across the floor shouting "Dad," while May and the nurse +laughed behind the door; there their second child, Mary (who was so +like her mother), had announced her engagement to the dullest and most +reliable of Reggie Chivers's many sons; and there Archer had kissed her +through her wedding veil before they went down to the motor which was +to carry them to Grace Church--for in a world where all else had reeled +on its foundations the "Grace Church wedding" remained an unchanged +institution. + +It was in the library that he and May had always discussed the future +of the children: the studies of Dallas and his young brother Bill, +Mary's incurable indifference to "accomplishments," and passion for +sport and philanthropy, and the vague leanings toward "art" which had +finally landed the restless and curious Dallas in the office of a +rising New York architect. + +The young men nowadays were emancipating themselves from the law and +business and taking up all sorts of new things. If they were not +absorbed in state politics or municipal reform, the chances were that +they were going in for Central American archæology, for architecture +or landscape-engineering; taking a keen and learned interest in +the prerevolutionary buildings of their own country, studying and +adapting Georgian types, and protesting at the meaningless use of the +word "Colonial." Nobody nowadays had "Colonial" houses except the +millionaire grocers of the suburbs. + +But above all--sometimes Archer put it above all--it was in that +library that the Governor of New York, coming down from Albany one +evening to dine and spend the night, had turned to his host, and said, +banging his clenched fist on the table and gnashing his eye-glasses: +"Hang the professional politician! You're the kind of man the country +wants, Archer. If the stable's ever to be cleaned out, men like you +have got to lend a hand in the cleaning." + +"Men like you--" how Archer had glowed at the phrase! How eagerly he +had risen up at the call! It was an echo of Ned Winsett's old appeal +to roll his sleeves up and get down into the muck; but spoken by a man +who set the example of the gesture, and whose summons to follow him was +irresistible. + +Archer, as he looked back, was not sure that men like himself _were_ what +his country needed, at least in the active service to which Theodore +Roosevelt had pointed; in fact, there was reason to think it did not, +for after a year in the State Assembly he had not been re-elected, and +had dropped back thankfully into obscure if useful municipal work, and +from that again to the writing of occasional articles in one of the +reforming weeklies that were trying to shake the country out of its +apathy. It was little enough to look back on; but when he remembered +to what the young men of his generation and his set had looked +forward--the narrow groove of money-making, sport and society to which +their vision had been limited--even his small contribution to the new +state of things seemed to count, as each brick counts in a well-built +wall. He had done little in public life; he would always be by nature +a contemplative and a dilettante; but he had had high things to +contemplate, great things to delight in; and one great man's friendship +to be his strength and pride. + +He had been, in short, what people were beginning to call "a good +citizen." In New York, for many years past, every new movement, +philanthropic, municipal or artistic, had taken account of his +opinion and wanted his name. People said: "Ask Archer" when there +was a question of starting the first school for crippled children, +reorganising the Museum of Art, founding the Grolier Club, inaugurating +the new Library, or getting up a new society of chamber music. His days +were full, and they were filled decently. He supposed it was all a man +ought to ask. + +Something he knew he had missed: the flower of life. But he thought +of it now as a thing so unattainable and improbable that to have +repined would have been like despairing because one had not drawn +the first prize in a lottery. There were a hundred million tickets +in _his_ lottery, and there was only one prize; the chances had been +too decidedly against him. When he thought of Ellen Olenska it was +abstractly, serenely, as one might think of some imaginary beloved in +a book or a picture: she had become the composite vision of all that +he had missed. That vision, faint and tenuous as it was, had kept him +from thinking of other women. He had been what was called a faithful +husband; and when May had suddenly died--carried off by the infectious +pneumonia through which she had nursed their youngest child--he had +honestly mourned her. Their long years together had shown him that +it did not so much matter if marriage was a dull duty, as long as it +kept the dignity of a duty: lapsing from that, it became a mere battle +of ugly appetites. Looking about him, he honoured his own past, and +mourned for it. After all, there was good in the old ways. + +His eyes, making the round of the room--done over by Dallas with +English