The Age of Innocence

THE AGE OF INNOCENCE

past countenanced, and her present irradiated by the family approval. Mrs. van der Luyden shone on her with the dim benevolence which was her nearest approach to cordiality, and Mr. van der Luyden, from his seat at May's right, cast down the table glances plainly intended to justify all the carnations he had sent from Skuytercliff.

Archer, who seemed to be assisting at the scene in a state of odd imponderability, as if he floated somewhere between chandelier and ceiling, wondered at nothing so much as his own share in the proceedings. As his glance travelled from one placid well-fed face to another he saw all the harmless-looking people engaged upon May's canvas-backs as a band of dumb conspirators, and himself and the pale woman on his right as the centre of their conspiracy. And then it came over him, in a vast flash made up of many broken gleams, that to all of them he and Madame Olenska were lovers, lovers in the extreme sense peculiar to «foreign» vocabularies. He guessed himself to have been, for months, the centre of countless silently observing eyes and patiently listening ears, he understood that, by means as yet unknown to him, the separation between himself and the partner of his guilt had been achieved, and that now the whole tribe had rallied about his wife on the tacit assumption that nobody knew anything, or had ever imagined anything, and that the occasion of the entertainment was simply May Archer's natural desire to take an affectionate leave of her friend and cousin.

It was the old New York way of taking life «without effusion of blood»: the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than «scenes,» except the behaviour of those who gave rise to them.

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As these thoughts succeeded each other in his mind Archer felt like a prisoner in the centre of an armed camp. He looked about the table, and guessed at the inexorableness of his captors from the tone in which, over the asparagus from Florida, they were dealing with Beaufort and his wife. «It's to show me,» he thought, «what would happen to ME – » and a deathly sense of the superiority of implication and analogy over direct action, and of silence over rash words, closed in on him like the doors of the family vault.

He laughed, and met Mrs. van der Luyden's startled eyes. «You think it laughable?» she said with a pinched smile.

«Of course poor Regina's idea of remaining in New York has its ridiculous side, I suppose;» and Archer muttered: «Of course.» At this point, he became conscious that Madame Olenska's other neighbour had been engaged for some time with the lady on his right. At the same moment he saw that May, serenely enthroned between Mr. van der Luyden and Mr. Selfridge Merry, had cast a quick glance down the table. It was evident that the host and the lady on his right could not sit through the whole meal in silence. He turned to Madame Olenska, and her pale

smile met him. «Oh, do let's see it through,» it seemed to say. «Did you find the journey tiring?» he asked in a voice that

surprised him by its naturalness; and she answered that, on the contrary, she had seldom travelled with fewer discomforts.

«Except, you know, the dreadful heat in the train,» she added; and he remarked that she would not suffer from that particular hardship in the country she was going to.

«I never,» he declared with intensity, «was more nearly frozen than once, in April, in the train between Calais and Paris.»

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She said she did not wonder, but remarked that, after all, one could always carry an extra rug, and that every form of travel had its hardships; to which he abruptly returned that he thought them all of no account compared with the blessedness of getting away. She changed colour, and he added, his voice suddenly rising in pitch: «I mean to do a lot of travelling myself before long.» A tremor crossed her face, and leaning over to Reggie Chivers, he cried out: «I say, Reggie, what do you say to a trip round the world: now, next month, I mean? I'm game if you are – » at which Mrs. Reggie piped up that she could not think of letting Reggie go till after the Martha Washington Ball she was getting up for the Blind Asylum in Easter week; and her husband placidly observed that by that time he would have to be practising for the International Polo match.

But Mr. Selfridge Merry had caught the phrase «round the world,» and having once circled the globe in his steam-yacht, he seized the opportunity to send down the table several striking items concerning the shallowness of the Mediterranean ports. Though, after all, he added, it didn't matter; for when you'd seen Athens and Smyrna and Constantinople, what else was there? And Mrs. Merry said she could never be too grateful to Dr. Bencomb for having made them promise not to go to Naples on account of the fever.

«But you must have three weeks to do India properly,» her husband conceded, anxious to have it understood that he was no frivolous globe-trotter.

And at this point the ladies went up to the drawingroom. In the library, in spite of weightier presences, Lawrence

Lefferts predominated.

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The talk, as usual, had veered around to the Beauforts, and even Mr. van der Luyden and Mr. Selfridge Merry, installed in the honorary arm-chairs tacitly reserved for them, paused to listen to the younger man's philippic.

