Every year on the fifteenth of October Fifth Avenue opened its
shutters, unrolled its carpets and hung up its triple layer of
window-curtains.

By the first of November this household ritual was over, and society
had begun to look about and take stock of itself.  By the fifteenth the
season was in full blast, Opera and theatres were putting forth their
new attractions, dinner-engagements were accumulating, and dates for
dances being fixed.  And punctually at about this time Mrs. Archer
always said that New York was very much changed.

Observing it from the lofty stand-point of a non-participant, she was
able, with the help of Mr. Sillerton Jackson and Miss Sophy, to trace
each new crack in its surface, and all the strange weeds pushing up
between the ordered rows of social vegetables.  It had been one of the
amusements of Archer's youth to wait for this annual pronouncement of
his mother's, and to hear her enumerate the minute signs of
disintegration that his careless gaze had overlooked.  For New York, to
Mrs. Archer's mind, never changed without changing for the worse; and
in this view Miss Sophy Jackson heartily concurred.

Mr. Sillerton Jackson, as became a man of the world, suspended his
judgment and listened with an amused impartiality to the lamentations
of the ladies.  But even he never denied that New York had changed; and
Newland Archer, in the winter of the second year of his marriage, was
himself obliged to admit that if it had not actually changed it was
certainly changing.

These points had been raised, as usual, at Mrs. Archer's Thanksgiving
dinner.  At the date when she was officially enjoined to give thanks
for the blessings of the year it was her habit to take a mournful
though not embittered stock of her world, and wonder what there was to
be thankful for.  At any rate, not the state of society; society, if it
could be said to exist, was rather a spectacle on which to call down
Biblical imprecations--and in fact, every one knew what the Reverend
Dr. Ashmore meant when he chose a text from Jeremiah (chap. ii., verse
25) for his Thanksgiving sermon.  Dr. Ashmore, the new Rector of St.
Matthew's, had been chosen because he was very "advanced": his sermons
were considered bold in thought and novel in language.  When he
fulminated against fashionable society he always spoke of its "trend";
and to Mrs. Archer it was terrifying and yet fascinating to feel
herself part of a community that was trending.

"There's no doubt that Dr. Ashmore is right: there IS a marked trend,"
she said, as if it were something visible and measurable, like a crack
in a house.

"It was odd, though, to preach about it on Thanksgiving," Miss Jackson
opined; and her hostess drily rejoined:  "Oh, he means us to give
thanks for what's left."

Archer had been wont to smile at these annual vaticinations of his
mother's; but this year even he was obliged to acknowledge, as he
listened to an enumeration of the changes, that the "trend" was visible.

"The extravagance in dress--" Miss Jackson began.  "Sillerton took me
to the first night of the Opera, and I can only tell you that Jane
Merry's dress was the only one I recognised from last year; and even
that had had the front panel changed.  Yet I know she got it out from
Worth only two years ago, because my seamstress always goes in to make
over her Paris dresses before she wears them."

"Ah, Jane Merry is one of US," said Mrs. Archer sighing, as if it were
not such an enviable thing to be in an age when ladies were beginning
to flaunt abroad their Paris dresses as soon as they were out of the
Custom House, instead of letting them mellow under lock and key, in the
manner of Mrs. Archer's contemporaries.

"Yes; she's one of the few.  In my youth," Miss Jackson rejoined, "it
was considered vulgar to dress in the newest fashions; and Amy
Sillerton has always told me that in Boston the rule was to put away
one's Paris dresses for two years.  Old Mrs. Baxter Pennilow, who did
everything handsomely, used to import twelve a year, two velvet, two
satin, two silk, and the other six of poplin and the finest cashmere.
It was a standing order, and as she was ill for two years before she
died they found forty-eight Worth dresses that had never been taken out
of tissue paper; and when the girls left off their mourning they were
able to wear the first lot at the Symphony concerts without looking in
advance of the fashion."

"Ah, well, Boston is more conservative than New York; but I always
think it's a safe rule for a lady to lay aside her French dresses for
one season," Mrs. Archer conceded.

"It was Beaufort who started the new fashion by making his wife clap
her new clothes on her back as soon as they arrived: I must say at
times it takes all Regina's distinction not to look like ... like ..."
Miss Jackson glanced around the table, caught Janey's bulging gaze, and
took refuge in an unintelligible murmur.

"Like her rivals," said Mr. Sillerton Jackson, with the air of
producing an epigram.

"Oh,--" the ladies murmured; and Mrs. Archer added, partly to distract
her daughter's attention from forbidden topics:  "Poor Regina!  Her
Thanksgiving hasn't been a very cheerful one, I'm afraid.  Have you
heard the rumours about Beaufort's speculations, Sillerton?"

Mr. Jackson nodded carelessly.  Every one had heard the rumours in
question, and he scorned to confirm a tale that was already common
property.

A gloomy silence fell upon the party.  No one really liked Beaufort,
and it was not wholly unpleasant to think the worst of his private
life; but the idea of his having brought financial dishonour on his
wife's family was too shocking to be enjoyed even by his enemies.
Archer's New York tolerated hypocrisy in private relations; but in
business matters it exacted a limpid and impeccable honesty.  It was a
long time since any well-known banker had failed discreditably; but
every one remembered the social extinction visited on the heads of the
firm when the last event of the kind had happened.  It would be the
same with the Beauforts, in spite of his power and her popularity; not
all the leagued strength of the Dallas connection would save poor
Regina if there were any truth in the reports of her husband's unlawful
speculations.

The talk took refuge in less ominous topics; but everything they
touched on seemed to confirm Mrs. Archer's sense of an accelerated
trend.

"Of course, Newland, I know you let dear May go to Mrs. Struthers's
Sunday evenings--" she began; and May interposed gaily:  "Oh, you know,
everybody goes to Mrs. Struthers's now; and she was invited to Granny's
last reception."

It was thus, Archer reflected, that New York managed its transitions:
conspiring to ignore them till they were well over, and then, in all
good faith, imagining that they had taken place in a preceding age.
There was always a traitor in the citadel; and after he (or generally
she) had surrendered the keys, what was the use of pretending that it
was impregnable?  Once people had tasted of Mrs. Struthers's easy
Sunday hospitality they were not likely to sit at home remembering that
her champagne was transmuted Shoe-Polish.

"I know, dear, I know," Mrs. Archer sighed.  "Such things have to be, I
suppose, as long as AMUSEMENT is what people go out for; but I've never
quite forgiven your cousin Madame Olenska for being the first person to
countenance Mrs. Struthers."

A sudden blush rose to young Mrs. Archer's face; it surprised her
husband as much as the other guests about the table.  "Oh, ELLEN--" she
murmured, much in the same accusing and yet deprecating tone in which
her parents might have said:  "Oh, THE BLENKERS--."

It was the note which the family had taken to sounding on the mention
of the Countess Olenska's name, since she had surprised and
inconvenienced them by remaining obdurate to her husband's advances;
but on May's lips it gave food for thought, and Archer looked at her
with the sense of strangeness that sometimes came over him when she was
most in the tone of her environment.

His mother, with less than her usual sensitiveness to atmosphere, still
insisted:  "I've always thought that people like the Countess Olenska,
who have lived in aristocratic societies, ought to help us to keep up
our social distinctions, instead of ignoring them."

May's blush remained permanently vivid: it seemed to have a
significance beyond that implied by the recognition of Madame Olenska's
social bad faith.

"I've no doubt we all seem alike to foreigners," said Miss Jackson
tartly.

"I don't think Ellen cares for society; but nobody knows exactly what
she does care for," May continued, as if she had been groping for
something noncommittal.

"Ah, well--" Mrs. Archer sighed again.

Everybody knew that the Countess Olenska was no longer in the good
graces of her family.  Even her devoted champion, old Mrs. Manson
Mingott, had been unable to defend her refusal to return to her
husband.  The Mingotts had not proclaimed their disapproval aloud:
their sense of solidarity was too strong.  They had simply, as Mrs.
Welland said, "let poor Ellen find her own level"--and that,
mortifyingly and incomprehensibly, was in the dim depths where the
Blenkers prevailed, and "people who wrote" celebrated their untidy
rites.  It was incredible, but it was a fact, that Ellen, in spite of
all her opportunities and her privileges, had become simply "Bohemian."
The fact enforced the contention that she had made a fatal mistake in
not returning to Count Olenski.  After all, a young woman's place was
under her husband's roof, especially when she had left it in
circumstances that ... well ... if one had cared to look into them ...

"Madame Olenska is a great favourite with the gentlemen," said Miss
Sophy, with her air of wishing to put forth something conciliatory when
she knew that she was planting a dart.

"Ah, that's the danger that a young woman like Madame Olenska is always
exposed to," Mrs. Archer mournfully agreed; and the ladies, on this
conclusion, gathered up their trains to seek the carcel globes of the
drawing-room, while Archer and Mr. Sillerton Jackson withdrew to the
Gothic library.

Once established before the grate, and consoling himself for the
inadequacy of the dinner by the perfection of his cigar, Mr. Jackson
became portentous and communicable.

"If the Beaufort smash comes," he announced, "there are going to be
disclosures."

Archer raised his head quickly: he could never hear the name without
the sharp vision of Beaufort's heavy figure, opulently furred and shod,
advancing through the snow at Skuytercliff.

"There's bound to be," Mr. Jackson continued, "the nastiest kind of a
cleaning up.  He hasn't spent all his money on Regina."

"Oh, well--that's discounted, isn't it?  My belief is he'll pull out
yet," said the young man, wanting to change the subject.