mezzotints, Chippendale cabinets, bits of chosen blue-and-white +and pleasantly shaded electric lamps--came back to the old Eastlake +writing-table that he had never been willing to banish, and to his +first photograph of May, which still kept its place beside his inkstand. + +There she was, tall, round-bosomed and willowy, in her starched muslin +and flapping Leghorn, as he had seen her under the orange-trees in the +Mission garden. And as he had seen her that day, so she had remained; +never quite at the same height, yet never far below it: generous, +faithful, unwearied; but so lacking in imagination, so incapable of +growth, that the world of her youth had fallen into pieces and rebuilt +itself without her ever being conscious of the change. This hard bright +blindness had kept her immediate horizon apparently unaltered. Her +incapacity to recognise change made her children conceal their views +from her as Archer concealed his; there had been, from the first, a +joint pretence of sameness, a kind of innocent family hypocrisy, in +which father and children had unconsciously collaborated. And she had +died thinking the world a good place, full of loving and harmonious +households like her own, and resigned to leave it because she was +convinced that, whatever happened, Newland would continue to inculcate +in Dallas the same principles and prejudices which had shaped his +parents' lives, and that Dallas in turn (when Newland followed her) +would transmit the sacred trust to little Bill. And of Mary she was +sure as of her own self. So, having snatched little Bill from the +grave, and given her life in the effort, she went contentedly to her +place in the Archer vault in St. Mark's, where Mrs. Archer already lay +safe from the terrifying "trend" which her daughter-in-law had never +even become aware of. + +Opposite May's portrait stood one of her daughter. Mary Chivers was +as tall and fair as her mother, but large-waisted, flat-chested and +slightly slouching, as the altered fashion required. Mary Chivers's +mighty feats of athleticism could not have been performed with the +twenty-inch waist that May Archer's azure sash so easily spanned. And +the difference seemed symbolic; the mother's life had been as closely +girt as her figure. Mary, who was no less conventional, and no more +intelligent, yet led a larger life and held more tolerant views. There +was good in the new order too. + +The telephone clicked, and Archer, turning from the photographs, +unhooked the transmitter at his elbow. How far they were from the days +when the legs of the brass-buttoned messenger boy had been New York's +only means of quick communication! + +"Chicago wants you." + +Ah--it must be a long-distance from Dallas, who had been sent to +Chicago by his firm to talk over the plan of the Lakeside palace they +were to build for a young millionaire with ideas. The firm always sent +Dallas on such errands. + +"Hallo, Dad--Yes: Dallas. I say--how do you feel about sailing on +Wednesday? Mauretania: Yes, next Wednesday as ever is. Our client wants +me to look at some Italian gardens before we settle anything, and has +asked me to nip over on the next boat. I've got to be back on the first +of June--" the voice broke into a joyful conscious laugh--"so we must +look alive. I say, Dad, I want your help: do come." + +Dallas seemed to be speaking in the room: the voice was as near by +and natural as if he had been lounging in his favourite arm-chair by +the fire. The fact would not ordinarily have surprised Archer, for +long-distance telephoning had become as much a matter of course as +electric lighting and five-day Atlantic voyages. But the laugh did +startle him; it still seemed wonderful that across all those miles and +miles of country--forest, river, mountain, prairie, roaring cities and +busy indifferent millions--Dallas's laugh should be able to say: "Of +course, whatever happens, I must get back on the first, because Fanny +Beaufort and I are to be married on the fifth." + +The voice began again: "Think it over? No, sir: not a minute. You've +got to say yes now. Why not, I'd like to know? If you can allege a +single reason--No; I knew it. Then it's a go, eh? Because I count on +you to ring up the Cunard office first thing tomorrow; and you'd better +book a return on a boat from Marseilles. I say, Dad; it'll be our last +time together, in this kind of way--. Oh, good! I knew you would." + +Chicago rang off, and Archer rose and began to pace up and down the +room. + +It would be their last time together in this kind of way: the boy +was right. They would have lots of other "times" after Dallas's +marriage, his father was sure; for the two were born comrades, and +Fanny Beaufort, whatever one might think of her, did not seem likely +to interfere with their intimacy. On the contrary, from what he had +seen of her, he thought she would be naturally included in it. Still, +change was change, and differences were differences, and much as he +felt himself drawn toward his future daughter-in-law, it was tempting +to seize this last chance of being alone with his boy. + +There was no