Never had Lefferts so abounded in the sentiments that adorn Christian manhood and exalt the sanctity of the home. Indignation lent him a scathing eloquence, and it was clear that if others had followed his example, and acted as he talked, society would never have been weak enough to receive a foreign upstart like Beaufort – no, sir, not even if he'd married a van der Luyden or a Lanning instead of a Dallas. And what chance would there have been, Lefferts wrathfully questioned, of his marrying into such a family as the Dallases, if he had not already wormed his way into certain houses, as people like Mrs. Lemuel Struthers had managed to worm theirs in his wake? If society chose to open its doors to vulgar women the harm was not great, though the gain was doubtful; but once it got in the way of tolerating men of obscure origin and tainted wealth the end was total disintegration – and at no distant date.

«If things go on at this pace,» Lefferts thundered, looking like a young prophet dressed by Poole, and who had not yet been stoned, «we shall see our children fighting for invitations to swindlers' houses, and marrying Beaufort's bastards.»

«Oh, I say – draw it mild!» Reggie Chivers and young Newland protested, while Mr. Selfridge Merry looked genuinely alarmed, and an expression of pain and disgust settled on Mr. van der Luyden's sensitive face.

«Has he got any?» cried Mr. Sillerton Jackson, pricking up his ears; and while Lefferts tried to turn the question with a laugh, the old gentleman twittered into Archer's ear: «Queer,

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those fellows who are always wanting to set things right. The people who have the worst cooks are always telling you they're poisoned when they dine out. But I hear there are pressing reasons for our friend Lawrence's diatribe: – typewriter this time, I understand... .»

The talk swept past Archer like some senseless river running and running because it did not know enough to stop. He saw, on the faces about him, expressions of interest, amusement and even mirth. He listened to the younger men's laughter, and to the praise of the Archer Madeira, which Mr. van der Luyden and Mr. Merry were thoughtfully celebrating. Through it all he was dimly aware of a general attitude of friendliness toward himself, as if the guard of the prisoner he felt himself to be were trying to soften his captivity; and the perception increased his passionate determination to be free.

In the drawing-room, where they presently joined the ladies, he met May's triumphant eyes, and read in them the conviction that everything had «gone off» beautifully. She rose from Madame Olenska's side, and immediately Mrs. van der Luyden beckoned the latter to a seat on the gilt sofa where she throned. Mrs. Selfridge Merry bore across the room to join them, and it became clear to Archer that here also a conspiracy of rehabilitation and obliteration was going on. The silent organisation which held his little world together was determined to put itself on record as never for a moment having questioned the propriety of Madame Olenska's conduct, or the completeness of Archer's domestic felicity. All these amiable and inexorable persons were resolutely engaged in pretending to each other that they had never heard of, suspected, or even conceived possible, the least hint to the contrary; and from this tissue of

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elaborate mutual dissimulation Archer once more disengaged the fact that New York believed him to be Madame Olenska's lover. He caught the glitter of victory in his wife's eyes, and for the first time understood that she shared the belief. The discovery roused a laughter of inner devils that reverberated through all his efforts to discuss the Martha Washington ball with Mrs. Reggie Chivers and little Mrs. Newland; and so the evening swept on, running and running like a senseless river that did not know how to stop.

At length he saw that Madame Olenska had risen and was saying good-bye. He understood that in a moment she would be gone, and tried to remember what he had said to her at dinner; but he could not recall a single word they had exchanged.

She went up to May, the rest of the company making a circle about her as she advanced. The two young women clasped hands; then May bent forward and kissed her cousin.

«Certainly our hostess is much the handsomer of the two,» Archer heard Reggie Chivers say in an undertone to young Mrs. Newland; and he remembered Beaufort's coarse sneer at May's ineffectual beauty.

A moment later he was in the hall, putting Madame Olenska's cloak about her shoulders.

Through all his confusion of mind he had held fast to the resolve to say nothing that might startle or disturb her. Convinced that no power could now turn him from his purpose he had found strength to let events shape themselves as they would. But as he followed Madame Olenska into the hall he thought with a sudden hunger of being for a moment alone with her at the door of her carriage.

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«Is your carriage here?» he asked; and at that moment Mrs. van der Luyden, who was being majestically inserted into her sables, said gently: «We are driving dear Ellen home.»

Archer's heart gave a jerk, and Madame Olenska, clasping her cloak and fan with one hand, held out the other to him. «Good-bye,» she said.

«Good-bye – but I shall see you soon in Paris,» he answered aloud – it seemed to him that he had shouted it.

«Oh,» she murmured, «if you and May could come – !» Mr. van der Luyden advanced to give her his arm, and Ar-

cher turned to Mrs. van der Luyden. For a moment, in the billowy darkness inside the big landau, he caught the dim oval of a face, eyes shining steadily – and she was gone.