"Perhaps--perhaps.  I know he was to see some of the influential people
today.  Of course," Mr. Jackson reluctantly conceded, "it's to be hoped
they can tide him over--this time anyhow.  I shouldn't like to think of
poor Regina's spending the rest of her life in some shabby foreign
watering-place for bankrupts."

Archer said nothing.  It seemed to him so natural--however tragic--that
money ill-gotten should be cruelly expiated, that his mind, hardly
lingering over Mrs. Beaufort's doom, wandered back to closer questions.
What was the meaning of May's blush when the Countess Olenska had been
mentioned?

Four months had passed since the midsummer day that he and Madame
Olenska had spent together; and since then he had not seen her.  He
knew that she had returned to Washington, to the little house which she
and Medora Manson had taken there: he had written to her once--a few
words, asking when they were to meet again--and she had even more
briefly replied: "Not yet."

Since then there had been no farther communication between them, and he
had built up within himself a kind of sanctuary in which she throned
among his secret thoughts and longings.  Little by little it became the
scene of his real life, of his only rational activities; thither he
brought the books he read, the ideas and feelings which nourished him,
his judgments and his visions.  Outside it, in the scene of his actual
life, he moved with a growing sense of unreality and insufficiency,
blundering against familiar prejudices and traditional points of view
as an absent-minded man goes on bumping into the furniture of his own
room.  Absent--that was what he was: so absent from everything most
densely real and near to those about him that it sometimes startled him
to find they still imagined he was there.

He became aware that Mr. Jackson was clearing his throat preparatory to
farther revelations.

"I don't know, of course, how far your wife's family are aware of what
people say about--well, about Madame Olenska's refusal to accept her
husband's latest offer."

Archer was silent, and Mr. Jackson obliquely continued: "It's a
pity--it's certainly a pity--that she refused it."

"A pity?  In God's name, why?"

Mr. Jackson looked down his leg to the unwrinkled sock that joined it
to a glossy pump.

"Well--to put it on the lowest ground--what's she going to live on now?"

"Now--?"

"If Beaufort--"

Archer sprang up, his fist banging down on the black walnut-edge of the
writing-table.  The wells of the brass double-inkstand danced in their
sockets.

"What the devil do you mean, sir?"

Mr. Jackson, shifting himself slightly in his chair, turned a tranquil
gaze on the young man's burning face.

"Well--I have it on pretty good authority--in fact, on old Catherine's
herself--that the family reduced Countess Olenska's allowance
considerably when she definitely refused to go back to her husband; and
as, by this refusal, she also forfeits the money settled on her when
she married--which Olenski was ready to make over to her if she
returned--why, what the devil do YOU mean, my dear boy, by asking me
what I mean?" Mr. Jackson good-humouredly retorted.

Archer moved toward the mantelpiece and bent over to knock his ashes
into the grate.

"I don't know anything of Madame Olenska's private affairs; but I don't
need to, to be certain that what you insinuate--"

"Oh, I don't: it's Lefferts, for one," Mr. Jackson interposed.

"Lefferts--who made love to her and got snubbed for it!" Archer broke
out contemptuously.

"Ah--DID he?" snapped the other, as if this were exactly the fact he
had been laying a trap for.  He still sat sideways from the fire, so
that his hard old gaze held Archer's face as if in a spring of steel.

"Well, well: it's a pity she didn't go back before Beaufort's cropper,"
he repeated.  "If she goes NOW, and if he fails, it will only confirm
the general impression: which isn't by any means peculiar to Lefferts,
by the way."

"Oh, she won't go back now: less than ever!"  Archer had no sooner said
it than he had once more the feeling that it was exactly what Mr.
Jackson had been waiting for.

The old gentleman considered him attentively.  "That's your opinion,
eh?  Well, no doubt you know.  But everybody will tell you that the few
pennies Medora Manson has left are all in Beaufort's hands; and how the
two women are to keep their heads above water unless he does, I can't
imagine.  Of course, Madame Olenska may still soften old Catherine,
who's been the most inexorably opposed to her staying; and old
Catherine could make her any allowance she chooses.  But we all know
that she hates parting with good money; and the rest of the family have
no particular interest in keeping Madame Olenska here."

Archer was burning with unavailing wrath: he was exactly in the state
when a man is sure to do something stupid, knowing all the while that
he is doing it.

He saw that Mr. Jackson had been instantly struck by the fact that
Madame Olenska's differences with her grandmother and her other
relations were not known to him, and that the old gentleman had drawn
his own conclusions as to the reasons for Archer's exclusion from the
family councils.  This fact warned Archer to go warily; but the
insinuations about Beaufort made him reckless.  He was mindful,
however, if not of his own danger, at least of the fact that Mr.
Jackson was under his mother's roof, and consequently his guest.  Old
New York scrupulously observed the etiquette of hospitality, and no
discussion with a guest was ever allowed to degenerate into a
disagreement.

"Shall we go up and join my mother?" he suggested curtly, as Mr.
Jackson's last cone of ashes dropped into the brass ashtray at his
elbow.

On the drive homeward May remained oddly silent; through the darkness,
he still felt her enveloped in her menacing blush.  What its menace
meant he could not guess: but he was sufficiently warned by the fact
that Madame Olenska's name had evoked it.

They went upstairs, and he turned into the library.  She usually
followed him; but he heard her passing down the passage to her bedroom.

"May!" he called out impatiently; and she came back, with a slight
glance of surprise at his tone.

"This lamp is smoking again; I should think the servants might see that
it's kept properly trimmed," he grumbled nervously.

"I'm so sorry: it shan't happen again," she answered, in the firm
bright tone she had learned from her mother; and it exasperated Archer
to feel that she was already beginning to humour him like a younger Mr.
Welland.  She bent over to lower the wick, and as the light struck up
on her white shoulders and the clear curves of her face he thought:
"How young she is!  For what endless years this life will have to go
on!"

He felt, with a kind of horror, his own strong youth and the bounding
blood in his veins.  "Look here," he said suddenly, "I may have to go
to Washington for a few days--soon; next week perhaps."

Her hand remained on the key of the lamp as she turned to him slowly.
The heat from its flame had brought back a glow to her face, but it
paled as she looked up.

"On business?" she asked, in a tone which implied that there could be
no other conceivable reason, and that she had put the question
automatically, as if merely to finish his own sentence.

"On business, naturally.  There's a patent case coming up before the
Supreme Court--"  He gave the name of the inventor, and went on
furnishing details with all Lawrence Lefferts's practised glibness,
while she listened attentively, saying at intervals:  "Yes, I see."

"The change will do you good," she said simply, when he had finished;
"and you must be sure to go and see Ellen," she added, looking him
straight in the eyes with her cloudless smile, and speaking in the tone
she might have employed in urging him not to neglect some irksome
family duty.

It was the only word that passed between them on the subject; but in
the code in which they had both been trained it meant:  "Of course you
understand that I know all that people have been saying about Ellen,
and heartily sympathise with my family in their effort to get her to
return to her husband.  I also know that, for some reason you have not
chosen to tell me, you have advised her against this course, which all
the older men of the family, as well as our grandmother, agree in
approving; and that it is owing to your encouragement that Ellen defies
us all, and exposes herself to the kind of criticism of which Mr.
Sillerton Jackson probably gave you, this evening, the hint that has
made you so irritable....  Hints have indeed not been wanting; but
since you appear unwilling to take them from others, I offer you this
one myself, in the only form in which well-bred people of our kind can
communicate unpleasant things to each other: by letting you understand
that I know you mean to see Ellen when you are in Washington, and are
perhaps going there expressly for that purpose; and that, since you are
sure to see her, I wish you to do so with my full and explicit
approval--and to take the opportunity of letting her know what the
course of conduct you have encouraged her in is likely to lead to."

Her hand was still on the key of the lamp when the last word of this
mute message reached him.  She turned the wick down, lifted off the
globe, and breathed on the sulky flame.

"They smell less if one blows them out," she explained, with her bright
housekeeping air.  On the threshold she turned and paused for his kiss.

Over Thanksgiving dinner, the matter of changing society is thoroughly discussed. For example, now even May goes to Mrs. Struthers1 home for Sunday night amusement. Mrs. Archer, of course, brings up the fact that it was Ellen who attended the dinners first. May blushes deeply when Ellen1s name comes up; Newland is very concerned about what the blush means. Beaufort1s name also comes up over the meal because he has been illegally speculating and may go to prison or go bankrupt. Meanwhile, dreams of Ellen have become Newland1s "real" life. He reads the books she used to read. He is "absent" from his society. After dinner, Newland and Sillerton Jackson retreat to the Gothic library. Jacskson mentions that Ellen is almost financially cut off by her family for her refusal to return to the Count. He implies that now that Beaufort is bankrupt, she may be forced to return to Europe because he won1t be able to support her. Newland is very angry and concerned for Ellen. He tells May that he will go to Washington on business; May understands that he is going to see Ellen, although she does not say anything.