reason why he should not seize it, except the profound +one that he had lost the habit of travel. May had disliked to move +except for valid reasons, such as taking the children to the sea +or in the mountains: she could imagine no other motive for leaving +the house in Thirty-ninth Street or their comfortable quarters at +the Wellands' in Newport. After Dallas had taken his degree she had +thought it her duty to travel for six months; and the whole family +had made the old-fashioned tour through England, Switzerland and +Italy. Their time being limited (no one knew why) they had omitted +France. Archer remembered Dallas's wrath at being asked to contemplate +Mont Blanc instead of Rheims and Chartres. But Mary and Bill wanted +mountain-climbing, and had already yawned their way in Dallas's wake +through the English cathedrals; and May, always fair to her children, +had insisted on holding the balance evenly between their athletic and +artistic proclivities. She had indeed proposed that her husband should +go to Paris for a fortnight, and join them on the Italian lakes after +they had "done" Switzerland; but Archer had declined. "We'll stick +together," he said; and May's face had brightened at his setting such a +good example to Dallas. + +Since her death, nearly two years before, there had been no reason +for his continuing in the same routine. His children had urged him to +travel: Mary Chivers had felt sure it would do him good to go abroad +and "see the galleries." The very mysteriousness of such a cure made +her the more confident of its efficacy. But Archer had found himself +held fast by habit, by memories, by a sudden startled shrinking from +new things. + +Now, as he reviewed his past, he saw into what a deep rut he had sunk. +The worst of doing one's duty was that it apparently unfitted one for +doing anything else. At least that was the view that the men of his +generation had taken. The trenchant divisions between right and wrong, +honest and dishonest, respectable and the reverse, had left so little +scope for the unforeseen. There are moments when a man's imagination, +so easily subdued to what it lives in, suddenly rises above its daily +level, and surveys the long windings of destiny. Archer hung there and +wondered.... + +What was left of the little world he had grown up in, and whose +standards had bent and bound him? He remembered a sneering prophecy +of poor Lawrence Lefferts's, uttered years ago in that very room: "If +things go on at this rate, our children will be marrying Beaufort's +bastards." + +It was just what Archer's eldest son, the pride of his life, was doing; +and nobody wondered or reproved. Even the boy's Aunt Janey, who still +looked so exactly as she used to in her elderly youth, had taken her +mother's emeralds and seed-pearls out of their pink cotton-wool, and +carried them with her own twitching hands to the future bride; and +Fanny Beaufort, instead of looking disappointed at not receiving a +"set" from a Paris jeweller, had exclaimed at their old-fashioned +beauty, and declared that when she wore them she should feel like an +Isabey miniature. + +Fanny Beaufort, who had appeared in New York at eighteen, after the +death of her parents, had won its heart much as Madame Olenska had won +it thirty years earlier; only instead of being distrustful and afraid +of her, society took her joyfully for granted. She was pretty, amusing +and accomplished: what more did any one want? Nobody was narrow-minded +enough to rake up against her the half-forgotten facts of her father's +past and her own origin. Only the older people remembered so obscure +an incident in the business life of New York as Beaufort's failure, or +the fact that after his wife's death he had been quietly married to +the notorious Fanny Ring, and had left the country with his new wife, +and a little girl who inherited her beauty. He was subsequently heard +of in Constantinople, then in Russia; and a dozen years later American +travellers were handsomely entertained by him in Buenos Ayres, where he +represented a large insurance agency. He and his wife died there in the +odour of prosperity; and one day their orphaned daughter had appeared +in New York in charge of May Archer's sister-in-law, Mrs. Jack Welland, +whose husband had been appointed the girl's guardian. The fact threw +her into almost cousinly relationship with Newland Archer's children, +and nobody was surprised when Dallas's engagement was announced. + +Nothing could more clearly give the measure of the distance that the +world had travelled. People nowadays were too busy--busy with reforms +and "movements," with fads and fetishes and frivolities--to bother much +about their neighbours. And of what account was anybody's past, in the +huge kaleidoscope where all the social atoms spun around on the same +plane? + +Newland Archer, looking out of his hotel window at the stately gaiety +of the Paris streets, felt his heart beating with the confusion and +eagerness of youth. + +It was long since it had thus plunged and reared under his widening +waistcoat, leaving him, the next