 17. Your cousin the Countess called on mother while you were away. Janie 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 moth. I never saw her so stylishly dressed. Janie continued. She came alone, early on a 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 seemed thankful to be here. I hope you like 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, Janie 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. Mingid, and the 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. Aha! 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 hope 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 Mingid screwed up her little mouth into a grimace of mimic prudery, and twinkled at him through malicious lids. Ask Mama, I suppose, the usual story, all these Mingids all alike, born in a rut and you can't root them out of it. When I built this house you'd have thought I was moving to California. Nobody ever had, built above 40th 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 smallpox. Oh, my dear Mr. Archer, I thank my stars, I'm nothing but a vulgar spicer, and 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 here to be married. No, to be sure, more's the pity, and now it's too late, her life is finished. She spoke with a 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 wellans, Mrs. Mingid? 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 portiers 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 that you were ill. He muttered something about leaving unexpectedly in a great hurry and having intended to write 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 ancestralist's malicious eye he felt himself tongue-tied and constrained. Look at him in such a hot haze 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 me. It's only my poor Ellen that has kept any of their wicked blood. The rest of them are all model mingots, cried the old lady scornfully. Archer was aware that Madame Olenska, who had seated herself at her grandmother's side, was still thoughtfully scrutinizing 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'm moving next week. A pang shot through him at the memory of his lamp-lit 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 weren't 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 vandaloidens. 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 resolve that he would not go early, and that by reaching her door late he would either prevent her from going to Mrs. Lemuel 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 minimize 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 bitten him to come early, if she was having people to dine? On a closer inspection of the garments beside 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 dusty cloak with a cape, something like what the French called a macpharlane. 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, sodesty smell, suggestive of prolonged sessions against barroom walls. On it lay a ragged gray scarf and an odd felt hat of semi-clerical shape. Archer raised his eyebrows inquiringly 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 color 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 rheumatic hands. Beside her, in a cloud of cigar smoke, stood the owners of the two overcoats, both in mourning clothes that they had evidently not taken off since morning. In one of the two, Archer, to his surprise, recognized Ned Winsett. The other, and older, who was unknown to him and whose gigantic frame declared him to be the wearer of the McFarlane, had a feebly Leonine head, with crumpled gray 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 nephew Newland, she said. I am the Marcianess Manson. Archer bowed, and she continued. My Ellen has taken me in for a few days. I came from Cuba, where I've 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 Marcianess 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 Marcianess 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 Madam 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 sometimes I read it, said Winsett, including the group in a general nod and slipping out of the room. Acoustic spirit, unpeu savage, but so witty. Dr. Carver, you do think him witty? I never think of wit, said Dr. Carver, severely. 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 to-night he is mentally preparing the lecture he is to deliver presently and Mrs. Blinkers. Dr. Carver, would there be time before you start for the Blinkers to explain to Mr. Archer your illuminating discovery of the direct contract? 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 timepiece with Madam 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. Blinker might allow you to bring him with you. Oh, dear friend, if that 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, Agathon Carver, The Valley of Love. Get a squatter me, New York. Dr. Carver bowed himself out, and the Marchioness, 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 anyone, he wondered, to whom Madame Olenska had not proclaimed his intervention in her private affairs? When 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 Stanislaus. 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 mounts and 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. Oh, 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 soboisky emerald sables. Ah, 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 privilege. Are these things nothing? And the remorse of an adoring husband. As the marchiness 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 anyone had foretold to him that his first sight of poor Midora 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. The marchiness 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. Oh, the marchiness murmured. Without visible resentment. For a while she sat in her armchair, opening and shutting the absurd ivory fan between her mitten 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 prove her that, Mr. Archer? After all, marriage is marriage. And my niece is still a wife. End of chapter 17. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, visit www.librivox.org. The Age of Innocence. A novel by Edith Wharton. Read for LibriVox by Brenda Dane. Chapter 18. What are you two plotting together, Aunt Madura? Madam 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. The marchiness rejoined rising to her feet and pointing archly to the flowers. Madam Olenska stopped short and looked at the bouquet. Her color did not change, but a sort of white radiance of anger ran over her like a 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 Madam 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 looked from the marchiness to Archer, asked abruptly, and you two have made friends. It's for Mr. Archer to say, darling, he was waiting patiently while you were dressing. Yes, I gave you time enough, my hair wouldn't go, Madam 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 blankers. Mr. Archer, will you put my aunt in the carriage? She followed the marchiness into the hall, saw her fitted into a miscellaneous heap of overshoes, shawls and tippets, and called from the doorstep, mind the carriage is going to be back for me at ten. Then she turned 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 parlor maid as, my dear one, and sent 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 an emotion with such Olympian speed. Madam 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 a 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, splendors and amusements and excitements that we could never hope to give you here. Madam 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 knees 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. Madam 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. Madura's hints. Is it at your husband's request that she has arrived here suddenly? Madam 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. For Madura, there's always someone she wants to marry, but perhaps the people in Cuba just got tired of her. I think she was with them as sort of a paid companion. Really, I don't know why she came. But you do believe she has a letter from your husband. Again, Madam 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. Madam 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 well-ins 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 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, that I want to marry her at once to get away from someone 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 towards 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 anyone else. Because I don't mean to marry anyone 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, it 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'm 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. Eleanor Lenska 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. Oh, don't make love to me. Too many people have done that, she said, frowning. Archer, changing color, 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 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 oneself 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. 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. Oh, 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 that 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, 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 gravestone 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. 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 shriveling 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 pushed him aside and stood up. Oh, 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 mantle piece, 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. Oh, 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 afterwards. And how you'd made your mother go with you to the van der Leudens. 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 to be among my own people that everyone I met seemed good and kind 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 ever known. She spoke in a low 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, 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 Senora Marchessa, 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 eye 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. Oh, 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 odd sense of her sincerity. At length he began to plead again. If we do this now it will be worse afterwards. Worse for everyone. 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 senior marito who had sent them and she cried a little and said it was 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 Saint Augustine and addressed to the countess Olenska. In it he read, Granny's telegram successful. Papa and mama agree marriage after Easter. I'm telegraphing Newland. I'm too happy for words and love you dearly. You're 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 Maywell and 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 in Boudoir and her brother wrapped 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 an un-Christian 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 mama end of book one this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit www.libriVox.org the age of innocence a novel by Edith Wharton read for LibriVox by Brenda Dain book two chapter nineteen 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 broom 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 19th century New York wedding a right 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 flurry instructions 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 lily of the valley had been sent in due time as well as the golden 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 rector were safely in the pocket of his best man his own luggage was already at mrs man's and minkets where the wedding breakfast was to take place and so were the traveling 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 vandaloidan 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 gray waistcoat and assured himself that the little gold circlet engraved inside newland to may april 1870 was in its place then resuming his former attitude his tall hat and pearl gray gloves with black stitching grasped in his left hand he stood looking at the door of the church overhead handles 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 towards other bridegrooms how like a first night at the opera he thought recognizing all the same faces in all the same boxes no pews and wondering if when the last trump sounded mrs. selfridge mary would be there with the same towering ostrich feathers in her bonnet and mrs. bowford 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 rose 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 katharines the bridegroom could fancy reggie chivers saying but i'm told that lovelming it 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 vanderleuten's arm sat weeping softly under her shantilly veil her hands in her grandmother's ermine moth poor janey he thought looking at his sister even by screwing her head around she can only see the people in the few front pews and they're mostly dowdy newlands and agonettes on the hither side of the white ribbon dividing off the seats reserved for the families he saw bowfort tall and red faced scrutinizing the women with his arrogant stare beside him sat his wife all silvery chinchilla and violets and on the far side of the ribbon lorence 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 filled his day seemed now like a