It is very ironic that "punctually at this time  Mrs. Archer always said that New York was very much changed. For someone to always remark that change has occurred it means that the person really is not noticing important change but is rather making comments as a force of habit. At the same time, the contrast that is described throughout the novel by Wharton between "Old" and "New" New York indicates that change really is occuring. It is very clever of Wharton to have Archer make the right comment but for the wrong reason. What is incredible in this chapter is the silent dialogue between May and Newland. It is incredible to think that four words could "say" so much in silent. Is all of this really being communicated or is the dialogue less complete than the narrator thinks. Also, in this chapter, for the first time, Newland has been cut out of society. This is monumental; how has this occurred

On October 15, the houses in New York City are set up for the social season that begins in November. Mrs. Archer is having Thanksgiving dinner with Mr. Sillerton and Miss Sophy Jackson, Newland, May, and Janey. They gossip about how much the social scene has changed and they talk over the rumors that Mr. Beaufort is headed for financial disaster. After dinner, Mr. Jackson ruminates over Madame Olenska's situation with Newland over cigars. Madame Olenska has fallen out of favor with her family for rejecting the Count's request for reconciliation. She is currently in Washington, DC. Archer takes offense at Mr. Jackon's suggestion that Madame Olenska's affairs are tied up with Beaufort's in some scandalous way. Mr. Jackson informs Archer that he just meant to say that Madame Olenska's aunt, Marchioness Manson, has funds tied up with Mr. Beaufort's bank. After Archer and May return home, Archer informs May that he may need to head to Washington on business.


Wall Street, the next day, had more reassuring reports of Beaufort's
situation.  They were not definite, but they were hopeful.  It was
generally understood that he could call on powerful influences in case
of emergency, and that he had done so with success; and that evening,
when Mrs. Beaufort appeared at the Opera wearing her old smile and a
new emerald necklace, society drew a breath of relief.

New York was inexorable in its condemnation of business irregularities.
So far there had been no exception to its tacit rule that those who
broke the law of probity must pay; and every one was aware that even
Beaufort and Beaufort's wife would be offered up unflinchingly to this
principle.  But to be obliged to offer them up would be not only
painful but inconvenient.  The disappearance of the Beauforts would
leave a considerable void in their compact little circle; and those who
were too ignorant or too careless to shudder at the moral catastrophe
bewailed in advance the loss of the best ball-room in New York.

Archer had definitely made up his mind to go to Washington.  He was
waiting only for the opening of the law-suit of which he had spoken to
May, so that its date might coincide with that of his visit; but on the
following Tuesday he learned from Mr. Letterblair that the case might
be postponed for several weeks.  Nevertheless, he went home that
afternoon determined in any event to leave the next evening.  The
chances were that May, who knew nothing of his professional life, and
had never shown any interest in it, would not learn of the
postponement, should it take place, nor remember the names of the
litigants if they were mentioned before her; and at any rate he could
no longer put off seeing Madame Olenska.  There were too many things
that he must say to her.

On the Wednesday morning, when he reached his office, Mr. Letterblair
met him with a troubled face.  Beaufort, after all, had not managed to
"tide over"; but by setting afloat the rumour that he had done so he
had reassured his depositors, and heavy payments had poured into the
bank till the previous evening, when disturbing reports again began to
predominate.  In consequence, a run on the bank had begun, and its
doors were likely to close before the day was over.  The ugliest things
were being said of Beaufort's dastardly manoeuvre, and his failure
promised to be one of the most discreditable in the history of Wall
Street.

The extent of the calamity left Mr. Letterblair white and
incapacitated.  "I've seen bad things in my time; but nothing as bad as
this.  Everybody we know will be hit, one way or another.  And what
will be done about Mrs. Beaufort?  What CAN be done about her?  I pity
Mrs. Manson Mingott as much as anybody: coming at her age, there's no
knowing what effect this affair may have on her.  She always believed
in Beaufort--she made a friend of him!  And there's the whole Dallas
connection: poor Mrs. Beaufort is related to every one of you.  Her
only chance would be to leave her husband--yet how can any one tell her
so?  Her duty is at his side; and luckily she seems always to have been
blind to his private weaknesses."

There was a knock, and Mr. Letterblair turned his head sharply.  "What
is it?  I can't be disturbed."

A clerk brought in a letter for Archer and withdrew.  Recognising his
wife's hand, the young man opened the envelope and read:  "Won't you
please come up town as early as you can?  Granny had a slight stroke
last night.  In some mysterious way she found out before any one else
this awful news about the bank.  Uncle Lovell is away shooting, and the
idea of the disgrace has made poor Papa so nervous that he has a
temperature and can't leave his room.  Mamma needs you dreadfully, and
I do hope you can get away at once and go straight to Granny's."

Archer handed the note to his senior partner, and a few minutes later
was crawling northward in a crowded horse-car, which he exchanged at
Fourteenth Street for one of the high staggering omnibuses of the Fifth
Avenue line.  It was after twelve o'clock when this laborious vehicle
dropped him at old Catherine's.  The sitting-room window on the ground
floor, where she usually throned, was tenanted by the inadequate figure
of her daughter, Mrs. Welland, who signed a haggard welcome as she
caught sight of Archer; and at the door he was met by May.  The hall
wore the unnatural appearance peculiar to well-kept houses suddenly
invaded by illness: wraps and furs lay in heaps on the chairs, a
doctor's bag and overcoat were on the table, and beside them letters
and cards had already piled up unheeded.

May looked pale but smiling: Dr. Bencomb, who had just come for the
second time, took a more hopeful view, and Mrs. Mingott's dauntless
determination to live and get well was already having an effect on her
family.  May led Archer into the old lady's sitting-room, where the
sliding doors opening into the bedroom had been drawn shut, and the
heavy yellow damask portieres dropped over them; and here Mrs. Welland
communicated to him in horrified undertones the details of the
catastrophe.  It appeared that the evening before something dreadful
and mysterious had happened.  At about eight o'clock, just after Mrs.
Mingott had finished the game of solitaire that she always played after
dinner, the door-bell had rung, and a lady so thickly veiled that the
servants did not immediately recognise her had asked to be received.

The butler, hearing a familiar voice, had thrown open the sitting-room
door, announcing:  "Mrs. Julius Beaufort"--and had then closed it again
on the two ladies.  They must have been together, he thought, about an
hour.  When Mrs. Mingott's bell rang Mrs. Beaufort had already slipped
away unseen, and the old lady, white and vast and terrible, sat alone
in her great chair, and signed to the butler to help her into her room.
She seemed, at that time, though obviously distressed, in complete
control of her body and brain.  The mulatto maid put her to bed,
brought her a cup of tea as usual, laid everything straight in the
room, and went away; but at three in the morning the bell rang again,
and the two servants, hastening in at this unwonted summons (for old
Catherine usually slept like a baby), had found their mistress sitting
up against her pillows with a crooked smile on her face and one little
hand hanging limp from its huge arm.

The stroke had clearly been a slight one, for she was able to
articulate and to make her wishes known; and soon after the doctor's
first visit she had begun to regain control of her facial muscles.  But
the alarm had been great; and proportionately great was the indignation
when it was gathered from Mrs. Mingott's fragmentary phrases that
Regina Beaufort had come to ask her--incredible effrontery!--to back up
her husband, see them through--not to "desert" them, as she called
it--in fact to induce the whole family to cover and condone their
monstrous dishonour.

"I said to her:  'Honour's always been honour, and honesty honesty, in
Manson Mingott's house, and will be till I'm carried out of it feet
first,'" the old woman had stammered into her daughter's ear, in the
thick voice of the partly paralysed.  "And when she said:  'But my
name, Auntie--my name's Regina Dallas,' I said:  'It was Beaufort when
he covered you with jewels, and it's got to stay Beaufort now that he's
covered you with shame.'"

So much, with tears and gasps of horror, Mrs. Welland imparted,
blanched and demolished by the unwonted obligation of having at last to
fix her eyes on the unpleasant and the discreditable.  "If only I could
keep it from your father-in-law: he always says: 'Augusta, for pity's
sake, don't destroy my last illusions'--and how am I to prevent his
knowing these horrors?" the poor lady wailed.

"After all, Mamma, he won't have SEEN them," her daughter suggested;
and Mrs. Welland sighed:  "Ah, no; thank heaven he's safe in bed.  And
Dr. Bencomb has promised to keep him there till poor Mamma is better,
and Regina has been got away somewhere."

Archer had seated himself near the window and was gazing out blankly at
the deserted thoroughfare.  It was evident that he had been summoned
rather for the moral support of the stricken ladies than because of any
specific aid that he could render.  Mr. Lovell Mingott had been
telegraphed for, and messages were being despatched by hand to the
members of the family living in New York; and meanwhile there was
nothing to do but to discuss in hushed tones the consequences of
Beaufort's dishonour and of his wife's unjustifiable action.

Mrs. Lovell Mingott, who had been in another room writing notes,
presently reappeared, and added her voice to the discussion.  In THEIR
day, the elder ladies agreed, the wife of a man who had done anything
disgraceful in business had only one idea: to efface herself, to
disappear with him.  "There was the case of poor Grandmamma Spicer;
your great-grandmother, May.  Of course," Mrs. Welland hastened to add,
"your great-grandfather's money difficulties were private--losses at
cards, or signing a note for somebody--I never quite knew, because
Mamma would never speak of it.  But she was brought up in the country
because her mother had to leave New York after the disgrace, whatever
it was: they lived up the Hudson alone, winter and summer, till Mamma
was sixteen.  It would never have occurred to Grandmamma Spicer to ask
the family to 'countenance' her, as I understand Regina calls it;
though a private disgrace is nothing compared to the scandal of ruining
hundreds of innocent people."

"Yes, it would be more becoming in Regina to hide her own countenance
than to talk about other people's," Mrs. Lovell Mingott agreed.  "I
understand that the emerald necklace she wore at the Opera last Friday
had been sent on approval from Ball and Black's in the afternoon.  I
wonder if they'll ever get it back?"