minute, with an empty breast and hot +temples. He wondered if it was thus that his son's conducted itself +in the presence of Miss Fanny Beaufort--and decided that it was not. +"It functions as actively, no doubt, but the rhythm is different," he +reflected, recalling the cool composure with which the young man had +announced his engagement, and taken for granted that his family would +approve. + +"The difference is that these young people take it for granted that +they're going to get whatever they want, and that we almost always took +it for granted that we shouldn't. Only, I wonder--the thing one's so +certain of in advance: can it ever make one's heart beat as wildly?" + +It was the day after their arrival in Paris, and the spring sunshine +held Archer in his open window, above the wide silvery prospect of the +Place Vendôme. One of the things he had stipulated--almost the only +one--when he had agreed to come abroad with Dallas, was that, in Paris, +he shouldn't be made to go to one of the newfangled "palaces." + +"Oh, all right--of course," Dallas good-naturedly agreed. "I'll take +you to some jolly old-fashioned place--the Bristol say--" leaving his +father speechless at hearing that the century-long home of kings and +emperors was now spoken of as an old-fashioned inn, where one went for +its quaint inconveniences and lingering local colour. + +Archer had pictured often enough, in the first impatient years, the +scene of his return to Paris; then the personal vision had faded, and +he had simply tried to see the city as the setting of Madame Olenska's +life. Sitting alone at night in his library, after the household had +gone to bed, he had evoked the radiant outbreak of spring down the +avenues of horse-chestnuts, the flowers and statues in the public +gardens, the whiff of lilacs from the flower-carts, the majestic roll +of the river under the great bridges, and the life of art and study and +pleasure that filled each mighty artery to bursting. Now the spectacle +was before him in its glory, and as he looked out on it he felt shy, +old-fashioned, inadequate: a mere grey speck of a man compared with the +ruthless magnificent fellow he had dreamed of being.... + +Dallas's hand came down cheerily on his shoulder. "Hullo, father: +this is something like, isn't it?" They stood for a while looking out +in silence, and then the young man continued: "By the way, I've got +a message for you: the Countess Olenska expects us both at half-past +five." + +He said it lightly, carelessly, as he might have imparted any casual +item of information, such as the hour at which their train was to leave +for Florence the next evening. Archer looked at him, and thought he saw +in his gay young eyes a gleam of his great-grandmother Mingott's malice. + +"Oh, didn't I tell you?" Dallas pursued. "Fanny made me swear to do +three things while I was in Paris: get her the score of the last +Debussy songs, go to the Grand-Guignol and see Madame Olenska. You know +she was awfully good to Fanny when Mr. Beaufort sent her over from +Buenos Ayres to the Assomption. Fanny hadn't any friends in Paris, and +Madame Olenska used to be kind to her and trot her about on holidays. I +believe she was a great friend of the first Mrs. Beaufort's. And she's +our cousin, of course. So I rang her up this morning, before I went +out, and told her you and I were here for two days and wanted to see +her." + +Archer continued to stare at him. "You told her I was here?" + +"Of course--why not?" Dallas's eye brows went up whimsically. Then, +getting no answer, he slipped his arm through his father's with a +confidential pressure. + +"I say, father: what was she like?" + +Archer felt his colour rise under his son's unabashed gaze. "Come, own +up: you and she were great pals, weren't you? Wasn't she most awfully +lovely?" + +"Lovely? I don't know. She was different." + +"Ah--there you have it! That's what it always comes to, doesn't it? +When she comes, _she's different_--and one doesn't know why. It's exactly +what I feel about Fanny." + +His father drew back a step, releasing his arm. "About Fanny? But, my +dear fellow--I should hope so! Only I don't see--" + +"Dash it, Dad, don't be prehistoric! Wasn't she--once--your Fanny?" + +Dallas belonged body and soul to the new generation. He was the +first-born of Newland and May Archer, yet it had never been possible +to inculcate in him even the rudiments of reserve. "What's the use of +making mysteries? It only makes people want to nose 'em out," he always +objected when enjoined to discretion. But Archer, meeting his eyes, saw +the filial light under their banter. + +"My Fanny?" + +"Well, the woman you'd have chucked everything for: only you didn't," +continued his surprising son. + +"I didn't," echoed Archer with a kind of solemnity. + +"No: you date, you see, dear old boy. But mother said--" + +"Your mother?" + +"Yes: the day before she died. It was when she sent for me alone--you +remember? She said she knew we were safe with you, and always would be, +because once, when she asked you to, you'd given up the thing you most +wanted." + +Archer received this strange communication in silence. His eyes +remained unseeingly fixed on the thronged sunlit square below the +window. At length he said in a low voice: "She never asked me." + +"No. I forgot. You never did ask each other anything, did you? And you +never told each other anything. You just sat and watched each other, +and guessed at what was going on underneath. A deaf-and-dumb asylum, in +fact! Well, I back your generation for knowing more about each other's +private thoughts than we ever have time to find out about our own.