As he went up the steps he crossed Lawrence Lefferts coming down with his wife. Lefferts caught his host by the sleeve, drawing back to let Gertrude pass.

«I say, old chap: do you mind just letting it be understood that I'm dining with you at the club tomorrow night? Thanks so much, you old brick! Good-night.»

«It DID go off beautifully, didn't it?» May questioned from the threshold of the library.

Archer roused himself with a start. As soon as the last carriage had driven away, he had come up to the library and shut himself in, with the hope that his wife, who still lingered below, would go straight to her room. But there she stood, pale and drawn, yet radiating the factitious energy of one who has passed beyond fatigue.

«May I come and talk it over?» she asked.

«Of course, if you like. But you must be awfully sleepy – » «No, I'm not sleepy. I should like to sit with you a little.»

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«Very well,» he said, pushing her chair near the fire.

She sat down and he resumed his seat; but neither spoke for a long time. At length Archer began abruptly: «Since you're not tired, and want to talk, there's something I must tell you. I tried to the other night – .»

She looked at him quickly. «Yes, dear. Something about yourself?»

«About myself. You say you're not tired: well, I am. Horribly tired ...»

In an instant she was all tender anxiety. «Oh, I've seen it coming on, Newland! You've been so wickedly overworked – »

«Perhaps it's that. Anyhow, I want to make a break – » «A break? To give up the law?»

«To go away, at any rate – at once. On a long trip, ever so far off – away from everything – »

He paused, conscious that he had failed in his attempt to speak with the indifference of a man who longs for a change, and is yet too weary to welcome it. Do what he would, the chord of eagerness vibrated. «Away from everything – » he repeated.

«Ever so far? Where, for instance?» she asked. «Oh, I don't know. India – or Japan.»

She stood up, and as he sat with bent head, his chin propped on his hands, he felt her warmly and fragrantly hovering over him.

«As far as that? But I'm afraid you can't, dear ...» she said in an unsteady voice. «Not unless you'll take me with you.» And then, as he was silent, she went on, in tones so clear and evenly-pitched that each separate syllable tapped like a little hammer on his brain: «That is, if the doctors will let me go ...

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but I'm afraid they won't. For you see, Newland, I've been sure since this morning of something I've been so longing and hoping for – »

He looked up at her with a sick stare, and she sank down, all dew and roses, and hid her face against his knee.

«Oh, my dear,» he said, holding her to him while his cold hand stroked her hair.

There was a long pause, which the inner devils filled with strident laughter; then May freed herself from his arms and stood up.

«You didn't guess – ?»

«Yes – I; no. That is, of course I hoped – »

They looked at each other for an instant and again fell silent; then, turning his eyes from hers, he asked abruptly: «Have you told any one else?»

«Only Mamma and your mother.» She paused, and then added hurriedly, the blood flushing up to her forehead: «That is – and Ellen. You know I told you we'd had a long talk one afternoon – and how dear she was to me.»

«Ah – » said Archer, his heart stopping.

He felt that his wife was watching him intently. «Did you MIND my telling her first, Newland?»

«Mind? Why should I?» He made a last effort to collect himself. «But that was a fortnight ago, wasn't it? I thought you said you weren't sure till today.»

Her colour burned deeper, but she held his gaze. «No; I wasn't sure then – but I told her I was. And you see I was right!» she exclaimed, her blue eyes wet with victory.

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CHAPTER XXXIV

Newland Archer sat at the writing-table in his library in East Thirty-ninth Street.

He had just got back from a big official reception for the inauguration of the new galleries at the Metropolitan Museum, and the spectacle of those great spaces crowded with the spoils of the ages, where the throng of fashion circulated through a series of scientifically catalogued treasures, had suddenly pressed on a rusted spring of memory.

«Why, this used to be one of the old Cesnola rooms,» he heard some one say; and instantly everything about him vanished, and he was sitting alone on a hard leather divan against a radiator, while a slight figure in a long sealskin cloak moved away down the meagrelyfitted vista of the old Museum.

The vision had roused a host of other associations, and he sat looking with new eyes at the library which, for over thirty years, had been the scene of his solitary musings and of all the family confabulations.

It was the room in which most of the real things of his life had happened. There his wife, nearly twenty-six years ago, had broken to him, with a blushing circumlocution that would have caused the young women of the new generation to smile, the news that she was to have a child; and there their eldest boy, Dallas, too delicate to be taken to church in midwinter,

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