Archer listened unmoved to the relentless chorus.  The idea of absolute
financial probity as the first law of a gentleman's code was too deeply
ingrained in him for sentimental considerations to weaken it.  An
adventurer like Lemuel Struthers might build up the millions of his
Shoe Polish on any number of shady dealings; but unblemished honesty
was the noblesse oblige of old financial New York.  Nor did Mrs.
Beaufort's fate greatly move Archer.  He felt, no doubt, more sorry for
her than her indignant relatives; but it seemed to him that the tie
between husband and wife, even if breakable in prosperity, should be
indissoluble in misfortune.  As Mr. Letterblair had said, a wife's
place was at her husband's side when he was in trouble; but society's
place was not at his side, and Mrs. Beaufort's cool assumption that it
was seemed almost to make her his accomplice.  The mere idea of a
woman's appealing to her family to screen her husband's business
dishonour was inadmissible, since it was the one thing that the Family,
as an institution, could not do.

The mulatto maid called Mrs. Lovell Mingott into the hall, and the
latter came back in a moment with a frowning brow.

"She wants me to telegraph for Ellen Olenska.  I had written to Ellen,
of course, and to Medora; but now it seems that's not enough.  I'm to
telegraph to her immediately, and to tell her that she's to come alone."

The announcement was received in silence.  Mrs. Welland sighed
resignedly, and May rose from her seat and went to gather up some
newspapers that had been scattered on the floor.

"I suppose it must be done," Mrs. Lovell Mingott continued, as if
hoping to be contradicted; and May turned back toward the middle of the
room.

"Of course it must be done," she said.  "Granny knows what she wants,
and we must carry out all her wishes.  Shall I write the telegram for
you, Auntie?  If it goes at once Ellen can probably catch tomorrow
morning's train."  She pronounced the syllables of the name with a
peculiar clearness, as if she had tapped on two silver bells.

"Well, it can't go at once.  Jasper and the pantry-boy are both out
with notes and telegrams."

May turned to her husband with a smile.  "But here's Newland, ready to
do anything.  Will you take the telegram, Newland?  There'll be just
time before luncheon."

Archer rose with a murmur of readiness, and she seated herself at old
Catherine's rosewood "Bonheur du Jour," and wrote out the message in
her large immature hand.  When it was written she blotted it neatly and
handed it to Archer.

"What a pity," she said, "that you and Ellen will cross each other on
the way!--Newland," she added, turning to her mother and aunt, "is
obliged to go to Washington about a patent law-suit that is coming up
before the Supreme Court.  I suppose Uncle Lovell will be back by
tomorrow night, and with Granny improving so much it doesn't seem right
to ask Newland to give up an important engagement for the firm--does
it?"

She paused, as if for an answer, and Mrs. Welland hastily declared:
"Oh, of course not, darling.  Your Granny would be the last person to
wish it."  As Archer left the room with the telegram, he heard his
mother-in-law add, presumably to Mrs. Lovell Mingott:  "But why on
earth she should make you telegraph for Ellen Olenska--" and May's
clear voice rejoin:  "Perhaps it's to urge on her again that after all
her duty is with her husband."

The outer door closed on Archer and he walked hastily away toward the
telegraph office.

At first Wall Street is reassured that Beaufort can pay his bills. Mrs. Beaufort is seen at the Opera in brand new emeralds, a sign that Beaufort has enough money to keep his wife well jeweled. However, it is later revealed that Beaufort, in fact, could not pay his bills. At the law firm, Newland receives a telegram saying that Mrs. Manson Mingott has had a stroke. Apparently, Mrs. J. Beaufort had approached her the night before asking if the family could stand up for her during her husband1s financial crisis. Catherine replies, no. Mrs. Beaufort says "But my name, Auntie, is Regina Dallas, " trying to remind her that prior to her marriage she was a member of one of the most prominent New York families. And Catherine replies, "It was Beaufort when he covered you with jewels, and it1s got to stay Beaufort now that he1s covered you with shame. Catherine also requests that Ellen come back from Washington so that she can convince her to return to her husband. May remarks that it will be a pity that Newland will not be able to see her since he will be going to Washington while she is returning. Newland leaves to the telegrapher1s office to send Ellen the message.

In this chapter we catch another glimpse at the power of names. When Regina requests that she be considered a "Dallas" and not a "Beaufort", Catherine rejects her claim. It is society that determines which labels a person may take

The next day it seems that all the reports of Beaufort's fall have been exaggerated. Archer still plans on going down to see the Countess, although his boss tells him the following Tuesday that he won't need to go down to Washington for a few weeks. The following Wednesday morning, Beaufort's bank crashes. At the office, Archer receives a telegram while he is talking with his boss about Beaufort's disaster. In the telegram, May tells Archer to hurry over to Mrs. Manson Mingott, who has suffered a stroke. When Archer arrives, May and Mrs. Welland inform him that the night before, Regina Beaufort had come over and asked Mrs. Manson Mingott to stand by her after her husband was ruined. Out of shock, Mrs. Manson Mingott had had a stroke. Mrs. Lovell Mingott is also there, writing letters and gossiping about the Beauforts. A maid calls Mrs. Lovell Mingott in to see Mrs. Manson Mingott, and when Mrs. Lovell Mingott returns, she informs everyone that Mrs. Manson Mingott wants them to telegram for Ellen at once. May writes out the telegram and asks Newland to send it.


"Ol-ol--howjer spell it, anyhow?" asked the tart young lady to whom
Archer had pushed his wife's telegram across the brass ledge of the
Western Union office.

"Olenska--O-len-ska," he repeated, drawing back the message in order to
print out the foreign syllables above May's rambling script.

"It's an unlikely name for a New York telegraph office; at least in
this quarter," an unexpected voice observed; and turning around Archer
saw Lawrence Lefferts at his elbow, pulling an imperturbable moustache
and affecting not to glance at the message.

"Hallo, Newland: thought I'd catch you here.  I've just heard of old
Mrs. Mingott's stroke; and as I was on my way to the house I saw you
turning down this street and nipped after you.  I suppose you've come
from there?"

Archer nodded, and pushed his telegram under the lattice.

"Very bad, eh?" Lefferts continued.  "Wiring to the family, I suppose.
I gather it IS bad, if you're including Countess Olenska."

Archer's lips stiffened; he felt a savage impulse to dash his fist into
the long vain handsome face at his side.

"Why?" he questioned.

Lefferts, who was known to shrink from discussion, raised his eye-brows
with an ironic grimace that warned the other of the watching damsel
behind the lattice.  Nothing could be worse "form" the look reminded
Archer, than any display of temper in a public place.

Archer had never been more indifferent to the requirements of form; but
his impulse to do Lawrence Lefferts a physical injury was only
momentary.  The idea of bandying Ellen Olenska's name with him at such
a time, and on whatsoever provocation, was unthinkable.  He paid for
his telegram, and the two young men went out together into the street.
There Archer, having regained his self-control, went on:  "Mrs. Mingott
is much better: the doctor feels no anxiety whatever"; and Lefferts,
with profuse expressions of relief, asked him if he had heard that
there were beastly bad rumours again about Beaufort....

That afternoon the announcement of the Beaufort failure was in all the
papers.  It overshadowed the report of Mrs. Manson Mingott's stroke,
and only the few who had heard of the mysterious connection between the
two events thought of ascribing old Catherine's illness to anything but
the accumulation of flesh and years.

The whole of New York was darkened by the tale of Beaufort's dishonour.
There had never, as Mr. Letterblair said, been a worse case in his
memory, nor, for that matter, in the memory of the far-off Letterblair
who had given his name to the firm.  The bank had continued to take in
money for a whole day after its failure was inevitable; and as many of
its clients belonged to one or another of the ruling clans, Beaufort's
duplicity seemed doubly cynical.  If Mrs. Beaufort had not taken the
tone that such misfortunes (the word was her own) were "the test of
friendship," compassion for her might have tempered the general
indignation against her husband.  As it was--and especially after the
object of her nocturnal visit to Mrs. Manson Mingott had become
known--her cynicism was held to exceed his; and she had not the
excuse--nor her detractors the satisfaction--of pleading that she was
"a foreigner."  It was some comfort (to those whose securities were not
in jeopardy) to be able to remind themselves that Beaufort WAS; but,
after all, if a Dallas of South Carolina took his view of the case, and
glibly talked of his soon being "on his feet again," the argument lost
its edge, and there was nothing to do but to accept this awful evidence
of the indissolubility of marriage.  Society must manage to get on
without the Beauforts, and there was an end of it--except indeed for
such hapless victims of the disaster as Medora Manson, the poor old
Miss Lannings, and certain other misguided ladies of good family who,
if only they had listened to Mr. Henry van der Luyden ...

"The best thing the Beauforts can do," said Mrs. Archer, summing it up
as if she were pronouncing a diagnosis and prescribing a course of
treatment, "is to go and live at Regina's little place in North
Carolina.  Beaufort has always kept a racing stable, and he had better
breed trotting horses.  I should say he had all the qualities of a
successful horsedealer."  Every one agreed with her, but no one
condescended to enquire what the Beauforts really meant to do.

The next day Mrs. Manson Mingott was much better: she recovered her
voice sufficiently to give orders that no one should mention the
Beauforts to her again, and asked--when Dr. Bencomb appeared--what in
the world her family meant by making such a fuss about her health.