nursery parody of life or like the wrangles of medieval schoolmen over metaphysical terms that nobody had ever understood a stormy discussion as to whether the wedding presence 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. wellan saying with indignant tears i should have soon turned the reporters loose in my house yet there was a time when archer 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 worldwide significance and all the while i suppose he thought real people were living somewhere and real things happening to them there they come breathe 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 stablekeeper gowned in black in his intermittent character of sexton was taking a preliminary survey of the scene before marshalling in 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. wellan came first on the arm of her eldest son her large pink face was appropriately solemn and her plume colored 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 archers the spectators were craning their necks to see who was coming after her wild rumors 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 to 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 curb stone the idea of doing away with this awning and revealing the bribe 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 shutter the ancestor stress 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 welland's 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 level mingid had the high color 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 color far different was the impression produced by the gaunt and mincing lady who followed on mr mingid's arm in a wild dishevelment of stripes and fringes and floating scarves and as this 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 madora'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 maneuver 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 halfway 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 spore symphony were screwing their flower-like notes before the bride archer opened his eyes but could they really have been shut as he imagined and he 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 of 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 confulsive gesture then in a moment may was beside him such radiance streaming from her that it sent 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 mendelson 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 mendelson ripples the spring day beckoning to them through widely open doors and mrs wellan's chestnuts with big white favors on their frontlets curvetting and showing off at the far end of the canvas tunnel the footman who had a still bigger white favor on his lapel wrapped maize white cloak about her and archer jumped into the broom 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 too 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 traveling clothes descend the wide minkett stairs between laughing bridesmaids and weeping parents and get into the broom 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 bookstore with the air of seasoned travelers and settle themselves in the reserve compartment in which maize maid had already placed her dove-colored traveling cloak and glaringly new dressing bag from london the old dulac aunts at rheinbeck 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 oh they didn't tell us which was manifestly true since there was no need to once they were settled into 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 grown-up 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 in expressive 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 mingot's immense and triumphant perversion of it may settle down to frank enjoyment of the subject i was surprised though weren't you that at midora 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 know 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 ants have got everything beautifully ready he rattled on taking her hand in his and her mind rushed away instantly to the magnificent tea in coffee service of baltimore silver which the bowfords had sent and which went so perfectly with uncle lovel mingot's trays and side dishes in the spring twilight the train stopped at the rinbeck station and they walked along the platform to the waiting carriage oh how awfully kind of the vanderleudans they've sent their man over from squatter cliff 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 mist du lax a leak in the water tank it happened yesterday and mr vanderleudan who heard of it this morning sent a house made up by the early train to get the patroons house ready it will be quite comfortable i think you'll find sir and the mist du lax have sent their cook over so that it will be exactly the same as if you'd been at rinbeck archer stared at the speakers so blankly that he repeated in still more apologetic accents it'll be exactly the same sir i do assure you and maize eager voice broke out covering the embarrassed silence the same as rinbeck the patroons house but it will be a hundred thousand times better won't it newland it's too dear and kind of mr vanderleudan 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 vanderleudans 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 gailey and she answered with her boyish smile oh it's just our luck beginning the wonderful luck we're always going to have together end of chapter 19 this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit www.librivox.org the age of innocence a novel by edith worton read for libravox by brenda dain chapter 20 of course we must dine with mrs carfrey dearest archer said and his wife looked at him with an anxious frown across the monumental britannia wear 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 those two they had sedulously avoided in conformity with the old new york tradition that it was not dignified to force oneself 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 travelers 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 dagonette or a mingit their months abroad were spent in an unbroken tete-a-té but the utmost precautions are sometimes unveiling and one night at botson 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 carfrey had been seized with a sudden attack of bronchitis and mrs archer who never traveled without a complete family pharmacy was fortunately able to produce the required remedy mrs carfrey was very ill and as she and her sister miss harley were traveling 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 botson they had no idea of ever seeing mrs carfrey and miss harley again nothing to mrs archer's mind would have been more undignified than to force oneself on the notice of a foreigner to whom one had happened to render an accidental service but mrs carfrey 