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."

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 his 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 reasonant 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."

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 blackwigged 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.

At the van der Luyden's formal and ostentatious Madison Avenue home, Archer and his mother relate the slight given to the Countess Olenska. The van der Luydens decide to stand by the Countess on principle: if her family has already decided to support her admittance into society, the rest of society must support their decision. To make amends, the van der Luydens decide to include the Countess at their reception for the Duke of St. Austrey. In the course of the next week, before attending the reception for the Duke, Archer learns much about the past of the Countess Olenska. After the early deaths of her itinerant parents, Ellen was left under the guardianship of her aunt Medora Manson, an eccentric and frequently widowed woman. After the death of Medora's most recent husband, she packed up and left with Ellen in tow. For years nothing was heard of them, until news reached New York that Ellen had married the extremely wealthy Polish Count Olenski. A few years later, the marriage ended in disaster, and Ellen decided to return to her New York family to recuperate. After learning of Ellen's history, Archer is curious to see how--if at all--she will adapt to New York society. At the Duke's reception, the Countess raises eyebrows by appearing late and somewhat disheveled. After dinner, she leaves the side of the Duke in order to talk with Archer. They discuss, primarily, his engagement to May. The Countess reveals her ignorance of New York social customs by asking Archer if the marriage was arranged. When Archer corrects her, she embarrassedly admits that she often forgets that what is bad in European culture is good, by contrast, in American culture. As the conversation is interrupted by the other guests, Countess Olenska bids Archer to call on her at her new home the next day. Archer arrives late at the Countess's shabby, slightly bohemian flat that following day, only to find her away. He decides to wait in her living room until she returns. While he waits, he examines the room, which is artfully decorated with European bric-a-brac and exotic works of art. To Archer, who is used to the standardized Italian art appreciated by those in his class, the Countess's furnishings are novel and intriguing. Suddenly, from the window he sees the Countess descend from Beaufort's cab. Inside the flat, Archer is interested by the Countess's novel, if slightly shocking, opinions on the fashions and the families of Old New York. She, in turn, looks to Archer for advice about fitting in to the New York clan. When he explains how misleading appearances are in New York, Ellen responds by bursting into tears. She remarks to Archer that the most lonely aspect of living in New York is that she is required to live around well-meaning people who insist that she pretend to be someone she is not in order to spare them any unpleasantness. Their conversation is interrupted by the entrance of the Duke and Mrs. Lemuel Struthers. Archer leaves, somewhat relieved to be spared any more upsetting emotion. As he stops by the florist to send May her daily bouquet of lilies-of- the-valley, he decides impulsively to send a bouquet of yellow roses to Countess Olenska.

Wharton commences Chapter 7 with a detailed account of the nature of the power structure and chain of command within the tight-knit high society of New York. As the sole descendants of one of the most wealthy and aristocratic families in the city, Henry and Louisa van der Luyden serve as legislatures, executives, and judges in regards to certain social problems. It is they who determine the laws of family solidarity. Because Ellen's family supports her, everyone outside the family must honor their decision and treat her as one of them. It is also they who judge the severity of the offense against Ellen Olenska; Wharton describes them as the "Court of last appeals. " And finally, it is they who decide that action must be taken to amend for the insult. By inviting the Countess to their formal reception for the Duke, the van der Luydens send an unmistakable message to those who have previously slighted Ellen. Wharton makes her depiction of the van der Luydens ironic by several different means. First of all, she shows the inconsistencies between the van der Luydens as individuals and as leaders. For all the stuffy splendor of their house and the formal quality of their interview with the Archers, Henry and Louisa are shy and retiring people who don't much like to entertain. They seldom leave their home, due both to health problems and a genuine fear of venturing out in public. Secondly, Wharton describes them in anthropological terms. The van der Luydens are "mouth pieces of some remote ancestral authority which fate compelled them to wield." Wharton subtly hints that there is something primitive about the van der Luydens' influence over society and that their power is due more to wealth and bloodline than to their capability and temperament. For a society that prides itself on its high culture, such a hierarchy of power seems rather crude and primeval. And finally, Wharton's physical description of this harmless old couple involves a large amount of death imagery. Louisa looks like she was "rather gruesomely preserved in the airless atmosphere of a perfectly irreproachable existence. " This is not unlike the way Wharton sees Mrs. Mingott as a "doomed city" trapped under her own weight in Chapter 4. In both these cases, Wharton's juxtaposition of authority figures with death imagery indicates the ineffectual nature of their power. Ruled by such archaic individuals, Old New York potentially faces a waning of power itself, or even extinction. In Chapters 8 and 9, we begin to get a better grasp of Ellen's personality. Up until this point, we have seen Ellen primarily through the eyes of others: through the gossip at the opera and through Archer's opinions based on their brief encounters. Now the picture of Ellen becomes more complete through the recounting of her personal history, the descriptions of her exotically furnished apartment, and through her own conversations with Archer. The very nature of their discussion proves to Archer Ellen's foreignness and her lack of traditional manners. Unlike May and the rest of New York who communicate indirectly through glances and euphemistic speech, Ellen is quite candid in her opinions. She directly criticizes the faults she sees in society; namely, that her family would rather have her hide her personal unhappiness than voice it and make them uncomfortable. It is important also to notice that Ellen is not overly grateful to the van der Luydens for inviting her to their reception. Archer is shocked that she mentions the evening as though it were merely a tea party, for to his mind, such an event is coded with great meaning. But Ellen, as a foreigner, is not used to the specific signals of Old New York. Nor is she particularly desirous of being forgiven for any of her supposed indiscretions. While Ellen is certainly eager to fit into society, she does not see herself as needing to apologize or to act humble. To Old New York, however, her refusal to play the part of compromised woman is only a further indication of her unscrupulous nature.