"If people of my age WILL eat chicken-salad in the evening what are
they to expect?" she enquired; and, the doctor having opportunely
modified her dietary, the stroke was transformed into an attack of
indigestion.  But in spite of her firm tone old Catherine did not
wholly recover her former attitude toward life.  The growing remoteness
of old age, though it had not diminished her curiosity about her
neighbours, had blunted her never very lively compassion for their
troubles; and she seemed to have no difficulty in putting the Beaufort
disaster out of her mind.  But for the first time she became absorbed
in her own symptoms, and began to take a sentimental interest in
certain members of her family to whom she had hitherto been
contemptuously indifferent.

Mr. Welland, in particular, had the privilege of attracting her notice.
Of her sons-in-law he was the one she had most consistently ignored;
and all his wife's efforts to represent him as a man of forceful
character and marked intellectual ability (if he had only "chosen") had
been met with a derisive chuckle.  But his eminence as a valetudinarian
now made him an object of engrossing interest, and Mrs. Mingott issued
an imperial summons to him to come and compare diets as soon as his
temperature permitted; for old Catherine was now the first to recognise
that one could not be too careful about temperatures.

Twenty-four hours after Madame Olenska's summons a telegram announced
that she would arrive from Washington on the evening of the following
day.  At the Wellands', where the Newland Archers chanced to be
lunching, the question as to who should meet her at Jersey City was
immediately raised; and the material difficulties amid which the
Welland household struggled as if it had been a frontier outpost, lent
animation to the debate.  It was agreed that Mrs. Welland could not
possibly go to Jersey City because she was to accompany her husband to
old Catherine's that afternoon, and the brougham could not be spared,
since, if Mr. Welland were "upset" by seeing his mother-in-law for the
first time after her attack, he might have to be taken home at a
moment's notice.  The Welland sons would of course be "down town," Mr.
Lovell Mingott would be just hurrying back from his shooting, and the
Mingott carriage engaged in meeting him; and one could not ask May, at
the close of a winter afternoon, to go alone across the ferry to Jersey
City, even in her own carriage.  Nevertheless, it might appear
inhospitable--and contrary to old Catherine's express wishes--if Madame
Olenska were allowed to arrive without any of the family being at the
station to receive her.  It was just like Ellen, Mrs. Welland's tired
voice implied, to place the family in such a dilemma.  "It's always one
thing after another," the poor lady grieved, in one of her rare revolts
against fate; "the only thing that makes me think Mamma must be less
well than Dr. Bencomb will admit is this morbid desire to have Ellen
come at once, however inconvenient it is to meet her."

The words had been thoughtless, as the utterances of impatience often
are; and Mr. Welland was upon them with a pounce.

"Augusta," he said, turning pale and laying down his fork, "have you
any other reason for thinking that Bencomb is less to be relied on than
he was?  Have you noticed that he has been less conscientious than
usual in following up my case or your mother's?"

It was Mrs. Welland's turn to grow pale as the endless consequences of
her blunder unrolled themselves before her; but she managed to laugh,
and take a second helping of scalloped oysters, before she said,
struggling back into her old armour of cheerfulness: "My dear, how
could you imagine such a thing?  I only meant that, after the decided
stand Mamma took about its being Ellen's duty to go back to her
husband, it seems strange that she should be seized with this sudden
whim to see her, when there are half a dozen other grandchildren that
she might have asked for.  But we must never forget that Mamma, in
spite of her wonderful vitality, is a very old woman."

Mr. Welland's brow remained clouded, and it was evident that his
perturbed imagination had fastened at once on this last remark.  "Yes:
your mother's a very old woman; and for all we know Bencomb may not be
as successful with very old people.  As you say, my dear, it's always
one thing after another; and in another ten or fifteen years I suppose
I shall have the pleasing duty of looking about for a new doctor.  It's
always better to make such a change before it's absolutely necessary."
And having arrived at this Spartan decision Mr. Welland firmly took up
his fork.

"But all the while," Mrs. Welland began again, as she rose from the
luncheon-table, and led the way into the wilderness of purple satin and
malachite known as the back drawing-room, "I don't see how Ellen's to
be got here tomorrow evening; and I do like to have things settled for
at least twenty-four hours ahead."

Archer turned from the fascinated contemplation of a small painting
representing two Cardinals carousing, in an octagonal ebony frame set
with medallions of onyx.

"Shall I fetch her?" he proposed.  "I can easily get away from the
office in time to meet the brougham at the ferry, if May will send it
there."  His heart was beating excitedly as he spoke.

Mrs. Welland heaved a sigh of gratitude, and May, who had moved away to
the window, turned to shed on him a beam of approval.  "So you see,
Mamma, everything WILL be settled twenty-four hours in advance," she
said, stooping over to kiss her mother's troubled forehead.

May's brougham awaited her at the door, and she was to drive Archer to
Union Square, where he could pick up a Broadway car to carry him to the
office.  As she settled herself in her corner she said:  "I didn't want
to worry Mamma by raising fresh obstacles; but how can you meet Ellen
tomorrow, and bring her back to New York, when you're going to
Washington?"

"Oh, I'm not going," Archer answered.

"Not going?  Why, what's happened?"  Her voice was as clear as a bell,
and full of wifely solicitude.

"The case is off--postponed."

"Postponed?  How odd!  I saw a note this morning from Mr. Letterblair
to Mamma saying that he was going to Washington tomorrow for the big
patent case that he was to argue before the Supreme Court.  You said it
was a patent case, didn't you?"

"Well--that's it: the whole office can't go.  Letterblair decided to go
this morning."

"Then it's NOT postponed?" she continued, with an insistence so unlike
her that he felt the blood rising to his face, as if he were blushing
for her unwonted lapse from all the traditional delicacies.

"No: but my going is," he answered, cursing the unnecessary
explanations that he had given when he had announced his intention of
going to Washington, and wondering where he had read that clever liars
give details, but that the cleverest do not.  It did not hurt him half
as much to tell May an untruth as to see her trying to pretend that she
had not detected him.

"I'm not going till later on: luckily for the convenience of your
family," he continued, taking base refuge in sarcasm.  As he spoke he
felt that she was looking at him, and he turned his eyes to hers in
order not to appear to be avoiding them.  Their glances met for a
second, and perhaps let them into each other's meanings more deeply
than either cared to go.

"Yes; it IS awfully convenient," May brightly agreed, "that you should
be able to meet Ellen after all; you saw how much Mamma appreciated
your offering to do it."

"Oh, I'm delighted to do it."  The carriage stopped, and as he jumped
out she leaned to him and laid her hand on his.  "Good-bye, dearest,"
she said, her eyes so blue that he wondered afterward if they had shone
on him through tears.

He turned away and hurried across Union Square, repeating to himself,
in a sort of inward chant:  "It's all of two hours from Jersey City to
old Catherine's.  It's all of two hours--and it may be more."

Newland sends off the telegram; he is confronted at the office by Lefferts who wants to of course discuss the rumors. Later, at the Wellands1, there is a crisis over who shall pick Ellen up at the station. Newland volunteers to go. May asks Newland how he will have the time to pick up Ellen and still make it to Washington. Newland lies and says that his business trip has been postponed. May catches him in a lie but has too much propriety to confront him about it. As Newland leaves for the station, May seems to have a tear in her eye.

Now we begin to question, how much does May know. Does she feign ignorance for the sake of propriety. Is she as miserable as Ellen and Newland, just better at pretending. It also interesting in this chapter that Catherine suddenly cares about Ellen. One passage is particularly informative: "The growing remoteness of old age, though it had not diminished her curiosity about her neighbors, had blunted her never ver likely compassion for their troubles; and she seemed to have no difficulty in putting the Beaufort disaster out of her mind. But for the first time she became absorbed in her own symptoms, and began to take a sentimental interest in certain members of her family to who she had hitherto been contemptuously indifferent. This passage indicates that Catherine1s prior "godly" coldness and indifference may have changed with the stroke. Her character has undergone a significant transformation as indicated by her desire to bring Ellen home. Also it seems rather arbitrary that a society like this one would tolerate marital infedility but would become so angry over some fiinancial "infidelity. This whole episode is meant to illustrate how arbitrary some of the codes of New York Society truly are

At the telegraph office, Archer meets Lefferts, who makes a snide comment about how desperate the Mingotts must be if they are sending for Madame Olenska. News has spread about Beaufort's financial ruin. The next day they receive a telegram stating that Madame Olenska will arrive the following day. Nobody is able to go to meet her at the train station, so Newland offers to do so. May is surprised because she thought Newland was going to be in Washington, D.C., but Newland makes some excuse about how the suit has been postponed.


His wife's dark blue brougham (with the wedding varnish still on it)
met Archer at the ferry, and conveyed him luxuriously to the
Pennsylvania terminus in Jersey City.

It was a sombre snowy afternoon, and the gas-lamps were lit in the big
reverberating station.  As he paced the platform, waiting for the
Washington express, he remembered that there were people who thought
there would one day be a tunnel under the Hudson through which the
trains of the Pennsylvania railway would run straight into New York.
They were of the brotherhood of visionaries who likewise predicted the
building of ships that would cross the Atlantic in five days, the
invention of a flying machine, lighting by electricity, telephonic
communication without wires, and other Arabian Night marvels.

"I don't care which of their visions comes true," Archer mused, "as
long as the tunnel isn't built yet."  In his senseless school-boy
happiness he pictured Madame Olenska's descent from the train, his
discovery of her a long way off, among the throngs of meaningless
faces, her clinging to his arm as he guided her to the carriage, their
slow approach to the wharf among slipping horses, laden carts,
vociferating teamsters, and then the startling quiet of the ferry-boat,
where they would sit side by side under the snow, in the motionless
carriage, while the earth seemed to glide away under them, rolling to
the other side of the sun.  It was incredible, the number of things he
had to say to her, and in what eloquent order they were forming
themselves on his lips ...