--I +say, Dad," Dallas broke off, "you're not angry with me? If you are, +let's make it up and go and lunch at Henri's. I've got to rush out to +Versailles afterward." + +Archer did not accompany his son to Versailles. He preferred to spend +the afternoon in solitary roamings through Paris. He had to deal all at +once with the packed regrets and stifled memories of an inarticulate +lifetime. + +After a little while he did not regret Dallas's indiscretion. It seemed +to take an iron band from his heart to know that, after all, some one +had guessed and pitied.... And that it should have been his wife moved +him indescribably. Dallas, for all his affectionate insight, would +not have understood that. To the boy, no doubt, the episode was only +a pathetic instance of vain frustration, of wasted forces. But was it +really no more? For a long time Archer sat on a bench in the Champs +Élysées and wondered, while the stream of life rolled by.... + +A few streets away, a few hours away, Ellen Olenska waited. She had +never gone back to her husband, and when he had died, some years +before, she had made no change in her way of living. There was nothing +now to keep her and Archer apart--and that afternoon he was to see her. + +He got up and walked across the Place de la Concorde and the Tuileries +gardens to the Louvre. She had once told him that she often went there, +and he had a fancy to spend the intervening time in a place where he +could think of her as perhaps having lately been. For an hour or more +he wandered from gallery to gallery through the dazzle of afternoon +light, and one by one the pictures burst on him in their half-forgotten +splendour, filling his soul with the long echoes of beauty. After all, +his life had been too starved.... + +Suddenly, before an effulgent Titian, he found himself saying: "But I'm +only fifty-seven--" and then he turned away. For such summer dreams +it was too late; but surely not for a quiet harvest of friendship, of +comradeship, in the blessed hush of her nearness. + +He went back to the hotel, where he and Dallas were to meet; and +together they walked again across the Place de la Concorde and over the +bridge that leads to the Chamber of Deputies. + +Dallas, unconscious of what was going on in his father's mind, was +talking excitedly and abundantly of Versailles. He had had but one +previous glimpse of it, during a holiday trip in which he had tried +to pack all the sights he had been deprived of when he had had to go +with the family to Switzerland; and tumultuous enthusiasm and cock-sure +criticism tripped each other up on his lips. + +As Archer listened, his sense of inadequacy and inexpressiveness +increased. The boy was not insensitive, he knew; but he had the +facility and self-confidence that came of looking at fate not as a +master but as an equal. "That's it: they feel equal to things--they +know their way about," he mused, thinking of his son as the spokesman +of the new generation which had swept away all the old landmarks, and +with them the sign-posts and the danger-signal. + +Suddenly Dallas stopped short, grasping his father's arm. "Oh, by +Jove," he exclaimed. + +They had come out into the great tree-planted space before the +Invalides. The dome of Mansart floated ethereally above the budding +trees and the long grey front of the building: drawing up into itself +all the rays of afternoon light, it hung there like the visible symbol +of the race's glory. + +Archer knew that Madame Olenska lived in a square near one of the +avenues radiating from the Invalides; and he had pictured the quarter +as quiet and almost obscure, forgetting the central splendour that +lit it up. Now, by some queer process of association, that golden +light became for him the pervading illumination in which she lived. +For nearly thirty years, her life--of which he knew so strangely +little--had been spent in this rich atmosphere that he already felt to +be too dense and yet too stimulating for his lungs. He thought of the +theatres she must have been to, the pictures she must have looked at, +the sober and splendid old houses she must have frequented, the people +she must have talked with, the incessant stir of ideas, curiosities, +images and associations thrown out by an intensely social race in a +setting of immemorial manners; and suddenly he remembered the young +Frenchman who had once said to him: "Ah, good conversation--there is +nothing like it, is there?" + +Archer had not seen M. Rivière, or heard of him, for nearly thirty +years; and that fact gave the measure of