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'd been so kind at botson 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 browns hotel found themselves awaited by two affectionate friends who like themselves cultivated ferns in warden cases made macramé lace read the memoirs of the berenice bunson and had views about the occupants of the leading london pulpits as mrs archer said it made another thing of london to know mrs carfrey and ms harley and by the time that newland had become 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 carfrey newland and his wife had no idea of obeying this injunction but mrs carfrey 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 her like a light under ice wear dearest i thought a trunkful of things had come from barris last week yes of course i meant to say that i shan't know which to wear she pouted a little i've never died out in london i don't want to be ridiculous he tried to enter into her perplexity but don't english women dress just like everybody else in the evening newland how can you ask such funny questions when they go to the theater in old bald dresses and bare heads well perhaps they wear new bald dresses at home but at any rate mrs carfrey and miss harley 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 only i 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 fogs 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 girlfriends vaguely summarized 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 interlocken and grindlewald and august at a little place called etretat on the normandy coast which someone 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 traveling 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 theaters and the shops she found the theaters less exciting than the paris cafe chantal's where under the blossoming horse chestnuts of the chancelisee she had had the novel experience of looking down from the restaurant terrace on an audience of cocotes 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 untrammeled 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 come as it once had when she would find the strength to take it all together 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 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 mold as her face she became the quiet tutelary divinity of all his old traditions and references 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. Carfrey and her sister lived Archer too would have preferred to escape their friend's hospitality in conformity with the family tradition he had always traveled as a sightseer and look around 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 Europeanized 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 for retailing to everyone they met and the magnificent young officers and the elderly died 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 society was out of the question and in the course of his travels no other had shown any market eagerness for his company not long after their arrival in London he had run across the Duke of Saint Austria and the Duke instantly and cordially recognizing him 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. Carfries London's a desert at this season and you've made yourself much too beautiful Archer said to me who sat at his side in the handsome so spotlessly splendid in her sky blue cloak edged with swans down but it seemed wicked to expose her to the London grime I don't want them to think that we dressed 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 armor he thought their defense 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 had gone through the solemn right of selecting and ordering her extensive wardrobe he had been right in expecting the party at mrs. Carfries to be a small one besides their hostess and her sister they found in the long chili drawing room only another shawl lady a genial vicar who was her husband a silent lad who mrs. Carfries 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 name 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 wins it the car-free 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 limon being a bookish youth he had been entrusted to monsieur Riviere who had brought him back to england and was to remain with him until he went up to oxford the following spring and monsieur riviere 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 30 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 sun should follow the same career but an insatiable taste for letters had thrown the young man into journalism and 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 grenière been advised by mo peissant not to attempt to write even that seemed to archer a dazzling honor and had often talked with mary me 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 net wins its 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 wins it 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 secretarieship there is a good deal of drudgery of course but one preserves one's moral freedom what we call in french one's quanta sois 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 secretarieship at book arrest 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 gone court and flow bear and who thought the life of ideas the only one worth living he continued to stare at monsieur rivier 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 monsieur rivier's sallow skin i thought it your metropolis is it not the intellectual life more active there he rejoined then as if fearing to give his hero the impression of having asked a favor he went on hastily one throws out random suggestions more to oneself than to others in reality i see no immediate prospect and rising from his seat he added without a trace of constraint but mrs. carfrey will think that i ought to be taking you upstairs during the homeward drive archer pondered deeply on this episode his hour with monsieur rivier had put new air into his lungs and his first impulse had been to invite him to dime 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 handsome 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 sense of what was due to it when it risked its dignity on foreign lands if maize parents had entertained the car freeze 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 schoolroom 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 echo bewildered goodness ask the car freeze tutor well not on the same day with the car freeze if you prefer i shouldn't but i did rather want to never 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 monsieur rivierre 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 monsieur rivierre 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 handsome 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 end of chapter 20