The clanging and groaning of the train came nearer, and it staggered
slowly into the station like a prey-laden monster into its lair.
Archer pushed forward, elbowing through the crowd, and staring blindly
into window after window of the high-hung carriages.  And then,
suddenly, he saw Madame Olenska's pale and surprised face close at
hand, and had again the mortified sensation of having forgotten what
she looked like.

They reached each other, their hands met, and he drew her arm through
his.  "This way--I have the carriage," he said.

After that it all happened as he had dreamed.  He helped her into the
brougham with her bags, and had afterward the vague recollection of
having properly reassured her about her grandmother and given her a
summary of the Beaufort situation (he was struck by the softness of
her:  "Poor Regina!").  Meanwhile the carriage had worked its way out
of the coil about the station, and they were crawling down the slippery
incline to the wharf, menaced by swaying coal-carts, bewildered horses,
dishevelled express-wagons, and an empty hearse--ah, that hearse!  She
shut her eyes as it passed, and clutched at Archer's hand.

"If only it doesn't mean--poor Granny!"

"Oh, no, no--she's much better--she's all right, really.  There--we've
passed it!" he exclaimed, as if that made all the difference.  Her hand
remained in his, and as the carriage lurched across the gang-plank onto
the ferry he bent over, unbuttoned her tight brown glove, and kissed
her palm as if he had kissed a relic.  She disengaged herself with a
faint smile, and he said: "You didn't expect me today?"

"Oh, no."

"I meant to go to Washington to see you.  I'd made all my
arrangements--I very nearly crossed you in the train."

"Oh--" she exclaimed, as if terrified by the narrowness of their escape.

"Do you know--I hardly remembered you?"

"Hardly remembered me?"

"I mean: how shall I explain?  I--it's always so.  EACH TIME YOU HAPPEN
TO ME ALL OVER AGAIN."

"Oh, yes: I know!  I know!"

"Does it--do I too: to you?" he insisted.

She nodded, looking out of the window.

"Ellen--Ellen--Ellen!"

She made no answer, and he sat in silence, watching her profile grow
indistinct against the snow-streaked dusk beyond the window.  What had
she been doing in all those four long months, he wondered?  How little
they knew of each other, after all!  The precious moments were slipping
away, but he had forgotten everything that he had meant to say to her
and could only helplessly brood on the mystery of their remoteness and
their proximity, which seemed to be symbolised by the fact of their
sitting so close to each other, and yet being unable to see each
other's faces.

"What a pretty carriage!  Is it May's?" she asked, suddenly turning her
face from the window.

"Yes."

"It was May who sent you to fetch me, then?  How kind of her!"

He made no answer for a moment; then he said explosively:  "Your
husband's secretary came to see me the day after we met in Boston."

In his brief letter to her he had made no allusion to M. Riviere's
visit, and his intention had been to bury the incident in his bosom.
But her reminder that they were in his wife's carriage provoked him to
an impulse of retaliation.  He would see if she liked his reference to
Riviere any better than he liked hers to May!  As on certain other
occasions when he had expected to shake her out of her usual composure,
she betrayed no sign of surprise: and at once he concluded:  "He writes
to her, then."

"M. Riviere went to see you?"

"Yes: didn't you know?"

"No," she answered simply.

"And you're not surprised?"

She hesitated.  "Why should I be?  He told me in Boston that he knew
you; that he'd met you in England I think."

"Ellen--I must ask you one thing."

"Yes."

"I wanted to ask it after I saw him, but I couldn't put it in a letter.
It was Riviere who helped you to get away--when you left your husband?"

His heart was beating suffocatingly.  Would she meet this question with
the same composure?

"Yes: I owe him a great debt," she answered, without the least tremor
in her quiet voice.

Her tone was so natural, so almost indifferent, that Archer's turmoil
subsided.  Once more she had managed, by her sheer simplicity, to make
him feel stupidly conventional just when he thought he was flinging
convention to the winds.

"I think you're the most honest woman I ever met!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, no--but probably one of the least fussy," she answered, a smile in
her voice.

"Call it what you like: you look at things as they are."

"Ah--I've had to.  I've had to look at the Gorgon."

"Well--it hasn't blinded you!  You've seen that she's just an old bogey
like all the others."

"She doesn't blind one; but she dries up one's tears."

The answer checked the pleading on Archer's lips: it seemed to come
from depths of experience beyond his reach.  The slow advance of the
ferry-boat had ceased, and her bows bumped against the piles of the
slip with a violence that made the brougham stagger, and flung Archer
and Madame Olenska against each other.  The young man, trembling, felt
the pressure of her shoulder, and passed his arm about her.

"If you're not blind, then, you must see that this can't last."

"What can't?"

"Our being together--and not together."

"No.  You ought not to have come today," she said in an altered voice;
and suddenly she turned, flung her arms about him and pressed her lips
to his.  At the same moment the carriage began to move, and a gas-lamp
at the head of the slip flashed its light into the window.  She drew
away, and they sat silent and motionless while the brougham struggled
through the congestion of carriages about the ferry-landing.  As they
gained the street Archer began to speak hurriedly.

"Don't be afraid of me: you needn't squeeze yourself back into your
corner like that.  A stolen kiss isn't what I want.  Look: I'm not even
trying to touch the sleeve of your jacket.  Don't suppose that I don't
understand your reasons for not wanting to let this feeling between us
dwindle into an ordinary hole-and-corner love-affair.  I couldn't have
spoken like this yesterday, because when we've been apart, and I'm
looking forward to seeing you, every thought is burnt up in a great
flame.  But then you come; and you're so much more than I remembered,
and what I want of you is so much more than an hour or two every now
and then, with wastes of thirsty waiting between, that I can sit
perfectly still beside you, like this, with that other vision in my
mind, just quietly trusting to it to come true."

For a moment she made no reply; then she asked, hardly above a whisper:
"What do you mean by trusting to it to come true?"

"Why--you know it will, don't you?"

"Your vision of you and me together?"  She burst into a sudden hard
laugh.  "You choose your place well to put it to me!"

"Do you mean because we're in my wife's brougham?  Shall we get out and
walk, then?  I don't suppose you mind a little snow?"

She laughed again, more gently.  "No; I shan't get out and walk,
because my business is to get to Granny's as quickly as I can.  And
you'll sit beside me, and we'll look, not at visions, but at realities."

"I don't know what you mean by realities.  The only reality to me is
this."

She met the words with a long silence, during which the carriage rolled
down an obscure side-street and then turned into the searching
illumination of Fifth Avenue.

"Is it your idea, then, that I should live with you as your
mistress--since I can't be your wife?" she asked.

The crudeness of the question startled him: the word was one that women
of his class fought shy of, even when their talk flitted closest about
the topic.  He noticed that Madame Olenska pronounced it as if it had a
recognised place in her vocabulary, and he wondered if it had been used
familiarly in her presence in the horrible life she had fled from.  Her
question pulled him up with a jerk, and he floundered.

"I want--I want somehow to get away with you into a world where words
like that--categories like that--won't exist.  Where we shall be simply
two human beings who love each other, who are the whole of life to each
other; and nothing else on earth will matter."

She drew a deep sigh that ended in another laugh.  "Oh, my dear--where
is that country?  Have you ever been there?" she asked; and as he
remained sullenly dumb she went on:  "I know so many who've tried to
find it; and, believe me, they all got out by mistake at wayside
stations: at places like Boulogne, or Pisa, or Monte Carlo--and it
wasn't at all different from the old world they'd left, but only rather
smaller and dingier and more promiscuous."

He had never heard her speak in such a tone, and he remembered the
phrase she had used a little while before.

"Yes, the Gorgon HAS dried your tears," he said.

"Well, she opened my eyes too; it's a delusion to say that she blinds
people.  What she does is just the contrary--she fastens their eyelids
open, so that they're never again in the blessed darkness.  Isn't there
a Chinese torture like that?  There ought to be.  Ah, believe me, it's
a miserable little country!"

The carriage had crossed Forty-second Street: May's sturdy
brougham-horse was carrying them northward as if he had been a Kentucky
trotter.  Archer choked with the sense of wasted minutes and vain words.

"Then what, exactly, is your plan for us?" he asked.

"For US?  But there's no US in that sense!  We're near each other only
if we stay far from each other.  Then we can be ourselves.  Otherwise
we're only Newland Archer, the husband of Ellen Olenska's cousin, and
Ellen Olenska, the cousin of Newland Archer's wife, trying to be happy
behind the backs of the people who trust them."

"Ah, I'm beyond that," he groaned.

"No, you're not!  You've never been beyond.  And I have," she said, in
a strange voice, "and I know what it looks like there."

He sat silent, dazed with inarticulate pain.  Then he groped in the
darkness of the carriage for the little bell that signalled orders to
the coachman.  He remembered that May rang twice when she wished to
stop.  He pressed the bell, and the carriage drew up beside the
curbstone.

"Why are we stopping?  This is not Granny's," Madame Olenska exclaimed.

"No: I shall get out here," he stammered, opening the door and jumping
to the pavement.  By the light of a street-lamp he saw her startled
face, and the instinctive motion she made to detain him.  He closed the
door, and leaned for a moment in the window.

"You're right: I ought not to have come today," he said, lowering his
voice so that the coachman should not hear.  She bent forward, and
seemed about to speak; but he had already called out the order to drive
on, and the carriage rolled away while he stood on the corner.  The
snow was over, and a tingling wind had sprung up, that lashed his face
as he stood gazing.  Suddenly he felt something stiff and cold on his
lashes, and perceived that he had been crying, and that the wind had
frozen his tears.

