"You say that because it's the easiest thing to say at this moment--not
because it's true. In reality it's too late to do anything but what
we'd both decided on."
"Ah, I don't understand you!"
She forced a pitiful smile that pinched her face instead of smoothing
it. "You don't understand because you haven't yet guessed how you've
changed things for me: oh, from the first--long before I knew all you'd
done."
"All I'd done?"
"Yes. I was perfectly unconscious at first that people here were shy of
me--that they thought I was a dreadful sort of person. It seems they
had even refused to meet me at dinner. I found that out afterward; and
how you'd made your mother go with you to the van der Luydens'; and how
you'd insisted on announcing your engagement at the Beaufort ball, so
that I might have two families to stand by me instead of one--"
At that he broke into a laugh.
"Just imagine," she said, "how stupid and unobservant I was! I knew
nothing of all this till Granny blurted it out one day. New York simply
meant peace and freedom to me: it was coming home. And I was so happy
at being among my own people that every one I met seemed kind and good,
and glad to see me. But from the very beginning," she continued, "I
felt there was no one as kind as you; no one who gave me reasons that
I understood for doing what at first seemed so hard and--unnecessary.
The very good people didn't convince me; I felt they'd never been
tempted. But you knew; you understood; you had felt the world outside
tugging at one with all its golden hands--and yet you hated the things
it asks of one; you hated happiness bought by disloyalty and cruelty
and indifference. That was what I'd never known before--and it's better
than anything I've known."
She spoke in a low even voice, without tears or visible agitation; and
each word, as it dropped from her, fell into his breast like burning
lead. He sat bowed over, his head between his hands, staring at the
hearth rug, and at the tip of the satin shoe that showed under her
dress. Suddenly he knelt down and kissed the shoe.
She bent over him, laying her hands on his shoulders, and looking at
him with eyes so deep that he remained motionless under her gaze.
"Ah, don't let us undo what you've done!" she cried. "I can't go back
now to that other way of thinking. I can't love you unless I give you
up."
His arms were yearning up to her; but she drew away, and they remained
facing each other, divided by the distance that her words had created.
Then, abruptly, his anger overflowed.
"And Beaufort? Is he to replace me?"
As the words sprang out he was prepared for an answering flare of
anger; and he would have welcomed it as fuel for his own. But Madame
Olenska only grew a shade paler, and stood with her arms hanging
down before her, and her head slightly bent, as her way was when she
pondered a question.
"He's waiting for you now at Mrs. Struthers's; why don't you go to
him?" Archer sneered.
She turned to ring the bell. "I shall not go out this evening; tell the
carriage to go and fetch the Signora Marchesa," she said when the maid
came.
After the door had closed again Archer continued to look at her with
bitter eyes. "Why this sacrifice? Since you tell me that you're lonely
I've no right to keep you from your friends."
She smiled a little under her wet lashes. "I shan't be lonely now. I
_was_ lonely; I _was_ afraid. But the emptiness and the darkness are gone;
when I turn back into myself now I'm like a child going at night into a
room where there's always a light."
Her tone and her look still enveloped her in a soft inaccessibility,
and Archer groaned out again: "I don't understand you!"
"Yet you understand May!"
He reddened under the retort, but kept his eyes on her. "May is ready
to give me up."
"What! Three days after you've entreated her on your knees to hasten
your marriage?"
"She's refused; that gives me the right--"
"Ah, you've taught me what an ugly word that is," she said.
He turned away with a sense of utter weariness. He felt as though he
had been struggling for hours up the face of a steep precipice, and
now, just as he had fought his way to the top, his hold had given way
and he was pitching down headlong into darkness.
If he could have got her in his arms again he might have swept away
her arguments; but she still held him at a distance by something
inscrutably aloof in her look and attitude, and by his own awed sense
of her sincerity. At length he began to plead again.
"If we do this now it will be worse afterward--worse for every one--"
"No--no--no!" she almost screamed, as if he frightened her.
At that moment the bell sent a long tinkle through the house. They had
heard no carriage stopping at the door, and they stood motionless,
looking at each other with startled eyes.
Outside, Nastasia's step crossed the hall, the outer door opened, and
a moment later she came in carrying a telegram which she handed to the
Countess Olenska.
"The lady was very happy at the flowers," Nastasia said, smoothing her
apron. "She thought it was her signor marito who had sent them, and she
cried a little and said it was a folly."
Her mistress smiled and took the yellow envelope. She tore it open
and carried it to the lamp; then, when the door had closed again, she
handed the telegram to Archer.
It was dated from St. Augustine, and addressed to the Countess Olenska.
In it he read: "Granny's telegram successful. Papa and Mamma agree
marriage after Easter. Am telegraphing Newland. Am too happy for words
and love you dearly. Your grateful May."
Half an hour later, when Archer unlocked his own front-door, he found
a similar envelope on the hall-table on top of his pile of notes and
letters. The message inside the envelope was also from May Welland, and
ran as follows: "Parents consent wedding Tuesday after Easter at twelve
Grace Church eight bridesmaids please see Rector so happy love May."
Archer crumpled up the yellow sheet as if the gesture could annihilate
the news it contained. Then he pulled out a small pocket-diary and
turned over the pages with trembling fingers; but he did not find what
he wanted, and cramming the telegram into his pocket he mounted the
stairs.
A light was shining through the door of the little hall-room which
served Janey as a dressing-room and boudoir, and her brother rapped
impatiently on the panel. The door opened, and his sister stood before
him in her immemorial purple flannel dressing-gown, with her hair "on
pins." Her face looked pale and apprehensive.
"Newland! I hope there's no bad news in that telegram? I waited on
purpose, in case--" (No item of his correspondence was safe from Janey.)
He took no notice of her question. "Look here--what day is Easter this
year?"
She looked shocked at such unchristian ignorance. "Easter? Newland!
Why, of course, the first week in April. Why?"
"The first week?" He turned again to the pages of his diary,
calculating rapidly under his breath. "The first week, did you say?" He
threw back his head with a long laugh.
"For mercy's sake what's the matter?"
"Nothing's the matter, except that I'm going to be married in a month."
Janey fell upon his neck and pressed him to her purple flannel breast.
"Oh Newland, how wonderful! I'm so glad! But, dearest, why do you keep
on laughing? Do hush, or you'll wake Mamma."