his ignorance of Madame +Olenska's existence. More than half a lifetime divided them, and +she had spent the long interval among people he did not know, in a +society he but faintly guessed at, in conditions he would never wholly +understand. During that time he had been living with his youthful +memory of her; but she had doubtless had other and more tangible +companionship. Perhaps she too had kept her memory of him as something +apart; but if she had, it must have been like a relic in a small dim +chapel, where there was not time to pray every day.... + +They had crossed the Place des Invalides, and were walking down one of +the thoroughfares flanking the building. It was a quiet quarter, after +all, in spite of its splendour and its history; and the fact gave one +an idea of the riches Paris had to draw on, since such scenes as this +were left to the few and the indifferent. + +The day was fading into a soft sun-shot haze, pricked here and there +by a yellow electric light, and passers were rare in the little square +into which they had turned. Dallas stopped again, and looked up. + +"It must be here," he said, slipping his arm through his father's with +a movement from which Archer's shyness did not shrink; and they stood +together looking up at the house. + +It was a modern building, without distinctive character, but +many-windowed, and pleasantly balconied up its wide cream-coloured +front. On one of the upper balconies, which hung well above the rounded +tops of the horse-chestnuts in the square, the awnings were still +lowered, as though the sun had just left it. + +"I wonder which floor--?" Dallas conjectured; and moving toward the +_porte-cochère_ he put his head into the porter's lodge, and came back to +say: "The fifth. It must be the one with the awnings." + +Archer remained motionless, gazing at the upper windows as if the end +of their pilgrimage had been attained. + +"I say, you know, it's nearly six," his son at length reminded him. + +The father glanced away at an empty bench under the trees. + +"I believe I'll sit there a moment," he said. + +"Why--aren't you well?" his son exclaimed. + +"Oh, perfectly. But I should like you, please, to go up without me." + +Dallas paused before him, visibly bewildered. "But, I say, Dad: do you +mean you won't come up at all?" + +"I don't know," said Archer slowly. + +"If you don't she won't understand." + +"Go, my boy; perhaps I shall follow you." + +Dallas gave him a long look through the twilight. + +"But what on earth shall I say?" + +"My dear fellow, don't you always know what to say?" his father +rejoined with a smile. + +"Very well. I shall say you're old-fashioned, and prefer walking up the +five flights because you don't like lifts." + +His father smiled again. "Say I'm old-fashioned: that's enough." + +Dallas looked at him again, and then, with an incredulous gesture, +passed out of sight under the vaulted doorway. + +Archer sat down on the bench and continued to gaze at the awninged +balcony. He calculated the time it would take his son to be carried up +in the lift to the fifth floor, to ring the bell, and be admitted to +the hall, and then ushered into the drawing-room. He pictured Dallas +entering that room with his quick assured step and his delightful +smile, and wondered if the people were right who said that his boy +"took after him." + +Then he tried to see the persons already in the room--for probably at +that sociable hour there would be more than one--and among them a dark +lady, pale and dark, who would look up quickly, half rise, and hold out +a long thin hand with three rings on it.... He thought she would be +sitting in a sofa-corner near the fire, with azaleas banked behind her +on a table. + +"It's more real to me here than if I went up," he suddenly heard +himself say; and the fear lest that last shadow of reality should lose +its edge kept him rooted to his seat as the minutes succeeded each +other. + +He sat for a long time on the bench in the thickening dusk, his eyes +never turning from the balcony. At length a light shone through the +windows, and a moment later a man-servant came out on the balcony, drew +up the awnings, and closed the shutters. + +At that, as if it had been the signal he waited for, Newland Archer got +up slowly and walked back alone to his hotel. + + + + +A Note on the Text + +The Age of Innocence first appeared in four large installments in The +Pictorial Review, from July to October 1920. It was published that same +year in book form by D. Appleton and Company in New York and in London. +Wharton made extensive stylistic, punctuation, and spelling changes and +revisions between the serial and book publication, and more than thirty +subsequent changes were made after the second impression of the book +edition had been run off. This authoritative text is reprinted from the +Library of America edition of Novels by Edith Wharton, and is based on +the sixth impression of the first edition, which incorporates the last +set of extensive revisions that are obviously authorial. + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 541 *** |