He thrust his hands in his pockets, and walked at a sharp pace down
Fifth Avenue to his own house.

and Analysis Newland takes the dark blue carriage  to pick up Ellen from the train station. They talk about all the common things and her grandmother1s stroke. When they see a hearse, Ellen grabs Newland1s hand for fear that the hearse is meant for Granny. But Newland assures her that Granny is fine and takes the opportunity of holding her hand to kiss it. He tells her that he hardly remembered her because, "Each time you happen to me all over again. To bring him back down to earth, Ellen comments, "This is May1s carriage. Newland retaliates by mentioning Riviere and asking if he was the secretary that once rescued her. She answers yes. Newland remarks on her honesty. Ellen says she calls them as she sees them because "she1s looked at the Gorgon. Ellen kisses him. He says he can1t live the way he lives any longer. Then there are two important passages that elucidate the theme of the novel: Archer says, "I want to get away with you into a world where words and categories don1t exist. Where we shall be simply two human beings who love each other, who are the whole of life to each other; and nothing else on earth will matter. She sighed, "Oh, my dear where is that country. Have you ever been there. I know so many who1ve tried to find it; and believe me, they all got out by mistake at wayside stations: at places like Boulogne, or Pisa, or Monte Carlo and it wasn1t at all different from the old world they1d left, but only rather smaller and dingier and more promiscuous. Ellen says there can never be happiness between them because it can only occur behind other1s backs. Newland, angrily, gets out of the carriage and walks away

Archer takes his wife's brougham to pick up Madame Olenska at the station. In the carriage alone together, Archer and Ellen once again profess their love for each other, but once again Ellen explains how impossible it would be to run away with him. She kisses him anyway. As they get closer to Mrs. Manson Mingott's, Archer gets out of the carriage and lets Madame Olenska go on alone without him.


That evening when Archer came down before dinner he found the
drawing-room empty.

He and May were dining alone, all the family engagements having been
postponed since Mrs. Manson Mingott's illness; and as May was the more
punctual of the two he was surprised that she had not preceded him.  He
knew that she was at home, for while he dressed he had heard her moving
about in her room; and he wondered what had delayed her.

He had fallen into the way of dwelling on such conjectures as a means
of tying his thoughts fast to reality.  Sometimes he felt as if he had
found the clue to his father-in-law's absorption in trifles; perhaps
even Mr. Welland, long ago, had had escapes and visions, and had
conjured up all the hosts of domesticity to defend himself against them.

When May appeared he thought she looked tired.  She had put on the
low-necked and tightly-laced dinner-dress which the Mingott ceremonial
exacted on the most informal occasions, and had built her fair hair
into its usual accumulated coils; and her face, in contrast, was wan
and almost faded.  But she shone on him with her usual tenderness, and
her eyes had kept the blue dazzle of the day before.

"What became of you, dear?" she asked.  "I was waiting at Granny's, and
Ellen came alone, and said she had dropped you on the way because you
had to rush off on business.  There's nothing wrong?"

"Only some letters I'd forgotten, and wanted to get off before dinner."

"Ah--" she said; and a moment afterward:  "I'm sorry you didn't come to
Granny's--unless the letters were urgent."

"They were," he rejoined, surprised at her insistence.  "Besides, I
don't see why I should have gone to your grandmother's.  I didn't know
you were there."

She turned and moved to the looking-glass above the mantel-piece.  As
she stood there, lifting her long arm to fasten a puff that had slipped
from its place in her intricate hair, Archer was struck by something
languid and inelastic in her attitude, and wondered if the deadly
monotony of their lives had laid its weight on her also.  Then he
remembered that, as he had left the house that morning, she had called
over the stairs that she would meet him at her grandmother's so that
they might drive home together.  He had called back a cheery "Yes!" and
then, absorbed in other visions, had forgotten his promise.  Now he was
smitten with compunction, yet irritated that so trifling an omission
should be stored up against him after nearly two years of marriage.  He
was weary of living in a perpetual tepid honeymoon, without the
temperature of passion yet with all its exactions.  If May had spoken
out her grievances (he suspected her of many) he might have laughed
them away; but she was trained to conceal imaginary wounds under a
Spartan smile.

To disguise his own annoyance he asked how her grandmother was, and she
answered that Mrs. Mingott was still improving, but had been rather
disturbed by the last news about the Beauforts.

"What news?"

"It seems they're going to stay in New York.  I believe he's going into
an insurance business, or something.  They're looking about for a small
house."

The preposterousness of the case was beyond discussion, and they went
in to dinner.  During dinner their talk moved in its usual limited
circle; but Archer noticed that his wife made no allusion to Madame
Olenska, nor to old Catherine's reception of her.  He was thankful for
the fact, yet felt it to be vaguely ominous.

They went up to the library for coffee, and Archer lit a cigar and took
down a volume of Michelet.  He had taken to history in the evenings
since May had shown a tendency to ask him to read aloud whenever she
saw him with a volume of poetry: not that he disliked the sound of his
own voice, but because he could always foresee her comments on what he
read.  In the days of their engagement she had simply (as he now
perceived) echoed what he told her; but since he had ceased to provide
her with opinions she had begun to hazard her own, with results
destructive to his enjoyment of the works commented on.

Seeing that he had chosen history she fetched her workbasket, drew up
an arm-chair to the green-shaded student lamp, and uncovered a cushion
she was embroidering for his sofa.  She was not a clever needle-woman;
her large capable hands were made for riding, rowing and open-air
activities; but since other wives embroidered cushions for their
husbands she did not wish to omit this last link in her devotion.

She was so placed that Archer, by merely raising his eyes, could see
her bent above her work-frame, her ruffled elbow-sleeves slipping back
from her firm round arms, the betrothal sapphire shining on her left
hand above her broad gold wedding-ring, and the right hand slowly and
laboriously stabbing the canvas.  As she sat thus, the lamplight full
on her clear brow, he said to himself with a secret dismay that he
would always know the thoughts behind it, that never, in all the years
to come, would she surprise him by an unexpected mood, by a new idea, a
weakness, a cruelty or an emotion.  She had spent her poetry and
romance on their short courting: the function was exhausted because the
need was past.  Now she was simply ripening into a copy of her mother,
and mysteriously, by the very process, trying to turn him into a Mr.
Welland.  He laid down his book and stood up impatiently; and at once
she raised her head.

"What's the matter?"

"The room is stifling: I want a little air."

He had insisted that the library curtains should draw backward and
forward on a rod, so that they might be closed in the evening, instead
of remaining nailed to a gilt cornice, and immovably looped up over
layers of lace, as in the drawing-room; and he pulled them back and
pushed up the sash, leaning out into the icy night.  The mere fact of
not looking at May, seated beside his table, under his lamp, the fact
of seeing other houses, roofs, chimneys, of getting the sense of other
lives outside his own, other cities beyond New York, and a whole world
beyond his world, cleared his brain and made it easier to breathe.

After he had leaned out into the darkness for a few minutes he heard
her say:  "Newland!  Do shut the window.  You'll catch your death."

He pulled the sash down and turned back.  "Catch my death!" he echoed;
and he felt like adding:  "But I've caught it already.  I AM dead--I've
been dead for months and months."

And suddenly the play of the word flashed up a wild suggestion.  What
if it were SHE who was dead!  If she were going to die--to die
soon--and leave him free!  The sensation of standing there, in that
warm familiar room, and looking at her, and wishing her dead, was so
strange, so fascinating and overmastering, that its enormity did not
immediately strike him.  He simply felt that chance had given him a new
possibility to which his sick soul might cling.  Yes, May might
die--people did: young people, healthy people like herself: she might
die, and set him suddenly free.

She glanced up, and he saw by her widening eyes that there must be
something strange in his own.

"Newland!  Are you ill?"

He shook his head and turned toward his arm-chair.  She bent over her
work-frame, and as he passed he laid his hand on her hair.  "Poor May!"
he said.

"Poor?  Why poor?" she echoed with a strained laugh.

"Because I shall never be able to open a window without worrying you,"
he rejoined, laughing also.

For a moment she was silent; then she said very low, her head bowed
over her work:  "I shall never worry if you're happy."

"Ah, my dear; and I shall never be happy unless I can open the windows!"

"In THIS weather?" she remonstrated; and with a sigh he buried his head
in his book.

Six or seven days passed.  Archer heard nothing from Madame Olenska,
and became aware that her name would not be mentioned in his presence
by any member of the family.  He did not try to see her; to do so while
she was at old Catherine's guarded bedside would have been almost
impossible.  In the uncertainty of the situation he let himself drift,
conscious, somewhere below the surface of his thoughts, of a resolve
which had come to him when he had leaned out from his library window
into the icy night.  The strength of that resolve made it easy to wait
and make no sign.

Then one day May told him that Mrs. Manson Mingott had asked to see
him.  There was nothing surprising in the request, for the old lady was
steadily recovering, and she had always openly declared that she
preferred Archer to any of her other grandsons-in-law.  May gave the
message with evident pleasure: she was proud of old Catherine's
appreciation of her husband.

There was a moment's pause, and then Archer felt it incumbent on him to
say:  "All right.  Shall we go together this afternoon?"

His wife's face brightened, but she instantly answered: "Oh, you'd much
better go alone.  It bores Granny to see the same people too often."

Archer's heart was beating violently when he rang old Mrs. Mingott's
bell.  He had wanted above all things to go alone, for he felt sure the
visit would give him the chance of saying a word in private to the
Countess Olenska.  He had determined to wait till the chance presented
itself naturally; and here it was, and here he was on the doorstep.
Behind the door, behind the curtains of the yellow damask room next to
the hall, she was surely awaiting him; in another moment he should see
her, and be able to speak to her before she led him to the sick-room.

He wanted only to put one question: after that his course would be
clear.  What he wished to ask was simply the date of her return to
Washington; and that question she could hardly refuse to answer.

But in the yellow sitting-room it was the mulatto maid who waited.  Her
white teeth shining like a keyboard, she pushed back the sliding doors
and ushered him into old Catherine's presence.

The old woman sat in a vast throne-like arm-chair near her bed.  Beside
her was a mahogany stand bearing a cast bronze lamp with an engraved
globe, over which a green paper shade had been balanced.  There was not
a book or a newspaper in reach, nor any evidence of feminine
employment: conversation had always been Mrs. Mingott's sole pursuit,
and she would have scorned to feign an interest in fancywork.

Archer saw no trace of the slight distortion left by her stroke.  She
merely looked paler, with darker shadows in the folds and recesses of
her obesity; and, in the fluted mob-cap tied by a starched bow between
her first two chins, and the muslin kerchief crossed over her billowing
purple dressing-gown, she seemed like some shrewd and kindly ancestress
of her own who might have yielded too freely to the pleasures of the
table.

She held out one of the little hands that nestled in a hollow of her
huge lap like pet animals, and called to the maid:  "Don't let in any
one else.  If my daughters call, say I'm asleep."

The maid disappeared, and the old lady turned to her grandson.

"My dear, am I perfectly hideous?" she asked gaily, launching out one
hand in search of the folds of muslin on her inaccessible bosom.  "My
daughters tell me it doesn't matter at my age--as if hideousness didn't
matter all the more the harder it gets to conceal!"

"My dear, you're handsomer than ever!" Archer rejoined in the same
tone; and she threw back her head and laughed.

"Ah, but not as handsome as Ellen!" she jerked out, twinkling at him
maliciously; and before he could answer she added:  "Was she so awfully
handsome the day you drove her up from the ferry?"

He laughed, and she continued:  "Was it because you told her so that
she had to put you out on the way?  In my youth young men didn't desert
pretty women unless they were made to!"  She gave another chuckle, and
interrupted it to say almost querulously:  "It's a pity she didn't
marry you; I always told her so.  It would have spared me all this
worry.  But who ever thought of sparing their grandmother worry?"

Archer wondered if her illness had blurred her faculties; but suddenly
she broke out:  "Well, it's settled, anyhow: she's going to stay with
me, whatever the rest of the family say!  She hadn't been here five
minutes before I'd have gone down on my knees to keep her--if only, for
the last twenty years, I'd been able to see where the floor was!"

Archer listened in silence, and she went on:  "They'd talked me over,
as no doubt you know: persuaded me, Lovell, and Letterblair, and
Augusta Welland, and all the rest of them, that I must hold out and cut
off her allowance, till she was made to see that it was her duty to go
back to Olenski.  They thought they'd convinced me when the secretary,
or whatever he was, came out with the last proposals: handsome
proposals I confess they were.  After all, marriage is marriage, and
money's money--both useful things in their way ... and I didn't know
what to answer--"  She broke off and drew a long breath, as if speaking
had become an effort.  "But the minute I laid eyes on her, I said:
'You sweet bird, you!  Shut you up in that cage again?  Never!'  And
now it's settled that she's to stay here and nurse her Granny as long
as there's a Granny to nurse.  It's not a gay prospect, but she doesn't
mind; and of course I've told Letterblair that she's to be given her
proper allowance."

The young man heard her with veins aglow; but in his confusion of mind
he hardly knew whether her news brought joy or pain.  He had so
definitely decided on the course he meant to pursue that for the moment
he could not readjust his thoughts.  But gradually there stole over him
the delicious sense of difficulties deferred and opportunities
miraculously provided.  If Ellen had consented to come and live with
her grandmother it must surely be because she had recognised the
impossibility of giving him up.  This was her answer to his final
appeal of the other day: if she would not take the extreme step he had
urged, she had at last yielded to half-measures.  He sank back into the
thought with the involuntary relief of a man who has been ready to risk
everything, and suddenly tastes the dangerous sweetness of security.

"She couldn't have gone back--it was impossible!" he exclaimed.

"Ah, my dear, I always knew you were on her side; and that's why I sent
for you today, and why I said to your pretty wife, when she proposed to
come with you: 'No, my dear, I'm pining to see Newland, and I don't
want anybody to share our transports.'  For you see, my dear--" she
drew her head back as far as its tethering chins permitted, and looked
him full in the eyes--"you see, we shall have a fight yet.  The family
don't want her here, and they'll say it's because I've been ill,
because I'm a weak old woman, that she's persuaded me.  I'm not well
enough yet to fight them one by one, and you've got to do it for me."

"I?" he stammered.

"You.  Why not?" she jerked back at him, her round eyes suddenly as
sharp as pen-knives.  Her hand fluttered from its chair-arm and lit on
his with a clutch of little pale nails like bird-claws.  "Why not?" she
searchingly repeated.

Archer, under the exposure of her gaze, had recovered his
self-possession.

"Oh, I don't count--I'm too insignificant."

"Well, you're Letterblair's partner, ain't you?  You've got to get at
them through Letterblair.  Unless you've got a reason," she insisted.

"Oh, my dear, I back you to hold your own against them all without my
help; but you shall have it if you need it," he reassured her.

"Then we're safe!" she sighed; and smiling on him with all her ancient
cunning she added, as she settled her head among the cushions:  "I
always knew you'd back us up, because they never quote you when they
talk about its being her duty to go home."

He winced a little at her terrifying perspicacity, and longed to ask:
"And May--do they quote her?"  But he judged it safer to turn the
question.

"And Madame Olenska?  When am I to see her?" he said.

The old lady chuckled, crumpled her lids, and went through the
pantomime of archness.  "Not today.  One at a time, please.  Madame
Olenska's gone out."

He flushed with disappointment, and she went on: "She's gone out, my
child: gone in my carriage to see Regina Beaufort."

She paused for this announcement to produce its effect.  "That's what
she's reduced me to already.  The day after she got here she put on her
best bonnet, and told me, as cool as a cucumber, that she was going to
call on Regina Beaufort.  'I don't know her; who is she?' says I.
'She's your grand-niece, and a most unhappy woman,' she says.  'She's
the wife of a scoundrel,' I answered.  'Well,' she says, 'and so am I,
and yet all my family want me to go back to him.'  Well, that floored
me, and I let her go; and finally one day she said it was raining too
hard to go out on foot, and she wanted me to lend her my carriage.
'What for?' I asked her; and she said: 'To go and see cousin
Regina'--COUSIN!  Now, my dear, I looked out of the window, and saw it
wasn't raining a drop; but I understood her, and I let her have the
carriage....  After all, Regina's a brave woman, and so is she; and
I've always liked courage above everything."

Archer bent down and pressed his lips on the little hand that still lay
on his.

"Eh--eh--eh!  Whose hand did you think you were kissing, young
man--your wife's, I hope?" the old lady snapped out with her mocking
cackle; and as he rose to go she called out after him:  "Give her her
Granny's love; but you'd better not say anything about our talk."

Newland returns for dinner. Archer was struck by something languid and inelastic in May1s attitude, and wondered if the deadly monotony of their lives had laid its weight on her. The two discuss the same commonplace gossip. Newland decides to read some history instead of poetry because he hates listening to the way May analyzes poetry. And May does her embroidery although her big hands are not naturally suited to the work. They aregue over leaving the window open and then go to bed. Seven days later Mrs. Manson Mingott invites Newland, just Newland, to her home. There, she half-jokingly accuses Newland of having made advances toward Ellen isn1t this why she threw him out of the carriage. Then, surprisingly, Catherine informs Newland that she1s going to keep Ellen in New York to take care of her and that she needs Newland1s support to convince the family that she should not be sent back to Europe. Newland agrees.

The bedroom scene is very interesting because it shows that nether Newland, nor, more surprisingly May, are being the people they were naturally designed to be. Newland reads history, although her prefers poetry, and May embroiders, although her hands are too big. In this chapter we can see that Catherine has, in a sense, fallen from immortality. She has her first signs of aging, dark shadows between the fold of her flesh. She for the first time, shows evident compassion and caring for Ellen, one of the "mortals". Also, in this chapter, Catherine refers to Ellen as a "sweet bird. In fact, throughout the book, Ellen has been described with feathers. Right before Newland goes to fetch Ellen from her train he examines a picture of cardinals. And later, when Newland seeks freedom, he needs air, just as birds need air for flight. This is a common motif throughout the book

That evening over dinner, May asks him why he didn't arrive with Madame Olenska at Mrs. Mingott's. Archer lies and he says he forgot he was to meet May there. After dinner, they hang out together in the drawing room. Archer is reading and May is doing needlework. Archer opens up a window, and May tells him to close the window. After about week, May tells Archer that Mrs. Mingott would like to see him that afternoon. When Archer arrives at Mrs. Mingott's, Mrs. Mingott asks for his help in convincing the family to let Madame Olenska stay in America, or precisely, with herself. Archer thinks that's a fine idea. Mrs. Mingott tells him that Madame Olenska went out to visit the disgraced Regina Beaufort. Archer kisses Mrs. Mingott's hands in farewell.